In this section we provide you wil addresses and resources to take action over the Foot and Mouth issue. You can also find out what other people have been doing against this, as well as post up any letters or comments you have made to those involved.

Email MAFF at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Email Northumberland County Council at http://www.northumberland.gov.uk/Services/comments.htm

Email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it who represents the Heddon-on-Wall area in Northumberland.

Email The Guardian at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it (quoting "Smuggled meat blamed, 27 March")

Complain to the Commission for Racial Equality http://www.cre.gov.uk/rights/complain.html

Locate your MP and email him or her http://www.locata.co.uk/commons/

Cabinet Office's advice on complaining about a public body
http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/servicefirst/index/comp_ps.htm

Guidance on how to set up an e-petition from No.10 http://www.pm.gov.uk/default.asp?PageId=1990

Email the Times at http://www.thetimes.co.uk/section/0,,79,00.html (quoting "Smuggled meat blamed for epidemic, 27 Mar")

Have your say in message boards:
The Guardian
BBC
The Independent
Financial Times
UKOnline Government discussion board

Send in comments, statements, rants or articles for publication on Dimsum to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Action Taken So Far
If you have taken action and would like us to post copy or description of what you have done, email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

Letter to The Independent
Anna Chen, 5 April 01

Dear Sir,
I was very pleased to see Yasmin Alibhai-Brown writing something sensible about the scapegoating of the Chinese in the foot-and-mouth outbreak at long last (A wake-up call for a community that has stayed silent for too long, 3 April). Sunday's demonstration from Chinatown to Downing Street introduces a new generation of British Chinese who refuse to act like second class citizens.

I did notice, however, that wires are still getting crossed in otherwise excellent news reports. Doug Fox of Newcastle City Council's public health department today confirmed that various meat products were examined by his officers regarding import controls only (Illegally imported meat seized by health officials, 3 April). This had nothing to do with FMD. The Independent's report neglected to clarify the fact that the frozen won ton was UK produce and everything else bar the dried meat was found to be entirely legal.

Your front page repeats the misunderstanding about the "meat destined for Chinese restaurants in the North-east". The illegal packets of meat to which the authorities are referring are a dried meat jerky snack used exclusively for personal consumption and not for the catering trade. You are as likely to find meat jerky in a Chinese Restaurant restaurant as you are Pepperami sticks at The Ivy.

Questions remain: why did Maff put the Chinese in the frame on the day that Nick Brown was due to admit in the Commons that pigswill was the most likely cause of FMD? Why was pigswill not banned despite Commons select committee advice in the wake of BSE recommending that species should not be fed to same species? Why, when the Government knew that there was an outbreak in Asia at least as far back as last summer, did they offer no advice or warning to both food retail and catering trades? Why was a computer programme tracking FMD, due to be installed by Maff at the end of the 1990s, not in place? And now, why have the Chinese been offered as a sacrifice to save the agriculture minister's political skin? A statement from Maff is long overdue.

So much for the pledge not to play the race card in the run-up to the general election.

Yours faithfully,
Anna Chen

Letter to the Guardian
Anna Chen, 2 April 01

Sirs,
RE: Chinese restaurants feel the pinch, 2 April

I'm glad the Guardian has at last printed some sense (Chinese restaurants feel the pinch, 2 April), after last week pinning a yellow star onto every Chinese living in Britain.

However, you are still mistaken in implying that a container of illegal meat was destined for the restaurant trade. The meat in question consisted of a few small vacuum-sealed packets of a dried meat snack, similar to Pepperami, intended purely for individual consumption and never found on Chinese menus. It was found in a container of household goods being sent from Hong Kong by an emigre whose relative happens to own a Newcastle restaurant.

Questions remain: why did Maff put the Chinese in the frame exactly when Nick Brown was due to admit in the Commons that pigswill was the most likely cause of FMD? Why was pigswill not banned despite Commons select committee advice in the wake of BSE recommending that species should not be fed to same species? Why, when the Government knew that there was an outbreak in Asia at least as far back as last summer, did they offer no advice or warning to both food retail and catering trades? Why was a computer programme tracking FMD, due to be installed by Maff at the end of the 1990s, not in place? And now, why have the Chinese been offered as a sacrifice to save the agriculture minister's political skin?

So much for the pledge not to play the race card in the run-up to the general election.

Anna Chen
Socialist Alliance

Letter to the Guardian
Jack Tan, 2 April 01

The Guardian's reporting of the Chinese source of the foot and mouth outbreak (27 Mar, 'Smuggled meat blamed') perpetuates familiar and racist stereotypes of the British Chinese community, these are:

• involvement in smuggling and other illegal dealings;


• connection with Far Eastern criminal organisations; and

eating suspicious or bizarre meat.

• As a Guardian reader, it surprises me that this newspaper has not been more reflective about the information it receives from MAFF.

This stereotype, in existence since the 19th century, continues to paint the Chinese community as foreigners, criminals, dangerous, and a corrupting influence in British society. The truth is that we are British. As well as waiters and takeaway owners, our ranks also include doctors, writers, businessmen, lawyers, teachers, nurses and much more. We do not eat "cow's nostrils, monkey meat, elephant ... and smoked grubs" (28 Mar, 'Illegal meat trail leads to infected countries'), and no one I know in the community has any links to Far Eastern secret sausage smuggling organisations.

Most disappointingly, the Guardian has taken 6 days to report the opposing views of Chinese representatives in "Chinese restaurants feel the pinch" (2 Apr). This is too little, too late. There has been a 40% drop in trade in the intervening 6 days. If this continues, there will be a knock-on effect on British wholesale butchers since Chinese restaurants and takeaways obtain all their meat from British suppliers (because it's cheaper!). Eventually further down the line, this will have an effect on the already beleaguered British livestock farmer.

It is incalculable the amount of needless hardship these unsubstantiated stories and stereotypes have caused to thousands of families in the Chinese catering community and will cause to the wider British agricultural community. The Guardian ought to have been more careful.

Jack Tan
editor
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