Following a public meeting in Donegall Pass Community Centre on the evening of 1st March 2004 to hear the views of local residents concerning the proposed siting of a Chinese Community Centre in Donegall Pass, it emerged that an individual had circulated a single-sided A4 document entitled “Yellow Invasion”. This document is a racist rant, pornographically offensive and suffused with foul fascistic sentiment. A reincarnated Adolf Hitler would, doubtless, smile indulgently upon its author and, perhaps, pat him/her fondly on the head.

The xenophobic sentiments expressed in the above tract are reminiscent of the Rwandan Habyarimana attitude toward the Tutsis and no one who is not afflicted with a deep spiritual sickness allied to ignorance of a biblical scope could be other than utterly repelled by them. The writer, through his knowledge of the residents of Donegall Pass, is entirely satisfied that the vast majority of them view this nauseatingly foul tirade with revulsion.

The local Northern Ireland media - notably the press - immediately ‘girded its loins’, firmly, and fearlessly, grasped the ‘sword of truth’ and descended upon the easy target of a relatively small, beleaguered, disadvantaged inner-city Protestant community like a pack of crazed, slavering wolverines. Like too many lazy, credulous hacks, in this ‘information age’, our local crop of ‘journalists’ seemed determined not to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

For example, the media reported:

FACT

The “Yellow Invasion” document had been posted on lamp posts and that local community workers, helped by volunteers, had been in the streets removing same.

At no time was the offending document posted on lamp posts and it therefore follows that at no time were community workers, or volunteers, engaged in the removal of same.

Some reports implied that the production of the “Yellow Invasion” document had been ‘connived at’ by local paramilitaries and that they had been involved in its posting through letter boxes in the Donegall Pass locality.

The paramilitaries had nothing to do with the production of the document. The document was not posted through local letter boxes. The document was the work of an individual.

Almost forty (40) Chinese families had been summarily evicted from the Donegall Pass community in, by implication, an act of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

This event never occurred. The recording agency, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, noted that two (2) complaints had been received during the year 2003. The complaints were of racial harassment and abuse. The complainants, however, despite these regrettable incidents, elected to remain in the Donegall Pass community. The housing Executive has no records of any other similar complaints.

THIS MIS-REPORTING AND RUMOUR-MONGERING BY OUR MEDIA HAS HAD SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES FOR DONEGALL PASS COMMUNITY.