MixTogether & Friends

In her book ‘Shame‘, Jasvinder Sanghera describes attitudes she encountered among the Asian community while growing up in Derby:

‘The worst thing you can say to an Asian girl is that she is behaving like a white person. We weren’t allowed to mix with white people because Mum said they didn’t have any morals or self-respect. She said whites were dirty people with dirty ways. That’s what all the women I called Aunty thought too, and everyone else in our community.

‘An Asian boy might have a bit of fun with white girls – “white meat”, they’d say – while he was growing up, but when it came to settling down, his family would find him a good Asian bride.’

This week 9 Asian men were jailed for the sexual exploitation of  a 14 year old white girl in Manchester.

Superintendent Paul Savill, from Greater Manchester police, spoke of the girl’s bravery despite her “horrifying ordeal”.

“The level of abuse she has suffered is almost beyond belief,” he said. “She has been treated like a commodity; beaten, threatened and sexually exploited. These men took advantage of her vulnerability with no regard for her wellbeing. I commend this young girl for her bravery in supporting this case.

The problem of ‘internal trafficking‘, or systematic exploitation of vulnerable girls by gangs of men, began to be identified in around 2007. There have been other trials for similar crimes in the past few years. Some of these trials have involved groups of exclusively Asian men exploiting white girls.

It was former Labour MP Ann Cryer who first voiced concerns that the culture of arranged marriages could tempt some young Asian men to exploit white girls for sex. In an interview on the BBC’s Today programme this week, Martin Narey, the Chief Executive of Barnardos, was questioned about a possible racial dimension to these crimes.  His response (at 7’30″) was carefully worded:

“I have heard anecdotal evidence about that, but our experience suggests it would be quite wrong to draw conclusions from this case. Those who exploit children in this awful way come from all races.”

It is all very well for mainstream public figures like Martin Narey to try and play down the racial element, but anyone who thinks that the BNP will not make successful political capital out of this week’s trial is living in a fantasy. Skirting the issue and avoiding the difficult implications means effectively abandoning the field, especially after the furore surrounding Channel 4′s witheld 2004 documentary on exactly this issue.

As an administrator of MixTogether.org for the last 6 years, I can add some anecdotal evidence to that which Martin Narey has already heard.

We see predominantly white/Asian mixed race couples on our forum, and the group with consistently the worst experiences is white girls. Thankfully none of them have ever suffered criminal treatment. However the majority come to the forum as their relationships are ending and they are about to be left by an Asian man. These girls have been good enough for their partners to enjoy a full emotional and physical relationship with, but when it comes to the crunch they are not deemed good enough for their partners to introduce at home.

It would be quite wrong to draw conclusions from my anecdotal evidence.

However it would also be quite foolish not to admit that there are structural differences between the British Asian and White cultures that are causing problems. Obviously not every case of internal trafficking involves Asian men preying on white girls. But in the sub-set of cases that do involve Asian men and white girls, there are identifiable cultural factors that should be addressed.

Jasvinder Sanghera and Ann Cryer have both flagged this as an issue- what more will it take before the alarm bells are actually heard? Because until this problem is brought within the scope of sensible, mainstream political discourse, it will remain an open goal for the BNP.

Campaigners against so-called honour killings have spoken with one voice against multiculturalism after Tulay Goren’s father was jailed for her murder.

Jasvinder Sanghera leads the charge with a blistering article in today’s Times entitled ‘It is not part of anyone’s culture to be abused‘:

I know from personal experience, and from working with victims, that such “honour” crimes are a huge social problem in this country. The shame is not just that it is happening on such a large scale, but that it is so often covered up for fear of upsetting cultural sensibilities. Serious crimes are being treated as a matter for diversity officers rather than for the police and the courts…

Over the past 20 years attitudes towards domestic violence among the white population have changed immeasurably. No longer do police say “it’s just a domestic” when they receive a call from a woman who is being attacked by her husband. Sadly, different standards still apply to violence among Asians. While it is too late for Tulay Goren, I hope that the story of her appalling and avoidable death will finally wake us up to the abuse taking place in our midst and that we will stop trying to excuse forced marriage as just a price to pay for multicultural diversity.

Diana Nammi, director of the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, is outspoken in her criticism of multicultural sensitivities in the Labour government:

She said: “It’s not just the detection of honour crimes which is increasing, but the number of crimes which are committed. The rise of fundamentalism is the reason these crimes are increasing. The Government has also been turning a blind eye to the problem, which only makes things worse.

Labour’s Ann Cryer is equally direct in the Telegraph:

Ann Cryer, the Labour MP for Keighley, near Bradford, who has campaigned to raise awareness of honour crimes, said local councils in areas with large ethnic minority populations remain reluctant to confront the problem because it is such a politically sensitive issue.

She said: “It is a real struggle to get this issue out in the open because instead of looking after the human rights of vulnerable young women you get accused of doing down the Asian community.

“One of the difficulties is that you have very large extended families in places like Bradford, which are very influential, and local councillors are afraid of upsetting them because they think they will lose votes. As a result local authorities are reluctant to talk about this issue.

Sanghera agrees:

Up until last month, 86 forced marriage protection orders have been issued, yet not one of them was in Bradford, Leicester or Tower Hamlets. Is this because forced marriage is not a problem in those areas, all of which have some of the largest Asian populations in Britain? Or is it because authorities there are failing to use the powers for fear of creating offence? I am afraid it is the latter.

Ceri Radford, Assistant Comment Editor of the Telegraph, concludes her blog post on Tulay’s murder with another powerful quote from Jasvinder Sanghera:

It’s like we’ve tunnelled back in time to when troublesome women could be drowned as witches.

Tulay Goren was killed in 1999; a year later, the Government set up a task force to combat forced marriages, and there has been a broader shift away from multicultural policies. As Sanghera has said, “It’s a betrayal of these women to be PC about this. Look at the figures. Asian women in Britain are three times more likely to commit suicide than their white friends.” Every woman in Britain deserves the same opportunities, and the same protection.

What about coverage from the left-wing press?

The Guardian’s only coverage of Tulay Goren’s murder is confined to a single piece of bald factual reporting from the trial. They have not bothered to interview any of the main campaigners, and at the time of writing this have no coverage of the issue on Comment Is Free. The Independent fares no better.

So-called honour crime, and the alien value systems that breed it, should not find shelter on any side of the political spectrum. Yet the murder of Tulay Goren has uncovered yet more criticism of the multicultural doctrine and political correctness that have been the hallmarks of life under Labour for the last 12 years.

It is time for campaigners and politicians who question the benefits of multiculturalism to join forces, and begin to dismantle the damaging social architecture that has protected so-called honour crime for so long.