Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World

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Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World: A Review Journalhere to stay, here to fight’ and their ideological perspectives: to struggle against ‘all forms ofdiscrimination based on race, colour, sex, religion etc ... and to promote the cause of equal rights’; tosupport national liberation movements and encourage cooperation between different nationalities inthe Indian subcontinent, and recognised that the only real force in British society capable of fightingracism was a united workers ‘movement.’The strength of Manningham as a community, through the specific migratory experience of Asians inBradford, the influence of the political climate in general and the existance of the IWA in an area wherePakistanis and Kashmiris dominated; the experience of working in the White left and the disciplineof communist organising that some of the young people had learnt before establishing the AYM;the spaces such as the Forth Idea Book Shop and Bradford Library and its cafe in a central locationclose to Mannigham gave the Asian Youth Movement in Bradford the ability to organise effectivelyand a legitimacy because of their links with the main community of Manningham. All these factorsinfluenced the longevity and power of AYM (Bradford) to organise. At its height AYM (Bradford) hadabout 200 paid up members working and organising, along with hundreds of supporters, runningsuccessful anti-deportation campaigns, campaigns against racism of the police, racism in educationand struggling against street racism. Its size and influence was far larger than the Asian YouthMovement (Manchester) The size and influence of the AYM (Bradford) meant that they were ableto sustain themselves as an organisation right until 1986/7, although the organisation changed in itsnature as it grew older, establishing itself more in its later years as as a community centre fundingyouth organisation than as an agitating and campaigning body.ManchesterIn contrast to Bradford, larger cities such as London and Manchester encouraged a wider range ofmigrants including students, professionals and labouring classes. These cities also saw a wider diversityin the cultural and ethnic origin of migrants, although large numbers of migrants still tended to settlewhere they had familial or community contacts and support. The cities themselves, the institutionsand businesses that migrants established, as well as the historic institutions such as libraries anduniversities that were already established also impacted on how individual AYMs operated and areremembered.36Migration to ManchesterThe history of Manchester is significantly different to the history of Bradford which is smaller anddefined almost entirely by its textile industry. Manchester by contrast, while holding an enormouslysignificant role in the history of the textile industry, also has a long history as a commercial andmetropolitan centre. This has been recognised as a significant factor in its ‘structure of feeling’ andit is certainly the case that it has influenced the kind of migration that has taken place to the city. In1971, the number of Manchester residents born in India was 2879 (0.5% of Manchester residents) andthe number of those born in Pakistan was 3388 (0.6% of Manchester residents). By 1981 those bornin India had actually decreased for Indians to 2742 (0.6% of Manchester population) and increasedfor Pakistanis to 4975 (1.1% of Manchester residents). The number of Bangladeshis appeared for thefirst time as 607 (0.1%of Manchester residents). The 1981 figures do not include those born in Britainso to some extent they are an underestimate of the actual population. 38 In spite of this, it is clearthat the Asian community in Manchester was smaller both in proportion to the entire populationas well as in actual size to that of Bradford. The mix of immigrants from South Asia to Manchesterwas also much wider. Manchester’s metropolitan status and size attracted individuals from India andPakistan’s professional classes as well as those from rural backgrounds. 39 There were still specificareas such as Cheetham Hill, Longsight and Whalley Range to which South Asian migrants settled, butbearing in mind the size of Manchester and the scattering of South Asians across various localities, itis inevitable that migrant organisations would find it much harder to have a significant influence bothwithin migrant communities as well as within the local politics of Manchester as a whole. It is alsosignificant that Werbner’s study of Pakistanis from the 1970s and 1980s was not drawn from families
Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World: A Review Journalemployed within factories but from a group of families operating as entrepreneurs. 40 Manchester’sidentity as a commercial city may have impacted on individual choices when choosing a location tosettle and the pattern of chain migration which was strong in Bradford as well as smaller towns inGreater Manchester such as Oldham 41 was less evident in Manchester and this made the communitymore fluid.Social and Political influences on the formation of AYM (Manchester)Unlike Bradford or Southall, where a specific attack on the Asian community galvanised individualstogether, the Asian Youth Movement in Manchester did not develop in such a spontaneous way. Theimpetus for political action was different. From the start they were far more implicated and involvedin already established local community structures. This is how one Manchester member, NiloferShaikh described the influences on her just before she helped establish the AYM (Manchester).There were different kinds of influences and there were other community workers, Asiancommunity workers, older community workers who formed a group called the Asian WorkersAssociation..., and I joined that ... you know it was more around how do we support each other asAsian workers in our work with the Asian community; and I remember even helping to organiseconferences,... people were using different ways to combat or tackle racism, you know, one was fromthe level of cultural sort of things to a really political level.What this reflection highlights is that members of an AYM (Manchester) were not necessarilycompletely disenfranchised. They were employed to work in their communities in areas such ascommunity development, but they did also experience racism as Black workers and as students andwished to make links with others that experienced discrimination and speak up against it. Of the eightinitial members of an AYM (Manchester) that I learned about, two were overseas students and threewere students with families living in Britain. Being a student is primarily an activity which is associatedwith and enables self-betterment. The three remaining members were working people, one of whomwas a surgeon. Only one of the eight initial key AYM (Manchester) members had been to school inManchester after migrating to Britain at the age of 13. Apart from the three that were registeredstudents, the others were all working by the time they set up the AYM - one in a women’s refuge,another in the WEA and a third as an electronic engineer. In terms of the membership therefore, AYM(Manchester ) had more formal education, included members that were substantially older and moremature and included a larger proportion of aspiring individuals. They were individuals who did nothave the same roots in Manchester as the young people in Bradford, although they were extremelycommitted to struggling for social justice and in many senses they were not the second generationwith parents working in Britain in quite the same way as Bradford. All these qualities impacted onhow they mobilised and what they were able to achieve.The Left in ManchesterWhile the British left in Bradford had a significant impact on an AYM (Bradford), the Asian YouthMovement (Manchester) although still influenced by left politics was more significantly influencedby left organisations in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The links between this international influence wasdifferent to Bradford’s influence from the IWAs, because the IWAs were migrant organisations setup by the first generation migrants with influence from the various Indian Communist Parties. Theinfluence for Manchester was more direct since two of its members had been involved in communistorganisations in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Mohsin Zulfiqar had been involved with the NationalStudent Federation in Pakistan as well as with the National Awami Party during the late 1960s, beforecoming to Britain in 1971; Qumral Kabir, from Bangladesh had also been involved with a communistorganisation in Bangladesh and with the movement for Bangladeshi independence before arriving inBritain as a student in the same year. Both individuals continued to organise within the left in Britainafter their arrival here, but the influence of Trotskyism in the British left meant both were quick tomove outside of the British left and begin to involve themselves in anti-racist and anti-imperialiststruggles, including the Imperial Typewriters Strike in Leicester and the Overseas Students’ Strike.37
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