Ignoring the issues hasn’t made them go away
It is now just over six months since the British National Party stood a record number of candidates at the council elections in the City of Sunderland. The 25 who stood for the far-right party gained 13,500 votes, equivalent to nearly 14% of the total votes and in one ward, Town End Far, they just failed to break through the 30% barrier.
The election campaign and the results gained the BNP considerable attention locally and nationally, which they hope to build upon at next local elections in June 2004, when all 75 seats in Sunderland will be up for grabs.
Whilst the BNP have skilfully utilised the campaign by some sections of the media against asylum seekers and refugees to build a base in Sunderland, there are those who also claim that it has been the failure of local politicians to develop and run anti-racist campaigns in the past which have allowed racist ideas to grow and eventually be nurtured by the BNP.
The City of Sunderland and the surrounding areas have always had a very small black and ethnic minority community. Even today less than 1% of the 300,000 residents of Sunderland are drawn from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, and the County in which the City resided until it became part of Tyne and Wear in 1974, namely County Durham has an even lower percentage.
Interviewing a number of past and present Labour Party and trade union activists they have spoken of their frustration in getting such bodies to take seriously the issue of racism in the last twenty years. They claim that their common experience involved being told ‘there isn’t a problem here’ usually followed by ‘there aren’t any black people here.’
The other common objection was ‘look, don’t raise that, it is better to keep it quiet and then there won’t be any problems.’ The approach was to ignore the issues and to bury one’s head in the sand. “Racist ideas, views and jokes largely went unchallenged” claimed one ex-ward secretary who didn’t want to be named.
However this didn’t mean there were not problems and the Government’s controversial decision at the end of 2000 to start dispersing asylum seekers and refugees to places such as Sunderland have brought them to the fore.
With the Government not allocating increased resources to such areas; so that all those living there could benefit, it meant that local people felt they were losing out. This and the unwillingness of either Central and/or Local Government to create forums in which newcomers could meet and mix with residents allowed the far right to profit.
The BNP have skilfully exploited the situation but they were already on fertile ground as racism is very strong amongst some sections of the community in Sunderland. A small number of the many reports I have received will help to illustrate the point.
In June 2002 I interviewed the owner of a local shop, run by an Indian man, who reported that he got regularly attacked. In sixteen years he estimated that he had his windows smashed “over 20 times”. I asked him about the police; “useless” and local politicians “racist and corrupt.”
At the same time, in June 2002 the UNITY organisation, held a public meeting. UNITY is Sunderland’s longest running black and ethnic minority organisation. It is run by a courageous man, Mr Khan, a man in his 50s and half-blind in one eye. At the meeting attended by over 40 local black people there were numerous reports from the victims of racial abuse.
Mr Khan appealed for “politicians and police…...to recognise some of the specific problems that black and ethnic minority in this city face”.
A matter of a few days later at the end of June 2002 Andrew Thorpe, who sports a National Front tattoo, aged 38, brutally attacked Baldish Singh leaving him unable to speak. Mr Singh was racially abused. He has never recovered from the attack, speaking is difficult and he is likely to need constant care for the rest of his life. In spite of a string of past convictions Thorpe was sentenced to just six years in prison. Mr Singh’s solicitor is pursuing a Criminal Injuries claim on his behalf. .
Against such a background it was therefore hardly surprising that the arrival of asylum seekers, who arrived against a background of almost hysterical national and local reporting, would bring out the worst in some local people. Iranian refugee Payman Bahmani, was stabbed to death in August 2002. Refugees claimed that they had been reporting incidents to the police over many months, but the police simply ignored them. Mr Bahmani’s housemate Mohammed said at the time “we’ve had our windows broken over 25 times. We know the attackers, they abuse us and tell us to go home.” He claimed that the police had “failed to listen” to their complaints.
Stephen Roberts, aged 18, was convicted of Bahmani’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Following Mr Bahmani’s murder the police established a community panel which included members of the dead man’s family, but also involved other agencies such as the North of England Refugee Service, Tyne and Wear Racial Equality Council and the North-East Consortium for asylum. “This group was heavily involved in the investigation, being briefed on a regular basis by the police commander and senior investigator for the incident. The feedback of that group was positive” claimed a police spokesperson with “this work continuing today with the work of the Special Investigations Unit and the work of community beat managers in the area.”
The Special Investigations Unit which covers the Sunderland City area has responsibility for identifying and tackling racist crime and incidents.
Marian Goodfellow, from the Refugee Network, believes that the attitude of the police and their response to attacks on refugees has improved in the last year. “The police regularly visit the two outreach sessions we organise. They make the asylum seekers aware that they are there to help them, they appear to have a more positive attitude than before.”
The three Sunderland area commands all now have officers dedicated as asylum seeker liaison officers. “Their job is to build up links with asylum seeker communities and agencies and to monitor and tackle racist incidents against them” said a police spokesperson.
The latest Home Office figures reveal that Sunderland is home to 857 refugees and asylum seekers, a slight fall from a peak of just under 1,000 two years ago.
