Some interesting points came out of those discussions.  The one the stuck most in my head was that when people have specific issues with people in other communities (whether they be geographic, cultural, religious, or anything else) you have to address those issues first before you can successfully bring them together.  Several practitioners cited times when they thought just bringing them together to talk about their problems would be sufficient, only to find that shouting matches ensued and community cohesion given a severe blow, rather than improve it.

At PB Unit we advocate the bringing of people together in one physical space (in the form of an event or meeting) so that they can listen to each other and discuss and deliberate the various merits of different projects asking for funding.  And most of the time this works well.  But when there are significant community cohesion issues arising from particular problems, maybe it wouldn’t work so well.  Whilst we’ve always advocated the need for community development and capacity building to run along side and prior to any PB process, perhaps we need to raise this particular point more. 

This led on to the discussion more specifically about the rise of the British National Party (although that’s up for debate) and other racist organisations such as the English Defence League.  As practitioners said, when the specific issues that people had with their neighbours or other community members were addressed, the issues of racism and prejudice went away.  They found that because an issue had developed which hadn’t been resolved, possibly because of cultural misunderstandings, it grew into an issue of race or religion or some other prejudice.  The issue might be noisy neighbours coming in at all hours of the day because they’re working shifts and living in cramped conditions, but it quickly becomes about ‘the polish people’ in general!  Or the issue might be that someone’s been made redundant and is having difficulty finding a job.  They see migrants getting low paid jobs and feel that they’re missing out because other people are getting the jobs.  And that quickly again becomes about ‘others’ getting jobs.  If social housing address the overcramped conditions and get onto the landlords to improve standards and jobwise or Citizens Advice can help with people getting skills and accessing jobs then the issues are resolved and the problem of racism goes away. 

However, where public sector is ill equipped, under resourced or under skilled to deal with the situation the problems escalate.  And this is where the BNP or other similar groups can come in and say things like ‘British jobs for British people’ that those people, feeling ignored and isolated can latch on to and draw hope from. 

Whilst I thought that Question Time last week was interesting in and of itself, I actually thought the reactions of people and the media afterwards were more revealing.  There were a lot of people saying the program showed Nick Griffin up to be the racist that he is and that he couldn’t hold his ground against more experienced politicians.  But a lot of people were also saying that he was bullied and attacked and they felt sorry for him.  The media seemed to dismiss these people as ‘idiots’ or worse, but I think that labelling and ignoring of people’s views is the issue.  They are the same people who feel ignored by their local public sector because issues they have aren’t being dealt with properly, they feel left behind and betrayed by mainstream political parties and they can relate to the underdog in Nick Griffin.  And Question Time only increased his underdog status. 

These people aren’t stupid or idiots.  They may be a minority, but they are a worrying minority.  Unless their issues are heard and dealt with, and unless the mainstream political parties can come up with clear messages that are different from each others, that make sense and are inclusive of the people who feel left behind; and unless they can find a way to rebuild the trust that was lost in the MPs expenses scandal, they will continue to lose votes to the BNP and other similar parties. 

Community cohesion isn’t a racism issue (sometimes it is, but it isn’t always), it’s a people not getting along well with their neighbours issue.  And that issue is exacerbated as resources become scarcer.  And it’s not just an issue for community development workers to address.  It’s an issue that needs to be addressed by all local public sector agencies, all political parties, and everyone in their communities.  Sending people ‘back to their country’ isn’t the answer – working out how you can live with them, be heard and understood – that is. 

And this is where PB comes in (you knew it had to come in somewhere!).  PB is a way of bringing people together (once you addressed the underlying issues) to build that community cohesion – for people to find out what they have in common, not just what’s different and to realise that they all can live together, get involved in their communities, have a say on how money is spent and share what resources are available. 

The only way to stop the rise of the BNP and other similar organisations is to stop labelling those people that vote for them as ‘other’ and ‘not like us’ and really listen to them and deal with their problems – and then bring them together to discuss issues of salience where they have real power to decide how money is spent (but not in a Barnet way – but that’s a whole other blog!).  There will always be a few hardcore racists that won’t change their mind, but the majority of people just want to get on with their lives in peace – and it’s that they feel is being jeopardised at the moment.