I. The Alienation of the Muslim Youth: the Context of Discrimination and Deprivation
There is no doubt that the Oldham riots
were the culmination of a wider ongoing set of social problems
within the town that have not been adequately addressed by the
Government. Principal among these problems is the fact that many
areas in the Oldham community suffer unalleviated poverty and
deprivation, which has led to the escalation of frustration with
what is seen to be injustice and/or indifference on behalf of the
current local authority. These problems, which have long-term and
short-term dimensions, have been responsible for the exacerbation of
communal tensions within Oldham along ethnic and religious lines.
Unless these problems and their nature are investigated, no adequate
and balanced understanding of the roots of the Oldham riots can be
attained.
The ethnic minority communities in Oldham are made up
primarily of people of Bengali, Kashmiri and Pakistani background. While
these communities are tight-knitted among their own ethnic group, they
nevertheless possess a cross-ethnic bond through their common religious
heritage in the form of the Islamic faith. This Muslim Asian community
suffers from a great deal from deprivation and poverty. Such deprivation
is not exclusive to the Muslim community, and indeed affects the white
community in a similar manner. Poverty affects communities of all
backgrounds in Oldham. As has been the case with every other recent
British riot, the eruption occurred in an area suffering from desperate
economic hardship - and observers agree that both the white and ethnic
minority communities suffer from poverty and deprivation. Oldham is the 38th
most deprived district in England.[2]
Nearly one-fifth (18 per cent) of the population - a total of nearly
40,000 people - live in households dependent upon Income Support. A
further one-tenth have incomes which are low enough to qualify for means
tested Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit.[3]
Statistics show that the town is almost uniquely polarised between rich
and poor. Two wards, Saddleworth East and West, are among the least
deprived 10 per cent nationally. Yet five wards, Coldhurst, St Mary’s,
Werneth, Alexandra, and St. James, are among the worst 10 per cent. The
scale of poverty and deprivation within the western half of Oldham is
therefore particularly intense. Unemployment and low pay are the two
fundamental causes of such high levels of poverty. Indeed, “Oldham has
always been a low wage economy”, such that even those who are employed are
“often on low incomes.” One April 1997 study of jobs on offer in Oldham
Job Centre concluded that “the average advertised rate of pay was £3.77
per hour” and further that “two-thirds of jobs paid less than £3.97 per
hour.”[4]
The Oldham Borough Council reports that available evidence
indicates the existence of “a structural unemployment problem” in the
town. In 1998 “around 4,500 people in Oldham (4.3% of the workforce) were
unemployed.” An estimated “20% of these had been out of work for more than
one year”, while “rates of unemployment are particularly high among
younger and older workers”.[5]
Indeed, the unemployment rate for youth in general is around 40%.[6]
The application of methodology developed by Sheffield Hallam University,
however, indicates that unemployment is significantly higher than official
estimates based merely on claimants. It is therefore believed that “the
claimant count underestimates Oldham’s unemployment by nearly four times
(17,800). When similar measures are applied nationally this shows a rate
of joblessness higher than the national average.” Not only then, does
Oldham suffer from extraordinary conditions of deprivation compared to the
rest of the UK, the predominantly Muslim ethnic minority community of
Oldham is even more deprived. The jobless rate for whites is at 4 per
cent, for Pakistanis 16 per cent, and for Bangladeshis 25 per cent, rising
to an estimated 40 per cent for young Asian males.[7]
According to Oldham Borough Council, “at 38%, the unemployment rate for
people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic origin is nearly five times
that of white people”. Oldham Council locates the principal cause of this
structural problem in the town’s “economic history”. The town has a large
proportion of unskilled and semi-skilled workers, while rapid changes in
the local economy have left many workers with redundant skills. Unemployed
people are also particularly likely to have no academic or vocational
qualifications. The Council observes that: “Large numbers of people -
disproportionately older people, and particularly people from our ethnic
minority communities - are potentially facing near permanent exclusion
from the labour market.”[8]
In fact, the Council itself bears direct responsibility for the excessive
unemployment of ethnic minorities in the community. In the year 2000 only
1.7 per cent of its employees were Asian, representing some 178 people out
of a total workforce of 10,500. These figures are even more significant in
light of the fact that Oldham’s Asians account for around, 27,500, or
one-eighth, of its 220,000 citizens.[9]
Oldham also suffers from poor housing conditions. Problems of unfitness
and disrepair are widespread within many ageing properties. Thirteen per
cent of Oldham’s housing stock is “statutorily unfit for human habitation
and a further 28% are in serious disrepair”. Houses in poor condition can
primarily be found within central Oldham in areas such as Glodwick,
Westwood, Coppice, Freehold, and Clarksfield. According to Oldham Council,
the principal victims of these poor conditions are the predominantly
Muslim Asian community: “The Pakistani and Bangladeshi community live in
these areas”. Dire property conditions are compounded by the high rates of
household overcrowding. As a result, in these communities, “the low income
of many households prevents them from carrying out necessary repairs or
improvements to their homes, or from moving into larger accommodation
which is better suited to their needs.”[10]
That ethnic minorities in Oldham bear the
brunt of social problems is thus a documented fact. The predominantly
Muslim Asian community of Oldham suffers disproportionately, and thus
parts of the community justifiably feel that they are unfairly deprived,
especially the younger generation.[11]
Indeed, there can be little doubt that the comparatively worse conditions
faced by ethnic minorities is due, on some significant level, to
institutional racism. The Trades Union Congress (TUC), for instance,
warned at the end of April 2001 that “institutional racism is responsible
for unemployment rates among blacks and Asians that are twice as high as
among whites” within the UK at large.[12]
In this context, the fundamentally
discriminatory causes of disproportionate deprivation experienced by
ethnic communities in Oldham can be deduced, particularly in relation to
the higher unemployment rate among the Pakistani and Bengali community - a
figure which ultimately shows that although both the white and Muslim
Asian communities are deprived, the latter are five times worse off than
the former.
