Were they really?

I read up practically everything there was in the guardian and observer websites at that time and found no mention of this”

During the Lidget Green/Great Horton riots in April 2001 the chemists on Horton Grange Road, owned by a prominent member of the Hindu community, was torched. The owner, interviewed afterwards, was convinced he’d been deliberately targeted as a Hindu.

“Rioters went on to set fire to the Second West pub and looted the pharmacy in Horton Grange Road before setting fire to that.” reported the Telegraph.

The riots started after trouble at a Hindu/Native Brit wedding party. Which was then attacked by Muslims.

http://archive.thisisbradford.co.uk/2001/4/26/141059.html

maybe to please davidp the comment should have had the word “nearly” at the start of it.

What about the blonde girl who snogged Karim at the start and later tried to phone him on his mobile?

if you had bothered to read what i wrote, you would now be in posession of the facts

- THE MARCHES WERE BANNED, ALL MARCHES AND DEMO’S WERE BANNED IN THE CITY CENTRE

- THERE WAS NO NF MARCH AT ALL, THE ONLY DEMO THAT TOOK PLACE WAS AN ILLEGAL ANTI NAZI LEAGUE DEMO.

Some people have no clue about what ACTUALLY happened, and the drama has only suceeded in making people believe some big myths about the riots, I personally think the police should sue given how they were portrayed, given the title of the film, even if they said it was fiction.

“Even so, the story about the march seriously pissed off a middle class middle of the road asian (ie me) living in a completely different part of the country – I can imagine the enraging effect it might have had on Muslims living in Bradford”

I am not surprised people were seriously pissed off, I cannot blame Asian people (or any other middle of the road people who are not Asian) for being pissed off. But why attack innocent peoples busineses and try kill innocent people drinking in an old mens club??

“The central character Karim being a promising uni undergraduate, getting plenty of strong positive references from teachers and uni tutors, yet still being sent down for five years also struck me as suspiciously exaggerated.

If you saw the damage done (most businesses that were burned down are gone for good) attempted murder on those in the club, innocent passers by being attacked,the shame it brought on the city. Plus the fact this was by no means simply a “one off”. There were reasons why examples were made of people involved. If you knew more of the facts, you would probably understand, or if we simply took race out of the equasion.

To answer the question about the ANL demo and the mela. Due to the nature of freedom of expression, the home sec david blunkett had to ban ALL large gatherings within a 3 mile radius for 3 month. The mela was due to be held in Peel Park, about 2 miles from the city centre, it was re-arranged not long after anyway. And the ANL demo was as ILLEGAL as it gets. However at least two LABOUR MPS Terry Rooney and Marsha Singh decided to defy that. Had this not have taken place most people would have noticed there was NO NF DEMO and gone home. But instead thousands of people were stuck in the centre of bradford.

The drama chose to ignor this fact. Also the police were NOT in full riot gear in order not to provoke a riot, infact the sheilds they had at the time things kicked off were the small round ones, not the full on ones that were seen in the drama.

I cannot spot any positive message from the drama and found it offensive personally. The problem is there will be Asian people who see it who actually believe this shit happened. The police were slagged off for risking the safety of the public by not taking hard action at the time of the riots. If i recall, the arrests made that night barely made it into two figures.

My memory of the riots and attitude towards them was I think similar to Sunny’s. I remembered reading about the NF march which the council/police refused to ban. The riots themselves looked to me to have been provoked by the march but then got totally out of hand as criminals/ thugs took advantage. The Bradford Muslim community then rallied round admirably, eg dads getting their sons to hand themselves in. But the sentences were shocking particularly given the fact that many of the lads handed themselves in and were first offenders. I notice that guvnor says the NF never marched that day. Even so, the story about the march seriously pissed off a middle class middle of the road asian (ie me) living in a completely different part of the country – I can imagine the enraging effect it might have had on Muslims living in Bradford.

So I was initially impressed with the drama (although I think I missed the first 20 minutes or so). Well acted, edited, music etc. But as it progressed, I had many of the reservations that Rohin, Tilling and Jay Singh outlined.

