A Jewish Journalist Visits Britain’s “Israel-Free Zone” And is Punched in the Head.
http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2015/05/a-jewish-journalist-visits-britains-israel-free-zone/
http://www.politico.eu/article/galloway-bradford-elections-uk-ge2015/
“The left-wing British parliamentarian George Galloway has for several years represented the majority-Pakistani electoral district of Bradford West, where he has built a constituency based on his alliances with local clans and his longstanding record of hatred for Israel. Last summer, he declared Bradford West an “Israel Free-Zone.” Ben Judah visited the district and met with members of Galloway’s staff, who invited him to attend a rally the next day:”
A Jew in Bradford How Britain’s Muslim North became George Galloway country.By BEN JUDAH
Welcome to Gallowayland.
This is what I think as I drive into Bradford.
In two hour’s time I will be punched in the head.
The squinty moon-face of one of Britain’s most ferocious orators glares from the street posters, capped by a black fedora.
George Galloway has turned the constituency of Bradford West into his own world, catapulting into parliament as a Muslim-grievance politician from Britain’s most Islamic city.
Galloway, a former Labour Party MP, has got his seat by using anti-Zionist rhetoric, whilst suing critics who say he is anti-Semitic. His political genius is to have twigged that Bradford’s multiculturalism is a mirage: He now plays the city’s Pakistani clan politics, of family controlled votes, for power.
British civility has collapsed in Bradford’s elections.
The Labour Party is reported to have struggled to choose a candidate without the acquiescence of the Kashmiri clan dominating its local branch, and supporters of its eventual candidate Naz Shah have received menacing threats — like the dead crow, its mouth stuffed with grass, she found on her doorstep.
Bradford has also earned a reputation in Britain as unfriendly to Jews — a place where a journalist who walked the streets in a skullcap in March was almost immediately abused.
Galloway, who heads something called the Respect Party, has declared the city “an Israel-free zone.”
* * *
I drive through Gallowayland.
The leader of the Respect Party calls Bradford “the city of gold,” and has been going around the city in an old Rolls Royce, or an open-top double-decker bus fluttering with Pakistani and Palestinian flags.
I drive around shuttered industrial yards, cramped terraces of rising damp, and boarded-up pubs, their roofs sprouting with plants.
Respect has told me they are holding a “rally” in the community hall of St. Martin’s Church that I may attend as a journalist.
I walk into the hall.
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Those present are almost entirely Asian men — Pakistanis, almost to a man.
I inform them I am a POLITICO journalist, and am amicably greeted by a large man in a black suit and sunglasses.
The vibe instantly begins to heat.
I drift about for a moment and am approached by Alyas Karmani, a bearded imam in a tweed jacket. He informs me he is a former head of Respect group in the council, which now works closely with Respect.
A white woman in thick lipstick, a press officer for Respect, comes up to me: “Who are you, I recognize your face?” I tell her my full name, Ben Judah. Her face sours: “Ben Judah, the Tablet.”
A few months ago I had reported from the city for a Jewish online publication, and had been critical of Galloway’s anti-Zionist rhetoric. I reported that he has inflamed a hissing conspiracy theory where Jews were blamed for 9/11, for all wars all over the world, and were seen as the new Nazis
The woman from Respect does not approve.
I inform her that Respect’s Bradford HQ has given me the address and told me I can come. She then disappears, makes calls, and talks to several of the Asian men at the doorway. She returns saying I have to leave.
I try to explain I am a journalist and this risks looking bad for a party that is frequently accused of inciting anti-Semitism and intimidating journalists.
Karmani says he is not opposed to my presence, but that this is “his event,” pointing to a man in the entrance hall. The men there have suddenly become highly aggressive.
“Get out, get out,” they shout.
Galloway campaigning (Getty)
The press officer — whose name I miss — says she has called Bradford HQ and they now “know who I am”: I must leave immediately.
I walk out and onto the sidewalk, and take a picture of the Respect activists and the seven Asian men milling about outside the Church. They have come to see Galloway: The event is described on social media as a rally for supporters.
A burly Asian man in a black suit and sunglasses rushes up and grabs me round the neck, pinning me to a low perimeter wall. “Get out, you fucking Jew,” he shouts. I am being throttled as around ten Asian men surround me. My teeth chatter as a man in a tracksuit punches me in the head.
“Delete, delete,” they shout at me, “delete the photos.”
An older man in a shiny crooner’s suit is shouting. “Let’s call the police. Let’s get him arrested.”
I fumble to delete the pictures and repeat over and over:
“You’re frightening me. Please let me go.”
The older man gestures for me to be released.
I look back at the Respect officials: but they look away.
I immediately drive out of Gallowayland.
The Respect battle-bus hurtles past me, Palestinian and Pakistani flags fluttering. I have just missed him.
