|
|
|
Bradford: The Asian Capital Of England
Part 2 of 2In this two-part series, Islam Online
takes a look at the town of Bradford, England, which has come to be known
as the country’s “mini-Pakistan.”
By Chris Moss
While postwar Britain was conscious of a change in its social fabric due to immigration, there was little public interest in the ethnic shades and varieties arriving in towns and cities across the country. Even today, derogatory terms like Pakis and Chinks are used to cover the myriad peoples whose origins lie in the vastnesses of the Indian subcontinent and the Far East.
Right up until the eighties, Bradford was associated by most British people with "ethnic minorities" in the vaguest sense. Like Birmingham, parts of London and Manchester and other metropolises, there was an understanding that restaurants, corner shops and stores were run by Pakistanis or Indians.
Given the generally poor understanding of India, Asia and the many shades of blackness among non-white communities, subtleties like religion and culture did not come into it.
However, Bradford leapt into the public consciousness on February 14th, 1989, when Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced a fatwa against Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie for his satirical novel, “The Satanic Verses.”
Scenes of Bradford Muslims angrily burning copies of the book were broadcast on the network news channels and suddenly the smallish Yorkshire city became the epicentre of racial tension and, for most British citizens, an attack on creative freedoms. Islam was no longer something to be ignored but had become, rather, a source of hatred on both sides.
The fatwa issue is still alive, notwithstanding Iran's post-Khomeini governments' moves to improve relations with the U.K. and Rushdie's own attempts at reconciliation. Fiery scenes in Bradford are newsreels that stand as testimony to the ongoing debate about integration, assimilation and religious tolerance. Just last year, the successful British film East is East told the story of Om Puri, a Pakistani father trying to raise his family in a traditional way in Salford during the 1970s. Tradition in the year 2000 is even harder to protect, with globalization in full force now.
In Bradford's local daily, the Telegraph and Argus, Asians still have a noticeably low profile and most stories in which they feature are to do with being ignored or with being an "issue" group. Meanwhile, open-minded groups of whites and Asians try to create an atmosphere of cultural exchange and goodwill as well as business opportunities in a traditionally industrial and therefore now depressed area.
Strangely, local government has been slow to make use of its Asian population in areas like tourism and leisure. Rugby League at the Bradford Bulls is a predominantly white affair, as is national league soccer, and even the annual film festival lacks a section for Asian film-lovers. A step in a more positive direction is the building of the Mughal Gardens based on those created during Islamic dynasties between the 16th and 19th
centuries .
This £4.2 million project adds to Bradford's green spaces and shows recognition of its multiethnic heritage.
Another clear physical presence in the city is the many mosques, and for visiting Muslims, there is no problem with finding a place for prayer and reflection. The U.K. Mosque Database lists 28 in the city and suburbs, ranging from the gold and green domes on Lumb Lane to smaller, more intimate teaching and community centers dotted around the city's suburbs. (Check for addresses on www.muslimdirectory.co.uk.)
So, whether it’s great food, a stroll around an oriental park or simply a view of contemporary multiracial Britain you want, Bradford is a fine destination. Off the badly beaten track of mass tourism, it provides a picture of real, working, living England in the new millenium.
Of course, other cities challenge Bradford's Asian supremacy. Glasgow in Scotland, Birmingham in the West Midlands (population 961,041, of which 129,000, or 13.5 percent, are Asian) and the town of Southall near London, which has an Asian majority, are major candidates to rival the Yorkshire giant, but Bradford still has a claim, at least in the north of England.
The Asian population in Bradford continues to grow and according to local government predictions the ethnic minorities (86 percent Asian) as a group will rise from the current 18 percent is to 26 percent by 2011. As the story continues, the city, founded in 1897, will have to redefine itself. Britain's northern cities, essentially working class, strong in Victorian industrial heritage and traditional in attitudes, have been slow to see themselves as part of a global community, perhaps because business rather than culture has been
the force behind international agreements and cooperation.
Living in an economically deprived area, Bradford's white citizens have sometimes sought easy victims in the thousands of Asians who have made their city a new home, but perhaps they too recognize that they have more in common with their Asian neighbors than with the wealthier Britons who really do often live in "another country."
|
