The most important aspect of the Cantle report was the statement that said people in Britain were leading "parallel" and "polarised" lives where people from different backgrounds did not mix, and warned that ‘segregation, albeit self-segregation, is an unacceptable basis for a harmonious community and it will lead to more serious problems if it is not tackled.’ The Community Cohesion Review Team recognised that some communities felt particularly disadvantaged and argued that the ‘lack of hope and the frustration borne out of the poverty and deprivation all around them, meant that disaffection would grow.’ The recommendations made by the Cantle report includes following which provides the foundations for my own research:
‘A very frank and honest analysis of the nature of the separation and poverty of the Pakistani communities and how this has influenced racial tensions should be undertaken at a local level’ (Cantle, 2001).
One of the most influential papers on ethnic minority segregation in a British context is Peach’s (1995) investigation ‘Does Britain have Ghettos?’ in which the segregation of ethnic minority communities is measured using the 1991 Census data. Peach discovered that there are high levels of Pakistani segregation from the white population, and also from all other ethnicities (except Indians) without exception. She argues that the Pakistani population is highly segregated in privately owned homes of a poor terraced variety, in depressed working class areas. Furthermore, Peach suggests that the clustering of Pakistani housing is due to the Muslim religion, language, halal dietary requirements, cousin marriages (Ballard, 1990) and Punjabi or Kashmiri village orientations which all favour strong network contacts which are preserved by geographical proximity.’
The bulk of discussion however can be found in local newspapers, where the impact of the Bradford riots and the daily outbreaks of racial disharmony within the city can be seen. The national media interest and the passion with which these subjects are discussed, illustrates the importance of race and racism in Bradford. While the Cantle Report offered a comprehensive overview of a huge number of influences on the rioting of 2001, there is still a sizeable gap in the literature into how segregation and deprivation influenced the troubles, which merits further research.
Research Questions and Methodology
This study will be organised around three main research questions. Firstly, what happened in the period before and during the Bradford riots? Secondly, how did spatial segregation of the Pakistani community contribute to the lack of interaction which is suggested as a major cause of the Bradford riots in 2001? Finally, to what extent is the Pakistani population of Bradford spatially segregated and deprived?
The data for this project was collected in the Manningham area of Bradford, within the Undercliffe enumeration district where the outbreak of violence occurred (See Map 1). An analysis of the 1991 census data for Bradford showed that the Undercliffe area has the highest Pakistani population in the city, and was therefore the obvious location for the investigation to be conducted.
Qualitative research methods, namely semi-structured in-depth interviews and participant observation, were used as it was necessary to record individual’s feelings on a number of sensitive, emotive and impressionistic issues. In total 12 interviews were carried out with the members of the Pakistani population. The main bulk of these were done with local families, which proved useful due to the fact that the voices of a number of age ranges within the family unit could be heard. The interviewees were recruited initially by a close personal contact that organised my first interview. From this, a ‘snowballing’ effect occurred due to interviewees recommending friends and neighbours who would be prepared to answer my questions. Members of the white population in the area were also interviewed. The interviewees were recruited by delivering letters to a selection of local residents in what are considered to be the ‘white’ residential areas. These letters were then followed up by personal visits. All the interviews were carried out in the homes of respondents to allow first hand observations of the environment the respondent was referring to. Residents were asked about the characteristics of the area and local facilities, whether they perceived the area to be racially segregated and deprived, and how this affected social relationships between Pakistani and white communities in the area. Furthermore, respondents were asked whether they felt that they were living ‘parallel lives’ to the other ethnic groups in the area and how this may have contributed to the social unrest and lack of understanding witnessed during the Bradford riots.
Participant observation was another research method used to obtain in-depth information. For a period of two weeks I used the opportunity provided by a personal friend to play for an all-Pakistani football team in the area. Due to the sensitive nature of the research topics and to obtain un-biased opinions, I conducted my investigation covertly and asking questions in a friendly and non-confrontational manner in an effort to ensure my underlying intentions were not discovered.
Interviews were also carried out with some significant community elites; a member of the Bradford Trades Council (BTC), the founder of the all-Asian Manningham cricket club, a school headmaster and a local doctor. These respondents were recruited by sending out letters and following them up with telephone and Internet interviews or personal visits. Letters were also sent to the Undercliffe local councillor and to the head of the ‘Bradford Vision’ programme. However, no response was received and attempts to chase these up proved futile. Finally, quantitative methods were used to study the city. Data from the 1991 census was used to determine the levels of ethnic segregation, and the areas where this was most focussed. Furthermore to discover any disadvantages facing these segregated areas, deprivation scores were calculated and analysed.