The car turns around filthy, dismal streets, where abandoned mills and factory chimneys loom, like Obelisks from an ancient time.
A burly Asian man in a black suit and sunglasses rushes up and grabs me round the neck, pinning me to a low perimeter wall. “Get out, you fucking Jew,” he shouts. I am being throttled as around ten Asian men surround me. My teeth chatter as a man in a tracksuit punches me in the head.
As I stand outside the first Tesco Express outside Gallowayland, crushing a packet of frozen peas into the bruise on my face, my nerves jangle.
The shouts of — “let’s arrest him” — have chilled me.
Arrest me for what? How?
An hour later I am in prosperous Leeds.
A woman walks past me, holding an inflatable sex doll.
I walk in the sun, as beautiful men hold hands and glide in and out of tapas bars. House music throbs into the street: the mills have been converted into luxury flats and open-plan offices.
I slip into a café and go online, trying to identify the men who attacked me. I find one of the men, who was calling for me to be arrested, making a Churchill “V-Sign” in a selfie with George Galloway.
There is no doubt in my mind: These men were Respect supporters.
* * *
This takes me by surprise.
My first meeting with Respect, an hour earlier, was in fact quite amicable. Here’s how it went.
I park the car outside Galloway’s constituency office and scribble down what I can see (picture).
The garish green and red color scheme in the Respect window, Galloway’s half-smile in the hoardings, and outside the Polish migrant shop opposite, a Romanian Roma in a white headscarf, hawking a fake gold ring.
Above her and the shop is a strange, faded sign: Curioser & Curioser — what Alice cried as she slipped into Wonderland.
Men are coming in out of Galloway’s HQ.
I wander into a yard and up a flight of stairs.
This is Galloway’s back of house: bare redbrick walls that are not a fashion statement; nasty felt flooring; men sitting, looking exhausted and bored; and bargain basement office tables.
The room stinks of onions.
This is where I meet Ron McKay.
He is Galloway’s close aide and “best friend” for 38 years. He is said to wield a lot of influence in Respect. He is from Glasgow, and has a puffy face.
I introduce myself as a POLITICO journalist and with his agreement begin recording the interview on my iPhone.
“It’s been a brutal, a brutal election campaign, and no doubt it will get worse,” he says, “It’s different, Bradford. This Bradford West election is different from any other election we’ve had.”
He soothes his brow, complaining he is tired.
How does the politics of Bradford work?
“It would take me much longer than I’ve got to explain biraderi politics in Bradford, clan-based politics, and people actually do deliver 20, 30, 50 votes. Through their extended families, what tends to happen is, the kind of head of the household, or the kind of head of the clan, makes a decision how they’ll vote. So if somebody, in I don’t know, Penge (South London) said I could deliver you 50 votes you would laugh. But here . . . it’s true. They deliver bundles of votes.”
There are only three of us in the cavernous room.
Richard Thynne, a stubbly, younger aide, sits nodding.
I notice a box of sausage rolls on his desk.
“The Pakistanis here,” says McKay, “by and large almost to a man and woman are from Mirpur, Azad Kashmir (the part of Kashmir administered by Pakistan) — so there’s an extensive family network, links, clan-based networks. In a way that doesn’t really apply elsewhere, that I can think of, not even in East London, where there’s Bangladeshis and they all come from Sylhet. It’s not to the same extent as it is here.”
I glance at stacks of pamphlets: Galloway in a black fedora and black shirt.
Outside, the streets of Bradford are still, almost dead.
Kashmiris and Bangladeshis — both are remarkably well organized politically and have captured local Labour party machines
“You have to understand the politics at work,” says McKay, “the mosques are very important, and the way the community operates religiously through the mosques, because Bradford West (is) probably 60 percent Asian, maybe higher. Much more so than in the other constituencies in Bradford. The Asians are by and large in this — in three or four wards.”
His tone is matter-of-fact anthropological.
Kashmiris and Bangladeshis are two of Britain’s least successful migrant groups. But both are remarkably well organized politically — and have captured local Labour party machines, becoming the new bloc votes in the ethnic neighborhoods of London, Birmingham and Bradford.
Galloway — who claims to be left-wing — thrives in Bradford’s biraderi clan-based politics.
His team does not hide its strategy.
“George is a hugely well-known politician who’s supported their causes, for 30 odd years, particularly Palestine,” says McKay, “Which is very close to this community’s heart, or the Muslim community’s heart. So he’s got a head start there, obviously. His record is very well known, in supporting causes that Muslims support against wars and imperialism. And there’s been a lot of house meetings and going to mosques.”
This room is cold, shambolic and gloomy. I sit and listen to McKay. He sounds nothing like a left-wing crusader.
