Young people from the area erected barricades and fought running battles with the cops after the police failed to stop the fascist National Front (NF) from attacking a young Asian in the city center, after an Anti-Nazi League rally.

"The NF jumped one of our lads and he was taken to the hospital to have stitches in his head," Khan reported. "Why do they come here? The police are supposed to defend us but they don't. If the NF come again, we will sort them out."

Throughout the night of July 7, the police struggled to take control of the area. Reports of the number of cops injured have risen to 200. The events in Bradford occurred weeks after similar police attacks on youth in Burnley and Oldham.

Since then, capitalist politicians and community leaders have condemned the "violence" by those seeking to push back the cops. "The NF came down, ignited this and off they went--why were they allowed here in the first place? The Labour Party is supposed to be in government, so why do they allow racists to do this?" asked another resident of Manningham who did not wished to be named. Referring to the broader social tensions in the area, he said, "I don't like violence, but if you keep blowing up a balloon eventually it will burst."

The following Saturday, when Militant reporters visited the area, around 30 vans of riot police were gathered in the city center. A local taxi driver who was Asian explained that throughout the day many people had been too scared to come out of their homes.

"The point is: why should we be treated as second-class citizens. Too many Asians are sick and tired of being looked down on," said Jaid Khan, a young taxi driver from the White Abbey Road area, where the police violence was concentrated. "I don't agree with rioting--and those who did it were a minority, but the police were too heavy-handed."

Some 90,000 people of Asian descent live in Bradford, one of the largest Asian populations in the north of England. Many came to the city in the 1960s to work in the thriving textile industry, which has now all but disappeared. Unemployment in the city stands at around 6.4 percent, but some Manningham residents say that it is as high as 40 percent among young Asians.

"After graduating, I spent two years unemployed before I had to move away from the area to look for work," said Amer Akbar, a young man from Manningham who was visiting his home town. "The deprivation in the area is the underlying problem. On top of that you have harassment from the police. I have been stopped on numerous occasions by the cops for no reason--just to be questioned and searched." He added, "The Macpherson report into the murder of Black teenager Stephen Lawrence in south London, stated that the police were institutionally racist. We've known that all along."

"There are many companies that refuse to employ people from Manningham," explained Jaid Khan. A local Asian man fought and won a discrimination case against Grattons, a mail order firm and one of the main employers in Manningham, when they refused to offer him a job."  
 
Routine harassment by the cops
Khan described the routine harassment that he and many other Asian taxi drivers face from the cops who pull them over for minor driving offenses, remove their license plates, and stop them from driving through the weekend--the most lucrative period of the week.

Alongside police harassment and rightist assaults, many Asians face routine discrimination in housing. Salim Ahmed described how one Asian family was forced to move out of the Holmewood council estate, which is predominantly white, after Nazi graffiti was daubed over the front of the house. He also explained that a few days ago an Asian restaurant in the Greeengate area had been firebombed.

Several young Asians in the Manningham area spoke of their opposition to the actions of those who battled with the cops. One young woman echoed calls made by local member of Parliament Marsha Singh that the cops should be allowed to use more force. Salim Ahmed, who came to Bradford from India in 1966, said that Home Secretary Blunkett "should have allowed the police to use tear gas and water cannon on those who riot in our communities."

Like most others, however, he said the conflict had been started by the National Front, who should not have been allowed to enter the town.

In the days after the street actions in Bradford, bourgeois politicians have attempted to scapegoat the victims of police violence for the social conditions in which they live. Ann Cryer, Labour MP for nearby Keighley, asserted, "A great deal of the poverty in the Asian community in Bradford and Keighley is due to the fact that many of our Asian community do not speak English" She urged the government to consider adding further restrictions to immigration by requiring that those applying to immigrate to the United Kingdom be able to speak English.

Responding to Cryer's racist comments, Liberty Cloak, a Filipino resident from Bradford, said, "It is wrong to make speaking English a requirement for immigration--people travel from all over the world to the Philippines, where I come from, but they do not have to speak our language to do so."

Cryer argued that Asian parents living in the United Kingdom should organize arranged marriages for their children with other Asians living in the country, rather than abroad; "It would be better if they selected the partners for their children from the sort of home-grown variety of Muslim Asians."

Shahid Malik, a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee who was assaulted by cops during recent street actions in Burnley, opposed Cryers's views. He said Cryer "might think that she is doing the right thing by speaking out against arranged marriages, but she is doing the work of the extreme right wing."

Joyce Fairchild, Julie Crawford, and Paul Galloway contributed to this article.  
 
 
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