Oldham, near Manchester, has a population of 220,000 people. Asians from the Indian subcontinent form about 12 percent of the population, according to official figures. In Westwood a majority of residents are Bangladeshi, and many of Glodwick's residents are of Pakistani origin.

Halfway between these two neighborhoods a group of about 50 rightists had assembled to march, answering a call made by the National Front, a fascist organization, to defy a government order banning this march and all political processions in the town for a period of three months.

The city deployed more than 500 cops in what their commanding officer, Chief Superintendent Eric Hewitt, described as "zero tolerance" policing. The police presence turned the town center, which would normally be crowded with shoppers during the public holiday weekend, into a ghost town.

The previous weekend, fascists, masquerading as supporters of Stoke City football club, which was playing in Oldham, carried out attacks on properties of Westwood residents. "The fascists came into our area singing, 'Clap your hands if you hate the Pakis,'" said Ali An, 18. "When we responded, the police attacked us. I had to have three stitches after a policeman clubbed me with his truncheon," he said, as he bent over to show his head wound. "As they beat me, they also called me Paki." Ali reported that young Asians are routinely harassed by the police.

Three weeks earlier, on April 19, the Greater Manchester police issued figures claiming that 62 percent of racial attacks reported in the Oldham area were committed by Asians against whites. Police chief Hewitt announced that there was "a very real danger" that Asian youth would try to establish "no-go areas" to exclude whites. In February Hewitt had remarked, "We cannot hide from the fact that the trend of racial crime in Oldham is continuing to rise.... Sometimes the motive is robbery, but often it is just violence. The attackers are gangs of Asian youths aged between eight and 18."

Hewitt's statement followed the release by Scotland Yard last October of national figures, claiming, in the words of the Daily Telegraph, that "more whites [have] become victims of racially motivated crime." The police have been trying to recuperate ground lost following the killing of Steven Lawrence in London. A government-sponsored inquiry into his death charged the Metropolitan Police with being "institutionally racist." Since then the police say they treat an incident as racially motivated if the victim or a witness say it is.

"Sometimes drunken white gangs come into Glodwick and make trouble," said Khaled, who like many didn't want to give his second name. "The police don't do anything. After we kick them out of the area, the police say to them 'who attacked you?'" The police then write up the incident as a racist attack on whites.

A major media campaign, initiated by the Oldham Chronicle and taken up by the national press and TV, followed an April 21 assault on 76-year-old Walter Chamberlain, who was attacked in an industrial estate adjacent to the Westwood residential area. The issue became a prominent talking point in workplaces up and down the country. A 15-year-old Asian has been arrested and charged with robbery, causing grievous bodily harm, and racially motivated grievous bodily harm.

"Asian youths attack D-Day veteran, 76," was the headline of The Times of London. "No-go Asians attack veteran," claimed the Daily Telegraph. His son Steven though denied that it had been an anti-white attack. "It was a violent assault on an elderly man," he said in a television interview. "As a family we don't think it's a race issue at all--it's an assault"

Going door-to-door in Glodwick and Westwood, this reporter found that residents were eager to condemn the attack on Chamberlain. "It was a mugging," said Khaled. "Mugging is thuggish. We don't like this. No pensioner should get mugged. But the media has hyped it up with all the talk of no-go areas. There is a small minority of antisocial types in this community as there is everywhere."

Claims of no-go areas were similarly rejected. Aisha, a student at Manchester University, came to the door with her father, Hussain. "I have friends of different nationalities and backgrounds who come and visit me," she said. "None of them ever have any problems. Have you had any problems wandering around this area?" she asked.

Hussain pointed out that the News of the World had published a map with an arrow pointing to where the attack on Chamberlain had occurred. "They said it was in Glodwick to back up their claim that Glodwick is a no-go area. In fact it took place on the other side of town."

Hussain spoke of the conditions working people in the local area face. A worker in the only remaining textile mill in the town, he receives the national minimum wage of £3.80 per hour (£1 = US$1.42). "I have to work 12 hours overtime per week just to survive," Hussain said. Many Asian immigrants once worked in the 350 spinning and weaving mills here, almost all of which are now shut. Unemployment among Pakistanis stands at 16 percent and among Bangladeshis at 25 percent, according to the Guardian newspaper, which describes the parts of Oldham where many Asian families live as "among the poorest places in Britain."

"My family like others around here came for a better living," said Naveed Asghar, 25, who was born in Glodwick. "They came to work in the textile mills doing jobs that no one else wanted. I think there's a broader agenda behind these attacks. They want to stereotype us. They want to make people think that we are visitors and outsiders. The new government terrorism laws and deportations make people think that we are bad people," he said. "They want us to do menial jobs that higher class people won't do and they keep us in ghettoes. They need us in order to bring down everyone including poor white people."

The younger generation is more confident and less prepared to put up with racist police and media stereotypes, said Biju. Sixty-six per cent of the Asian community in Oldham are under 24.

Jonathan Silberman is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union in Luton, near London.  
 
 
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