Burnley: UK Riot Town
vngelis
During the ascendancy of British imperialism divide and rule became
the foremost ruling class policy in controlling, manipulating and
destroying societies. Most of todays wars on a global level have their
root one way or another with Britains foreign policy.
India-Pakistan
Israel-Palestine
SubSaharan Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, S. Africa
Peoples were transported from one part of the Empire to the other
often against their will to slave away building the transport links of
the Empire. This process meant the destruction of local cultures, the
forced migration from the land, the creation of nationally based
ethnic ghettoes. Imperialism by its very nature based on the myth of
'civilising' natives would one day return home with a vengenance. The
growth of fascism in Germany was in direct proportion to the loss of
Empire and the benefits this accrued to a portion of the
embourgeoisified proletariat. Trade union leaders on 70,000-100,000
sterling salaries, at the same time as the wholescale destruction of
the UK's manufacturing base, has created US style ghettoes in the
North. In a different era immigration occurred to fill the vacant
posts of the post war boom. This boom ended two decades ago and many
communities in the North are on the urban breadline. They myth of
multi-culturalism was concealed primarily by Labour councils under
Thatcher who claimed progress was being acheived because of their
'resistance'. For a decade and more now working class people have been
living within reach of each other but they have had different
upbringings. White schoolkids have been going to white only schools
and Asian schoolchildren have been going to Asian only schools.
When Britain had an education system which was based on three/four
characteristics, indpendent, comprehensive, religious it was
inevitable for the communities without their school to seek to get
them. A whole rash of Islamic schools have grown with mullahs
educating they youth onthe marvels of medieval Islam. If Thatcher
attacked the comprehensives New Labour is out to bury them for good.
For now religious outfits, from the new US based fundamentalist based
religions to the Islamic religions are vying to create schools out of
the collapse of the comprehensive.
The three riots in succession show that the US model has finally
arrived under New Labour with the only difference being that whilst
ghettoes in the States exloded and led to a mass exodus of the middle
class layers in Britain the shortage of land, the different housing
structure has meant that gated communities cannot appear on the
collapse of urban areas into riot infested zones. The crisis here
cannot be managed US style. The police will be forced to attack both
communities with equal vengenance and impose police-military style
scenarios... Below is an article which highlights a few of this
problems.
meberry68
Ghettos in the north
Special report: race issues in the UK
Faisal Bodi
Guardian
Monday June 25, 2001
Many heads will be banging together drawing up the terms of reference
for the new home secretary's review of last month's riots in Oldham.
It is crucial that they get it right.
Oldham is a snapshot of other post-industrial northern towns. Nearby
Rochdale, Burnley (where there was violence at the weekend), Bury and
Bradford, as well as cities further afield like Birmingham, share
similar economic depression and ethnic tension.
The recent report warning of the dangers of segregation in Bradford is
timely. Ethnic separation is the key to understanding inner-city
strife. In 1990 an Oldham council report into housing allocation
revealed disturbing discrimination against Asians. The document was
leaked to the commission for racial equality which in 1993 declared a
verdict of "unlawful discrimination".
It found Asians did indeed spend longer on waiting lists, were more
likely to be offered lower-quality housing, and were segregated on
specific estates around the town centre.
What has changed? Not a lot that anybody can show. The CRE did
complete a five-year plan of reforms with the council, one of which
was the institution of ethnic monitoring. But the council still
cannot, or is too embarrassed to, provide an accurate picture of how
its "Asian" tenants are spread. Worse still, the comically inept CRE
"cannot find" the final status report on its work in Oldham.
Oldham's estate agents did their bit for segregation too. In 1990 a
separate CRE investigation found two firms guilty of "redlining", or
setting limits to where Asians could buy. It is in such discrimination
that the roots of Oldham's "no-go areas" lie, not the bombast of
teenage gangs.
Economic decline has been another cause. When the cotton mills
flourished 30 years ago, the Asian areas were ethnically mixed. Older
residents in riot-hit Glodwick recall with some fondness when white
and Asian men lived and worked side by side. With the collapse of
manufacturing, the working-class areas fell into decline. Whites moved
out in search of greener pastures, followed by the Afro-Caribbeans.
The Asians, mainly Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, stayed behind. Mostly
from rural Punjab, Kashmir or Sylhet, unskilled and uneducated, those
who didn't work in the factories set up small retail or catering
businesses, usually to service their own communities. Their relatives
arrived, mainly through marriage, and took up the slack left by the
departing whites. As their areas became racially particular and the
economic depression deepened, house prices hit the floor attracting
even more Asian buyers. And so the ghetto has consolidated and grown.
Grange school in Glodwick now has a 98% Bangladeshi roll. This is the
reality of modern multicultural Britain: a whole generation growing up
deprived of any contact with people unlike themselves, their horizons
bounded by the invisible but very real walls of the ghetto.
The same applies to the white working-class estates in Oldham where an
entrenched underclass has inherited, and will pass on, poverty, crime
and unemployment. Segregation also explains the resentment caused by
urban regeneration grants. Because whole neighbourhoods are now
racially distinctive, a grant for one area is perceived as an award to
an ethnic group. If people live apart they grow apart.
The breach, as the town's election results show, is an open invitation
for the xenophobes of the British National party. Letting ethnic
groups develop distinctive identities has failed because it has not
been balanced by a corresponding emphasis on integration. We need to
encourage communities to engage with the wider world, not reward them
for becoming reclusive and defensive.
Forget Asian versus white. Before they joined forces to battle the
police, Pakistani and Bangladeshi youths in Glodwick were usually
fighting each other. Tension can be traced back 3,000 miles and 30
years to the separation of east and west Pakistan. To the ire of local
Pakistanis, a new housing development in Westwood is the preserve of
Bangladeshi families. They may all be Muslims, but the groups even
have their own mosques.
Intermarriage is still a matter of some scandal. However, not all is
gloom. A local multi-denominational group is about to launch "Connect"
with the aim of bringing together young people of different
backgrounds The Al-Aqsa housing association has adopted a multi-ethnic
approach to accommodating Muslims.
It hasn't taken rocket scientists to develop these solutions, just
people with a sense of duty, sincerity and some will. Getting people
to live, work and play together is not asking too much, is it?
• Faisal Bodi is a Muslim journalist