The measures announced yesterday by Peter Lilley amount to an effective demolition of the asylum process and therefore an

The measures announced yesterday by Peter Lilley amount to an effective demolition of the asylum process, and therefore an abdication of the Government’s responsibilities under international law.
Those fleeing persecution are not, of course, familiar with the complexities of UK immigration law and, accordingly, many have legitimate and wholly understandable reasons for applying for asylum only after entering the country, rather than immediately upon arrival. From Mr David Bull

Sir: The conference season may produce many empty promises, but there is unlikely to be one more hollow than the Social Security Secretary’s claim that the UK will continue “to help genuine refugees” (“Lilley to curb benefits for asylum-seekers”, 12 October). It will be hard to resist the enormous hype by proxy that will be generated by the Million Man March. But it will be a success built as much on our failure to provide support for those who are poorly served by our community as much as one built on the often reprehensible message Mr Farrakhan conveys to the world.Andrea Stuart is a lecturer in cultural studies at Central St Martin’s College, London..

And there is no reason to imagine it would be any different in Britain, where a disproportionate number of black men are winding up in prison, on the dole, or in mental institutions.It is likely that his rally will be a success. But his rhetoric does at least acknowledge the profound sense of disenfranchisement and disillusion that many blacks feel. Indeed, his message of black self-empowerment and pride have been enormously seductive to many Afro-Americans. They are unconvinced about the fantasies he spins about a separate black state.

But while General Powell symbolises the still enduring possibilities of the American Dream, Mr Farrakhan is the product of the nightmarish obverse.Many black people are profoundly offended by Mr Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism and belief in the subservience of women. Charismatic and clean-cut, he is in many ways the shadow side of General Colin Powell. Mr Farrakhan’s order that black women stay at home, and his frequent racist remarks, will mean that instead of a spirit of brotherhood, the march must take place in the sort of atmosphere of hostility that would make Dr King spin in his grave.Mr Farrakhan is the most recent in a long line of legendary black leaders who have preached separatism and conjured up dreams of black independence. And Mr Farrakhan has generated an international media frenzy with his “Million Man March” on Washington, in which a million Afro-Americans will today demonstrate their political muscle by walking on the nation’s capital.
His avowed intention is to show the world “a vastly different picture of the black male” and though he exploits popular memories of the great civil rights marches of the Sixties, the Million Man March is not “the dream” that Martin Luther King envisaged. A black man in the Oval Office, head of state, commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, and supreme symbol of his nation for the entire world: if that comes about, the effect on black America would surely be electrifying. Compared with that, the Million Man March is a sideshow – but a sideshow that stands on its own merits..

The decision of Louis Farrakhan’sNation of Islam to hold a rally atBroadwater Farm, north London, is a magnificent piece of showmanship. Ten years after the riots that led to the death there of PC Keith Blakelock, and the suspicious convictions that followed, Broadwater Farm remains an emotional flashpoint for the black community. Where better to hold a recruitment drive for his movement, which sermonises about black pride while simultaneously demonising the white race?

But then the movement, with its severely suited masculine disciples selling its apocalyptically entitled newspaper, The Final Call, has an alluring theatricality. But if he does, as a Republican, he would be the favourite to win. Yes, he is a “whites’ black” who arouses no fears and embodies the racial reconciliation which most Americans yearn for, and who is less popular among blacks than the white but Democratic Mr Clinton. But polls reveal something else: that a third of blacks would support a Republican for the White House were he General Powell.

And change they may, though probably not as they might have foreseen.Colin Powell will not be at the March. But if anyone has a chance of transforming the pyschology of black America, it is he. We do not know if the retired general will run for president, though the prospect grows steadily more likely. Blacks have reached a dead end in the national political system, taken for granted by Democrats and ignored by a Republican Party rooted in the white suburbs. That, and not a special fondness for Mr Farrakhan, is why such disparate elements as the Black Congressional Caucus, several big city black mayors and the Rev Jackson himself, back the march Things, they insist, must change. Thirty-two years ago, Martin Luther King led his own march on Washington, to proclaim his dream of an integrated, colourblind society, in which blacks and whites lived in equality and harmony Alas, a dream it has remained.