Dewsbury...
The talk of the media during the past month or so have been the slowly unravelling story of young Shannon Matthews and her toxic excuse for a family, and the wonderful Yorkshire town of Dewsbury - likened by some to Beirut. In response to the criticism of this potential backdrop for a Christmas special edition of The League of Gentlemen, the Guardian chose to sent one of their scribblers up to the former mill town to meet a few of the natives. This is what they found...
The Real Moorside Story
It goes without saying that this article is highly sanitised, and pretty typical Guardian fare. OK, yes - so the place is hardly Beirut; but then no place in this country can truly fit this description - thankfully.
What made me chuckle is the apparent friendliness between the native British and Asian communities - something that does not fit at all well with the fact that Dewsbury is one of the most popular stomping grounds for the BNP, who have achieved something of a foothold in the local council. This of course sits alongside an increasingly separatist Muslim community that provided a number of operatives that took part in the planning and execution of the 7/7 attacks in London, and was also home to the young reader of the infamous Anarchist's Cookbook.
This is just the political side of things; on the ground, we have the case of Shannon Matthews and her nasty extended family - but this sort of story should come as no surprise to a community that not long ago was having to read about a twelve-year old girl who tried to hang a five-year old boy from a tree, and which some thirty years ago was the prowling ground for the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. In December of last year a Muslim boy, Ahmed Hassan, was stabbed by six white youths at Dewsbury station; earlier this year a mass brawl involving local Pakistani Muslims, Iraqis and Hungarians (?!?!) was reported in the ward of Ravensthorpe, supposedly on the back of claim being made about local Muslim girls being "touched" by loose-handed Magyars. Then of course there are the stories of local girls - Muslim, British, whatever - being sexually propositioned by Iraqi Kurds in the street, and Imams striking British girls for showing off their shoulders. It was even the place highlighted in the news where demands were made on the already pressured NHS to have nurses turn patients' bed five times a day towards Mecca. (That's the religious shrine, not the evening entertainment for the non-Muslim residents).
Kirklees District Council has figures that are higher than the English average for violence, theft, sexual offences and burglary - something that is not at all in line with the picture painted by the Guardian article.
Of course, the Guardian scribblers, like me, live far and away from places like this; in fact they live even further away and higher up, based in their nice ivory towers. Their being invited for a cup of tea, to sit on some happy person's loo, to watch people deadhead their flowers - it's akin to the Red Cross' guided tour of Theresienstadt. Not that Dewsbury is that much like a concentration camp, of course.
The Real Moorside Story
It goes without saying that this article is highly sanitised, and pretty typical Guardian fare. OK, yes - so the place is hardly Beirut; but then no place in this country can truly fit this description - thankfully.
What made me chuckle is the apparent friendliness between the native British and Asian communities - something that does not fit at all well with the fact that Dewsbury is one of the most popular stomping grounds for the BNP, who have achieved something of a foothold in the local council. This of course sits alongside an increasingly separatist Muslim community that provided a number of operatives that took part in the planning and execution of the 7/7 attacks in London, and was also home to the young reader of the infamous Anarchist's Cookbook.
This is just the political side of things; on the ground, we have the case of Shannon Matthews and her nasty extended family - but this sort of story should come as no surprise to a community that not long ago was having to read about a twelve-year old girl who tried to hang a five-year old boy from a tree, and which some thirty years ago was the prowling ground for the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. In December of last year a Muslim boy, Ahmed Hassan, was stabbed by six white youths at Dewsbury station; earlier this year a mass brawl involving local Pakistani Muslims, Iraqis and Hungarians (?!?!) was reported in the ward of Ravensthorpe, supposedly on the back of claim being made about local Muslim girls being "touched" by loose-handed Magyars. Then of course there are the stories of local girls - Muslim, British, whatever - being sexually propositioned by Iraqi Kurds in the street, and Imams striking British girls for showing off their shoulders. It was even the place highlighted in the news where demands were made on the already pressured NHS to have nurses turn patients' bed five times a day towards Mecca. (That's the religious shrine, not the evening entertainment for the non-Muslim residents).
Kirklees District Council has figures that are higher than the English average for violence, theft, sexual offences and burglary - something that is not at all in line with the picture painted by the Guardian article.
Of course, the Guardian scribblers, like me, live far and away from places like this; in fact they live even further away and higher up, based in their nice ivory towers. Their being invited for a cup of tea, to sit on some happy person's loo, to watch people deadhead their flowers - it's akin to the Red Cross' guided tour of Theresienstadt. Not that Dewsbury is that much like a concentration camp, of course.
Labels: News
posted by Le grand méchant loup at
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