This sort of severe impoverishment and
deprivation has therefore affected communities of all ethnic backgrounds
in Oldham, but has particularly devastated the lives of ethnic minorities.
According to the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF) this state of
affairs is rooted in “a whole history of racism and social exclusion.”
CARF reports that in 1993, Oldham Borough Council was found to have been
operating “an unlawful segregation policy in its housing allocation”. The
policy effectively “ghettoised Asians onto a rundown estate, while whites
were given homes in a more desirable area.”[13]
The legacy of this policy, which has gone on for decades, has continued to
this day, exacerbating an informal type of apartheid between the white and
Asian communities.[14]
In 1990, Oldham Council attempted to cover-up a council housing allocation
report it had commissioned which exposed a “staggering catalogue of
discrimination.” The report found that Asians “spent longer on waiting
lists, were more likely to be offered lower quality housing, and were
segregated on specific estates around the town centre.” A Commission for
Racial Equality (CRE) investigation into private housing conducted in the
same year similarly revealed that at least two estate agents were
“redlining the practice of confining different racial groups to their own
areas.”[15]
Other problems include the fact that the Council has no race relations or
quality officer; similarly, the local racial equality council was shut
down two years ago.[16]
This combination of council policies along
with deprivation as a consequence of institutional racism, has culminated
in increasing mistrust and misunderstanding between some members of these
communities, which in itself has made it easier for communal tensions to
be aggravated along ethnic and religious lines. The somewhat accurate
perception among the generally deprived Muslim Asian community of
discrimination has led to widespread resentment against a status quo which
seems to favour the white community.
These sentiments have been exacerbated by the
way in which resources are allocated in the town. Single Regeneration
Budgets (SRB) have purportedly allocated huge sums of money into Asian
areas which are suffering the most from poverty and deprivation, and
therefore are most in need of resources. However, as a local community
leader – who is also a local government Community Language Officer –
comments, while the local press widely publicises the input of resources
into predominantly Muslim Asian areas, such as Glodwick, in actual
practice the infrastructural influx of money has mostly benefited members
of the white community, particularly the town centre. In one specific
case, around £5.6 million was allocated to Glodwick, while the majority of
the SRB aid package was spent on white areas. In effect only around 10-15
per cent was spent on regeneration and development in Glodwick. On the
contrary, when resources are officially allocated to predominantly white
areas, this influx of money does not make the headlines. This disparity in
coverage manufactures widespread misunderstanding of the clearly selective
allocation of resources. Members of deprived white areas are consequently
vulnerable to feeling that Muslim Asian communities are being favoured by
the policies of the local authority, particularly as a result of slanted
press coverage (see also Chapter III).[17]
In all, the past two decades in Oldham has
seen the reception of £400 million for regeneration and renewal, with
another £120 million planned. Despite the funds being ostensibly directed
at deprived urban areas, in effect its impact has been negligible in terms
of closing social and economic divisions. Due to the racially exclusive
segregation that has resulted from the policies discussed above, the input
of resources into predominantly Muslim Asian areas of inner Oldham such as
Glodwick and Westwood is seen by many deprived whites as racial
favouritism. This is despite the fact that some of the most deprived areas
in the UK are within inner Oldham, and indeed meet central government and
European Union funding criteria. In some sense, therefore, this ultimately
constitutes pinpointing the even more deprived Asian community as a
scapegoat for their own deprivation. Asian communities also remain acutely
cognisant of their continuing deprivation and impoverishment in contrast
with the development of other white areas, despite the purported input of
resources in their areas by the council.[18]
While sentiments on both sides are understandable, it is therefore
necessary to reject claims that Muslim Asian communities are racially
favoured by local government policies within the status quo.
It is, however, clear that the above-mentioned
socio-economic conditions of mutual deprivation experienced by communities
of all ethnic backgrounds in Oldham – but from which the Muslim Asian
communities suffer on a greater scale – combined with its disintegrative
effects on the increasingly frustrated youth, has engineered an
environment which is unstable, and vulnerable to provocation.