My positionailty as a white male meant that conducting these interviews might well have had an effect on interviewees’ responses in some cases. While this was unavoidable, any findings need to be considered in light of this positionality.
What happened in the run-up to and during the Bradford riots?
The majority of respondents emphasised the fact that the Pakistani and white communities in Undercliffe lead completely separate lives. Detached from any opportunities for interaction between them, and have little desire to initiate any. Clearly, in this divisive atmosphere, there are opportunities for overtly racist groups to make some headway.
When the British National Party (BNP) mass-leafleted the Undercliffe ward in 2001 it became apparent to local anti-nazi activists that it would stand candidates in the general election in June. It became clear that the stated intention of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, to target council seats was informing the party’s tactics. John Brayshaw stood for the party in the general election in Bradford North and received over 1,600 votes – narrowly failing to return his deposit, and although the votes came from across the constituency, there were clearly pockets of support in the Undercliffe ward.
One white respondent pointed out that the areas they targeted most significantly were ‘relatively white and rundown areas where racial tension had been made worse by the council reorganising the schools and sending white kids to the 99% Asian Carlton Bolling secondary school.’ A mother whose child was forced to go to the school gave her experiences of the situation: ‘predictable problems over turf and bullying made life hell for him, him and his mates were getting beaten every day and having all their things nicked.’
The BNP took advantage of the situation here and ran campaigns about ‘rights for whites’ and ‘stop racial assaults’ arguing that white youngsters were being racially attacked by Asians. One respondent stated that the party went as far as ‘giving my twelve year old son leaflets outside the school gates saying how we should send them [Asians] back home and how they are robbing your mum and dad of a living.’
Such an aggressive and overtly racist campaign was guaranteed to provoke what the BNP had wanted most of all: racial tension. One Asian respondent did recall how the situation turned abusive on the back of the BNP campaign, ‘we were getting out of the car one night and a gang of white boys started throwing bricks at me, my wife and my children and shouting horrible things at us.’
Another Asian interviewee recalled having to cope with unimaginable torment,
‘My grandmother and I were getting dog muck put through our letter box and there were kids as young as eight coming into our gardens, pulling their trousers down and shiting on the grass, telling my grandmother to eat it…we live in hell…we haven’t done anything wrong it is the racist thugs which are ruining our lives.’
Whilst the older generation of Asian residents in the area opted to withstand such terrible abuse, the teenage Asians refused to put up with this increasing racism and decided to adopt a vigilante approach to the situation. A member of the Manningham football team openly admits his involvement in the riots, but says he did so to ‘protect the rights and freedom of the whole Pakistani community.’ He stated that the heightened level of racial tension in Undercliffe had led to ‘gangs of youths driving around the streets looking for fight after fight without any provocation, just on the back of the stories they had heard from others.’
Another respondent from the football team remembered being in a gang fight the week prior to the main Bradford riots. He stated that he was ‘fed up with having to put up with all the shit that the Pakistani community had to deal with’ and felt that it was ‘about time we did something once and for all, and show the whites we’re not willing to lay back and take all this rubbish that’s being thrown at us.’ He stated that white youths were coming from as far afield as Batley and Dewsbury (10 miles away) to start trouble and taunt Asian youths and he points out that everyone knew ‘something big was going to happen sooner rather than later’ and hinted that the riots had been planned months in advance, before the BNP’s overtly racist campaign: ‘we had all worked out what was going to happen ages ago…we were going to stand up for ourselves and fight back against the racism here long before the BNP started slagging us off.’
On the 7th July 2001, the violent confrontations between Asian youths and both the police and white youths began. The ‘touchpaper’ had been lit by a minor skirmish in Manningham the previous day involving several Asian and white youths, and had resulted in the stabbing of a 16-year-old Asian boy. This attack proved to be the final push which was required to initiate the mass rioting witnessed during the following three days.
