In Ravaged English City, Racial Mix Was Volatile
By SARAH LYALL
But the underlying reasons for what are being called the worst race
riots in Britain in 15 years are another matter entirely. Some blame pervasive racism among whites, who make up 89 percent of the
population in this depressed former mill town. Others blame increasing
lawlessness among youths of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, who have
reportedly declared whole swaths of Oldham off limits to whites. And many point to the inflammatory presence of British nationalist and
white supremacist groups, who have been distributing pro-white leaflets
and spreading anti-immigrant messages here since April when an elderly war
veteran was beaten up by several nonwhite youths. Two candidates from the
British National Party are running for Parliament in Oldham; the National
Front has massed in the town center, threatening to march, every weekend
for the last month. "The worst part is the National Front," said Arshad Parvaez, a taxi
driver who was getting his hair trimmed this afternoon at Ali's barber
shop, behind a broken and boarded-up window near the scene of some of the
worst rioting. "On this street, we've always coexisted with whites, with
no problems. But since they've come in, people stare at you as you walk
out of your house, as you get in your car. They don't want to know
you." Whatever is going on here, events last Saturday night clearly provided
the spark. One minute, two youths were arguing outside the Good Taste
fish-and-chip shop on Roundthorne Road; the next minute, the mother of the
white youth -- some residents said she was drunk and volatile -- was seen to
pull out a cell phone and begin making calls. Soon afterward, a group of perhaps two dozen whites arrived in taxis,
clearly itching for a fight. They jumped on cars, threw rocks through
store windows, and smashed the windows of houses owned by Pakistanis and
Bangladeshis. The police began arriving, but soon nonwhite youths were gathering,
too. At the bottom of the street, dozens swarmed onto the parking lot of
the Live and Let Live pub, attacking customers, throwing a firebomb
through the window, and smashing half a dozen cars parked outside. Later,
they firebombed the offices of The Oldham Evening Chronicle, a newspaper
that people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent say exaggerates antiwhite
violence while ignoring violence against nonwhites. By the end of the night, as many as 500 nonwhite youths were battling
with police officers in riot gear, and 15 policemen and 10 civilians were
injured. With a huge police presence called in to keep the peace, sporadic
violence continued on Sunday and Monday nights, with more damage to stores
and cars, groups of whites yelling racist epithets, and 49 people charged
with assorted offenses. "It was a minor thing that started this, but it was the Asians that
were responsible," Paul Barrow, owner of the Live and Let Live pub, said
of the nonwhites, using the general British term for people whose families
come from the Indian subcontinent. "I don't think the Asian community is
doing enough for itself. Ten or 15 years ago, young people used to listen
to their elders, but now they don't." It's not really as simple as that. Until the late 60's, Oldham -- to the
northeast of Manchester -- was almost totally white. Then Bangladeshis and
Pakistanis began to arrive by the thousand, lured by the chance to take
jobs that no one else wanted, as night-shift workers at the cotton mills
that powered the local economy. But then the mills closed. And while some of the 23,000 Pakistanis and
Bangladeshis in Oldham have opened grocery stores, restaurants or curry
shops, or become taxi drivers, many are unemployed. As many as half the
young men of Pakistani or Bangladeshi descent have no work, officials say.
Some parts of Oldham, especially nonwhite housing projects, have become
known for violence and petty crime. Of the 572 incidents of racially
motivated violence recorded by the police last year, about 60 percent were
directed against whites. So when 76-year-old Walter Chamberlain was attacked by three young
nonwhites who may or may not have told him to "get out of our area" -- he
is not sure, his family said -- the incident was seized on by the British
National Party as an example of the failure of the multiracial
society. White supremacists are not the only ones who feel that way. "They want
their own little communities, with mosques and things," complained Keith
Greenhouse, boarding a bus in a white area of Oldham. "I wouldn't go to
America and force them to live my way. When in Rome, you do as the Romans
do." All this just adds to a sense among nonwhites that Britain, and Oldham,
are racist places. Leaving aside obviously provocative language, many
nonwhites say that low-grade racism is an underlying fact of life here. In
Oldham, as in many places in Britain, Pakistanis are often referred to,
simply, as "Pakis." "From my point of view, they treat us like second-class citizens," Mr.
Parvez, the taxi driver, said. "When they get into your taxi, they abuse
you sometimes. They threaten you or kick your door or don't pay you. But
when we go to the police, they don't do anything." Nisar Ahmed, another taxi driver down the street, pointed to the dents
in his taxi and described what happened to him the other night when a
bunch of whites surrounded his car and began calling him derogatory
names. "I tried to run away, and they smashed my car," he said. "They hurt my
arm. I called the police six times, but they didn't come." At the Good Taste fish-and-chip shop, which, interestingly enough, is
run by a family of Hong Kong Chinese and offers a vast array of Chinese
dishes and various types of Indian curry along with deep-fried cod and
French fries, the woman behind the counter said that she heard racist
epithets every day. "Basically, you get a lot of immature kids calling you 'Chink,' " said
the woman, 25, who did not want to give her name. "But it doesn't bother
me. I just tell them you should be proud of what you are." It is hard for many of the young Pakistanis and Bangladeshis to
maintain that sort of equanimity, said Tanvir Hussain, the secretary of a
mosque on nearby Pitt Street. "The older generation has always put up with it, but young people who
have been born and bred here just won't take this kind of rubbish," he
said. "They feel that this is their country and that they can take the law
into their own hands." Still, Mr. Hussain tends to attribute most of the blame to the National
Front and the British National Party, which he says have given voice to
the residents' worst fears and hatreds. "People come from outside of Oldham and incite the violence," he said.
"And then they leave and we're left to pick up the
debris."
LDHAM,
England, May 30 -- The one thing that everyone in this shell-shocked
community seems to agree on is that it all began quietly, with a
run-of-the-mill argument between two teenage boys -- one white, one a
Briton of Pakistani origin -- outside a fish-and-chip shop.
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