Bishop Gets Bashed After Entering No-Go Area Concerning the Truth
Civitas, 8 January 2008
The truth shall set ye free, the good book says, a venerable adage that strangely seems to admit of exception in the case of straight-talking Anglican bishops.
This is especially true of those, like Bishop Nazir-Ali, with temerity enough to claim that Muslim no-go areas have lately grown up in Britain in consequence of large-scale immigration, combined with multiculturalism and the rise of Islamic extremism.
No sooner did his claim appear at the week-end in an article in the Sunday Telegraph than a stampede quickly broke out among politicians and pundits eager to be first into the tv studios to sound off about how lacking in all evidence was the bishop’s claim.
First in line to dispute the bishop’s claim was shadow home secretary, William Hague. He told Sky News’ Sunday Live programme:
‘ I’m not sure where these no-go areas are. I don’t recognise that description’.
Joining Hague on the programme was the newly appointed Liberal-Democrat leader Nick Clegg who also rebuked Nazir-Ali for having produced no evidence for the claim. Clegg called the very notion of such areas “an extraordinarily inflammatory way of putting it.”
Doubtless it was only her being a strict sabbatarian that accounted for why Secretary of State Hazel Blears waited until Monday before joining the chorus on behalf of the government. She told an interviewer on BBC radio’s Today programme:
“I don’t recognise the description that he’s talked about of no go areas, and people feeling intimidated, and people feeling hostile to each other.
“If there are those areas, then maybe he needs to be a bit more specific about where he’s talking about.”
Being Labour minister for Communities and Local Government, it is only to be expected that the Secretary of State should apparently not have a clue about the problem to which Bishop Nazir-Ali was averring.
That there should now apparently be cross party consensus no such problem exists was less predictable – almost.
Since, as know, a week in politics is an age, charity suggests we best put down to collective memory loss our politicians’ avowal of ignorance as to such areas, rather than attribute their denial to a combination of political correctness and crafty electoral calculation.
Here, therefore, for their benefit is a reminder of some salient facts about the recent growth of such areas.
As early as July 2001, police in the Manchester region were reportedly expressing concern “that disaffected young Asians [a code-word for British-born Muslims] may try to establish ‘no go’ areas in districts they regard as their strongholds.”
Their concern arose from the fact that, in the year 2000, 62 per cent of the racial attacks reported in Oldham were committed by Asians on white victims.
The divisional commander of Manchester police said at the time: “I don’t think we have got to the stage of no go areas.… But there is a very real danger that this could happen.”
One local Asian youth reportedly told the BBC: “It’s a matter of revenge. It’s about giving as good as you can take.” Another youth reportedly said: “I got slashed by some whites. So I’m totally racist. I don’t like whites.”
Irrespective of where the ultimate blame may lie for their creation, the fact remains that, even back in 2000, Muslim no-go areas showed every sign of coming into being. Nothing since suggests danger of them has receded. Quite the contrary.
In December 2007, three East End ‘Asian youths’ were convicted of the attempted murder of a white man who had been out drinking with friends at a pub on a Stepney estate that “the gang considered to be their turf”. Two others were cleared of affray after being found not guilty of attempted murder.
Denial by politicians and pundits of the existence of such areas is not going to make the problem of them go away.
Nor will sending Muslim women off on assertiveness training courses, as Hazel Blears proposes as a way of combating the radicalisation of Muslim boys and youths.
As regards that latter suggestion of Blears’, all I can say is: Dream on, sister, but take care into which areas you happen to stray when out sleepwalking.
A Bishop sticks his head above the parapet and says it how he finds it, a rare forage into the realms of the real world from a member of the establishment.
No wonder these events are rare, look at the flak directed at him. But i agree with the Rt.rev.
Because i speek from experience, i live in a northen mill town.
To be fair, Hague was not quite as horrid as the rest. He simply asked for specifics. Blears merely parroted him. Clegg’s remarks were ill judged and excessive. Inflammatory? Was the Bishop trying incite racial hatred, then? As for the facts, I recall a documentary presented, I think, on Channel Four by Darcus Howe, perhaps a couple of years ago. He expressed the now common misgiving that British society has broken down into ghettoes and accordingly went to Bradford. There he engaged some Muslim youth in conversation which rapidly became acrimonious. Admittedly, he has a somewhat patronising, heavy handed way with him. What really struck me, however, was the way in which one young fellow opined that his city was now Little Pakistan. He rejoiced in this reverse colonisation and happily predicted that the situation would become both more entrenched and more widespread. Indeed, given the recent immigration statistics, he is almost certainly right in this. I have to say, in view of this anecdotal but striking evidence, those who deny the truth of the Bishop’s words are ploughing their fat heads into the sand. As for the politicians, I believe that they fall into four categories – the malign, the complacent, the worried and the frightened. For various reasons, all of them think it right to disguise the real extent of the dangers which unrestricted immigration have unleashed upon this country.
You (like the bishop) present no evidence of no-go areas.
You do quote a case where a gang were convicted of an attack in an attempt to control their “turf”. But are gangs anything new? Was the attack religiously motivated?