MR Nasrullah Khan, the full-time director of Bury Racial Equality Council (BREC), accuses those of us who have criticised his organisation of "vicious and unfounded attacks" (Bury Times, May 30).

I do not believe I have ever descended into "viciousness". I have simply exercised my right as a citizen of a free society to hold up a publicly-funded organisation to public scrutiny. As for "unfounded," whether he likes it or not BREC has acquired an unenviable reputation based on its own behaviour and history, as reported in this newspaper.

Mr Khan's attempts to justify BREC's existence are less than convincing. He states that BREC is to do with promoting good race relations and promoting equal opportunities. But what have those admirable aims to do with using public money to "empower" Asian women? How many non-Asian ladies are given money to "empower" themselves?

Surely this sort of racially separatist provision is the very opposite of integrated community relations - which is the only way forward. I get the impression that Mr Khan sees BREC as a purely Asian welfare organisation.

Again, Mr Khan appears to think that BREC is justified in terms of responding to cases of racial discrimination and harassment, as though Bury is a borough with serious race problems. But his own figures disprove this. He says that in the period 1995-97 the average number of alleged racial discrimination cases was 15 per year, and for alleged harassment the figure was 22. Now there are about 175,000 people living in the borough of Bury, and about six per cent of those are from the ethnic minorities : that means there must be thousands of successful cross-racial interactions every day. Given the fallen state of Man, those figures suggest an astonishing level of racial tolerance and harmony amongst Bury folk.

If Mr Khan cares to look at the most recent survey of racial attitudes he might be rather surprised . When respondents were asked about the desirability of cross-racial marriages (a key test of racial prejudice), the most prejudiced group was Asian, and the least prejudiced was white.

RECs are based on a fallacy. They assume that race relations are to do with the allocation of public money, reports, committees, jockeying for position amongst rival groups, and laying down the letter of the law (that is bureaucracy and power struggles). The reality is very different.

The biggest single cause of our good race relations is Bury market where, on a regular basis, people of every group - both proprietors and customers - come together, chatting, joking and transacting business in a totally unselfconscious way.

RECs are part of that race relations industry which constantly emphasises ethnic differences rather than what human beings have in common. I believe they do the very opposite of what they think they are doing. I repeat: Bury Racial Equality Council should be abolished - for good.

RAY HONEYFORD,

Wragby Close, Bury.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.