The 7th-10th of July saw Asian youths taking part in armed combat with the West Yorkshire police, ripping apart walls and buildings to provide themselves with bricks and metal to throw at the police. Shops, pubs and car garages were smashed up and set on fire, whilst residents in the surrounding areas saw their homes being targeted with missiles and firebombs. The Bradford riots of 2001 saw the streets of Manningham filled with 400-500 rioters, causing an estimated £10 million worth of damage and causing injuries to 326 police officers and 14 members of the general public. The media coverage of the riots in the Bradford newspaper Telegraph and Argus immediately blamed the troubles on the ‘Asian drug dealers and evil Asian troublemakers that are tearing this city apart.’ The newspaper went on to suggest that many of the problems found in the city were due to an Asian population which was ‘ungrateful…arrogant… and ignorant to the needs of the law abiding Brits.’ The newspaper was heavily criticised in the aftermath of the riots for inciting further tensions by using racist undertones in its reporting of the troubles, and was severely reprimanded by the Press Association for ‘biased, unfactual and often racist reporting of a sensitive situation.’
The summer of 2001 will be remembered for the worst case of rioting the city has ever experienced and a case in which, as one Pakistani resident stated, ‘the effects of Pakistanis leading socially, spatially and culturally segregated lives from the white population were so painfully evident.
How did spatial segregation influence the lack of interaction between Pakistani and white communities which is suggested as a major cause of the riots?
When I was investigating the issues related to the spatial segregation of the Pakistani community in the Undercliffe ward, it became clear that whilst in the literal sense of the term ‘spatial segregation’ there was indeed a clear pattern of Pakistani communities being geographically distinct from the white population (see Table 1), it is the social effects of these ‘spatial severances’ from the white community that has been the most important force in developing the racist tensions and promoting the kind of disharmony witnessed during the riots. Perhaps more importantly, this study uncovered widespread segregation in terms of how each community chooses to spend their socialising and leisure time. The lack of opportunities for each community to mix and/or the refusal to venture out into the ‘unknown’ and open up their communities to each other, clearly helped increase the lack of tolerance and lack of community cohesion which was painfully evident in the city during the summer of 2001.
The respondents in this study, black and white, surprisingly had a great deal in common in terms of their perceptions of why each community doesn’t appear to want to interact with the other. Furthermore, many expressed a desire to make moves towards integrating some of their activities into each others communities, and therefore allowing both the major sections of the Undercliffe population the opportunity to develop an understanding and tolerance of each others cultures and lifestyles.
The issue of a lack of interaction between the Pakistani communities and the white population was a problem which was frequently reiterated by both Pakistani and white interviewees. Every respondent interviewed stated that there is little chance for both communities to interact in an effort to improve social relations between the two groups. During the research conducted on the Manningham football team, an all-Asian team for over a decade, there was the perception amongst all the players that the white community didn’t want to mix with Asian citizens in the first place,
‘…They’re not bothered anyway, they’re much happier keeping themselves to themselves and want nothing to do with us…for most of them they think that we’re below them and lesser people so they don’t want to be seen associating with us’
However, this perception of white attitudes was not given justification when a young white resident explained the problems he encountered when he tried to join the local cricket team in Manningham and attempted to mix with the Pakistani team members,
‘I turned up to training one night and I was surprised to be the only white person there…I didn’t like it actually cos none of them wanted to seem to talk to me and no-one said hello or welcomed me. They didn’t put me in the team for ages but even when they did I felt bad cos then I felt like I had taken one of their friends places and stopped them from playing which they seemed to resent’
Several of the football team respondents suggested that they enjoyed being isolated from the white community as a football team, and felt that an all-Asian side meant that anything they achieved attracted greater publicity purely because they are an ethnic minority team.
‘It’s a good thing that were an all-Asian team cos it gives us a good community spirit and lets the team get on better…a white player wouldn’t fit in…and when we won the championship two years ago we were all over the papers because we were all Asian players…it gives us something to be proud about and show the white people what we can do…I don’t want to lose that pride by having a mixed team.’
The segregation of white and Asian leisure time was witnessed further during my visit to the Manningham cricket club within the Undercliffe ward. Mohammed Sidat, the 50-year-old founder of the club arrived in Bradford in 1962 aged 10 and after discovering the difficulties involved with joining a local white team he decided to found his own club in 1975 with the purpose of providing the opportunity for both Asian and white players to play together. However, since it’s founding the club has gradually become an all-Asian side. Indeed, the lasting impression I came away with was the fact that Manningham have an all-Asian team – it must be only three or four years since I can remember there were only one or two Asians playing there. Mohammed expressed his dismay at the situation: ‘I’m disappointed that we have become an all-Asian team…what we need is a better mix, we don’t want all-Asian or all-white teams – we want people from all backgrounds to mix together.’
