Review: ‘Make Bradford British’

Those who know Bradford know that it is in England, although in some respects no longer of England, so far has the demography of the city been changed by mass settlement from the Indian subcontinent, particularly from the Muslim states of Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 1994, a book entitled ‘Here to Stay: Bradford’s South Asian Communities’ was published by the Bradford Heritage Recording Unit. Its tone was celebratory, and its intent, as was clear from the title, was to normalise the presence of the settlers, and to make the city theirs. This much it had in common with tonight’s ‘documentary’ on Channel 4 – ‘Make Bradford British’ (MBB) – a title which emphasised the extent of the displacement and dispossession of native Bradfordians that has taken place since the 1950s.

Implicit within the concept of MBB was the assumption that nationality not only is not dependent upon descent and a sense of shared identity, but that it is not even dependent upon shared culture. Such an approach underscores the dystopian vision of the multiculturalists, who affirm the most attenuated concept of civic national identity, which not only excludes shared descent, community and culture, but also any concept of shared national interest in the face of predatory transnational capitalism and the growth of transnational institutions of global governance. The model of ‘Britishness’ thus articulated by MBB is one familiar to politicians such as Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron; one which is legalistic, formalistic and without inherent content. The only thing shared by ordinary members of their ‘nation’ thus conceptualised, is the obligation to pay tax to Westminster, whereas of course the super-affluent backers of the troika of governing Westminster parties can even exempt themselves from national taxation through various offshore ruses whilst retaining their passports.

Although tonight has presented us with only the first part of MBB, its conclusion is foregone, for it has evidently been devised to highlight the officially-sanctioned and vigorously promoted terms ‘intolerance’, ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘racism’. This is being done with a specific purpose, targeting the non-Muslim, particularly the indigenous population, with a view to further inculcate and entrench a sense of misplaced ‘guilt’ amongst the English so as to secure their total surrender to the deliberately engineered ongoing mass settlement of their land. The documentary claimed that its purpose was to address the question: “Can different races, different religions and different cultures really live together.” Who asked these questions? “Diversity consultants”, who, by definition, can hardly be adjudged to approach such questions in an objective and impartial manner, given that their stated rationale for the programme was the search for a “blueprint for a genuinely multicultural Great Britain.” Who asked the British whether they wanted this? Nobody.

The narrator continued: “Multicultural Britain needs help. Some people just aren’t mixing.” Certain people are not mixing precisely because they have already had contact with each other, and what they have encountered they have not liked. If you force people together who are mutually incompatible, then there is conflict. Does Channel 4 run moralistic ‘documentaries’ attempting to bring together people who are incompatible and force them into a marriage from which there is no prospect of escape? Of course not! If it is immoral to force two incompatible individuals who display mutual antipathy to cohabit, why is it considered moral to force colonists with a strong collective identity upon the English? We do not wish to mix with them, but they have been and are being forced upon us. Who benefits from this process? Why was it initiated? Who initiated it and who supports its continuation? Will these people accept responsibility for its negative consequences, issue an apology and admit that they have been wrong? The engineers of mass immigration have deliberately unmade Britain, but the native British still exist and they know who they are.

How were the participants in the programme selected? By some form of scientific method to gain a representative sample? No. Although 111 people in different parts of the city sat the British Citizenship Test and 100 of them failed, only eight of the 100 were selected to “represent the different opinions out there”. As in other ‘reality’ programmes, they were therefore selected to generate drama, rather than an objective picture. Rashid, a 37-year-old former rugby league player and “devout Muslim” who prays five times a day, was evidently selected primarily upon the basis that he possessed an extrovert personality at clear variance with the typical qualities exhibited by doctrinaire Muslims. Nonetheless, MBB throughout referred to Rashid, Sabbiyah and Mohammed as “Asians” rather than Muslims.

The programme thus proceeded very much as predicted, but one thing that came across strongly was the division between Muslims (repeatedly referred to as “Asians” in the programme, presumably so as to generate the impression that any criticism of Islam should be considered 'racist') and the rest. Audrey, a 48-year-old mother of three, and city centre landlady of mixed English and West Indian parentage stated: “People don’t want to come into the centre of Bradford any more. It’s a ticking time-bomb.”  “The only person who isn’t going by the rules is a Muslim.” She later stated that blacks and whites in Bradford use the word “Paki" because of the way Asian people treat them: “I am totally intolerant of Asians.” People feel threatened by the massive “Paki” presence. Near to the end of the programme however, she broke into tears and admitted that she had “Asian nephews and nieces within my own family.”

Clearly, by the end of this two-part series all participants will be hugging and professing mutual respect, because what else will they be able to do given that they are exposing themselves to the full glare of the media and the scrutiny of the race relations industry? This episode of Make Bradford British attempted to portray relations between a handful of individuals as being equivalent to relationships between Balkanised “communities” and having lessons for the latter, which they quite clearly do not. To pretend that doctrinaire Islam and any other system of belief and governance are compatible is to be wilfully blind. As such, Make Bradford British is shaping up not only to be a bad ‘documentary’, but a dangerous one, for it is paving the way for further Dawah and Islamisation. When will Channel 4 or any other mainstream television company address the questions that I posed earlier in this review? “Never”, is the most likely answer. For an examination of what needs to be done politically to solve the problems raised in this documentary, click here.

Make Bradford Saudi: the agenda of the documentary makers