II. Police Discrimination and the Development of Defensive Self-reliance within the Muslim Youth Community
Institutional discrimination against the
predominantly Muslim Asian community has been accompanied by what
appears to amount to severe levels of police racism. Since the
release of the seminal study of police discrimination, The
MacPherson Report, it is hardly any longer in doubt that the
British police service suffers from institutional racism. The
MacPherson Report found that racial violence was endemic, the
police were part of the problem of racism, and ethnic minorities
were routine victims of miscarriages of justice. The root cause, the
report found, is a deeply embedded “canteen culture” of racism
within the police force, not only within the Metropolitan Police
Service, but throughout the UK. The inquiry concluded that
“institutional racism… exists both in the Metropolitan Police
Service and in other Police Services and other institutions
countrywide.”[19]
As observed by The Guardian correspondent Vikram Dodd who
covered the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the fundamental finding of the
report is “namely that police prejudice against black people was so
ingrained that it contributed to allowing racist murderers to get
away with their crime.” So “seismic” are the report’s well
documented conclusions that, as Dodd comments, there now remains no
good reason for anyone to deny the massive and systematic level of
police racism throughout the country: “For years black and Asian
people had been saying they received a second-rate service from the
police, that they were over-policed as suspects and under-policed as
victims… After the MacPherson report, there is no excuse for anyone
claiming they are ignorant of the discrimination at the heart of the
criminal justice system, no excuse for the culture of disbelief that
greeted the experiences of black and Asian Britons who found they
were repeatedly being let down by the people from whom they needed
help most.”[20]
In Oldham, endless reports from members of the ethnic
minority communities point to a long record of police discrimination
against Asians in the town, as a consequence of the form of institutional
racism documented by the Chairman of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, Sir
William MacPherson of Cluny. The Guardian, for example, reports
that: “In Oldham a very specific antagonism has arisen. The local chief
superintendent, Eric Hewitt, is regarded with deep suspicion by a chunk of
the community he is meant to serve and protect. Their first complaint is
that the police simply do not come to their aid when they are in trouble.
Every street corner has a story to tell of a call for help which went
unaided, a racist attack that went unhalted.”[21]
Policing Adviser to the Mayor of London, Lee Jasper, who in his own words
“spent some years growing up in Oldham,” has similarly highlighted the
massive scale of police racism in the town. Describing the long and,
indeed, dire record, Jasper reports: “Policing was a joke. Random stops
and searches were frequent. Young black people were arrested and charged
in their thousands. You expected to be beaten up and if you were not, this
was grounds for suspicion that you had exchanged information for freedom.
Police racism was cruel, violent and unremitting.” This state of affairs,
he observes, continues to this day against members of the Asian community
such as Bengalis. “The Bangladeshi community in Oldham is following the
path trod by the Caribbean community 20 years earlier”, he notes. “I see
lots of echoes of our own experience. Undoubtedly they have had to fight
to protect themselves from vicious racial attacks without any protection
from the police. Those estates still exist where Bangladeshis cannot walk
without fear.”[22]
The Campaign Against Racism and Fascism
further refers to a clear record of police discrimination against the
predominantly Muslim Asian community. “The Q Division of Greater
Manchester Police, which operates in Oldham,” reports CARF, “has a history
of indifference to racial attacks by whites in the area and Asian youths
are themselves regularly harassed by the police (recently a young Asian
boy was seriously wounded when, having already surrendered to the police,
he was mauled by police dogs).”[23]
This combination of police harassment of Asians and police indifference to
racist attacks on Asians has been the principal cause of suspicion and
resentment towards the police force among young members of Oldham’s Asian
community. CARF cites a representative example in the case of Gulfraz
Nazir:
For
four years, Gulfraz Nazir’s family in Limeside, Oldham was subjected to
racial harassment by gangs of up to thirty racist youths armed with
crowbars and hammers, who tried to attack their shop. Whenever the police
were called they failed to turn up in time to make a difference. Finally
Gulfraz organised with friends to defend his family from the gangs. The
result was a running battle on the streets between armed white youths and
Asians.
In tandem with police indifference to racist attacks by
whites in the area along with police harassment of Asian youth, ethnic
minority communities in the town have grown increasingly disillusioned
with the police – and this has effectively cultivated the formation of
gangs of Asian youth who are no longer willing to tolerate such phenomena.
“Consequently, there is little faith in the police’s ability to tackle
white racist gangs”, reports CARF. “Gulfraz Nazir is not alone in feeling
the time has come to organise self-defence.”[24]
There are many examples of police racism
similar to what was experienced by Gulfraz Nazir. On Sunday the 28th
May 2001 at around 11:30 AM, a local government officer from Yorkshire,
also an Oldham community leader, was visiting the area of Glodwick. He
reports that he saw seven Asian youths of around 10-13 years standing
around a policewoman. One of the boys was complaining to the policewoman
about the racist remark of one of her colleagues, addressing him with the
phrase: “You black bastard.” The policewoman replied by acknowledging:
“That’s very rude”, to which the boy responded incredulously: “Is that all
you have to say? If I call one of you lot a ‘white bastard’ I’d get
arrested, but if one of you lot are racist, nothing happens to him!” The
community leader observes that: “Almost every night, Asian taxi drivers
are beaten up, racially abused and attacked. They don’t report because
they know the police will do nothing.”[25]
As Jenny Wardleworth of Oldham United Against Racism rightly asks: “How
many really nasty attacks on taxi drivers get just two lines in the
[Oldham Evening] Chronicle?”