In February 2003 ten black students from abroad met at the UNITY’S organisation’s premises; all of them reported being attacked. Each student had paid £7,500 in fees to attend Sunderland University, a not inconsiderable sum. All reported that when they had approached the police they were met with, at best, indifference.
Members of Sunderland Fans against Racism have visited a number of local youth clubs to talk about racism. They have asked what is said at school on the subject. The usual answer according to Jim Fox is “nothing.”
In a lengthy response a spokesperson for Sunderland City Council disputed this asserting that ‘All schools have a Race Equality Policy, as required by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, with an action plan based on it. Both are subject to annual review.’ and that ‘The City Council sends regular newsletters to schools, including items such as information on religious festivals, advice on responding to racist incidents, sources of resources, myth-busting information on asylum seekers and other groups, examples of good race equality practice etc.’
Meanwhile, one group of refugees have formed a local football team, the International Cultural Centre [ICC] FC and in August 2002 with the assistance of some local people they entered a Saturday morning league. They claim to have had to experience considerable racial abuse and defend themselves on occasions from physical attacks.
One game, in March 2003, against a pub team, The Sandhill, from the Grindon area of the city was halted for a number of minutes after a fight broke out involving players and supporters from both sides. The secretary of the ICC at the time complained in a letter to Durham FA that ‘Sandhill supporters started to shout at our players with racial comments’ and that there was, at least, one incident where a supporter ‘put his finger to his right ear then move it across his throat to the other ear like to say ‘you die’.
Sandhill were fined £100 by Durham Football Association for ‘bringing the league into disrepute’ and they were further fined £50 by the Tyne and Wear League. John Topping, the company secretary of Durham FA said “The Durham County FA, like every other County FA is very much against racist behaviour in football and any cases are and will be dealt with severely.”
He confirmed “that case was dealt with as a club misconduct some of which did involve racial abuse, the club was severely warned about its future conduct and they were fined £100 and they were to provide a written undertaking that no such behaviour would happen again. The club has provided that written undertaking in which they have provided assurances that no such comments will be made again.”
Russell Thompson, the manager of Sandhill, claimed that the International Cultural Centre had, in fact, “started it” after “one of our players had two of his teeth knocked out, off a head butt” and “was racially abused after being called ‘white trash’. He felt the club had been harshly treated.
In
August 2003 the South African cast of the touring musical Umoja said they
had been spat at in the street and insulted when they distributed leaflets
advertising their show at the Sunderland Empire. Todd Twala, the director
of Umoja said “a lot of the young people in our cast do not remember the worst
of apartheid. Instead they are experiencing racism in
He went on to say that “we have been all over the world, to Japan, Australia, Denmark, France, Finland and have been a bit in London, and no one has treated us like this.”
Although not directly connected a few days later Sunderland City Council launched a hotline for members of the black and ethnic minority communities to report racist attacks.
A spokesperson at the project claimed that to date “it has been reasonably well used” and “that we are more than happy with the service to date” and that “depending upon the seriousness of the situation will depend upon the response we take.”
It is too early to say whether the service will lead to the number of racist incidents being reported to the police will rise, which fell between April 2002 to March 2003 and the previous financial year April 2001 to March 2003 to 396 from 420. These figures cover the 3 areas of Sunderland, taking in Sunderland Central, Sunderland West and Washington. In the six months to the end of September 2003 the figure was 192.
In a series of written replies Chris Mullin, one of two local MPs, admits that racism is a big problem in Sunderland which he attributes to ‘Sunderland [having] until recently an overwhelmingly white population with little experience of contact with other cultures’ and as such ‘we are going through the same growing pains that other, more ethnically diverse communities had to face up to years ago.”
In response to claims that local trade unions and the Labour Party have not taken the issues of racism seriously enough in the past he claims that whilst “there may have been some complacency in the past about the degree of racial prejudice in Sunderland that is certainly not the case now. Nor has it been for some time.’
Meanwhile a spokesperson for the City Council admits that ‘ Sunderland has recently been the subject of unwarranted negative media coverage, as a result of a few high profile events in the City’ but ‘ Without in any way denying the significance of these activities and their implications, it is important that the Council present an accurate and balanced picture of Sunderland. Most people in Sunderland are not racist and the current media tendency to present us as a racist city is both inaccurate and insulting to those of us who live or work here. Many Sunderland people are very angry about this label.’
However, only this month, on November 8th five people attending Sunderland’s home game against Coventry at the Stadium of Light were arrested by the police for racist chanting. It has been reported that up to 200 supporters were involved in singing ‘a town full of Paki’s’ at the visiting supporters. Raymond Holmes, aged 32, from Pennywell was fined £200 with £50 costs and banned from attending matches for three years. A juvenile, who can’t be named for legal reasons, was fined £100 with £45 costs and also banned for three years.
Clearly the BNP will be hoping to exploit racial tensions at the June 2004 local elections in Sunderland. Whether they do or do not win any seats it is clear that the task of tackling and overcoming racist views amongst some sections of the population in Sunderland is likely to be a long one.
November 18th 2003