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Of late, hatred
towards Asians is increasing and taking violent forms in the industrial towns of
Britain. In May Oldham streets turned into battlegrounds, in June Burnley
witnessed the growing militancy of the "sidelined" Asians and in July Bradford
again made the headlines for Asian fury. Prior to these, Leeds, Bradford and
Carrington were in the news when Asian Youths took to little rebellions braving
the police and gangs of white racists. The reports say that these are the worst
racial clashes in the last 20 years. At all places the British Asians had to
face the police and the white racist combine. As a result, the British police is
increasingly being viewed as a racist police. This view has forced Prime
Minister Tony Blair to come shamelessly in defence of the police. He has given a
clean card to it by saying that the British police are cent-per-cent non-racist
and impartial.
The leader of the
Tory party William Hague had openly declared that Britain had become a "land
of the foreigners" thus triggering a hate campaign against the would be
immigrants and asylum seekers. After Hague’s statement in February of this years
violence against Asians and others has increased three- fold. In this spate of
violence the Palestinians asylum seekers have been made a special target.
OLDHAM streets
went up in flames on the night of May 27 when Asian youths, provoked by the
attacks on their homes by the members of the British National Party, took on the
racists and the police in a furious way. The racist gangs of the BNP threw
bricks on Asian homes, vandalised a shop owned by an Indian and attacked a woman
during an election campaign for the BNP candidate. In the fight back the Asians
set fire to cars, smashed shop fronts and threw petrol bombs over the properties
owned by whites. The Asian youth also fought pitched battles with the police
that had come to stop them from counter-attacking the white racist thugs. The
Asians especially targeted a pub owned by a whiteman. It is said that the pub
used to be frequently visited by the National Front and BNP activists. The
rebellious Asian crowds also torched a van belonging to the police, as they were
angered by the behaviour of the British police. Instead of arresting the white
racist goons the police joined the battle on their side. The people defiantly
hurled bricks at the police and injured many policemen. The Asians alleged that
the police had started picking up Asian youth who were retaliating in self-defence
and this infuriated them even more.
The Oldham battles
between the police and Asian youth went on for three nights starting with the
weekend and was interspersed with relatively ‘peaceful’ days. One infuriated
Asian said, "you got to defend yourself when they attack you at your
doorsteps." Tony Blair quated the racial violence of the white racists with
the just violence of the Asians which was to defend themselves and their living
places. He fully defend the rascist police, while pretending sympathy for the
Asians.
The violence in
Oldham had erupted due to the increased racial activities of the NF and BNP
activists. These fascist thugs want an end to the so-called "multiculturalism"
of British society. Multiculturalism is a term concocted by bourgeois liberals
who try to pose that had there not been the NF and BNP there would be no
racialism. While the fact is that from the colonial days the British ruling
classes have had a racist approach towards Indians and other Asians, and have
utilised the fascist National Front to instigate racism in order to divert the
attention of the unemployed white youth. Though the Indians are no longer openly
called dogs yet racial clashes have occasionally rocked Britain. The NF and BNP
is the answer of the imperialist bourgeoisie to the rising trends of
unemployment and growing crises in British society. These thugs want various
races in British society permanently segregated by erecting walls between the
residences of whites and others. Two weeks after the Oldham incidents the
British authorities have yielded to the fascist agenda and erected twelve feet
wide and eight feet high steel mesh walls separating white and Asian areas. This
racist measure has blown off the "non-racist" mask of the Blair regime and the
British Imperialist State. Instead of curbing the NF menace the fascist agenda
has been implemented by the government itself
BURNLEY erupted,
after the June 7 election saga of British democracy had just ended, and nearly
four weeks after the Oldham incidents, on June 24. Here again the NF and BNP
were the immediate culprits. While the Liberal Party had accused the BNP and the
Tories for the Oldham flare-up the so-called Labour Party only accused the
"white extremists" without naming anyone.
In Burnley, a taxi
driver of Indian origin was racially abused and beaten up with a hammer by some
white men. This enraged the Asian community and they went after the white
racists. The police arrived half an hour after the attack on the cab driver.
This further incensed the Asians as they deemed it a deliberate delay on the
part of the police unwilling to apprehend the perpetrators. A battle with the
police ensued which went on till midnight.