Another case that occurred the following day
on the testimony of a resident of Coppice illustrates the extent of police
racism in Oldham even more clearly. At around 2 AM on Monday 29th
May, one male member of the Asian community in Coppice, who will be called
Khalid here, reportedly awoke to disturbing noises in his street. Fearing
for the safety of his wife and children, he undertook a brief excursion
out of his home to investigate the cause of the sounds. Outside he found
five or six police officers in riot gear outside a police van. Upon seeing
him one of the officers immediately approached him and asked him: “What
are you doing here?” The civilian replied by explaining that he lived in
Coppice with his family. The policeman then reportedly grabbed him roughly
and said: “What do you think you’re doing here Paki?” After being released
by the officer, Khalid angrily asked him what his call number was, to
which the officer sarcastically responded: “My call number is 999.” Khalid
then stated that he would go the police van “to see the van number”, and
began approaching the van. The police officer then grabbed Khalid and
threw him on to the ground, shoving him facedown and repeating further
defamatory racist remarks. During this assault the other officers near the
police van were laughing and joking at the actions of their colleague.[26]
These sorts of reports are endemic in Oldham. Labour MP for Oldham West
Michael Meacher heard them himself firsthand when he met with members of
Oldham’s mainly Muslim Asian community, mostly youth, at Coppice Community
Centre a few days prior to the UK General Elections.
As the London Mayor’s Policing Adviser Lee
Jasper comments on the history of discrimination and deprivation in
Oldham, “Education, employment and policing policies were imbued with a
crude racism that would have been considered intolerable elsewhere… A
community was devastated by racism, destroyed by lack of opportunity and
left to rot in the twilight zone of the urban underclass.” The consequence
today is that, under the pressures of social exclusion, lack of
opportunities, institutional racism, racial violence, police indifference
and police harassment, the younger members of the Asian “urban underclass”
are no longer willing to tolerate their continuing state of repression and
marginalisation.
It
ought to be no surprise that communities suffering such extreme economic
marginalisation and social segregation should seek to defend themselves.
There is a historical failure of the town to challenge its own
institutional racism. Islands of exclusion imprison within them boundless
talent and creativity, confined by sheer walls of discrimination and lack
of opportunity. People will inevitably cleave tightly to the central
tenets of their culture and faith. Occasionally when provoked they will
react like a cornered tiger.[27]
It is in this context that it is possible to
properly consider the implications of police figures that apparently prove
that the majority of victims of racially-motivated attacks are whites,
rather than Asians. In 1998, Chief Superintendent of the Oldham division
of Greater Manchester Police, Eric Hewitt, released figures showing that
out of 250 incidents in one year, most involved attacks on whites by
Pakistanis. Hewitt then used these figures to prove that Oldham’s real
problem was crimes committed by Asian gangs, as opposed to racial attacks
by whites on Asians. In an article in the Lancashire Evening Chronicle,
Eric Hewitt argued: “There is evidence that they are trying to create
exclusive areas for themselves. Anyone seems to be a target if they are
white. It is a growing polarisation between some sections of the Asian
youth and white youth on the grounds of race, manifesting itself in
violence, predominantly Asian.” Hewitt later repeated the exercise when he
released police figures in January 2001 showing that 62 per cent of
racially-motivated attacks last year in Oldham were perpetrated by Asians
against whites. A special report prepared for Greater Manchester’s Chief
Constable David Wilmot concurred that: “The majority of violent racist
incidents are perpetrated by Asians on whites, which is an ongoing trend
involving primarily Pakistani and Bangladeshi teenagers.”[28]
But how reliable are crime figures produced by
the police? There are several very powerful reasons to severely doubt the
accuracy of police figures in this respect. First of all, the statistics
from which crime figures are derived are confidential. This means that it
is impossible to independently assess and verify their interpretation. In
other words, because police crime figures are based on internally
conducted unpublished studies, their accuracy is simply independently
unverifiable. This point is damning in consideration of other overbearing
factors, particularly the findings of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry
documented in The MacPherson Report, that the police service
throughout the UK suffers from institutional racism. MacPherson recognised
that this racism has a definite effect on police recording and
categorisation of crime, and accordingly forwarded several recommendations
to solve the skewing of crime figures due to police misdemeanours. The
Observer highlighted the essence of the problem as follows:
For
most members of ethnic minority groups racism is about verbal harassment
and intimidation, petty attacks that build up over time, an air of menace
that kills the spirit while leaving the body intact. The problem is that,
for years, it has been impossible to get a true picture of that kind of
racist crime. Victims, convinced the authorities didn’t give a damn, would
fail to report what had happened to them.[29]
Indeed, racially-motivated crime far outweighs the actual
reporting of it, by thirteen times. The fundamental problem is the police
response to the reporting of racial incidents. Third party agencies –
ethnic organisations who take reports from race attack survivors and pass
them onto the police to make it easier to complain - have most often come
across police officers who have responded in a less than helpful manner,
including behaviour such as the refusal to record crimes as
racially-motivated; the refusal to record crimes as racially-motivated
despite clear racial motive unless prompted to do so; suggesting to ethnic
victims of racially-motivated attacks that complaining is futile unless
evidence is garnered by the complainant.[30]
In Oldham this is a genuine problem that, combined with intense distrust
of a police force that is clearly institutionally racist, has led to the
systematic under-reporting of racially-motivated crimes committed against
the Asian community. As noted by CARF, an Asian victim of a racist attack
in Oldham is thus highly unlikely to report the crime to the police - and
even if the crime is reported, it may not, and probably will not, be
logged as a racial attack. On the contrary, an attack by an Asian gang on
whites remains most likely to be reported and recorded by the police as a
racial incident. “It is easy to see how this situation would result in
misleading police figures for racial incidents which would suggest that
whites were the main victims of racially motivated crime.”[31]
Another key factor pointing to the racist
nature of police crime figures, is the deliberate manipulation of
statistics for propagandistic purposes. The findings of recent
investigations into the Nottinghamshire police service indicate that the
logging of crime figures is “routinely skewed by forces to control how
their daily operations are presented to the outside world.” A number of
crucial revelations in relation to “particular malpractices” concerning
the introduction of performance targets for police forces during the
1990s, prove that:
… police paperwork can
be massaged to give whatever impression is needed and therefore crime
figures become less an accurate measure of real crime and more an
instrument of public relations.
