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From: New Worker Online
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 3:53 PM
Subject: [pttp] Blunket's "British test" sparks outrage British news item - 14/12/2001.
Blunket's "British test" sparks outrage. by Daphne Liddle HOME SECRETARY David Blunkett last week plunged into political controversy when he tried to anticipate the report of a government-commissioned inquiry into race disturbances in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley earlier this year, by calling for ethnic communities to make more effort to integrate into British society and to learn to speak English. The inquiry, headed by Portner Nottingham City Council chief executive Tom Cantle, spread the blame for the race disturbances far and wide. It found that in some areas white and immigrant communities live "parallel lives" separated in housing, in schools and in cultural activities. It is this separation that gives rise to ignorance mutual mistrust and jealousy over central and local government improvement grant. Each community is convinced the other is getting a better deal when in reality they are both suffering extreme deprivation. Tom Cantle said: "I was aware of course tha people live in separate areas. But when physical separation of housing is compounded by a complete lack or contact though education, through social and cultural networks, through any other contact at all, then it does become a complete and absolute separation parallel lives -- no contact with one community to another." One of the inquiry team Ahtsham Ali, of the Halifax based Himmat project, said he was surprised by the "horrendous poverty" and disaffection in white communities in Burnley and Oldham. And David Hey of the Dewsbury-based Muslim community-based group, the Salfia Association, described some white working class communities as "rudderless ships". Many of these while working class communities have suffered economic collapse as Britain's manufacturing base has been run down and mines have been closed. The report also blamed a wide diversity of projects and initiatives aimed at improving the situation but which lacked consistency, were often dropped prematurely and ended by creating tnore confusion. It blamed police forces Forgiving low priority Lo community initiatives. The extreme separation of communities outlined in the report has come about over many decades for many reasons which include racist housing policies practised in The Past by some local authorities and immigrants feeling more secure among their own community. In the past, efforts to integrate culturally have been rebuffed by the white community. For example, West Indians arriving in Britain in the 1950s anti 1960s were not often made welcome among while Christian congregations -- and so set up their own churches. Blunkett's remarks give the impression that the immigrants are largely responsible for the separation because of their refusal to integrate. This view panders to the misconceptions of many white racists -- that anything bad that happens to immigrant communities is their own fault for refusing to integrate. Bill Morris, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union was quick to respond. He told Radio Four's Today programme: "I think what we are seeing here is the long-established principle of politicians a spot of bother, you blame the victim, get your retaliation in first!" "It seems to me that our Home Secretary has managed to declare war on judges, the police, the House of Lords and on his own side in the Labour Party. "For the moment I say to our Home Secretary, "please just calm down, you've got a lot of friends. Don't make enemies'." Others expressed concern that Blunkett's remarks would give comfort to the extreme right wing. Rhiad Ahmad, the deputy mayor of Oldham, said that if Asian Britons lived in single race ghettos, it is because of poverty and deprivation, not self-segregation. "I can visualise the British National Party putting up election material at the next election quoting words from Mr Blunkett," he said. And indeed the BNP has declared that it wouid use Mr Blunkett's remarks in its electoral campaigning literature. The Cantle report did blame the BNP for exploiting the alienation among the white working class in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley. But it did not point out that the immediate cause of the riots was a series of marches in those towns announced by the National Front with the deliberate intent to stir race riots. The NF, being very short of members, did not even bother to turn up at all these announced marches. It relied on the news of its intentions to bring all the local white racist extremists out of the woodwork to gather and start trouble. Local police forces were to blame for allowing these racists to parade through immigrant areas, intimidating and assaulting local people, without hindrance. It is no wonder the local Asian communities felt they were under attack with no one to defend them but themselves and that youths from those communities came out to fight the racists and the police. The Cantle report is right to point out that ethnic separation and the poverty and deprivation of both Asian and White communities is at the root of the problem. The report accuses a wide range of bodies for this. Blunkett chose to pick the immigrant communities to blame for failing to integrate. This approach will only make matters worse. ======================================================================
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