Muslim colonialism in Bradford

This report,  'Race Relations in Bradford' ,  was drawn to my attention by Joe 90,  a regular on this blog,  in response to my recent post about racial tension in Beeston.  It is part of the Bradford Race Review which was commissioned by Bradford City Council and led by former CRE Chairman,  Herman Ouseley, after the race riots of July 2001. (Note the date - the riots occurred before 9/11.)

The report was written by G.V. Mahony,  who was the council's Principal Race Relations Officer from 1984-90.  Drawing on his experience, he makes a number of  observations about the Pakistani community in Bradford.

He also draws a distinction between immigrants and colonists,  which is something that I had not considered until now:

Immigrants come to a country expecting to change their lifestyles.  They can and often do maintain key elements of their culture for generations, particularly their religion, but in many ways they adopt the dominant culture in such aspects as work, dress, leisure, housing and family composition.  Colonists do not, they come into a country to displace the existing culture and establish their own.  Colonists impose their language and customs.  Once these facets are established, further incomers become immigrants accepting the society they enter.

This is a useful distinction.  The European colonists sought to conquer and impose their way of life on their countries.  Once they had done so,  they reinforced their position with further waves of immigrants from the mother country.  The immigrants to the USA,  by contrast,  kept some of their customs but on the whole, accepted American culture and values.

Mahony continues:

From colonist to immigrant is the dominant pattern historically, however, this process seems to be thrown into reverse in Bradford.  The Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities now expect to recreate the environment of their country of origin.  They have settled in village patterns which reflect their origins and they constantly reinforce this by bringing in new members from the country of origin.  This, in turn, leads to spatial and social immobility, communities which are internalised on themselves and are relatively self-sufficient in social and cultural terms although reliant in many ways on the economic and government resourced infrastructure.

So the Pakistani community in Bradford is behaving more like a colonial outpost than an immigrant community.  It is establishing its own area and then bolstering its position with new arrivals from Pakistan.  Once you understand this,  a lot of other things start to make more sense:

Not all Muslims in Bradford want Muslim only areas.  Traders, retailers, restaurant owners want and need a broad-based custom profile.  However, there is a drive amongst the mosque-attending older generation who would like sharia areas.  There is also the minority of highly disaffected young men who want to control their patches.  These two opposite ends of the spectrum desire the same thing albeit for different reasons and it is likely that they will support each other in order to attain their goals.

The refusal of Muslim youths to let whites cross  "their" park,  reported in this Washington Post article,  reflects this drive to consolidate and expand the colonists' territory.  Protests against pictures of semi-naked women on advertising hoardings near mosques and opposition to outdoor drinking areas in "Muslim"  parts of town,  are similar manifestations of this territorial impulse.

Militant Islam has given this colonialism an ideology with which to inspire its soldiers.  Many Islamists make no secret of their desire to turn Britain into an Islamic state. The people who bombed the London Underground came from the colonial communities described by Mahony.  Their bombing campaign is an extension of the turf wars that they have been fighting up in West Yorkshire for years.  They have progressed from stopping white kids from crossing the park to stopping Londoners from using the tube.  This is not to suggest that all Muslims in Bradford support terrorism. However,  youths from such a community start from a position of suspicion or hostility towards the native population,  making the leap to terrorism much easier.

Redefining communities like the Pakistanis in Bradford as colonials rather than immigrants helps us understand what is going on in some of the northern towns.  Two things surprise me about Mahony's report,  though.  Firstly,  that its findings were not,  as far as I can tell,  reported anywhere in the mainstream press.  Secondly,  that he got away with saying such things in a report led by a former CRE chairman. 

This is not a piece of hysterical scaremongering.  It was written by a former Race Relations Officer.  If anything,  he is more likely to have pulled his punches than to have over-stated the case.  If he reckons that the Muslim communities are trying to  "recreate the environment of their country of origin"  in Britain,  then we had better sit up and take notice.

Comments

[Laban Tall]

You may care to have a look at my take on this - indeed a fascinating document.

http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_ukcommentators_archive.html#112223647021007288

[Steve]

Yes I saw that Laban and I meant to refer to it in my post but I got carried away.

