IMMIGRATION-THE BETRAYAL OF BRICK LANE
BY MULTICULTURALISM
INSTEAD OF INTEGRATION
An important new book
analysing the effect of
Mass Immigration
on
London’s East End,
finds
Rage and Resentment
among ALL communities and
asks
Deeply disturbing questions.
SATURDAY ESSAY
by
Andrew Green
THE TITLE won’t appear on any bestseller lists still less
be a favoured choice for holiday reading. But last week saw, a publication of a
book, which has the potential to shake our political Establishment.
Trevor
Phillips, Head of the Commission for Racial Equality has described it as ‘one
of the most important books he has read for a long time’.
He is right. The
book, The New East End, takes the lid off a society deeply troubled by massive
immigration over the past 30 years.
It has lessons
for us all as we move on from naïve multiculturalism to confront the real
problems of our inner cities, especially the disaffection of some
second-generation immigrants.
We hear
constantly about supposed benefits of immigration, but these accrue mainly to
the middle classes who welcome the influx of cheap labour that provides them
with domestic help and low-price restaurants.
NOW THIS BOOK
brings home the heavy price for such complacency paid by the white working
class, who are in the front line of the conflicts that develop and are largely
ignored by the political and media classes.
Though it
focuses on London’s East End community the profoundly important issues that it
raises could equally apply to ANY of our major post-industrial cities, where
uncontrolled immigration has given rise to tensions between communities.
Rather than
repeat the usual accusations of racism, it provides a refreshingly frank
account of the real consequences of a too-rapid pace of immigration.
The thrust of
the book seems to have emerged by accident. The authors from the Young
Foundation, a think-tank on Social Issues, were following up a study of working
class life in the East End conducted in 1950’s.
That study resulted
in a seminal book,
‘Family and Kinship’
-which threw
light on the tight bonds within and between families which had held Cockney
Society together through thick and thin, and became on the of most influential
non-fiction books of its time.
The aim of the
new study was to see much that same social landscape had changes over 50
years. Would those same bonds of family
and kinship still exist?
The answer quite
simply was ‘no’
The researchers
were taken aback by the deep well of bitterness they uncovered among the white working
class population, in particular towards the Bangladeshi community around them.
Instead of sweeping these feelings under the carpet, as
so many previous studies have done, this one recognised their existence and attempted
to understand them.
Many of those
who were hostile to the Bangladeshi community as a whole got on quite well with
them on a personal level.
It was the
competition between communities for scarce resources that generated the
friction.
Housing
Education
Benefits
-were the
major areas of conflict, as they were, no doubt in other British cities?
The East Enders
of Bethnal Green used to be a particularly closely-knit society. They had
always been poor but were proud. They
were especially proud of their - often heroic - contribution to the war effort
when the docks were the prime target for German bombers. They had experienced, as
a result that the post-war era would bring them the reward they felt they
deserved.
Things did not
turn out like that. Most housing in
Bethnal Green was council housing and used to be allocated largely on the basis
of a waiting list. The result was
that the longer-term residents were given the priority they felt was their due.
Young couples might spend the first few years of marriage
living with their parents but then able to move out into housing nearby. As a result, the extended family system was
preserved within its own locality.
National Housing
Policy changed in the early Seventies so that houses were allocated on need, not
on a waiting list principle.
The effect of
this was that the Bangladeshi families which were then starting to arrive in
large numbers, could demonstrate a greater housing need -for reasons that I
shall come to -and were moved to the top of the queue.
This infuriated
the locals. One elderly man told researchers:
‘The Asians definitely get a lot of preference here. We’ve
got people who’ve lived in this borough all their lives, and they can’t get a
place. But when the Asians come here they get something quickly.’
In theory, Bangladeshi families were not supposed to
be admitted to Britain unless their relatives could provide accommodation for
them.
What happened in practice was that new arrivals would stay with their
family for the first year until they were granted residence. They would then
declare themselves homeless and the local authority would be obliged to house
them.
Young white families
were forced to move out of the area, so the system of extended families broke
down and grandmothers, previously the hub of family life were left behind, often
in isolation.
The Bangladeshis
also had their complaints. They felt with some justification, that they were
offered the older and more run-down properties.