However, in complete paradox to this, when asked what would happen if I wanted to join the club Mohammed suggests that I would not feel very welcome,
‘If you came to play for us you’d be very isolated…it’s very difficult to break in and be part of the club with its different ways and different cultures…a lot of the lads would be uneasy about it because they’re all such good mates…it’s the same if I went to play for a white club…but we’ve never said we’re an all-Asian team…in the past we’ve had English players and people from the Afro-Caribbean communities, but they don’t last long because it’s very difficult.’
There is evidently a political dimension, though Mohammed expresses it cautiously. He argues that his priority must remain in ‘establishing the community interests’ and that ‘as long as the league is run by white middle class people’ there will be little scope for changing the current situation. Furthermore, whilst Mohammed dismisses the tone of the infamous ‘Tebbit Test’ as ‘stupid’, he says such questions might be more relevant now: ‘At the end of the day, your heart and soul must be where you’re born and bred and where you’re going to live all of your life. I’d love to see Asians born and bred here supporting England in football and cricket.’
Whilst the majority of Asian and white respondents I interviewed indicated that they would be much happier in the current situation of white and Asian communities living ‘parallel lives’ (Cantle, 2002) the Ashraf family offered perspectives which gave me some hope. Nadeem Ashraf, 30, came to Britain in 1989 and moved into a house in Manningham which had been bought thirty-five years previously by his father.
Nadeem emphasised that his religion is very important to him, but he doesn’t believe that this should stop him from getting on with his white neighbours and the rest of the community, ‘my Grandad used to teach us that you need to go to the mosque, you need to be a good Muslim. I strongly believe in my own culture…but this hasn’t stopped me from making friends with white people.’
He points out how he has benefited from having good relations with his white neighbours,
‘It’s mostly 50-50 round here, we get on with each other very well but it’s the youngsters that spoil it for us…I don’t find any difficulties between balancing being a good Muslim and living here – our next door neighbour is a Christian and we often have dinner parties or baby-sit for each other…we have learnt so much from each other over the years…we have always said that it is the youngsters in Manningham that need something to push them and help them get a get a good career…they are the ones that are currently causing all the problems.’
The notion of the areas youngsters being at the root of Bradford’s problems was brought home to me as I walked around the immediate area a few hundred yards from the Ashraf family’s home. The area is characterised by terraced housing – ‘95% Asian’ according to Nadeem. After taking some pictures of children playing in the street I was somewhat menaced by a gang of Asian youths in a powerful, noisy car in ‘gangsta rappa’ garb who proceeded to use foul language towards me. I ask Nadeem about this and he says,
‘It’s sad to say but there’s loads of drugs. It’s on my road especially around the launderette on the end…it’s worse at night, it all started when they opened the snooker hall…it’s getting worse, none of them are interested in making the community get on with the whites. They’re wanting to be marginalised further and get more ghettoisation, and at this rate they’ll get it.’
Nadeem had used the word ghettoisation in an earlier conversation to describe the segregation of the Pakistani and white communities in the Undercliffe ward. I had assumed he meant it pejoratively, but when he uses it again I suddenly realise he might mean it approvingly and I ask him if this is so, ‘yes’ he says, ‘I think it is the way that people here want to live.’
If Nadeem is correct, it may be fair to suggest that the Pakistani community in Manningham appear to have lost hope in ever finding a solution to overcome the lack of socialisation between them and their white neighbours which is a result of the spatial segregation in the area. They appear to have accepted the situation as a permanent feature of their lives, and an issue which will never fade from existence.
Manawar Jan Kahn, a member of the Manningham Residents Association pointed out that the lack of interaction is largely due to the ‘non-existent’ provision of suitable opportunities made available to both communities,
“There is a desperate need for clear leadership and new initiatives which are properly managed for the first time...not just done on a whim and a promise and then someone gets bored of doing it and thinks up some other magical plan...they need to be seen through until the end...Bradford is very good at so called visions, strategies and initiatives but very poor at making them work at ground level. Questions remain to be answered as to what difference the strategies put forward since the 1995 troubles have made.”
