Races apart; In the wake of the Oldham riots Anvar Khan reports from

Sunday Herald, The, Jun 3, 2001 by Anvar Khan

Essentially, Oldham is dull. Chips come with gravy and the peas are always mushy. Here, the Mancunian drawl has a lethargy. It's not usually a city of extroverts. Nothing changes. All the redbrick terraces look the same, and there are faceless rows of them. White doors, white double-glazing, and a handkerchief of a front lawn. Nothing ever used to happen in Oldham. 

But now armed response vehicles are driving in circles around the town centre. Policewomen ride horseback. Uniforms sit on motorbikes. Sirens flare. There's the constant drone of helicopters. Fire engines are on stand-by. Indian and Bengali restaurants are refusing to operate a take-away service. They won't deliver to white areas. They think a phone order under any name is a racist trap. A city centre club is 70% down on its usual takings. Manchester cabs are refusing Oldham fares. They think their cars will be smashed up. The inhabitants of this city are becoming alienated and paranoid. Racial strife is undermining everyone's freedom. 

The town seems separate from the bright lights and thoroughfare of busy Manchester. It's nursing fearful thoughts. Oldham houses around 15,000 Muslim Pakistanis, a similar sum to Glasgow. Yet the city is small, and Asians live within a three mile radius. Geographically, a perfectly manageable target for extremists. The National Front and the British National Party have put forward two candidates for election this week, and are trying to drum up support. Far right- wingers do not canvass anywhere in Britain with such intensity. Asian taxi driver Anjum Khurshid says that Oldham has always been a favourite campaigning ground for racists and a scene of attacks on Asians. 

Wasim Ali, 25, a retailer, remembers his uncle talking about working in the cotton mills. "He was jumped every week for his wages. Eventually he pulled out a knife. Others eventually took chilli powder to work to throw in attackers' eyes." 

Assertiveness has always been necessary within Oldham's Asian community. The constant incitement to racial hatred is an Oldham legacy. Generations of any family testify to a history of racist incidents. They were used to defending themselves during periods in British politics where the needs and problems of the ethnic population were ignored, and did not enjoy the attention they now merit. 

Anjum Khurshid observes: "There's been a lot of tension, especially over the past year. Asian youths used to have to guard their houses at night from thugs. There has always been anger at the police who take two hours to respond to the reporting of a racist incident and five minutes to respond to a white call. It erupted last weekend because Asian youths want to make their point: that they won't accept abuse. But the riots will not happen again. They made their point and won't repeat it." The authorities don't agree. Four fire engines are currently stationed in Oldham town centre, alongside police in full riot gear. Six more engines are backing up police in the nearby Asian Chadderton. Wasim Ali said: "Every night some Asian taxi driver gets twatted. It's part of life. Asians are used to taking a beating. But if someone smashes up your shop, whatever colour you are, you will defend your territory." 

Last weekend, 40 racists marched on Roundthorn Road, in the heart of an Asian area. They vandalised a shop and dragged a pregnant women from her house where she had sought refuge, and hit her child. Wasim explains: "The coppers turned up and the whites ran into the Live and Let Live pub. That's why it got smashed." 

The aggravation of the Asian community continues. In the early hours of Friday morning, in Denton Lane, Chadderton, the home of the Deputy Mayor of Oldham, Riaz Ahmed, 48, was petrol bombed and Greater Manchester Police are treating the arson attack as racially motivated. Ahmed is not just another Asian victim of right-wing racism. He is suitably high profile because he is about to become Oldham's first Asian mayor. A Vote Labour leaflet in red and yellow is pinned to an upper window of his bungalow. 

Yesterday Oldham city council sent a formal letter to Tony Blair asking for investment money. The Prime Minister responded with a promise of his "personal interest". 

The President of the British Pakistani Muslim Association, Ahmed Munir, said yesterday: "We are discussing with the council how to solve our problems. Around 40% of our young people are unemployed. We are in a very bad situation. We don't know what to do. We need funding. The National Front keep advertising on the internet, asking people to join them. We are not supportive of rioting, we want calm, but for the past few months police attitudes have not been that good." 

In Oldham, Asians have to play football on a bowling green because there are no amenities. Houses for sale in Asian areas cost #20,000 for a two-bedroom. Similar properties go for #80,000 elsewhere. "The riot didn't kick off just because of unemployment," says Wasim Ali, "there's been no jobs for years. Politicians say we need regeneration. Money to put 500 more coppers on the street. Why? We need to change the attitudes of the ones we've got." 

The police are despised here. Youths call them the "Oldham shitheads". But it's not that the force merely represent the unacceptable face of authority. "I saw a programme the other night where a guy was arrested for shouting racial abuse," says Wasim, his eyes wide with shock. "That never happens." He goes on to recite numerically impressive episodes of police apathy. "When Stoke City played Oldham, a policemen set a dog on a Bangladeshi. A woman was chanting, 'If you want to kill a Paki, clap your hands', and the police didn't even look at her." 

The Asian community do not trust the police because the force do not arrest or charge white people who actively promote racism. "The days when you can call us Pakis and get away with it, " says Wasim, "are long gone." 