Next morning, in a
second provocation, a group of white men walked towards a mosque hurling racial
abuses. This invited the ire of the Asians. The whites were hotly pursued and
beaten by the Asians. The conflagration further accentuated when the police
arrived on the scene to defend the white men. The Asians had to fight the whites
and the police who were on the same side of the battle line. A councillor by the
name of Rafique Malik protested against the police delay when the taxi driver
was attacked. Infuriated over the criticism by the councillor the police picked
up his son Shahid on Monday and mercilessly beat him in full public view,
including his own father. Rafique, a councillor for thirty years, has the image
of a person who serves the system as its "apologist" always telling the Asians
to abide by the law and order. His son too was working for bringing Asians
closer to the authorities. Yet, they too were not spared.
BRADFORD once
again became the scene of a big clash between Asians and the police on July 8.
It was again a Saturday as was the case in Oldham and Burnley. Saturdays are
becoming the day for rebellions. On that day, in Bradford, NF activists
attempted to march through the streets again hurling racial abuses. Asian
youths, took on the white fascists, beat them and chased them away. Then the
mounted police came and a battle royale started between Asians and the police.
Nearly 1500 youth, mainly of Asian origin, confronted the police with bricks,
petrol bombs, stones, road signs, hammers and burning torches. The clashes went
on through the whole night. More than 120 policemen were reported injured. A pub
and a club that used to be frequented by the white racists for gatherings were
burned down. A number of shops and vehicles were destroyed. A mile long
barricade of burning tyres and other things was erected along the length of a
road to combat the police assault. However, it turned out to be the worst riot,
where not only the Asians participated, but many black and white people fought
on the same side of the barricades against the police.
In mid July, Stoke
and Brixton also saw Asians and blacks clash with the police. In Stoke the
ethnic downtroddens rose up in protest when the NF announced to march through
the streets. The people came out to pre-empt the NF and took on the police which
was unwilling to take any measures against the proposed NF march. In Brixton,
when a policeman killed a schizophrenic black youth "mistaking" the toy gun in
his hand for real the black people of Brixton, South London, rose up in
protests. There are reports that the racists have killed three black youth in
the last two years. All the three had experienced a similar pattern of death.
First they were threatened and harrassed and then killed and hanged. But in all
the three cases the police closed the files by saying that those were cases of
suicide while all the three had reported to the police that the white racists
had threatened them and that they feared for their lives. Wherever the white
racists are active the people generally complain about the partial attitude of
the British police going to the extent of helping the racists and highhandedness
and callousness towards the Asians, Blacks and Palestinians.
The Observer says
that the fascist NF has a "secret plot to stir riots" by staging marches in the
month of August in a number of cities with huge Asian and black populations.
Especially, the September 1st rally by the Anti-Nazi League in Burnley is on the
NF target list.
In these
conflagrations it was mainly the Pakistani and Bangladeshi youth that were in
the forefront. Indians have mostly desisted from the fights. There is a small
section in the Indian community which wants to be called British Indians and not
British Asians. A section of the British press too has attempted to create a
wedge between the Asians. But most of the people of Indian origin resent this
attempt. It is true that most of the Indians are relatively better off yet they
want to be associated with their Asian brethren, especially in these times of
growing racial attacks and growing fascism. In the past, Indians have always
been there in the frontlines. But, while Asians fight against humiliation, the
governments of these Asian countries are silent. The Indian government, for
example, is more pre-occupied in pandering to the interests of the rich NRIs
than defending the self-respect of the poorer Indians based abroad. As the
crisis further deepens the fascist attacks of the NF are bound to bring broader
sections of Asians, blacks and even the no-stake-holder whites into
confrontation with the white facists and the police machinery of the monstrous
imperialist system of Britain. In many instances the race riots are turning into
class riots as an increasing number of unemployed and poor white proletarians
are beginning to come on the streets to clash with the police.
Blair’s lies about
the non-racist character of the British police have been clearly exposed. The
Bradford events show more than the others do, that the police deliberately allow
the white racists to incite trouble. In Bradford the authorities had banned the
NF from marching on the streets yet the police did not prevent them from doing
so and only attacked the Asians who were retaliating against racist provocations
and assaults. When Oldham erupted the government had said that they were unable
to prevent the NF and BNP activists from campaigning for their candidate as "in
a democracy it cannot be done." Now the NF is being allowed to create plague in
one after the other city and the government is helping it implement its fascist
agenda. The highhandedness of the police has grown and it is increasingly
showing its fascist and racial teeth. Asians have given it a worthy fight. The
increased unemployment among the Asians is bound to raise their fury to higher
levels. Further fascist attacks of the NF and BNP may give rise to more massive
and militant confrontations on the British Isles. The younger generation of
British Asians is unlike their fathers and don’t believe in offering the other
cheek to the oppressor. Now their resolve is, " if they come after us, we
will go after them.
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