The Manchester I left behind in 1997 seemed to me a place of racial harmony. Asian and white children had mixed happily in my small Church of England primary school in the city's southern suburbsAh, a liberal paradise!
But just four years later my home city was in the headlines in a way I never expected. In May 2001, the town of Oldham, which lies on the opposite side of Manchester to where I grew up, experienced some of the worst urban violence seen in Britain for decades.So, somewhere you weren’t familiar with wasn’t like your own area, and you’re shocked at that?
But of course, the main thrust of this article isn’t the author’s naivety, but how wrong all those dire predictions of the death of multiculturalism were, and how everyone got the Oldham Riots wrong:
… Lord Ouseley's "self-segregation" finding was contradicted by research by Yunas Samad in Bradford last year. Samad found that geographical segregation was a consequence of "white flight" rather than separatist Asian attitudes.See! It was us all along!
It is exactly a decade since the Oldham riots, the violence that prompted this revolution in race relations. Last week, I travelled there – and also to Bradford and Burnley – in search of an answer.Who says reporters don’t do any reporting anymore? Hope you had your shots, by the way...
The idea that one can pass through places such as Glodwick in Oldham and Stoneyholme in Burnley without seeing a white face is nonsense. I saw several white residents in the Muslims areas of all three towns.Are you sure they were residents? Maybe they were reporters on expenses up from London too...
There follows the usual selective interviewing of those all singing from the same hymnsheet, with a token few curmudgeons who just refuse to accept we progressives are right, gosh darn it:
Howard Sykes of Oldham Council is unconvinced by the argument that the town's problems can be put down to lack of opportunity. "Have we not just had 10 years of a booming economy?" he asks. "So if you follow the logic, we would have had all those people in work. And they would have only recently become unemployed. That hasn't happened has it? If everybody who is currently unemployed had a job, would all this go away? Don't think so."Wise words indeed, no doubt falling on deaf ears…
5 comments:
Also, speaking as a local, the "Asians" in a South Manchester primary school probably come from a different faith and community from those in Oldham.
So our intrepid reporter left his multicultural heaven for pastures new, but blames the current problems on 'whites' doing exactly what he did. Hmmmm. Pot and kettle spring to mind.
And for that matter, which side of the political spectrum was in power in the period 1997-2010? Any clues? Bueller? Anyone?
Near where I live there are asians who have bought houses, and then bought the one next door. The two houses have been knocked through into one. Across the road often are asian-owned houses with extensions that consume the whole garden.
It isn't hard to imagine all this property enlargement in a pleasant (if relatively poor) area is to do with large families. The question is, when the owners of these grand houses come to sell them, who buys them?
I would imagine that not many white people will do, so the likely market is going to be asians with large families. No problem with this, but it means that this particular area slowly becomes an asian area as it increases the number of enlarged houses. The multi-culti dream of mixing becomes hard to do when there is no other ethnicity there.
As the whites move out (no doubt getting reasonable prices from asians who want to be in that area near family and friends) the trend becomes an 'exodus.' In turn, this allows multi-culti fans -- the ones who usually live elsewhere -- to cry that the whites are 'fleeing' and helping turn the place into some sort of ghetto.
The area in question will probably stay largely asian as there isn't much reason for smaller families of whites and other cultures to move in.
It isn't always about the whites running away...
Interesting how you happily divide the people into 'white' ie the original people and 'asians' ie poeople from a vaste area of the world outside england.
Bit odd how you can say 'white' but not 'black' or even 'yellow'!!!
"Also, speaking as a local, the "Asians" in a South Manchester primary school probably come from a different faith and community from those in Oldham."
Good point!
"And for that matter, which side of the political spectrum was in power in the period 1997-2010?"
Surely, if they are always harking back to Thatcher, we can be allowed to remind them of this, at every opportunity? ;)
"No problem with this, but it means that this particular area slowly becomes an asian area as it increases the number of enlarged houses."
Indeed! A self-perpetuating problem. The removal of child benefit for any more than two children might halt this practice.
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