Interestingly, there is a more official mood of antipathy currently towards the police. After being ordered to work alongside riot police in Oldham, Greater Manchester Fire Brigade fear they will be branded as "forces of oppression". Union boss Bob Pounder says his men are being forced to work with a "paramilitary force" and that this could damage their reputation within the community. 

He added: "There should be a definite demarcation between us and the police because people think we are part of this kind of oppression. This is a paramilitary force assembled in Oldham and when it's all over we are left alone in the community." Perhaps subconsciously confirming the perception by Asians that the police too readily accommodate extremists and those who support them, he concludes: "Our strongest asset is our neutrality." 

In Oldham, the definition of racism has been turned on its head. The police record all incidents between black, Asian or white as being automatically racist. The figures exploited by right-wing groups are meant to infer that white people are suffering racial attacks. Black on white crime currently runs at 60%. But a racial motive behind this figure remains to be proved. And anyway, Asians don't report racist crimes. 

Kaleem, 26, a bouncer who works in Manchester and who lives in Oldham, says: "If a gang of Asians attack a white, it's because he's been involved in another incident against an Asian." Here, there are over 190,000 whites, which is 87.4% of the population. Pakistanis make up over 6% and Bangladeshis 4%. There's no question of who is in the minority. The infamous "no-go" area of Oldham is essentially the curry mile with a mixed population. Someone wrote "No whites there" on a wall. The white and Asian areas are specific. Chadderton and Werneth are black. A couple of weeks ago, the BNP and the NF met in the Oldham Tory club nearby. A spokesman said he didn't know who had rented the hall. "There's no black in the Union Jack" and "Whites Have Rights" were the nursery rhymes repeated within earshot. 

Limeside and Fitton Hill have no Blacks. The Holts Estate and Alt Estate are BNP and NF recruiting grounds. Although one white tenant with two children on the Alt Estate said yesterday: "I'm scared to let my children out to play, there's vandalism everywhere and gangs of youths wanting trouble." These youths are not Asian, they are white and they support right-wing extremism. The BNP and NF effectively increase their numbers by recruiting among the criminal element. 

At present, Oldham is mostly boarded up. Last week's riot and the fear of further unrest has caused shopkeepers to shield their windows. A two-mile car trip revealed 10 public houses covered in wood. "Whites are pissheads," says Kaleem. "They work all week and then piss the money away at the weekend getting drunk. They're all inbred in there." 

Three twentysomething skinheads and a woman in white stilettos and stonewashed denim walk into the Druid Arms. Premises operating as Nazi watering-holes have been burned, although certain pubs have been burned down by whites knowing that Asians will be blamed. Wasim Ali is familiar with the rhetoric and mindset of the racist. He thinks they are stupid white trash. He says: "They tell people, 'Pakis are taking your girlfriends, how long is it before they nick your missus, they drive Porches and BMWs, they are taking your jobs, they are taking over here. Do you want your country back?' And they are believed! If they take 50 votes from Labour, that's 50 more people behind them. That's how they see it." 

He remembers being caught up in the riot last weekend. "That going off, it's like a film, it's crazy, you shit yourself. No-one cares what they do." 

A white policeman involved in the stand-off on Waterloo Street, where a policeman received burns from a petrol bomb, confessed: "I've never been so scared in my whole life. I went to school with Asians, never had any problems, and now, I'm wearing a uniform, but I still have nothing against these guys." 

In Oldham and Glasgow, Asians bicker and fight amongst themselves. Young men hang out in gangs. Sikhs and Muslims clash. Here, two religious groups are integrated and united against fascism. Wasim understands that Scottish Asian men have travelled to Oldham to support the current struggle against the pervasive authority of the right-wing extremists and the police. "It's just the Glodwick lads really. If we wanted help we'd ask Manchester or Birmingham." Ali doubts that riots could explode in Scotland because the regularity of racist attacks is the catalyst. "There's not the racial tension in Scotland that we have here." 

However, like Oldham, Glasgow's Asians tend not to report racist abuse or attacks. If organised extremists challenged the Scottish Asian communities, given their comparable mistrust of the police, it's possible that young Scottish Asian men might react autonomously too. Wasim Ali is on call on his mobile, and he and his pals will go to help any Asians in Glodwick who need back up. "The BNP and NF haven't been around for a year, they come back for the election, so now we say, 'Fuck it, that's enough'. The police are not giving our lads any protection. They do nothing. They are not worth my piss. 

"If the BNP can attack a pregnant woman and a kid they are capable of anything. They say that every English man's home is his castle, well, so is every Asian's. All we are doing is defending our own neighbourhood." 

CATCH UP Last year police recorded over 600 racist incidents in Oldham - 60% of victims were white. Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities are separate but both inhabit rundown inner-city areas. 

Over the past year, "no-go" areas have developed, raising tension between the Asian and white communities to an all-time high. 

This has been aggravated by a large National Front presence in the town. 

Last weekend up to 500 Asian youths fought running battles with police, leaving several people seriously injured.

Copyright 2001
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