When a major
element of police public relations has to do with defusing claims about
racism, we should not be surprised to find that police figures are also
skewed with regard to race.[32]
These facts bring crime figures produced by
the police in relation to issues of race into severe doubt with regards to
their reliability. Given the several racially prejudiced variables
impinging on the production of unverifiable crime figures by a police
force that has been found to be institutionally racist even by a
government-sponsored study such as The MacPherson Report, these
crime figures are simply not credible. Given that there is a very strong
and as yet unchallenged perception within the community that the police
are prejudiced, it is unsurprising that the ethnic minority communities
find it pointless to report racist incidents to people whom they consider
to also be racist.
III. The Escalation of Tensions into Rioting: Provocation or Pro-action?
The release of last year’s crime figures
by Chief Superintendent Eric Hewitt to support the contention that
Asians are primarily responsible for the majority of
racially-motivated attacks aggravated an already simmering
situation. Hewitt’s timely disclosure was widely reported in the
media, particularly in the local press, leading to the entrenchment
among many Oldham residents of the highly disputable notion that
Asians have been responsible for most racial crimes against whites.
The figures supported the idea that Asians in Oldham are proponents
of racism, rather than victims of a system which itself is
institutionally racist. This notion was, naturally, strongly
resented by the Asian community, which understandably saw the
release of the figures as adding insult to injury. This established
an environment of incendiary proportions.
The intervention of right-wing white supremacy
groups who attempted to exploit the vulnerability of the situation for
their own political gain, was the spark that ignited the already seething
tensions. Press reports along with the testimony of members of the local
community show that the riots in Oldham occurred as the culmination of
five weeks of racial abuse orchestrated by right-wing white extremists
against the town’s ethnic minority community. Verbal as well as physical
abuse, including vandalism, by white youth reached levels of virtual
impunity as the local British National Party (BNP) mounted its campaign
for the General Elections. It has been approximately 22 years since such
groups were operating in Oldham with such high profile. Now these groups
have exploited white working-class frustrations to attempt to gain support
for their anti-Asian, and more specifically anti-Muslim, sentiments (see
Chapter IV).
The essence of the conflict began with
attempts by the white supremacists to hold a march in Oldham on the 31st
March 2001. Seven Asian Councillors - five Kashmiri, two Bengali, one
Pakistani, all of whom are Muslim – organised a public meeting to counter
the march, supported by a variety of organisations including the National
Union of Teachers (NUT), the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) and political leaders
from the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, among several other groups.
They succeeded in preventing the occurrence of the march.
A second march was announced for the 5th
May. This time Asian community leaders accepted the advice to the
community from the police, to stay in their homes, not to go outside, and
allow the police the deal with the problem. Although the march was banned,
National Front and British National Party supporters nevertheless gathered
at the town centre and walked around in gangs with the apparent intention
of intimidating locals. By evening, they gradually moved out of the town
centre towards the Asian outskirts of areas such as Glodwick, Coppice and
Werneth. Gathering in and outside local pubs, and in a drunken state, they
intimidated and hurled racist abuse at local Asian residents. The news of
their presence spread around the community and led groups of young Asians
to come out. Minor skirmishes resulted, also involving the police, leading
to some arrests – as yet there were no major incidents.
On the 27th May a third march was
held. Up to this time, right wing groups continued to operate within
Oldham aggravating communal tensions by roaming Asian areas and conducting
themselves in a manner amounting to racial intimidation. This included not
only verbal abuse, but also acts of vandalism. By the time of the third
march, right wing supporters began moving nearer to Asian areas with
greater frequency. At around 8 PM, in the area of Clarkesfield on the
outskirts of Glodwick, white and Asian children of around 11-12 years
began quarrelling. Their parents intervened and reportedly a white mother
used her mobile to contact a large gang of white youths. Subsequently, up
to 10 youths arrived and began violently wrecking the neighbourhood.
Community pleas to the police to provide protection were ignored on the
pretext of distributing officers equally throughout the town. When police
arrived, they did not apprehend or arrest the gang despite pleas from the
community to do so. The violence drew in a group of Asian youth whom in
contrast, were arrested by police. Those arrested were detained without
charge and released the next morning. Eventually, a gang of 200 white
thugs raided the unprotected road, terrorising its occupants, hurling
racial abuse, swearing and smashing windows, and then fleeing into nearby
pubs. Though warned by community leaders and police not to allow the youth
into their pubs, pub owners ignored the calls and permitted them entry.
The actions prompted the formation of larger groups of Asian youth
outraged at the impunity with which the gangs were operating, and further
clashes ensued.
Thus on Saturday night, several hundred Asian youths went
out into the streets in response to the month-long campaign of racial
animosity, hurling petrol bombs and bricks at police and pubs tolerating
the racist groups. The violence broke out again on Sunday, with petrol
bombs thrown and burning barricades of tyres and furniture erected.[33]
It is important to recall the context of the build-up of
racial and religious animosity behind this outburst of fury. Mike Luft of
the Anti-Fascist organisation Friends of Searchlight has commented that:
“For the last 18 months every group of away football supporters and groups
like the BNP and Combat 18 have declared open season on Oldham.” Indeed,
“The ferocity of attacks on Oldham’s Asians is starting to resemble a
mini-war” – so much so that local Asians and anti-racism campaigners have
good reason to suspect the far-right of being behind several brick and
petrol bomb attacks on white homes and pubs in relatively mixed
neighbourhoods like the West Street Estate just to incite racial
hostility. Asian shops and organisations in Glodwick have received a
constant stream of hate mail and threatening telephone messages.
And worryingly, the violence has already spread to
nearby Rochdale, home to a similar number of Asians, where last month a
suspected far-right militant threw a nail bomb into an Indian take-away.[34]
IV. The Role of Islamophobia
Political leaders in the town have admitted that the riots had been
stirred up by right-wing white extremists. Both the police and the
Prime Minister concurred. Local police have pinned immediate blame
for Saturday 26th May’s riots on “outside influences” -
mainly ultra-rightwing English nationalists and white power
supremacists - stirring up trouble ahead of the general election.
Even Chief Superintendent Hewitt, highlighted the particular role of
the National Front (NF) and British National Party (BNP) in stirring
racial tensions in the town.
However mainstream politicians and policy are not exempt
from this charge. The rise of the BNP is set in the context of the highly
controversial way that central government has been perceived and to a
certain extent admitted to have maligned Muslim aspirations. It has
targeted Muslim groups in its new Terrorist Act as a primary Labour
achievement, stating that the Act "at last proscribes terrorist
organizations like Hamas, Hizbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Act
specifically prohibits fund raising for these organizations and from
spreading their brand of hatred in Britain."[35]
In this regard it is also worth noting the finding of the Muslim Election
2001 campaign where it was felt that "Labour's self-confessed record
demonstrates the party's highly partisan attitude toward the varied faith
communities in the UK. A comparison of Labour's domestic support of
projects for the Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as foreign policy
in the Middle East in relation to Zionist and Muslim demands, shows
clearly where Labour's sympathies lie. The Muslim community remains
disenfranchised, underrepresented, and its needs flagrantly ignored, in
contrast to Labour's courting of the apartheid regime of Israel and its
British supporters."[36]
Yet
disturbingly the BNP has portrayed the Muslim community as a favourite of
New Labour. The BNP in fact has clearly and unambiguously campaigned on
an Islamophobic ticket. Nick Griffin’s campaign literature in the run-up
to the elections begins:
WINNING FOR WHITE OLDHAM: WINNING FOR YOU
Crazy,
isn’t it? Muslim rioters tear the town apart, attacking white people,
houses and shops, and petrol-bombing and shooting at the police - and yet
whites like us are getting the blame!
It ends:
Nick Griffin and the BNP,
or the pro-Muslim Labour party? Make up your own mind and think of your
family as you vote British National Party
[37]
Statements by right-wing groups reveal that their efforts were primarily
directed against Oldham’s Muslim community. An article on the race riots
on the BNP’s website was titled: ‘The Situation in Oldham: Ethnic
Cleansing Muslim Style’[38].
Regarding the riots, the article commented that “this
is how extremists within the Muslim community in Oldham are repaying the
hospitality of the people who built the town and allowed them to settle
there by the tens of thousands.” Another BNP article remarked on how the
Party has been able to use the riots to further exacerbate racist and
Islamophobic sentiment to thereby recruit members: “Media coverage and the
personal experience of scores of thousands of white people every year are
combining to make gangs of Muslim thugs the best recruiting sergeant the
British National Party has ever had.”
It is clear from the literature that the BNP has put out on its website
that its main target within the ethnic groups is the Muslim community. In
an interview on BBC2’s ‘Newsnight’ on 26th June, BNP leader
Nick Griffin commented that this is “not an Asian problem, but a Muslim
one.” There are a number of instances on-line, where the BNP has
distinguished between previous riots and the nature of the Oldham and
Burnley riots, e.g. Nick Griffin writes regarding the Brixton riots in
comparison with current ones:
Overwhelmingly, the riots were
directed at lootable shops, and policemen (including the few black ones),
and not at white civilians except those who happened to be driving cars
needed for barricades. Two instances of rape were the work of individual
criminals taking advantage of the general chaos; they were not carried out
with the knowledge or support of the rioters.[39]
Implicitly those “responsible” for the Oldham riots in the
BNP perspective had anti-‘white civilian’ targets, and very serious
criminal intent. Quite apart from the persistent tone of attack in such
articles, the implied constituency of rioters has been clearly identified
in other literature. The BNP’s ‘Boycott Asian Businesses’ campaign
leaflet encourages the white community to "to take action to put pressure
on the Asian community . . . by boycotting their shops and take-aways.