They also found
themselves in far more crowded conditions than their white neighbours, partly
because their households were very much larger (the average number of dependent
children was seven times higher for Bangladeshis than for whites).
Education was
another serious bone of contention. Traditionally the white working class had
not been much interested in education. Most of their jobs were manual and were
found through family or personal connections. Qualifications mattered little.
By contrast,
Bangladeshi families were extremely keen on education, seeing it as a way out
of poverty for their children. But first, they needed to learn English. The local authorities provided substantial
extra help for this purpose, but this was seen by the white community as
favouritism.
Resentment became
all the stronger when Bangladeshi arrivals had an impact of its own.
In the 1971 Census
Bangladeshi children hardly figured, but by 1981 a third of pupils at primary
schools in Tower Hamlets were Bangladeshi and by 2004 that figure had reached
two-thirds.
The Bangladeshi
pupils, especially the girls, worked hard and did well despite the difficulties
stemming from poor housing.
But the white
population did not see things in the same way. They did not want their own
children to be a minority at school.
Some parents
manipulated he system to get their children into schools, which were largely
white, such as the Roman Catholic schools. Others sent their children out of
the borough and still others simply left the area altogether.
The result
sticks out like a sore thumb. In 2002 some schools in the area had 90 per cent
Bangladeshi pupils while others had fewer than 10 per cent.
Many children
can now pass through the education systems without encountering many pupils
from he other main ethnic group living in the same locality. This obvious
failure of
MULTICULTURALISM
-will surely
hold dangers for the future.
There must be countless people throughout Britain who
share at least some of the East Ender’s views and who are tired of being
accused of mindless racism.
The authors of
this study have found a clear correlation between the age of white respondents
and their hostility to immigrants but they came to the view that this reflected
the East Ender’s commitment to their local origins.
Most of the
older white people were born and bred in the area. Many felt that not only was
society in general losing its direction, but their own little corner of Britain
[ENGLAND] was changing for the worse.
That it was
taken away from people like themselves and given to those of other countries.
By contrast, the
yuppies who have moved into the new Docklands area are much less concerned
about the influx of immigrants. But
their higher qualifications enable them to escape whenever they wish, so they
can afford to take more ‘principled’ view of the problems of the area.
Thus a Central Government Housing Policy, which looked
entirely logical to well-meaning professionals in Whitehall often left older
working-class East Enders feeling isolated from their family roots and
strangers in their own land.
This new book’s
frank appraisal is a breath of fresh air. The problems the authors identified
are certainly NOT confined to Bethnal green.
In many parts of
London a similar process is under way as the flow of immigrants accelerates
under the present [Blair] Government. And the disturbances in the Northern
Cities in 2001 speak of similar tensions there.
For while the
authors are honest about the effects of such immigration on the indigenous
population, they are equally frank about the problems involved for this new
immigrant community brought by the sheer weight of numbers coming in from abroad
EVERY YEAR.
AT SCHOOL,
migrating children were heavily outnumbered in the early years, and were often
bullied. Immigrants in some housing estates were harassed until they left for estates
that had become mainly Bangladeshi.
In one year 90
per cent of Asians offered housing on predominately ‘white’ estates refused to
go there.
So the Asians
formed gangs to take on the white gangs that were harassing them. Meanwhile,
well-intentioned anti-racist experiments had little chance.
One young male
Bangladeshi told researchers:
‘I did a course
on
‘Tolerance and
Diversity’ at the Youth Club. It was designed to counteract racism by
working closely with white youths.
‘The Course did
not last long. We got into more fights with these white boys.’
Indeed, by 1998
more whites in Tower Hamlets were reporting themselves as victims of racial
incidents than were reported as perpetrators.
Immigration has
not, by any means been the sole factor in the enormous changes that have taken
place in East London. But the New Report
makes clear that it has been the Central Social Issue for a generation.
The East End has always been a gateway for immigrants,
but it is the sheer pace of change that has created much of the difficulty.
The Bangladeshi
population of Tower Hamlets increased from fewer than
3,000 in 1971
to
65,000 in 2001
And, nationally foreign immigration has trebled under the
present [BLAIR] Government to over one third of a million in
2004.