Like Tilling and Rohin, I was particularly struck by the depiction of white characters as either deliberately or thoughtlessly antagonistic to the Muslims. Even at the time I remember white local govt officials from Bradford presenting a much more sympathetic approach to the muslim community. As Tilling says, the overall depiction of the white characters was pantomimic at best, downright racist at worst. I was watching the programme with my wife – a native of these Islands. Unlike Tilling our reaction was not laughter but depression at this lazy stereotyping. Only the reaction of the white mums telling the Muslim mum that they couldn’t let their kids go to her kids party – displaying a mixture of regret, confusion, fear and bigotry – rang true.

The central character Karim being a promising uni undergraduate, getting plenty of strong positive references from teachers and uni tutors, yet still being sent down for five years also struck me as suspiciously exaggerated. As did the strand about his law abiding brother getting sucked into the violence and also getting banged up after a harrowing raid by armed police. If 191 people got put away out of the 1000 or so involved in the riots, how come just about all the young male characters in this drama end up in jail? Does anyone know of any individual who fitted Karim’s profile getting such a harsh punishment? Or any family so utterly destroyed as Karim’s?

And I seem to remember many of the sentences being appealed? Didn’t that happen?

Another point I’ve picked up from this thread. Refresh reports attending the ANL carnival/demo “There were many families present and there were quite a few people in cartoon costumes” and finding it “reasonably orderly. And generally enjoyable.” The drama makes no mention of this and does make a big thing of the cancellation of the Mehla festival. Was that true?

There’s a clear statement at the end of the drama that the story is fictional and any similarity to actual characters is pure coincidence. But drama – particularly docu-drama like this – ought to have some core of dramatic truth to it. I think this is particularly true in times like ours when an exaggerated sense of victimhood and powerlessness can have very literally lethal and destructive effects – as we found out on a more recent 7/7. I’ve gotta say I ended up deeply suspicious about the veracity of this drama and depressed about its probably largely negative contribution to UK community relations.

Because it seems to me the drama’s final message – with the arrest of Karim, his brother, the heavy sentences, the tearing apart of Karim’s family, and Karim’s final impotent rage in the prison cell he shares with a racist white yob – is entirely negative and wholly inaccurate. Something like “You muslims have no real choices. Either get back to Pakistan or whatever bit of bongo-bongo land you come from. Or be a good little Paki, keep your head down, and take whatever knocks the white folks give you. Or stand and fight. But whatever you do be in no doubt – the white man is out to get you and you can’t do nothing peaceful to stop it”.

Can anyone spot a different message from the drama? And does anyone seriously believe this is a real reflection of the dilemmas facing Muslims – or any other Asian – in Britain today?

I wish people would cut all this crap “deprived area” stuff. You should see some of the cars in Manningham! Fucking hell, if that is deprived Sunny, I am dread to think how deprived I must be, I should get myself to Rawanda, they obviously have a better standard of life than us Bradfordians.

Get a grip, nobody is deprived, just wanting to play the victim. And ignore the bullshit about there only being jobs that pay £100 a week. There is plenty to go around, just people prefer to inject smack rather than get off their arses.

There is no excuses. And the sooner people snap out of this “deprived” shit the better. And remember, up norf, the cost of living is much less than the south, so we get by.

Were they really?

I read up practically everything there was in the guardian and observer websites at that time and found no mention of this.

Yes they were, I live there. The Upper Globe is Hindu owned and there were a few other places. As I mentioned i my last post, surprisingly, Places like the Halal Meat Butches were missed yet every other place were smashed up.

Secondly, the show was fiction. The riot shields the police were shown to be using in the city centre were not on show until the serious trouble in the night. They were not in FULL riot gear and the sheilds were the small ones, due to not wanting to provoke a riot.

Most of the NF were intercepted and most of the talk in pubs during the afternoon was “where the fuck are the NF”, the person who got kicked in (which DID happen) was by members of the Bradford Ointment football hoooligans, who may have been BNP supporters. The police DID NOT turn a blind eye, they were called to the incident after it took place.

I witnessed an Asian gang walk through a police blockade to they were hardly pushed to Abby Road. And there was not just one group to contain but many groups.

The ANL held a banned demo, there was NO NF DEMO. Labour MP’s Terry Rooney and Marsha Singh were both present at that and spoke on stage, defying a ban on ALL marches and gatherings in the area for 3 months. This meant there was a very large angry group held in centenary sq. The news of the attack was the excuse needed. Had it just been left at attacking the pub that this happened at, I could have understood, but noooooooooooooooooo

Many none Muslim businesses (mainly pubs) were burned down, none of which had any links with the far right. In fact the two pubs that did contain people who were supporting the far right, were barely touched compared to pubs and businesses on white abbey road and oak lane. The prog forgot to mention that not only was one pub burned down (the labour club) but some sick bastards left burning cars outside the exits to stop innocent people who had nothing to do with any riot, trapped inside.

