Campaign Statement - Towards a Better Bradford
It is hard to find a middle line between complacency and alarmism while talking about Bradford, and to strike the right balance between the positive and the negative. Candidates from the three main parties will be restrained by party discipline and national agendas from exploring Bradford solutions to Bradford 's problems in the run-up to the June elections. To speak more frankly in public about certain issues is to run the risk of making the situation worse. But to remain silent runs the greater risk that voters will turn off from politics. And voices from the extremes will then dominate the election.
Other major cities in Britain have worse problems of poverty, violence and crime, but the publicity does not damage the reputation of the whole city. Educational under-achievement is a well known problem in Bradford, especially among young men. Segregation is not a pretty word, but it is the reality in places. And there is the question of how Bradford is seen by people from outside. How then to find a way of talking about real problems that does not reinforce the fixed impressions?
Some of these fixed impressions are active within Bradford itself. Divisions within the community lead to ignorance of each other's lives. How many non-Muslims know what the religion means to believers? Are there Muslims who take their cue about English society from Emmerdale? Extremists on both sides share the view that a 'Clash of Civilizations' is inevitable between the Muslim East and the Christian West. The danger is that the fixed impressions held by people will be exploited by such extremists, seeking to tag every person and every aspect of life with a label of 'us' versus 'them'. Ethnic segregation could then turn into real tension and conflict.
The truth is that all cultures influence each other. The US-based Muslim scholar Shaykh Hamza Yusuf highlighted the Islamic roots historically of much that is cherished as distinctly British when he spoke recently at the Alhambra, with its Spanish Moorish name. By the same token, no-one growing up in Bradford can avoid a generous dose of Western, including American, culture. Hamza Yusuf urged us not to think of civilisations in the plural as a source of conflict, but of civilization in the singular as a way of living in a thriving community with benefits to us all.
I doubt that many people in Bradford want to live a self-enclosed ghetto existence. Most of us enjoy variety, provided that the values most important to us are respected and preserved. We want to feel secure in every neighbourhood, whether as the first Pakistani family moving onto an estate or a White resident in an Asian area nearer the city centre. And public sector workers need to feel confident that they can go about their work without fearing unjust accusations of racism.
The responsibility of the local authority is not to plan the future in every detail, but to create secure conditions in which the people of Bradford can make their own decisions. These decisions can be difficult, especially for young people who are receiving contradictory messages. They do not always get things right, but we must stop turning a blind eye to anti-social behaviour. There are practical remedies waiting in the wings, from Neighbourhood Watch to plans for street-level Citizens' Assemblies to Community Mediation services. But we must first name the problem for what it is, and find the political will to do something about it.
Multicultural policies have rightly recognised the differences in ways of life. The question in Bradford is whether the well-intentioned practice of multiculturalism in the past has contributed inadvertently to undesirable forms of segregation in the present. Multiculturalism makes us think in terms of single identities and multiple 'communities': the White community, the African-Caribbean community, the gay and lesbian communities and so on. But 'community' can mean an inward-looking attitude, so that each separate group regulates its own affairs without reference to anyone else outside. This is undesirable in an open democratic society.
Identity is about how we describe ourselves, as 'White' or 'Sikh' or 'Muslim' or 'English' or 'Ukrainian'. But whatever we choose as our main label, the truth is always more complicated. There are different meanings to each label, and there are many different ways of observing any religion. No-one is only White or only Muslim, because we are also women and men, young and old, and these different identities mean different things in different circumstances. A new perspective on multiculturalism would emphasise a single community and multiple identities.
Creating this type of community - a civilized community - requires a mixture of three ingredients. First are individual rights and laws applicable even-handedly to all - the universal ingredient. Second is the space for different ways of life and even fundamental beliefs - the multicultural ingredient. Some difficult issues arise as to where rights end and cultural preferences begin, in relation to religious observance, family practices and the like, as we have seen with forced and arranged marriages, and gender equality. The third ingredient for the civilized community is the commitment from within each tradition to an engagement with all the others. This is the new element - the intercultural ingredient. It is needed for living genuinely together, rather than living merely side by side. Interfaith dialogue has been the main springboard for this in Bradford. The dialogue should be made more generally accessible, and wider understandings of religion promoted. And it should be extended beyond faith groups, because humanists and atheists are part of the community too. But the new watchword should be interculturalism, not multiculturalism.
A positive future requires a new approach to politics as well. It is too easy to blame the Council for everything, when Central government has removed so many powers. Much funding comes through regional and neighbourhood bodies that have by-passed local authorities in the name of delivery. Privatisation has continued, so that Councils operate through contract supervision rather than service provision. The multinational defence contractor Serco was placed in charge of education. Was this a good idea, given the company's lack of experience in running schools, and the centrality of our educational system to the City's future?
Shifting combinations of three-party politics have made each party wary of taking any sensitive initiative that can be exploited by rivals. All the parties are on the Council's executive, so they must be working together behind the scenes, but who knows under what terms?
Then there is Bradford 's reputation in the wider world. Prejudice inspires people from outside to dream up transforming projects that treat the place and its people as a blank canvas on which grand designs can be worked out regardless of the consequences. These visions of the future can make a great deal of noise - sometimes mainly the crash of demolition - but fail to engage with real needs and aspirations. There is a huge fanfare about the plan to dig open the Beck and flood the City Centre. Meanwhile, popular institutions which make a genuine contribution, such as Bradford City F.C. and The Bradford Festival, are left to keel over in slow motion.
Council leaders' nervousness about the riots has led them to adopt a defensive posture - almost a siege mentality - and to talk up the City regardless of reality. I have detected secret relief when we missed out on the big prize from the Capital of Culture. We were not forced to match the magnitude of the claims made against the multicultural progress on the ground. The defensive reflex stifles debate about the real issues, cuts off the Council from local people, and demoralises the committed individuals and organisations working so hard towards a better future. There is a gridlock of competing agencies and priorities and little sense of strategic direction beyond the need to avoid controversy. And there is the unfounded belief that people from outside can always do a better job than we ourselves.
Now we face a local election in which the main parties who are cooperating behind the scenes will go through the rituals of mutual antagonism in public. And open debate is discouraged about the underlying issues and tensions from which real conflicts might arise in the years ahead. The important issues involve economic regeneration, education, segregation, and citizenship in an intercultural setting. And they are interlinked. Regeneration is vital because economic success lessens deprivation, and deprivation leads to crime and anti-social behaviour. Good education creates skills for the economy, and self-esteem for individuals. Community cohesion will encourage investment, by making the District a better place to be. And a sense of local citizenship that transcends differences creates security and trust, which is a condition of everything else. Physical infrastructure is important, but so are social relationships: how will the new investments be used, by what people, for what activities, under whose ground rules?
The question is whether the parties can trust the people more, listen harder, and relax the habits of a lifetime by working together more openly on the future of the District. Is there the basis for an agreement that certain long-term policies and priorities in areas sketched above should be placed beyond the scope of ordinary party competition?
This is an unusual question to place on the electoral agenda in Britain, but the parties in Bradford face an unusual situation. If we get all this wrong, there is a chance that areas of the District may become ungovernable 20 years down the line; if we get it right, we really would deserve to be the Capital of Culture the next time the European caravan drives into town.
Alan Carling, 13/5/04
Alan Carling is a member of Heaton Woods Trust, Bradford City Supporters' Trust and Bradford University 's Programme for a Peaceful City . He has been a presenter on Bradford Community Broadcasting. The views expressed are his alone, and he does not represent any of these organisations.
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