Participants in C4 series tell what difference it has made to their attitudes Sarfraz ManzooThe Observer, Article history 
Damon, one of the eight housemates in Make Bradford British Photograph: Phil Fisk/C4
Can television succeed where the politicians have failed? The producers of a new Channel 4 series, Make Bradford British, which starts this week, set themselves the ambitious challenge of doing just that, bringing together the people of the notoriously divided Yorkshire city.
Bradford has become wearily accustomed to being in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The protests over the publication of The Satanic Verses in the late 80s and the riots that engulfed the city in the summer of 2001 both fuelled a perception that Bradford was a city dangerously divided along racial and religious grounds and whose citizens lived parallel lives.
In Make Bradford British, eight people, all of whom live in the city but come from very different backgrounds, were asked to live together. To select the participants, more than 100 people in the city were asked to sit the UK citizenship test, answering questions such as "what percentage of the British population is under the age of 19?"
Of those who failed the test, eight were invited to share a house in what programme-makers described as a microcosm of a multicultural city. The result is likely to be one of the most controversial and talked about programmes of the year.
The two-part series gave some participants their first experience of mixing with people of a different background. "I used to play rugby, so I have intermingled with the British," said Rashid, 37. "But this was the first time that I have lived with anyone from a different culture, religion and background and I believe you don't really get to know anyone unless you live with them."
Rashid is a devout Muslim whose insistence on praying five times a day in the mosque led to tensions in the house as his prayer schedule made it difficult for him to discharge house duties such as buying food for the evening meal. He shared a room with 24-year-old sheet metal worker Damon, who lives in a predominantly white part of the city. "Bradford is very segregated," he told me. "There are white areas and Asian areas and you just grow up not having any reason to mix."
The eight participants in Make Bradford British spent four days living in a shared house, then split into pairs and spent time with each others' families. "I have lived in Bradford for more than 30 years and I have never been invited by an Asian to have Sunday lunch or a cup of tea," said Audrey, 48, who runs a pub in the city centre.
That kind of segregation has potentially dangerous consequences, as ignorance breeds resentments. In the series, Mohammed, a 45-year-old taxi driver, describes his vision of Britishness as "getting bladdered on a Saturday night", while Audrey said that Bradford was a "ticking bomb. I'm a publican, I speak to the public every day and there is an undercurrent. People say things in private or in a bar but they wouldn't say it publicly because they might be labelled racist."
In the series there is a hint of these undercurrents, when 71-year-old retired police officer Jens recalls the time he joked with an Asian colleague that he was going "Paki-bashing"; the incident leads to a painful discussion about the consequences of using hateful language.
The programme-makers say that the purpose of the series was to see whether people from different religions, backgrounds and cultures could live together and in doing so find out what it means to be British.
During their time together, the eight found that their assumptions and prejudices were challenged. Jens, who in the past had breezily used the phrase "black bastard", is taken to task by Desmond, who is still traumatised by the racist beating that he suffered almost 20 years ago. Sabbiyah, a young, headscarf-wearing Muslim, had attended a largely white school and studied a course at university where she was the only non-white. She entered the house confident she was as British as anyone else, but in the documentary she is confronted by a beery man in a pub who demands to know how she thinks she can be British when she isn't wearing a mini-skirt and low-cut top. It is shocking to watch, and recalling it Sabbiyah admits that she had been "naively optimistic" about integration.
"I come from a very middle class background so all my life I have been in a bit of a bubble with all my friends being liberal, educated and tolerant," she said. "So I had a happy-clappy, wishy-washy, whimsical approach to integration – it was only when I went to mixing with people from a different class that was a big shock. It wasn't just race, it was class. The experience has sobered me up about the reality; that integration is hard work and a long process."
Since the series was made, the participants have remained in contact and they recently met for a reunion meal. One lesson of the series is that even a few days of mixing with people from other communities can make a dramatic difference. Damon and Rashid are now friends and Damon was even invited to Rashid's sister's wedding. "The series changed my mind about Muslims," Damon told me. "I used to think they were all evil."
Damon has talked to friends about his experience and he told me he hoped that it would help them to challenge their prejudices.
Rashid revealed that the lesson he learnt from the series was that bringing people together requires compromises and sometimes suppressing one's own desires. "Maybe there isn't enough give and take in Bradford," he said.
But if the series illustrated how much can be achieved in a short space of time, it also highlighted the limits of what television can do and the challenges for politicians wishing to improve community relations. Damon, while no longer hostile to Muslims, still seems to think it is acceptable to use the word "Paki". When I asked if he thought it was all right to use the word, he said "not in front of them, no".
One of the most urgent challenges in Bradford is how to ensure that its citizens meet and interact with other communities. Audrey says the responsibility lies with Muslims who, she says, have closed themselves from wider society. "To me the burqa is offensive," said Audrey, "because no one can see who you are or your face. I can smile at a woman, but I can't tell if she is smiling back."
"You can't integrate with anyone wearing a burqa," declared Damon, "not when they are choosing to cover themselves up."
Perhaps the most important lesson that Make Bradford British offers is that it is naive to imagine integration without active encouragement. In a city where schools and communities are effectively segregated, there are perhaps not enough opportunities to mix in the way that the group in Make Bradford Britain did.
For Sabbiyah, finding ways to give people that chance to meet others is critical. "You have to force people to come together," she said. "The job of integration cannot be left to just one ethnic minority, it has to be shared by all communities, but you have to create areas where they can be together."
