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Wednesday, 25 April, 2001, 14:03 GMT 15:03 UK
Oldham's racial tension 'nothing new'
Racial graffiti in Oldham spotlights local tensions
Following the brutal racial attack on pensioner Walter Chamberlain, Oldham Chronicle editor Jim Williams takes a closer look at a problem he says has been developing locally for years.
The racial tensions which led to the attack on 76-year-old World War II veteran Walter Chamberlain in Oldham this week have been simmering for three or four years. With significant Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations, living in similar but separate run down and depressing inner-city enclaves, the mixed Oldham community has been chafing at its edges for some time. Last year more than 600 racist incidents were logged by Oldham police and in 60% of them the victims were white.
This year has seen the stabbing of a 20-year-old man in a subway, a 16-year-old boy whose face was stamped on after he was knocked over and the attack by three Asian youths on Mr Chamberlain as he walked to his home after watching a local amateur rugby league match. In a belated response to the problem, a multi-agency team has been set up to look at ways of improving the lot of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. Education, employment, social services, leisure facilities and improved living conditions are on the team's agenda. But it will all take a long time. Too long for local white residents, who feel under attack.
Significantly, though, a recent anti-racist march, organised in response to a report that the National Front was planning a rally in Oldham, was advised to keep out of the Bangladeshi community by local leaders. The reasons extended for the racial violence have been many and varied. They range from poverty and unemployment, which leaves so many young Asian men with no prospects and narrow horizons, to a claim that the attacks are belated revenge for "Paki-bashing" inflicted on their families several generations ago. More likely, however, is the view that these conflicts are territorial, that the youngsters in the Asian communities do not have their white peers' possessions and have only the territory where they live to defend.
At its core, however, it is criminally thuggish behaviour and looking for excuses or reasons to justify the level of violent attacks experienced in Oldham recently would be a very dangerous road to tread. The violence is inspired and perpetrated by a tiny minority of Oldham's largely peace-loving Asian communities and is, in the short term, a matter of policing rather than social policy. Remedies to social problems are essential, of course, but before those remedies can be put in place the violence has to be brought to an end.
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24 Apr 01 | UK
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