“But to go back to the clan system,” says McKay, “What George and we did very successfully in the by-election is to some extent break that, through young people, and a kind of revolt of young people in being told who to vote for. It was huge, a tsunami of support, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
To take Bradford West in a by-election in 2012, Galloway beat the biraderi clan of Imran Hussein. This man is the scion of a Pakistani clan which dominated over the local branch of the Labour Party.
Galloway both appealed to the smaller clans cut out of the spoils, and to younger people, repressed by clan voting. He offered them both worlds: fun, street politics — and Muslim grievance. Imran Hussein and his clan were defeated.
McKay reflects, on the current election.
“So far it’s not anything like it was in 2010.”
McKay tells me Galloway has now reconciled with this clan at Kashmir Day in the Pakistani Consulate. Accompanied by his father, Imran Hussein embraced Galloway three times.
McKay says the clan stills controls the Labour Party in Bradford West, and that this reconciliation was to stop Respect putting up a candidate in Bradford East, the neighboring seat where Hussein is trying to win election.
British Muslims (Getty)
McKay says the so-called Labour clan is now barely campaigning in Bradford West.
“They’ve got all their forces in Bradford East.”
I ask McKay: do you think this is no longer democracy?
“It is democracy as we know it. There’s still a secret ballot for those who aren’t filling in postal votes.”
McKay estimates 20 percent of Bradford West votes by post.
There is a noise: Behind me, three supporters have come in, two white and one sad-looing Asian boy in a keffiyeh.
“Brother,” McKay greets them, like a Muslim.
I tell him Jews say they are too frightened to come to Bradford because they are frightened of being attacked.
“Rubbish,” says McKay, Galloway’s best friend.
He gets up. Our friendly rapport is gone.
As I look at McKay, I hear a Respect supporter answer my question in a mocking voice.
“Some people are scared of spiders,” says a voice, “or open spaces, or closed spaces.”
I turn to leave: with the address of the rally in St. Martin’s Church provided to me by McKay and another aide.
* * *
Great Horton Road, Bradford (Tim Green/Flickr)
I drive south.
Wind turbines spin over bright yellow fields. There is something of a dreamland to England’s glowing rapeseed.
As my face throbs, I think about Galloway.
The man is a brand. He is a celebrity. He creates a buzz, a crowd, that pulls in votes, and then allows his clan allies, and hangers on, to get elected into Bradford City Council — where they can have influence over schools, housing, the police.
This offer is how Galloway wins Bradford’s biraderi.
My minds flicks backs to dozens of conversations.
There is a common hysteria in working-class pubs.
That Muslim communities are imposing: “Sharia Law.”
I have heard this at its most acute where Galloway plays his politics: in East London, poor Birmingham, Rotherham, and of course, Bradford.
“We’ve been colonized,” I remember a white electrician telling me on my last visit, “They’re imposing their Sharia”.
On one level, this is obviously ridiculous. Nowhere in the UK has the Islamic legal system replaced British law. But this is not what they mean.
They mean illiberal minorities imposing their politics.
I follow the road sign into the dusk: THE SOUTH.
* * *
POSTSCRIPT: On Tuesday morning, after I had returned to London, I wrote to both Galloway and Karmani, the head of Respect in the Bradford City Council, complaining about the manner in which I’d been treated at the Respect rally to which I’d been given prior access. I described the physical assault, as well as the abusive language that had been directed at me, and sought an explanation.
Galloway responded via Ron McKay, a close aide whom I met (above), and did so in the following words:
“This is quite clearly a stunt by you and a deliberate provocation and the timing of it confirms that this is a calculated attempt to smear me and affect my electoral prospects.
“This was not a public event but a rally for Respect. You were allowed into the grounds of the church where it was held and would have been allowed to report on the rally but there were several objections to you photographing attendees, particularly from women. You refused to stop taking photographs of people and were asked to leave. You refused. You were then ushered off the premises. . . .” (The full text of his response can be found here.)
Karmani’s response was as follows:
“Dear Ben on a personal level I am disgusted by the despicable way you have been treated and am sorry that you had to experience that. Racism in any form is never justified and should be condemned unreservedly. Just for your information I am doing an event in Newcastle on 22 May against anti-Semitism with a range of Jewish speakers including Jeremy Beecham and the Ann Frank Trust as I have been a vehement anti-racist for the last 35 years.” (Click here to see Karmani’s response.)
Karmani subsequently phoned me. He said: “Whatever your writings or your views the event was a public event and you had every right to attend. You should not have been ejected. You should make a complaint to the police and I hope the complaint will be upheld as that is the only way to show those idiots.”
On Tuesday, I reported the incident to the Community Security Trust, a Jewish community organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism. On Wednesday, I reported the incident to the police.
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