Red Action SOME UGLY TRUTHS ABOUT OLDHAM =============================== 29th April '01 As in war truth is often the first casualty in politics. As is usually the case observers appear to pick a side, and then pick a target. And there has been no shortage of targets to carry the can for the Oldham riots. Every target that is but the real one. Lib Dems rather ludicrously tried to pin all the blame on William Hague. Mainstream liberals (with a small l) tried fingering 'heavy handed policing'. Overwhelming favourite among 'community leaders' is that, as in Bradford,'outside agigators' in the shape of 'supporters of the National Front' were the sole cause of the trouble. Perhaps all shades of opinion believe that if they repeat it often enough, the ugly unpalatable facts need not be faced. Or that white public opinion, which is rarely quoted, will be similarily convinced. Fat chance. Lack of candour and the tip-toeing around the issue in 'a liberal cringe' can do nothing but boost support for far-right solutions generally, and the BNP who are standing in the election there specifically. Which is why Independent columnist Alibahai Ba Brown is surely right when she comments: "I am not one of those hypocrites who cry foul when white racism is in the news but crawl under rocks when they are called upon to criticize their own." This refreshing honesty is in marked contrast to the Socialist Alliance (SA) which described apparently indiscriminate, random, and therefore by any objective definition, racist attacks by Pakistani youth on a series of pubs in the area as "completely understandable". Does this 'understanding' also stretch to the Muslim attacks on Hindus I wonder? As well as calling for the resignation of the chief constable, the media are also lambasted as "shameful" for their highlighting of what the SA refers to as an "isolated attack" on a white pensioner. It is true that the Walter Chamberlain case made headlines, but that is mainly because it seemed to bear out rumours of 'no- go areas' for whites in the town. Moreover, while the Socialist Alliance seek to deny that the attack was racially motivated, they do not even attempt to suggest what else might have provoked it. Even more risible is the SA pretence that unprovoked Asian on white attacks were practically unheard of prior to the Walter Chamberlain incident, when in reality the talk in Oldham has often revolved around just that topic, for months if not years. Records show that police statistics which first showed Asians as the principle perpetrators in *reported* acts of racial violence, stretches back to 1993. The disbelief with which the liberal left greet such figures tends to suggest they actualy believe working class Asians to be incapable of such behaviour. The SA respond by denouncing the Oldham police as uniquely racist and calling for the top coppers head. However, similar 'Asian on white' statistics have been compiled on the Isle of Dogs by Tower Hamlets council. Is Tower Hamlets also uniquely racist? Equally, while the initial attack on the ironically named 'Live and Let Live' pub is being broadly justified across the media on the grounds that it was where some 'National Front were rumoured to have taken refuge', no explanation whatsoever is forthcoming for the further attacks on the Westwood pub in nearby Chadderton, the Dog Inn, the Welcome, the Honeywell Arms, and the Junction on the edge of the Glodwick neighbourhood. Do the Socialist Alliance warmly approve of these attacks as well? The answer presumably is yes. Tellingly, the Socialist Alliance despite boasting over 100 candidates, is not standing in Oldham. By seeming to duck the challenge of the BNP, as it infamously did in Beckton, and more recently Bermondsey, in addition to hypocrisy, the Socialist Alliance leaves it itself open to the charge of cowardice as well. It is also noticeable, that on the UK Left discussion site which is generally seen as a Socialist Alliance site, despite the Oldham riots making national headlines everywhere else, up to 9pm on Monday night, apart from the posting of a news item and the Socialist Alliance press release, there had been only one posting on the subject. And that from a Red Action supporter. One of the possible reasons for the bizarre 'hear no evil, see no evil' stance is that, hypocrisy apart, liberal anti-racism has no answers and so instinctively refuses to be drawn on the questions. On Radio Five live on Sunday night the BBC assembled a panel of experts to discuss the matter. All were agreed on the fundamentals. Asian youth were beyond criticism. Of course. It was all the fault of 'the police, media, NF/BNP white racism, and mainstream politicians'. An Asian caller who disagreed with their analysis, was shouted down. One representative of the race industry, Maxi Hales a spokesman for the Birmingham Racial Attacks Monitoring Unit went as far as to venture some solutions. Denying, outright a suggestion from another caller that 'working class whites shared similar problems to blacks', Maxi pointed out that "poor whites have 600 MP's the army and the navy to look after their interests. We have only ten, when we need forty!" he shouted. When another caller spoke of the need for assimilation another member of the BBC panel muttered that "the notion of integration was dangerous". Repeated challenges from the presenter to the panel that anti-racism had clearly "failed" were side stepped. After over an hour of hand-wringing and self congratulation, Maxi summed up proceedings by suggesting that education might indeed be the solution, "but - only - if it was race consciousness education." Perhaps he even believes it. Who knows? But as we all know there is a party standing in Oldham who would heartily champion such racially based 'solutions'. It is party equally reluctant to 'criticise their own'. So for them too, truth is a stranger. The difference is that they have picked the winning side. And what's more, the Socialist Alliance know it. News Index ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --
