Good work needs to continue

WARNING . . . Father Phil Sumner

OLDHAM RIOTS: TEN YEARS ON
SPENDING cuts shouldn’t be allowed to ruin the good work done to create unity in Oldham.

That was the warning from Oldham Interfaith Forum (OIF) chairman Father Phil Sumner as he reflected on how far Oldham has progressed since the race riots.

Father Phil says much has been done to improve community cohesion with schools bringing children from different backgrounds together and people finding more opportunity for them to mix with those of different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

It has reduced the BNP vote considerably with no candidates standing in the local elections and the number of people in Oldham who say that they get on well with people of different ethnic backgrounds increasing.

In the aftermath of the chaos, Father Sumner says the most important achievement was to develop a clear strategy for the voluntary and faith sectors based on identity, engagement and equality.

He said: “Unless one feels valued as an individual, one does not take on the values of the wider society. So, to nurture a sense of belonging to Oldham, or Britain, people need to feel first that their particular identities are valued.”

Work was done in schools to nurture different identities and create programmes for interaction.

To inspire engagement a strategy was developed to encourage participation in the decision-making processes of the borough and interaction between different groups that had become segregated. By taking groups of young people of different faiths to Srebrenica and Auschwitz, they were able to witness the terrible results of extremism — speaking powerfully on the radio about what they had learned.

Four of those involved set up the Oldham Muslim Centre to build good relationships with the wider community and have gone on to win an award for their work.

Spreading the message of interaction is key and the forum has worked with the media to achieve this.

Father Sumner added: “We believe that just as when a riot takes place and is publicised, the perception quickly follows that there is unrest everywhere across the borough. This in itself affects the behaviour of others and makes them more likely to get involved in unrest. However, if, by publicising activities where people of different faiths come together and clearly enjoy each other’s company, the perception begins to form that this is happening everywhere. The perception of normality in this regard actually enables people across the borough to interact with people across the religious divides.”

The approach has led to increased interest in the forum’s major annual event, The Festival of Light, with more than 900 people applying for tickets to the last event.

And through developing good relationships between different organisations so that information flows quickly, Oldham is now more resilient to threats to cohesion.

“We are now far more effective in developing responses to threats and in actually addressing them,” said Father Sumner. But he warns: “The greatest problem facing us is to fail to build on what has been achieved because of the cuts to organisations that were carrying out this work.

“The recent financial cuts have considerably affected many of the organisations addressing community cohesion in the borough. The Oldham Interfaith Forum has had its funding reduced from £87,000 to £30,000 in a year. ‘Good Relations Oldham’ has gone altogether. The Oldham Race Equality Partnership is currently considering its future as are, no doubt, several other organisations too.

“There is still so much to do and with far less resources.”

And he says more needs to be done to engage disaffected white members of our communities.