CFF

The meeting arranged between John Angarrack, Nigel Hicks, Bert Biscoe and Mr Razzak from the Equality and Human Rights Commission [EHRC] scheduled to take place yesterday [20th Jan] was cancelled due to the fact that Mr Razzak was ill.

EHRC - Ask yourself these questions…

Is exclusion from the Convention affecting your lives?

Is unprecedented singling-out for this adverse treatment by the UK Government placing those Cornish people who merely wish to exhibit, celebrate, project and protect their identity into conflict with their own Government? If so, then this situation has been deliberately engineered.

Is refusal to include the Cornish in the Framework Convention intended to force Cornish people to conclude that as celebrating their identity is officially frowned upon, what would normally be natural expressions of Cornish identity are best avoided, kept secret, hidden from public view, not actively promoted and certainly discouraged among the young - particularly if they are to prosper in an English world. Is exclusion designed to foster the very spiral of ethnocide which the Convention is designed to prevent?

People should ask themselves if joining the club of cultural groups already included within the Convention would help the Cornish obtain recognition of their minority status, parity of esteem with other groups in similar circumstances and a measure of legal protection? If so, then perhaps this why the Cornish are being prevented from joining the club. Is the Government fearful that these sought after social qualities might provide the springboard from which Cornish people could begin to generate a new belief in themselves and a new sense of pride in their unique language, history and culture - thereby re-creating the very independently-minded community living in a defined territory that London has spent centuries trying to absorb. In other words, are the Cornish being excluded so that within their historic territory, cultural assimilation, economic asphyxiation, political neutering, administrative centralisation and constitutional gerrymandering can continue unchecked?

Would monitoring by external human rights organisations such as the Council of Europe help pressurise Government into ensuring that the Cornish obtained equal treatment when it came to issues such as statistical visibility, rights protection, educational opportunity, access to the media and maximising their administrative autonomy in ways that both respect and reflect the existing constitutional position of their historic territory?

Would inclusion help ensure that public authorities, funding agencies, decision-makers etc treated the Cornish with due deference and respect? In other words, would inclusion within the Convention send a message to the UK authorities that the Cornish people have arrived, and that their circumstances must to be properly considered, their needs addressed and their rights duly upheld?

If you agree with any of the above and would like to make your feeling know to the UK EHRC before we meet with its representative on Feb 10th, please direct your thoughts to Regional Manager Mr Qaiser Razzak at the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Contact details for Mr Razzak as follows
qaiser.razzak@equalityhumanrights.com
or contact by telephone on (0117) 900 1765.