No society can integrate immigrants at such a pace. We
are simply building up problems for the future.
It is the
failure of integration that this Report highlights and it is this failure,
which holds serious dangers for our society.
Consider the
atmosphere of fear and suspicion, described in this book, which is the climate
in which young British Muslims are often brought up. Add to that a widespread
distaste in the Muslim community for many aspects of British society -drunkenness,
the breakdown of family values, and so on.
Then add the propaganda
to which many of them are subjected about the hostility of the West to Islam.
They hear endlessly
about Christians invading Muslim countries, unquestioning American support for
Israeli opposition of Palestinians, and so on.
Perhaps it
should not have come as a shock that volunteers could be found to conduct
suicide attacks against civilian targets in Britain. Still more ominous are polls that show some 5 per cent of British
Muslims apparently supporting the principle of the attacks.
Many people are deeply concerned and are asking questions
what can be done.
The first step
must be to stop ducking the issues and face the facts.
THIS BOOK
‘THE NEW EAST END’
IS A VALUABLE
START.
BBC- PLEASE NOTE.
The Today Programme,
the vanguard of Radio 4, carried an item on this research. BUT the word ‘IMMIGRATION’
did not pass the presenters’ lips and was mentioned only ONCE by the
participants. The casual listener would have thought they were talking about
HOUSING POLICY.
IT IS TIME THAT THE
BBC Management
-
TOOK A SERIOUS LOOK AT THEIR FAILURE TO PROVIDE THE
IMPARTIAL COVER OF THIS SUBJECT
-
WHICH IS NO LESS THAN THEIR DUTY AS
PUBLIC BROADCASTERS.
THE SECOND IS TO GO WHERE
OTHERS FEAR TO TREAD NAMELY TO MAKE A LINK BETWEEN THE SCALE OF IMMIGRATION AND
OUR SUCCESS OR OTHERWISE IN ACHIEVING INTEGRATION.
[The courage of the BBC to
make this move will in fact help the very people who they wrongly believe need
their SILENCE as time is running out for effective measures to be taken for the
benefit of ALL who live in our great country.]
To continue:
HERE there is an ISSUE, which applies particularly to the
Indian sub-continent. Large numbers of second and even third generation
immigrants are bringing their wives and husbands from their country of origin rather
than choosing partners from their on immigrant communities or the wider
population.
The effect of allowing
immigration for this purpose is to set back integration by a generation. It is
time to move on in the longer-term interests of society as a whole.
The picture is by no means
all gloomy. There are some second and third generation Bangladeshis who are succeeding
some staying with their community and others moving out. But the authors
express concern that those who are unable to find work will slide into a
demoralised underclass if inner-city poor.
In a recent speech Gordon
Brown told us that British Muslims are twice as likely to be jobless, twice as
likely to be on low incomes and twice as likely to live in a deprived area. He
called for greater focus on tackling these inequalities.
Indeed so, BUT PART OF THAT
FOCUS must be to avoid an already struggling community being continuously increased
by immigrants who speak little English, are often poorly educated and ignorant
of British culture.
THE CONFLICT AND RECENTMENT
THIS BREEDS IS NOW CLEARLY SET OUT BEFORE US.
Sir Andrew Green is Chairman
of Migrationwatch UK.
[NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION!
NOT IN THE FUTURE WHEN IT
WILL BE TOO LATE TO PREVENT THE VIOLENT BREAKDOWN IN OUR COMMUNITIES]
WILL THE BBC TAKE THE LEAD
AS IT HAS DONE IN THE PAST WHEN OUR COUNTRY WAS FIGHTING FOR ITS LIFE IN ANOTHER
BATTLE TO SAVE OUR NATION AND ITS PEOPLE AND ITS VALUES?
SUCH A BATTLE IS AGAIN
BEFORE US BUT IT COMES FROM WITHIN AND THE PEOPLE TOGETHER MUST FIND THE
VICTORY.]
Decision
‘Once to every man and
nation comes the moment to decide.
In the strife of Truth with
Falsehood for the good or evil side.’
J R Lowell. The Present Crisis.
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