[FransGroenendijk]

In this dutch post on Fortuyn (http://www.fransgroenendijk.nl/reactieding.php?id=33_0_1_0_C)
I wrote in april 2002 (shortly before he was murdered) I made a similar comparison of "new Dutchmen vs colonists".
I was very critical towards Fortuyn (and I am still) mainly because of his abolutism, admiration for Berlusconi etc.
Beside that a politician can not confine himself to focus on problems. We need at least an effort to come with solutions, policies.

In the meantime I think it is important that the wishful thinking of the Ken Livingstones of this world are opposed.

[john b]

Yes, how dare people like Ken be optimistic about the potential for racial integration?

Oh, wait a minute: in London we have successful racial integration. The problems Mahony describes are unique to the mill towns of Lancashire and West Yorkshire. They need solving, but bringing Ken into the equation is utterly meaningless.

[Joe90]

But do we have successful racial integration in London, John?

In many areas, yes. People of different races work together, play together, form relationships, get married, have children (not always in that order, mind).

But in a few areas, no. Do you think that Tower Hamlets shows successful racial integration? Twenty years ago and more, white racists made the East End a dangerous place for Asians. Asians were beaten up, murdered, and burnt out of their homes.

Now the boot is on the other foot. Over the last three to four years, Bangladeshi gangs have carried out racist attacks on whites. These appear to be increasing, especially in the Bethnal Green/Columbia Road area. The Pride of Spitalfields pub has been firebombed by Bangladeshi gangs three times (although there may be a financial motive here rather than an outright racist one).

Meanwhile, Tower Hamlets council has, among other things, attempted to sell Limehouse Library to the Bangladeshi government at way below its estimated market value, has providing funding for businesses in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh, and has, through Ocean Housing, promoted Asian-only housing for elderly people.

These do not strike me as symptomatic of successful racial integration.

[steven andresen]

I'm not sure the immigrant/colonist distinction helps. I thought a colonist was more someone who went to a place where there was relatively nothing, and had to bring their culture. They maybe thought of themselves as having to be self sufficient. An immigrant is someone who need not be recreating a society.

Wouldn't your Pakistani communities just be immigrants who are unwilling to compromise on certain issues. I'm thinking of the young men, who want their turf, instead of giving it up to others.

A good test might be to look at the experience of others in the community. The shopkeepers don't want to refuse business from outside their communities. Do parents refuse to get insurance? Do they keep their children from going to non-pakistani doctors or clinics? Does the Pakistani community refuse to use microsoft? Do they refuse to learn how to drive cars? I suspect a fuller picture would undermine the distinction completely.

My norwegian grandmother was an immigrant, who wasn't able to maintain much of her own culture, except she held on to her language. My Dad had many school yard fights about being a foreigner, but didn't learn the language of his mother, joined the navy, got married to non-norwegian, etc.

It seems this distinction may obscure as much about assimilation as it reveals about racial or ethnic divides.

" Do they refuse to learn how to drive cars?"

No, neither do they refuse to use all taxpayer funded facilities, in fact they are so enthusiastic about them they bring in their extended family to enjoy maternity hospitals & schools.

fuck off u white sob cock sucker....u fags deserve death

[Tim Willsher]

bangladeshis run majority of east london...whitechapel, brick lane, stepney green, aldgate, shadwell, bethnal green, eastham, forest gate, manor park, poplar, limehouse, even north london drummond street posse and cromer street massive are both dangerous bangladeshi gangs...they are fighting each other now days and word on the street is that they are thinking of attacking the pakistanis in eastham.

[chachi]

i see the poster above Tim willsher hasn't given a name, whats wrong? couldn't think of an asian sounding name?
Tim - the bangladeshi gangs don't have the financial clout that the pakistani gangs have, they may be all over the place but they don't run those places, the pakistani gangs are beginning to rival the turks in the drugs trade, the turks run the heroin trade....for the moment, but pakistani gangs have direct links with the source, afghanistan is accross the border. In time it'll be Paki vs turk in the street, not bengali's.

[diddi diddi]

Codswallop.

Islamic fundamentalist clans from bangladesh already control the heroin trade between Turkey and Europe.

The silly little gangs fighting on the street are just the bottom end of the distribution network.

Solution ? Round em up and ship em out.

[Martin]

I, as a liberal, have been accused of racism for 30 years over assorted dinner tables.
The fact is, muslims are here in most cases as colonists.
My family were eased out of a part of Maidenhead 35 years ago when muslims made it clear it was now their area.
It must be hell up North, as it is in Slough.

Martin