It was quick to be said that this was not ASIANS in the riot but mainly MUSLIMS, who had targetted ‘White’ and ‘Indian’ businesses, whilste managing to miss the HALAL MEAT BUTCHERS. Coincidence eh??

There was other similar businesses that were missed too, that were well known Muslim businesses.

This was not simply a riot, this was disgrace and i also recall a number of police horses were stabbed, something else they failed to mention in the film.

The sentencing was fair given the scale of the riot.

So that is the judiciary and the judiciary of Bradford responded to the evidence and made their judgments – the police have nothing to do with it and turning this into a big sore so that people can feel opressed and grow that chip on their shoulder even further by comparing them to the sentences handed out in Northern Ireland or wherever is exactly the kind of joined up persecution complex that breeds chips on the shoulder. Judicial heavy handedness is not something that only afflicts the Asian rioters of Bradford. Deal with it judicially rather than make a massive long campaign of injustice and oppression.

No but you expect leniency for turning yourself in and taking into account the NF aggravation.

In a deprived area which already has high unemployment, what do you think the impact will be of some 18 year kid spending 5 years in prison for a bit of bravado? Who is going to employ you afterwards?

I’m not in any way condoning the violence because by Bradford it was clear it was hijacked by kids who wanted a fight. Plus, I did not support the Paris riots either.

But my point is firstly that the police wanted revenge and they took by exacting the maximum sentence possible.
People have called me after this programme was shown saying that rapists and people committing GBH have frequently gotten less than 5 years. There is no sense of proportion here.

And what about other riots? How many people were arrested in the recent riots in Ireland and what sentences did they get?

in Southall the crowds didnt go and burn down Southall Broadway and ten other streets and set fire to businesses and petrol stations and car showrooms

Agreed – and I’m not supporting any of that. but the way these kids have been demonised, its made out as if everyone did that. A lot of family members of people who’ve been on other Asian messageboards (barficulture.com) have said that kids just standing around, as young as 16, have been sent to jail for years.

That’s not justice, it’s vindictiveness.

I’m not “crying” about anything. I am criticising a shit programme for its shitness, part of which was based in its pantomime-like portrayal of white people as moustache-twirling villains.

Again I’m not too happy about the term Bradford Asians, becuase I got Sikh friends from Bradford and they had nothing to do with the riots.

I think the weather had a lot to do with it because riots only tend to happen on those hot summer evenings (or at least if it isent raining!)

The sentences seemed very high to me when i read Sunnys post yesterday. Having seen the documentary it occurred to me that any direct violent action against the police is taken VERY seriously by the courts and rightly so. Had they been throwing bricks at the NF (which is what i thought before the prog) then perhaps they wouldnt have been so high. As it stands for the courts NOT to take attacks on the police so seriously would send the message ‘its okay to riot and its ok to attack the police”. Dont think so. Sorry but the fact that the police drove them back does not excuse those actions as much as the community frogmarched them in.

I compared these riots with the Southal Riots in the 1980′s and the comparison is there – with one difference – after the pub hosting the NF was trashed in Southall the crowds didnt go and burn down Southall Broadway and ten other streets and set fire to businesses and petrol stations and car showrooms – just as gaz said – that was just retarded.

And Sunny you say you hate it when people bitch and whine and moan but to me people handing over their sons to the police and when their sons get long sentences from the INDEPENDENT judiciary and then saying that this is another reason why the police breached the trust of the community seems to me just like another example of MANUFACTURING GRIEVANCE and whining itself. And yes the way white people were caricatured utterly was troubling to me just as it was to Rohin. You can get into a yah-boo well what about this and what about that now you know how it feels – but that just mirrors the same rhetoric of the minorityism whiners justifying their own prejudices.

Agreed, and I don’t say I side with all of what happened. But a lot of families put their trust in the police by handing in their sons to the police in the hope it means they can show they were embarassed by the riots and are willing to own up. That trust was badly broken. How many will trust the police again?

Rohin:
But people like Tilling can dismiss it because it seems one-sided.

Agreed. And it is a lazy trick, which is why I dismiss it when Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus use it too. I can’t stand whiners.