BY SHRABANI BASU

The pub was ironically called Live and Let Live. On a balmy May night, it saw little of the tolerance that its name stood for. Terrified pub–goers (both white and Asian) screamed as bricks and petrol bombs came hurtling through the doors and windows. Outside about 200 Asian youth armed with anything from supermarket trolleys to bricks and bombs were screaming for their blood. Finally around midnight, police ‘liberated’ the pub.

Come summer and a spate of rioting inevitably takes place in Britain in the inner cities and economically deprived areas. As the mercury soars and the days get longer, the lads hit the pub and there is usually trouble. Rampaging youth smash shop windows, clash with police and throw a petrol bomb or two. Summertime riots have taken place in the nineties in deprived areas of Oxford, Leeds and Cardiff. In the early eighties it was Brixton, Southall and Toxteth. The usual cocktail is race, poverty and an aggressive police force.

Over a month later, the wounds have not healed in Oldham, an area just outside Manchester, in North England. A wire and plastic fence has come up in the heart of Oldham, home to a large Bangladeshi and Pakistani population, dividing the white areas from the non-white areas. The fence was put up to stop the white racists from fire-bombing the Asian areas and escaping via a certain path. It was put up by the police but it has become symbolic of the permanent divide that has happened in the community. Fences like this exist in Northern Ireland to divide the Protestant and Catholic communities. Twenty–five years on, the violence in Northern Ireland has not ceased.

The spark lit by the Oldham riots spread quickly to other areas. Burnley came next. The town is 30 miles away from Oldham, has a six percent population of Asians and no previous history of race violence. Yet three days of rioting took place in the town as White youth clashed with Asian youth and police. An Asian taxi driver was hit on the face, an Asian house with young children was fire–bombed and youths rampaged on the streets.

Both Oldham and Burnley are northern towns, home to a large community of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, who had all arrived as mill workers in the fifties when Lancashire was the heart of the textile industry in England. Ironically, these are the same famous cotton mills against which Gandhi led his satyagraha campaign and which became symbolic of foreign rule as the country boycotted English cotton and opted for home–spun during the heady days of the Independence struggle.

But for the past twenty years the mills have closed down. As Margaret Thatcher slowly killed the manufacturing industry, concentrating instead on the financial sector and the City, the famous Lancashire cotton mills passed into history. Today they sit like tombstones in the run-down deprived areas of Oldham and Burnley. Jobs are scarce, housing dismal, and as is usual with unemployment and poverty, the areas are the hotbed of xenophobia and racism.

The British National Party, an openly right–wing neo–Nazi party, has flourished in the poverty of inner cities like these. In Burnley, most Pakistanis and Bangladeshis either run shops or drive taxis. It is much the same in Oldham. Jobs in the mainstream are difficult to find and there are few options for these people. The white working class of Burnley remains impoverished and mostly on the dole. Many voted BNP, because they constantly feel that the Asians "get more than we get.’’ The ‘more’ refers to council houses and child benefit — (as Asians inevitably have bigger families). The government’s regeneration budget of £19.5 million ploughed £4 m each into the White area of Burnley and the Asian area, giving equally to both communities.

But preying on the myth of Asians getting more, the BNP increased their support in the recent general elections. In Burnley they picked up 4151 votes, 11.2 per cent. In Oldham, they picked up 11 per cent and became the fourth largest party in the area.

‘’When the BNP got over 4,000 votes, I told all my mates there will be trouble coming,’’ said Buddus Khan, a19–year–old resident of Burnley. As he had predicted the attacks came. It started with an Asian family telling white party-goers at a neighbour’s house to turn down the music at 4.00 a.m. on a Saturday. The Whites responded with threats. Soon afterwards an Asian taxi driver was attacked. Almost immediately both Asian and White youth went on a three–day rampage smashing cars, shop windows and throwing firebombs.

Ironically, Burnley unlike Oldham had no history of race riots. White and Asian communities have lived together for years. But the presence of the BNP meant it would capitalise on Islamophobia (most of the residents are Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims) and play on people’s insecurities.

Not taking into account that the Asian communities hardly ever get jobs in the mainstream, and were in a desperate poverty trap, the BNP made much of the benefits they received. Added to the attitude of the BNP, the fact that the police force was widely perceived by the Asian community as aggressive and not being there to help them, the situation became explosive. The second generation Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are not prepared to put up with the racist violence that their parents did and are prepared to take to the streets to fight. Many have adopted the worst elements of British yob culture as well.