The recent race review published in 2002 and conducted by Lord Ousley was also suggested as an example of yet another vision which may fail in the same way. Manawar points towards the deprivation in Undercliffe as a major force which needs to be addressed by the report and needs to be made the main policy priority,
“No-one is excusing the violence of last summer, but nor are we blaming our communities for a future that leaves them behind - isolated and deprived of aspirations. The race review by Lord Ousley is yet another glossy publication, but once again the test now is how it is going to have an impact on the residents of Manningham within their daily lives and improve their levels of socialisation with the white communities”
What is the extent of segregation and deprivation in the Undercliffe ward?
The 1991 Census indicated that Bradford’s South Asian Population numbered about 65,450 making up 14% of the city’s total population. 48,900 of these were of Pakistani/Kashmiri origin. This represents the second highest concentration of people of Pakistani origin in Britain. The Undercliffe enumeration district in the city has a population of 15,550, an increase of 2.7% since 1991, and is a residential focus for ethnic minority citizens living in Bradford, with 12.8% of the ward’s population being of Pakistani origin - a figure which is the third highest out of all the Bradford wards.
To understand the statistical evidence supporting the claims that the Undercliffe ward has high levels of ethnic minority spatial segregation, the 1991 Census data was used to calculate the indices of dissimilarity (ID). This measures the distribution of two different populations over the Undercliffe enumeration area, and has an index which runs from 0 (zero segregation) to 100 (complete segregation). The values can then be ‘directly interpreted as the percentage of one group which would have to shift its area of residence in order to achieve an identical distribution with which it is being compared’ (Peach, 1995). By comparing the distributions of the Pakistani and white populations of Undercliffe an ID score of 65 is obtained. This suggests that the Pakistani population of the Undercliffe ward is highly segregated, and would require nearly two-thirds of the Pakistani population to move if an even distribution is to be obtained, and it is clear that the statistical evidence from the 1991 Census certainly provides weight to the argument that Undercliffe’s Pakistani population is spatially segregated.
Paul Mezaros of the Bradford Trades Council argues that the area is not only highly segregated by ethnicity, but also heavily deprived, and a pocket of exclusion in the city which is deeply ingrained into the community. He blames this on the city’s economic failure: ‘Bradford has suffered from deep rooted deindustrialisation and is blighted by falling into the shadow of other towns and cities which have managed to establish a niche for themselves in the developing post-industrial economy.’
He believes that Bradford has failed to break through these disadvantages, partly through lapses in local leadership and partly through the racist perceptions of entrepreneurs and skilled workers who otherwise might have chose to ‘invest, live and work in the city.’ Consequently, the Undercliffe ward residents have witnessed a spiral of low wages and low spending, evidenced by low and falling house prices and a huge degree of dereliction in the area. Furthermore, the shocking statistic showing that the ward has over 200 houses which do not have, or have to share a bathroom, illustrates how the ward is suffering great deprivation and a lack of taken-for-granted amenities. The Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) uses the Index of Multiple Deprivation to measure the social inequalities found in towns and cities throughout the UK, and they state that the Undercliffe ward falls in to the worst 20% of the most deprived wards in Great Britain.
Unemployment in the area is persistent, with the long-term unemployment rate (over one year) at 25% in 2002. Equally, the ward has a very high youth unemployment rate, which stood at 20% in the most recent council survey of 2000. The unemployment rate in Undercliffe is well above the district average of 16%, and with 50% of the ward’s population classed as ‘manual workers’ compared to the Bradford average of 45%, a low wage community begins to emerge.
Sheila Moore of the Bradford Housing and Resident Association points out that housing in the area is certainly inadequate: ‘the housing in the Undercliffe area is poor, even derelict...the ward’s in the worst 10% in the country’ [as measured by index of multiple deprivations].
A lack of investment in the housing found in the Undercliffe area was a problem which was emphasised by a local estate agent,
“No-one wants to live here, they live here because they have to...it’s one of the cheapest places in the city but it is also the most run-down. There’s too much crime and people are scared to live in an area which is blighted by the scourge of drugs and drug abuse.”
An explanation for the condition of housing in the area can be developed by noting the fact that 12% of all housing in Undercliffe are Housing Association properties and 13% are privately rented. Several respondents saw the cause of neglected properties as being down to the fact that the housing is not owner-occupied, but instead belonging to the council or to a landlord: ‘Most people aren’t bothered if their house is in a bad way - it’s not theirs forever and they can move out whenever they want so they have no need to look after them.’
The low wage economy which is evident in Manningham is perhaps a cause of this large number of rented properties which are left to fall into a state of disrepair. Several residents I interviewed pointed out that they cannot afford or are refused mortgages because they don’t have the means to pay it, and are forced to turn to the rundown rented accommodation for housing. A number of interviewees blamed the landlords for the properties falling into disrepair. They suggested landlords are only interested in money, and asserted that a much better ethos of caring for the area needs to be developed by local property letters,
“The gardens are a disgrace and the landlords are responsible for that but they just don’t bother...as long as they get their money at the end of the month...they just want to make money out of the desperate and poor people here.”
The physiological effects of living in a rundown and depressed area cannot be understated when investigating the causes of the Bradford riots. All of the residents I interviewed mentioned feeling trapped in a scruffy and desperately poor council estates with nowhere else to go, and where the opportunities to turn things around are few and far between. Several interviewees even compared the Bradford riots to the fall of the Berlin Wall, asserting that the troubles were due to the people of Manningham finally ‘standing up for what they deserve and telling the government that they are not prepared to live as second rate citizens.’ The extent of the dereliction found in the area was reported by the local newspaper during a campaign to win the necessary funding for a clear-up programme,
“Undercliffe looks and smells of deprivation...it looks like a scene from Great Expectations...closed curtains at lounge windows, often filthy and usually ill-fitting, gardens like reclamation yards and streets strewn with litter...a general air of neglect...is this how we want to live in 2002...we saw what happened here last year with the riots and violence all down to the lack of hope and aspirations of those who see these sights every day.” (Telegraph and Argus, 2001)
Poor health endures in the area. The health improvement campaign identified an overall premature death rate in Bradford of around 50% above the national average. The residents of the Undercliffe ward agreed with the assertion that the area is more susceptible to poor health and suggested,
“It’s the cost...we can’t afford to eat the good stuff we have to get what we can and make do...my husband is ill now and I can’t afford to buy him the things he needs...it’s the same for a lot round here you only have to look at the kids and see how skinny they are to know that.”
However, in paradox to the suggestion that Bradford’s health authority is failing its citizens, the 2002 British Medical Journal’s survey of the quality of care and service in hospitals throughout the UK, found the Bradford Royal Infirmary (the city’s major hospital) to be the 3rd best in the country in terms of waiting list times and the quality of care received. However, a number of interviewees stated that the Undercliffe ward was suffering from a distinct lack of investment in its primary care trusts and general practice surgeries. One local resident pointed out that the surgeries in Manningham must be the last place any young and aspiring doctor would want to work due to the number of drug abusers which must visit them. An anonymous GP from the largest practice in the ward asserted that he spent most of his time ‘dealing with the soul destroying results of heroin abuse’ and stated that the lack of quality care in the area is due to:
‘…The simple fact that we can’t get any half decent doctors to move into the area and work here…the cases we deal with are not those which any ambitious medic would want to take on…we don’t offer a cushy practice with middle class patients, we deal with the depressing effects of poverty.’
Indeed, the issue of poor diets within the community was taken up by the headmaster of a local junior school who stated that ‘the vast majority of kids here come from very poor backgrounds...90% of our pupils are entitled to free school meals and uniforms.’
The headmaster talked of a community in which there is no hope for the future and little chance of improvement without the correct initiatives,
“It’s one of the most depressing aspects of my job...seeing children who haven’t eaten since they left here at 3pm and returned at 9am...is this how Great Britain looks after its future...if nothing is done the children sat in this school today will continue the cycle of deprivation that their parents are already trapped in.”
From the interviews I conducted it is possible to paint a bleak picture of Undercliffe in 2002, and as a result the area qualifies for various Government and European Union funding programmes that seek to tackle social exclusion and regeneration. However, as Paul Mezaros suggests, these programmes in themselves can further the racial tensions found in this depressed area,
“Without launching into a polemic about the well chronicled failure of these schemes, one point should be borne in mind: the competitive nature of all this funding often results in different communities fighting to gain their monies, leading rightly or wrongly to perceptions of favouritism...and one result of this is the often repeated assertion in some white communities that ‘those Pakis get all the money’.”
What we are left with in this study is the scenario that in this badly deprived, run down area of a de-industrialised city, racist explanations for this unacceptable state of affairs have become commonplace. The opportunities for racist groups to exploit the tensions and enrage the disaffected youth are plentiful, and the chance to show the rest of the United Kingdom the extent to which the city is polarised, the huge levels of poverty and the lack of hope and aspirations in Bradford are abundant, but calls for help are expressed in such a sad manner.
Discussion
An analysis of the views of the people that have been directly or indirectly affected by the Bradford riots has shown that the spatial segregation and the deprivations experienced by both the white, and the Pakistani populations of the Undercliffe ward, heavily influenced the racial tensions and social unrest witnessed during the riots of 2001. The situation is depressing: Pakistanis and whites reluctant to make efforts to reconcile their differences and take the first steps to obtaining understandings of each others culture. The analysis has uncovered a great deal of racist activity in both the white and Pakistani populations. Neither side is willing to ‘let their guard down’ and allow each other the opportunity to develop the understanding and attitudes which are so desperately needed in the city’s hugely divisive and racist atmosphere.
Bradford is a city gripped by fear: fear of people talking openly and honestly about problems across different cultural communities because of possible repercussions, recriminations and victimisation; fear of leading and managing effective change because of possible public and media criticism; fear of challenging wrong-doing because of being labelled “racist” – and this applies to all ethnic groups; fear of crime because of media cries of “race crimes”; fear of confronting the gang culture, the illegal drugs and the growing racial intolerance that exists; and a fear of confronting whites and Muslims about their contribution, or rather the lack of contribution to social and racial integration.
The interviews I conducted and the statistics I collated have helped to paint a depressing picture of a run down, deprived and racist city which has huge economic and social problems but no solutions. However, I also uncovered a multi-cultural society which is desperate to heal the rifts between the different faiths and cultures, and a society which longs for a city in which the cultures of all communities can be intertwined, tolerated, understood and enjoyed, and ensure that Bradford turns into the vibrant and dynamic city that it once was.
The lack of interaction and community relations in Bradford was an issue which was clearly apparent in all of the interviews I conducted. The Bradford riots were heavily influenced by the parallel lives which operate between the Pakistanis and white communities in the city. Interviewees emphasised that they have little contact with people from different cultures, and it was clear that the vast majority of perceptions held on the Pakistani population were severely misguided. There was a consensus amongst all the respondents that the something has to be done to foster good community relations. Furthermore, it was emphasised that if nothing was done to develop a great deal more interaction between Pakistani and white communities, scenes such as those seen in the summer of 2001 will be repeated again and again. A Pakistani respondent in the Cantle Report (2001) summed up the divisive atmosphere in Bradford, and certainly provides the perfect soundbite to conclude my findings:
‘When I have finished at this meeting I shall go home and I will not see another white person until we meet again next week’ (Cantle 2001).
Any future attempts to develop an understanding of the factors which influence racial tensions and social disharmony, must appreciate that this research has highlighted a number of highly significant and influential factors which urgently need to be addressed. By failing to address these issues, any efforts to build a ‘cohesive community’ in Bradford, and in towns and cities throughout the UK, will ultimately fail as the deep-rooted causes of ethnic minority communities leading completely separate lives to their white counterparts are being ignored. This research has added to the literature Peach (1995) on the segregation and ‘ghettoisation’ of ethnic minorities in Britain. Perhaps, most importantly, this research has answered Cantle’s (2001) call for an in-depth investigation into the social effects of ethnic spatial segregation in Bradford and how this may have contributed to the racial tensions evident in the riots of 2001. This study has also added a new dimension to the work undertaken in the social sciences by academics such as Hudson (1998) on the inequalities, economic disadvantages and deprivations faced by ethnic minority in the UK, and has uncovered the real, and often depressing situation, that many Pakistanis find themselves trapped in.
This analysis has focussed on the case of Bradford, but the issues it unveils illustrates the significance of the effects of the spatial segregation and deprivation on racial tensions and community relations in a multi-cultural city. Understanding the causes of similar outbreaks of violence in Blackburn, Oldham and Burnley during the summer of 2001 may also benefit from investigating segregation and deprivation as one of the primary influences on the riots.
Bradford has a generation of Asians, discarded for their class, excluded for their race, stigmatised for their religion, ghettoised and forgotten, it has found its voice – but it is yet to be heard.