Aberavon MP Calls for Celebration of Community Respect and Tolerance
9th February 2009
Aberavon MP, Dr Hywel Francis, has called on local churches, businesses and community organisations to join a public campaign to celebrate our cultural and community diversity and to oppose racial intolerance.
Dr Hywel Francis MP at a recent celebration of Community Leadership in Ten Downing Street with Port Talbot community leader, Saifur Rahman.
Dr Francis said,
"At a time when there is fear and uncertainty for our futures with job insecurity, this is not a time to look for scapegoats. We have only recently commemorated the Holocaust which was a reminder of how in an earlier period, in Nazi Germany, racial hatred caused the genocide of millions of innocent Jewish people and many other vulnerable people.
Now is the time for us to celebrate the fact that people of different cultures and religions live harmoniously within our local communities.
I call on church leaders, all democratic parties, businesses, unions and community organisations to stand up against racial hatred and intolerance. Wales, and Port Talbot in particular, has always prided itself in welcoming poor or persecuted people from all over the world. My own family fled religious persecution three hundred years ago and settled happily in West Wales and made its contribution over generations to the economic and social life of the country".