Not ones owned by Chinese or Hindus, only Muslims as it's their community
we need to pressure."[40]
BNP literature published and unpublished refers unendingly to alleged
Muslim thuggery, ‘the fact that the problem is mainly Muslim-on-white,’[41]
‘How Muslims are attacking the very heart of Oldham's white community,’[42]
and so on. Its oxymoronically entitled website
www.oldhamharmony.org contains
a variety of material subheaded, “How the multi-racial fanatics turned a
decent, proud, working class community into a mini Bosnia.” Further
references are made within literature to the ‘Beirut’ like nature of the
Oldham situations. Its linked website, FAIR – Families Against Immigrant
Racism,[43]
claims that ‘girls and women…get abused by Muslims for
wearing attractive clothes.’
The perpetuation of these stereotypes is not to be entirely laid at the
door of the far-right. The Muslim community see little support in the
mainstream media. This is particularly well illustrated in e.g. Polly
Toynbee’s article entitled 'Cradles of Fanaticism'[44]
opposite which there was a picture of Muslim women praying.
This latter example gives an idea of the existence and level of
Islamophobic sentiment already extant in mainstream British society which
has provided the foundation for far-right strategy. In the Oldham
context, a clear battle line has been drawn by the BNP between communities
on the basis of Muslim and non-Muslim. Nick Griffin’s comments on
Newsnight above, highlight the increasing breakdown of identification of
minorities under the category Asian. This breakdown is reflected not only
in white far-right categorizations but also within the ‘Asian’ community.
Amit Roy states that:
A GROWING number of Indians in
Manchester say they no longer want to be described as “Asians” because it
places them in the same category as rioting Muslim youths of Bangladeshi
and Pakistani origin in nearby Oldham.
[45]
Muslims, the youth in particular are doubly alienated by the rise of
Islamophobic sentiment from within and without the minority communities
arena. They feel themselves to be the victims of this marginalisation.
Their perception, based on an analysis of the foregoing seems difficult to
dispel. Whilst factors of deprivation and poverty clearly also play a
role in this process, it is worth noting the results of the IHRC study
into anti-Muslim hostility and discrimination in the UK. In two surveys
in 1998 –9 and 1999 – 2000, 35% and 45% of respondents respectively,
stated that they had faced discrimination on the basis of their religion.[46]
The largest groupings in this survey were young and professional or in
possession of a university education. Within this category they also
perceived themselves to have been victims of religious discrimination at
much higher levels than the averages cited above. The perception of
discrimination amongst older Muslims was much lower. This has significant
bearing on the recommendations made below.
It is
worth noting that this profile of victims of religious discrimination
mirrors that of the non-Muslim Indian groupings that Amit Roy cites as
being, ‘well-off, professional, well-educated and integrated into
mainstream British life.’[47]
The only difference is religion, as according to Roy those well-integrated
are Hindu. It is a perceived distinction he shares with the BNP and one
which indicts the current state of anti-discriminatory legislation in the
UK.
V. Conclusions & Recommendations
A. Poverty and deprivation need to be tackled in a systematic
and equitable way. This equity should be borne out by fuller
involvement of the local community from all sectors affected at all
levels. In particular there should be transparency and
accountability with regard not only to allocation but administration
and consultancy costs. Those involved in managing and reporting
these processes bear a heavy responsibility to allocate resources
fairly, and report accurately the state of these processes. The
hitherto unequal application of regeneration and other funds in
favour of white communities by local and national authorities
coupled with the inaccurate reporting by media and institutions of
how this inequality is actually structured has doubly victimized the
Muslim minority in Oldham.
B.
Institutionalised discrimination by the police and other institutions and
authorities needs to be recognized and tackled. An independent enquiry
needs to be set up to see the extent to which Islamophobia is prevalent
within the major institutions of this country i.e. the police, judiciary,
education, politics (with particular reference to foreign policy).
C. The current Race Relations Review needs to listen and take on
board the grievances felt by Muslim minority youth. Whilst the elders of
the community who are represented by the bulk of community leaders should
also be listened to, there needs to be a recognition of youth concerns.
The latter clearly perceive themselves to be the victims of discrimination
to a much greater extent than previous generations. By refusing to
include their voices, any review will lack the ethical mandate it needs,
and will instead be seen to be massaging its findings through
unrepresentative consultation.
D. The Race Relations Act needs to be
evaluated and the limitations of its remit analysed to prevent it
reinforcing Islamophobic attitudes. Islamophobia features very strongly
in the sights of far right groups in terms of choosing their victims. By
putting out anti-Muslim propaganda and encouraging the victimisation of
Muslims they are not doing anything unlawful. If similar comments about
another faith community e.g. the Jewish community were made in this
context they would be unlawful and would not have been tolerated or
allowed to be aired. It is this loophole within the criminal justice
system that needs to be closed so that Islamophobic attitudes are not
encouraged. Muslims are Britain's largest 'ethnic' minority this
effectively means that the BNP can and have freely targeted the majority
of non-Whites in the country, provided they do so on a religious, rather
than racial basis. This is a precedent that has been set in mainstream
society and needs to be addressed urgently.
