Seeds of amity

Promoting community cohesion among the voters of tomorrow has become a priority in towns where fringe political groups are taking root

When Noma Moyo, a refugee from Zimbabwe, stands in front of a school assembly to tell her story, she always asks pupils what they think about asylum seekers. At Tong high school in Bradford, the general consensus seems to be that the words "asylum seeker" and "illegal" automatically go together.

It's a misapprehension that teacher Hayley Clacey is keen to debunk, which is one of the reasons why she has invited local charity Retas (Refugee Training and Advisory Service) to the school. Throughout the day, refugees from Russia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon will work with children and class teachers to explain why people have to flee their own countries and what life is really like for those seeking refuge in the UK.

Bradford has two BNP councillors and 17 more candidates from the party seeking election next week. This political climate is something of which the school is keenly aware. With a catchment drawn primarily from two poor, predominantly white council estates, teachers are using the freedom of their hour-a-week tutorial programme to combat racism. The workshop offered by Retas gives children who have limited experience of other cultures a chance to interact with people whom they might otherwise only learn about via the headlines of their local paper.

As the class gradually begins to realise that asylum seekers tend not to live in big fancy houses, are prohibited from getting a job rather than being workshy, live off shopping vouchers and have often had to leave their families behind or even seen relatives killed, 30-odd pairs of eyes widen and there is the occasional audible gasp.

This is the kind of initiative now being promoted in towns across the north west of England where the BNP has gained a foothold and is now seeking to expand.

Influencing the voters of tomorrow while they're still young has also become a priority in Burnley, which, together with Oldham, experienced violent race-related disturbances in the summer of 2001. Around £250m has been spent on a total overhaul of Burnley's education system, with entire schools being closed, demolished, restructured and rebuilt.

"There was definitely a problem with the way that schools were organised in this town," says Labour councillor Mark Townsend. Of three councillors in his ward, Gannow, two are BNP - including the longest serving BNP councillor in the country - and he is keenly aware of the threat to his own seat.

Because of the way school catchment areas had been set historically, he explains, Burnley's secondary schools had been either overwhelmingly white or overwhelmingly black. The white schools got good results and were oversubscribed, and the minority ethnic schools got poor ones. All this is changing, partly as a result of a report published last summer on the reasons for the disturbances.

"The county council is completely reorganising the schools, including the catchment areas, so there is a better mix of pupils," says Townsend. "Five new schools have just opened and we've got rid of all the old ones so the kids now have the chance to grow up together. The BNP are latching on to that and calling it forced integration. Of course you can never force integration, but you have to give people who would be open to that the chance to experience it."

There are also community and interfaith events being held on a regular basis to bring people together and foster understanding between various factions in the Burnley population. But as Townsend points out, "to be honest, the people who vote BNP don't go to events like that, so you've really got to start in the schools".

In Stoke-on-Trent, where the BNP has five councillors and 10 candidates standing for election this time round, Labour councillor Pervez Mohammed, who holds the community cohesion portfolio, says the council has joined forces with organisations such as NorScarf (North Staffordshire Campaign Against Racism and Fascism) to encourage more people to make their voice heard in local elections and so dilute the effects of fringe party candidates.

"We are doing a lot of work to encourage people to vote," he explains. "We need to get the message out that not voting will not bring solutions to people's problems." In fact, he suggests, things could get worse if more members of the fringe parties get elected.

"It's also about getting people to realise what fringe parties stand for. They play on fears about issues such as housing, jobs and immigration, send out misleading information and contribute absolutely nothing. Meetings are sometimes attended but they do not normally speak at these or make any positive contribution."

A NorScarf spokesperson says that despite their door-to-door anti-racist literature drops, community meetings, awareness-raising street stalls in town centres and a variety of schools activities illustrating the evils of fasism and racism, he's concerned for Stoke's future.

"I'm not terribly optimistic at the moment. They [the BNP] have five councillors already, and the risk is there'll be more. The worry is that we'll end up like Barking and Dagenham, with a BNP opposition. I don't see any easy answers at the moment, else we'd be doing it."

It might be a long-term strategy, but back at Tong high school in Bradford, it's clear from the children's faces that the refugees' stories have sunk in. Starting to challenge opinions when children are young, before fears and misconceptions have been reinforced by prejudiced media messages, appears to be working.

Guardian