Why the BNP failed to stoke racist fires after a savage Glasgow murder

Magnus Linklater | Wednesday, 24 March 2004 | Click here for original article

ALL THE ingredients for a race riot were there. A 15-year-old white boy was set upon by a gang of Asian youths, brutally beaten, bundled into a car, and later killed. An inner-city area with a growing immigrant population, beset by unemployment, drugs and crime, seemed to stand on the edge of breakdown. As if that was not enough, the British National Party sent a delegation on to the streets to stoke up resentment. It took far less than that to pitchfork Bradford and Bristol into anarchy. Yet in Glasgow, it did not happen.

Explaining why is more difficult than exploring the events that led to the killing in the first place. It may also be tempting fate; if white gangs were to go out looking for revenge, the city could still explode. But last weekend what took place in Pollokshields, on Glasgow's south side, was strangely encouraging. The community took a long hard look at what had happened, and pulled back from confrontation. Ethnic leaders, councillors, local politicians, all gave warning about the dangers if violence were allowed to escalate. It did not. The BNP came and went. The tensions remained, as did the grief, but Pollokshields itself stayed calm.

There are lessons to be found here for other divided communities, but they have less to do with racial barriers than with common crime. Dealing with that, both sides agreed, was more important than addressing ethnic issues. The mother of the murder victim put it best, and what she said may have set the tone for much of what followed.

Angela Donald's son Kriss died in awful circumstances. It was the middle of the afternoon, and he was playing truant, walking down the street with a 19-year-old friend. A single Asian youth came up to the couple and, without apparent provocation, picked a fight. A group of five other Asians then appeared and began to attack Kriss, beating him savagely, despite his cries for help. His friend tried in vain to rescue him. Passers-by did nothing. Kriss was pushed into a car and driven off. His body, almost unrecognisable, was found the next day.

Appealing for help in tracing the gang, his mother described the killers as "five men driven by hate". It did not matter what colour they were, she said, people should not take the law into their hands. So far that plea has been respected. In an area where ethnic minorities account for almost 40 per cent of the population, both sides are aware of the tensions that racism can cause. They are more concerned, however, about rising crime among gangs of young men, both white and black. Break-ins, car theft and drugs are seen as prevailing social evils. While well-established Asian families have gradually, over the past 30 years, become more integrated into the community, some of them moving into comfortable middle-class districts, the younger generation seems more separate than ever. They remain, like their counterparts in Burnley and Bradford, divided, not just from the white population, but often from a disapproving older generation too.

This sense of alienation is shared by many of their white counterparts who drop out of school and wander the streets. The aggression they show is bound up with drugs, street crime or simply inter-gang rivalry. "These young people have terrorised their own community," says the editor of a local Asian newspaper. Distinguishing between their behaviour and racism is ultimately fruitless. Both are lethal. Five years ago, another 15-year-old met his death, but that time the victim was a young Asian, murdered by a white boy.

This may be why the BNP's visit was a non-event. In towns such as Burnley the party picks up votes from a white population which has begun to believe that it is an oppressed minority. In Pollokshields, the community resents anti-social behaviour in general, on which the BNP agenda is thin to non-existent.

That does not mean that racial tension is absent. Most ethnic leaders agree that there is little integration between young whites and Asians, and that relations have deteriorated since 9/11. It does suggest, however, that social cohesion requires more than building ethnic bridges. Councils who address these problems as a purely racial issue may simply emphasise the divisions. Dealing with the deeper malaise may take longer but is more likely to succeed — that is something that Burnley might learn from. Better housing, more leisure facilities, tackling drugs would all help to reintegrate young people, whatever their colour. "We are losing a whole generation," said one local commentator. "We need to find them again." That just might help to defuse the racial time bomb as well.