Those who took part in the series did so because they love their city and wanted to help improve it. "By going into that house and spending time with other people, we were all changed in some way," said Audrey. "But the truth is that eight people on their own can't change Bradford – it needs everybody."COPY : http://www.guardian.co.uk
Bradford has become wearily accustomed to being in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The protests over the publication of The Satanic Verses in the late 80s and the riots that engulfed the city in the summer of 2001 both fuelled a perception that Bradford was a city dangerously divided along racial and religious grounds and whose citizens lived parallel lives.
In Make Bradford British, eight people, all of whom live in the city but come from very different backgrounds, were asked to live together. To select the participants, more than 100 people in the city were asked to sit the UK citizenship test, answering questions such as "what percentage of the British population is under the age of 19?"
Of those who failed the test, eight were invited to share a house in what programme-makers described as a microcosm of a multicultural city. The result is likely to be one of the most controversial and talked about programmes of the year.
The two-part series gave some participants their first experience of mixing with people of a different background. "I used to play rugby, so I have intermingled with the British," said Rashid, 37. "But this was the first time that I have lived with anyone from a different culture, religion and background and I believe you don't really get to know anyone unless you live with them."
Rashid is a devout Muslim whose insistence on praying five times a day in the mosque led to tensions in the house as his prayer schedule made it difficult for him to discharge house duties such as buying food for the evening meal. He shared a room with 24-year-old sheet metal worker Damon, who lives in a predominantly white part of the city. "Bradford is very segregated," he told me. "There are white areas and Asian areas and you just grow up not having any reason to mix."
The eight participants in Make Bradford British spent four days living in a shared house, then split into pairs and spent time with each others' families. "I have lived in Bradford for more than 30 years and I have never been invited by an Asian to have Sunday lunch or a cup of tea," said Audrey, 48, who runs a pub in the city centre.
That kind of segregation has potentially dangerous consequences, as ignorance breeds resentments. In the series, Mohammed, a 45-year-old taxi driver, describes his vision of Britishness as "getting bladdered on a Saturday night", while Audrey said that Bradford was a "ticking bomb. I'm a publican, I speak to the public every day and there is an undercurrent. People say things in private or in a bar but they wouldn't say it publicly because they might be labelled racist."
In the series there is a hint of these undercurrents, when 71-year-old retired police officer Jens recalls the time he joked with an Asian colleague that he was going "Paki-bashing"; the incident leads to a painful discussion about the consequences of using hateful language.
The programme-makers say that the purpose of the series was to see whether people from different religions, backgrounds and cultures could live together and in doing so find out what it means to be British.
During their time together, the eight found that their assumptions and prejudices were challenged. Jens, who in the past had breezily used the phrase "black bastard", is taken to task by Desmond, who is still traumatised by the racist beating that he suffered almost 20 years ago. Sabbiyah, a young, headscarf-wearing Muslim, had attended a largely white school and studied a course at university where she was the only non-white. She entered the house confident she was as British as anyone else, but in the documentary she is confronted by a beery man in a pub who demands to know how she thinks she can be British when she isn't wearing a mini-skirt and low-cut top. It is shocking to watch, and recalling it Sabbiyah admits that she had been "naively optimistic" about integration.
"I come from a very middle class background so all my life I have been in a bit of a bubble with all my friends being liberal, educated and tolerant," she said. "So I had a happy-clappy, wishy-washy, whimsical approach to integration – it was only when I went to mixing with people from a different class that was a big shock. It wasn't just race, it was class. The experience has sobered me up about the reality; that integration is hard work and a long process."
Since the series was made, the participants have remained in contact and they recently met for a reunion meal. One lesson of the series is that even a few days of mixing with people from other communities can make a dramatic difference. Damon and Rashid are now friends and Damon was even invited to Rashid's sister's wedding. "The series changed my mind about Muslims," Damon told me. "I used to think they were all evil."
Damon has talked to friends about his experience and he told me he hoped that it would help them to challenge their prejudices.
Rashid revealed that the lesson he learnt from the series was that bringing people together requires compromises and sometimes suppressing one's own desires. "Maybe there isn't enough give and take in Bradford," he said.
But if the series illustrated how much can be achieved in a short space of time, it also highlighted the limits of what television can do and the challenges for politicians wishing to improve community relations. Damon, while no longer hostile to Muslims, still seems to think it is acceptable to use the word "Paki". When I asked if he thought it was all right to use the word, he said "not in front of them, no".
One of the most urgent challenges in Bradford is how to ensure that its citizens meet and interact with other communities. Audrey says the responsibility lies with Muslims who, she says, have closed themselves from wider society. "To me the burqa is offensive," said Audrey, "because no one can see who you are or your face. I can smile at a woman, but I can't tell if she is smiling back."
"You can't integrate with anyone wearing a burqa," declared Damon, "not when they are choosing to cover themselves up."
Perhaps the most important lesson that Make Bradford British offers is that it is naive to imagine integration without active encouragement. In a city where schools and communities are effectively segregated, there are perhaps not enough opportunities to mix in the way that the group in Make Bradford Britain did.
For Sabbiyah, finding ways to give people that chance to meet others is critical. "You have to force people to come together," she said. "The job of integration cannot be left to just one ethnic minority, it has to be shared by all communities, but you have to create areas where they can be together."
Those who took part in the series did so because they love their city and wanted to help improve it. "By going into that house and spending time with other people, we were all changed in some way," said Audrey. "But the truth is that eight people on their own can't change Bradford – it needs everybody."COPY : http://www.guardian.co.uk
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