E. Programmes that aim to bring
together the various communities in Oldham need to be organised and
effected urgently. The main forums hitherto used for the intermingling of
communities i.e. the workplace and housing, have disappeared. The former
has disappeared through economic decline, the latter through a divisive
and unethical housing policy.
There is now no excuse for the government not
to act. The Runnymede Trust, the IHRC and the Derby Report into religious
discrimination have all been published. To delay any longer in the light
of Oldham and Burnley would not only be unethical but disastrous.
Notes:
[1]
See Leader, ‘When frustration erupts – The lesson of Oldham:
politics must listen’, The Guardian, 28 May 2001.
[2]
Councillor Richard Knowles and Chief Executive Andrew Kilburn (Oldham
Metropolitan Borough), letter to The Guardian, 18 June 2001.
[4]
Oldham Borough Council, Oldham Today: An Overview, op. cit.
[6]
Cited in Leader, ‘When frustration erupts – The lesson of Oldham:
politics must listen’, op. cit.
[7]
Faisal Bodi, Unpublished report on racism in Oldham based on research
and interviews during visit to the town, June 2001
[8]
Oldham Borough Council, Oldham Today: An Overview, op. cit.
[9]
Faisal Bodi, op. cit.
[10]
Oldham Borough Council, Oldham Today: An Overview, op. cit.
[11]
Mark Wainwright, ‘Spark that ignited Leeds violence’, The Guardian,
6 June 2001.
[12]
‘The land of plenty faces a shortage of tolerance’, Financial Times,
30 April 2001.
[13]
CARF Report, The Politics of Numbers: Police Racism and Crime Figures,
Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, No. 50, June/July 1999.
[14]
Raymond Whitaker, ‘Oldham is not alone. Other communities are retreating
into a form of apartheid’, The Independent, 17 June 2001.
[15]
Faisal Bodi, op. cit.
[16]
CARF Report, The Politics of Numbers: Police Racism and Crime Figures,
Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, No. 50, June/July 1999.
[17]
Interview with local community leader, who is also a Community Language
Officer in a neighbouring Yorkshire Council, 18 June 2001. Interview
with Oldham community youth worker, 4 July 2001. The interviewees
preferred to remain anonymous.
[18]
Faisal Bodi, op. cit.
[19]
Sir William MacPherson, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry: Report of an
inquiry, Presented to by the Secretary of State for the Home
Department by Command of Her Majesty, February 1999, Chapter 6,
Paragraph 39.
[20]
Dodd, Vikram, ‘The MacPherson experience’, The Guardian, 18
February 2000.
[21]
See Leader, ‘When frustration erupts – The lesson of Oldham: politics
must listen’, op. cit.
[22]
Lee Jasper, ‘Brickbats for Oldham’, The Guardian, 29 May 2001.
[23]
CARF Report, The Politics of Numbers: Police Racism and Crime Figures,
op. cit.
[25]
Interview with local community leader, who is also a Community Language
Officer in a neighbouring Yorkshire Council, 18 June 2001.
[26]
Interview with Asian member of the local community, 18 June 2001.
[27]
Lee Jasper, ‘Brickbats for Oldham’, op. cit.
[29]
Jay Rayner, ‘The hidden truth behind race crimes in Britain’, The
Observer, 18 February 2001.
[31]
CARF Report, The Politics of Numbers: Police Racism and Crime Figures,
op. cit.
[32]
Ibid. CARF elaborates: “The particular malpractices revealed arose with
the introduction of performance targets for police forces during the
1990s which brought strong pressure 'from above' for measurable results.
Much effort has gone into recording and analysing crime figures so as to
assess performance. But, as has now become clear, the actual crime
figures produced have borne little relationship to reality. Various
techniques have been devised by police forces to enable them to give the
impression that fewer offences were being committed in their areas so as
to suggest improvements in performance. For example, by changing the
category under which a crime is recorded its apparent seriousness can be
reduced; or secret files of crime records, which are excluded from the
published figures, can be employed to lower the apparent crime rate.
Other techniques have been used to doctor the figures for detection,
such as persuading those in custody to admit to other unsolved crimes in
return for favours.”
[33]
This account of the run-up to the riots is based on several interviews
with members of Oldham’s local community, 18 and 20 June 2001.
[34]
Faisal Bodi, op. cit.
[35]
Advertisement in The Jewish Chronicle June 1, 2001
[36]
Muslimelection 2001 Press Release
[44]
Polly Toynbee, ‘Cradles of Fanaticism’
[45]
‘Indians try to escape catch-all 'Asian' tag’ Amit Roy The Telegraph19
June 2001
[46]
‘Anti-Muslim Hostility & Discrimination in the UK, 2000’ Islamic Human
Rights Commission
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Faisal Bodi, Raza Kazim & Massoud Shadjareh are associated with
the Islamic Human Rights
Commission.
