News impatiently rushes forwards. Producers and consumers get caught up in the currents of now and the near future. But sometimes, one needs to get out of the fast flowing waters, revisit a story, reflect on its impact and implications.
The sexual exploitation by grooming gangs in urban areas is one of those: it is widespread. It has been hidden for decades. It demonstrates that too often, children from impoverished and dysfunctional families are valued less than stray dogs and cats.
Last week, the findings from the official review into these crimes in Rochdale between 2004 and 2013 was released. It confirmed what we already knew: paedophile gangs – most of Pakistani and Afghan heritage – lured and raped young, mostly white girls, over many years. Their crimes were disregarded or excused by police and council bosses – the girls were seen as slags, prostitutes, not worth saving.
The inaction could also have been the result of wanting to avoid accusations of racism. Whistleblowers like health worker Sara Rowbotham and Greater Manchester Police detective Maggie Oliver were ostracised. The girls were left “at the mercy” of their abusers. Ninety-six perpetrators were identified; some are roaming free today, breaking young lives. Oliver, who left the force in 2012 and set up a foundation to support victims, warns: “I am telling you that the failures I saw in Rochdale back in 2011 and 2012 are still happening today.”
The report has given Muslim haters more reasons to be hateful. And anti-racists more reasons to be defensive.
Being both a Muslim and an anti-racist, I’ve tried to cut through the biases and bedlam to clear a moral path. Those girls are collectively ours; those men are pariahs, parasites.
Damn the Rochdale abusers for they deserve it, but beware of racist tropes. As Naz Shah, MP for Bradford, said in August 2017: “Yes, Pakistani men are disproportionately involved in grooming gangs and this particular model of abuse. And no, that is not a racist statement. Neither is it racist to say that when it comes to wider child abuse, nearly 90 per cent of those convicted and on the sex offenders register are white men.”
Reading this report made me cry all over again. Then it made me angry with the Left for pandering to Muslim apologists and still not engaging with the horrors, and the Right for churning up racist hatred every time such crimes are revealed (I get piles of racist invective after the media covers Asian grooming gang scandals). And it made me angry with those who blithely pronounce this crime is really about class, not about race or misogyny.
A Home Office literature review in 2020 concluded that “group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white”. And that “no one community or culture is uniquely predisposed to offending”. The problem is that those objective assessments have been turned into certificates of repudiation and denial.
The Rochdale report and other investigations confirm that there are rings of men with religious, ethnic and family bonds who sexually abuse girls in packs and protect each other. And yet, even now, you get left-wing obfuscation.
Here is the Institute of Race Relations on grooming gangs: “Gendered sexual violence exists in all communities, and cultural context plays into how it manifests itself. The problem is that frames of ‘race’ and racialised ‘culture’ are always emphasised and overstated in media commentary and public discourse to the exclusion of others, such as misogyny, rape culture, vulnerability and austerity.” Did you get that? Me neither.
At a recent gathering, a Pakistani-British local councillor harangued me for “giving bad news about our people, like sex gangs and rubbish. Why not write about the good things – like family values, that we don’t drink alcohol and our hard work?”
I asked, “What if the men raped your daughter, sister or niece?”
He replied, “It would not be. Our girls and ladies are modest.” I could have punched him.
Some years ago I interviewed three wives and one daughter of jailed groomers. Two of the wives accused the victims – “dirty street walkers” – of ruining their men. The teenager burst out: “What’s wrong with you? Men like my dad hurt them, got them pregnant, made them have abortions. Even gave them drugs. You pray to Allah and think rape is okay? It’s all so twisted. And wrong.” I can’t say it better than that.
During PMQs, Labour MP Tahir Ali said that Rishi Sunak had “the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands” as thousands die in Gaza. Several MPs must have agreed; millions of Brits did. By not calling for a ceasefire, arming and unconditionally backing Israel, our Prime Minister is totally complicit in this unequal, unjust conflict.
Keir Starmer looked thunderous. You knew what would happen. Starmer’s whips made Ali apologise. He did that but has not recanted his strongly held views. A party spokesman told reporters Ali’s words were “inappropriate”. Why so? Foreign Office documents register concerns about Israel breaching international humanitarian laws.
I knew truth was a casualty of war, but when a parliamentarian’s honest observation is stamped on, you realise just how debased our system is. Lies can be freely told in that chamber. But truths are dangerous and must be controlled.
Peter Oloya is a sculptor. His pieces are currently on display at the Pangolin Gallery in Kings Cross, London. With his African aesthetic sensibility, using granite, marble wood, bronze, tree bark, gourds and other materials, he creates sculptures that stay in your imagination, come up in your dreams. One of the most memorable is a beautiful female face emerging from a sharp-edged chunk of marble.
I went to the opening and met Oloya, who was born in Uganda in 1976, four years after Asians were expelled by Idi Amin. We found safe places. Black Ugandans entered a dark and violent age. Oloya was abducted by a vicious group of guerilla fighters and forced to become a boy soldier. He still cries when he remembers that brutalisation, but the gentle, sensitive man survived, went to Makerere University – my alma mater – and is now internationally acclaimed.
I said I was sorry for the way my people treated black Ugandans. He was surprised and moved. We hugged and a little bit of the past was cleansed. Thank you, Peter.
I go to Sky Arts to escape trash TV. A recent doc on Dean Martin (Dean Martin: King Of Cool) was captivating. I loved his songs and movies; my brother copied his hairstyle.
He was in the Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. I learn now that John Kennedy – that great liberal – invited the Pack to his inauguration, but left out Sammy because his marriage to a white woman horrified white America. Dean didn’t go either. What a guy.
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