In Oldham, there was much talk in the media of Bangladeshi youth creating ‘’no–go’’ areas for Whites. It was here in April that a 15–year–old Bangladeshi boy was charged with a racially motivated attack on a 76–year–old war veteran Walter Chamberlain. Although the family said it was not a racially motivated attack, the police insisted on booking it as one. Intense media attention focussed on Walter Chamberlain’s battered and bruised face, who was, the media said, attacked in his own country just for being White.

Police reported that 60 per cent of the 572 race crimes in Oldham in the last year were against Whites. Race-related violence had become endemic in Oldham. Asians form 12 per cent of the 2,20,000 population of Oldham, a sizeable number but still a minority. As the press reported about the no-go areas, it was clear that the BNP would make political mileage out of it. After the rioting which preceded the general elections, the BNP took its biggest margin of seats in Oldham. It became the fourth largest party in the city, news that would send the alarm bells ringing for any non–white person.

The BNP wanted to march through the city centre, but the then home secretary Jack Straw stopped their march. Their leader, Nick Griffin, a Cambridge graduate and a former member of National Front, got up on stage with a gag around his mouth to protest the fact that he was not allowed to speak on the stage in case he inflamed racial violence.

A recent report on the British race riots prepared by Liberty, Amnesty International, Charter 88, the Bar Council, Law Society and others and submitted to the United Nations, blamed politicians for raising the heat against asylum seekers for the riots. The report said: ‘’In recent months the politicians (from the government and opposing Conservative party) and media alike have been encouraging racist hostility in their public attitudes towards asylum seekers. The slandering of refugees has not only led to direct attacks on asylum seekers but also an underlying hostility to all those from ethnic minority communities, and heightened racial tension.’’

The report refers to the comments made by senior Conservative leaders in the run up to the June elections about asylum seekers in Britain and references to Britain turning into a ‘’foreign country’’ if the tide of immigration and asylum was not stopped.

But it is ironic that the current summer of race riots in Britain actually began with a riot of another colour. It was over the Easter weekend that the predominantly Pakistani-dominated city of Bradford saw Hindu-Muslim riots. Trouble began when there were arguments outside a Hindu wedding reception and some Muslims were attacked. Next thing, the fundamentalist Muslim youth population of Bradford (this is the headquarters of the Bradford Council of Mosques and the place where Muslim leaders burnt copies of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses) had gone on a rampage. They burnt the shop of Hasmukh Shah, the chief spokesperson of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which also — ironically — has its head office in Bradford. Fights broke out and three pubs were badly damaged, some cars set alight and many shop windows smashed.

By now White youths were also attacking the Asians who had initially started fighting among themselves. The BNP flourishes on sporadic violence like this where the Asian youth itself is divided on community lines. Bradford has a population of 60,000 Muslims, and around 20,000 Hindus and Sikhs. Elections in this area are often fought with one eye on Kashmir since the population consists largely of Mirpuri Kashmiris. All MPs from this region have to play the Kashmir card to survive.

When the race riots occurred in Oldham, I was in Leicester on election coverage. Leicester is home to a large Gujarati community, who settled here after they were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin. The Gujaratis have done well for themselves economically and Leicester is a peaceful city where Whites and Asians live side by side. The area famously elected Keith Vaz, the first Asian MP to Parliament 14 years ago.

Vaz’s election agent, Keith Bennet, told me proudly that Leicester would never see riots like the ones in Bradford or Oldham. The real reason, of course, was that it was not an economically deprived area and the Gujaratis had not come in as mill hands and labourers. They had come from well to do business homes in Uganda and had set up their own businesses in Leicester.

But typical of the prejudice in this majority–Hindu town, the chairman of the oldest temple in the area told me: "We cannot be too complacent in Leicester. The Muslims are moving in to some of the outer (deprived) areas, and causing problems. We have to be on our toes.’’

Indians in Britain have started campaigning that they don’t want to be clubbed as Asians any more, a term that loosely refers to people from South Asia – Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Indians. Apprehensive that the riots involving Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and the latest cricket pitch invasions by Pakistani supporters are sullying their name, they want to be known as British Indians. A lady on a radio chat show suggested that the rioters be referred to be as Muslim youth rather than Asian youth.

‘’We have nothing in common with the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis,’’ said Tara Mukherjee of the Confederation of Indian Organisations. ‘’We want to be known as British Indians.’’

They forget evidently that to the BNP skinheads, every brown skin is a ‘nigger’ or a ‘Paki’, no matter where in the sub–continent he or she comes from. They are not likely to spare somebody because he or she is Indian. n