This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:
Lord Mayor honours group
by Stephen Penn & Stuart Rust
A community group which helped brighten up its neighbourhood with floral displays and hanging baskets has been honoured by the Lord Mayor.
Aylestone Local Action Group was formed in 2010 after residents were inspired by the annual Britain in Bloom contest to improve the area.
They applied for funding from the city council to put up hanging baskets on shop fronts and commissioned steel planters to help liven up the main road through the area.
On Monday, the group was presented with the Lord Mayor's Honoured Citizen Award at the town hall.
Chairman Lin Moss said: "We had the idea to improve the look of the shopping precinct in Aylestone, and the Britain in Bloom scheme gave us the focus of flowers and plants to make it a more attractive place, both for residents and those who travel through.
"There has been a great reaction from the community.
"While we are out watering or changing the plants, we also get a positive reaction from people in the street.
"However, it takes a lot of work and, as we are all volunteers, we are always looking for people to lend a hand."
The group has received support from people and organisations, including shopkeepers and the Brownies.
It has received funding from the city council's Aylestone ward community fund.
As well as hanging baskets and flowers, the group has also put up a notice board in the centre of Aylestone, and holds regular litter picks.
Lord Mayor Councillor Abdul Osman said: "I went down to Aylestone to see for myself the work they have done and was very impressed with the steel planters and all of the design work they have managed to do with the ward funding."
They were nominated for the award by Aylestone councillor Nigel Porter. He said: "I'm happy to see the group get honoured here, especially after witnessing their hard work over the past three years.
"It's nice to see them getting their well-deserved pat on the back and a cup of tea."
Fellow ward councillor Adam Clarke said: "It's great to see the group getting so involved in the community and helping make changes beyond the capabilities of the council."
In the photo above, back row, third from right is Minou Cortazzi, who represents the city's Bahá'ís on Leicester Council of Faiths, of which she was Chair, 2007-09.
Thinking the unthinkable - why Asian leader spoke out on immigration
Immigrants, eh? Coming over here, taking our jobs... it's time the Government did something. That was the general gist. It's hardly newsworthy now; the kind of opinion you can hear being bandied across pub tables every night of the week.
Sometimes, though, it's not what's been said, but who has said it.You don't expect a banker to have a go at bonuses and you don't expect an Asian community leader to question the wisdom of Britain's immigration policy.
Yet last week, in the pages of this newspaper, Suleman Nagdi – spokesman for the Federation of Muslim Organisations, chairman of the Muslim Burial Council, Deputy Lieutenant of Leicestershire, MBE – did just that.
It felt like a watershed moment; an immigrant – Mr Nagdi arrived in Britain in 1976 – calling for tighter immigration controls.
To some, it was an example of towering hypocrisy; an ill-judged comment by someone who should know better, that could only blow wind into the sails of the far-right.
"People have said, 'It's okay for Suleman. He's here, he's got himself a good life. Now he wants to stop other people doing it'," says Mr Nagdi.
"The other side of it is, 'I agree with you. We don't have the resources here at this moment to deal with these people'."
Mr Nagdi made his original remarks after being asked to comment on a survey which found 39 per cent of British Asians – compared with 34 per cent of whites and 21 per cent of blacks – wanted all immigration into the UK to be stopped permanently.
Those figures were greeted with raised eyebrows, but they weren't altogether surprising, says John Benyon, a professor of political studies at the University of Leicester.
We tie the label "immigrant" to all new arrivals.
Yet what do Somali refugees have in common with Eastern Europeans or Indians who came here from Uganda and Kenya in the 1970s?
The answer, Prof Benyon points out, is not a great deal – beyond the desire to build themselves better lives.
He says: "A lot of generalisations about immigrants are made without any attempt to distinguish between the different motivations of people for wanting to come here. Some are economic migrants, some come here for security."
Mr Nagdi finesses his comments of last week, but he doesn't row back from them.
Mukesh Naker, a spokesman for Leicester pressure group British Hindu Voice, said similar things in that story. He, though, has not responded to our requests for an interview.
So, fair play to Mr Nagdi.
"I'm just being practical," he says. "Look at the situation we now find ourselves in. We are in the grip of a worldwide economic recession.
More people are losing their jobs.
"We need to look at the demands made on housing and education.
There are far-reaching consequences if you have large numbers of people coming in.
"I'm not talking about a total ban on immigration. I'm talking about more control over immigration."
The far-right is always looking to scapegoat certain groups for social and economic problems, he argues. If we don't take the issue of immigration seriously, then we run the risk of playing into their hands.
It's a point, but does the Leicester of today look so very different to one Mr Nagdi moved into in the 1970s?
We had a three-day week back then, an oil crisis, a recession and the National Front were on the march.
Yet Mr Nagdi, like so many others who had little luggage and a lot of ambition, made a go of things. He worked hard, he set up his own business and, along with many others, he helped reinvigorate this city's spluttering economy.
"There are some major success stories relating to minority communities," says Mr Nagdi, seemingly trampling on his own argument. "If you look at Leicester, some of the richest people in this city are from minority communities. They have contributed to the wealth of this city."
The Asian immigrant success story has been told so often it teeters on the brink of cliche.
Manjula Sood, Leicester's first Indian lady mayor and first woman chairman of the city's council of faiths, came to Leicester on December 18, 1970.
Home, back in India, had been a 25-room house with servants. She swapped that for a one-bedroom place in Highfields with no carpets or central heating.
Manjula wanted to go back to India, but her grandfather told her to stick it out with her new husband. She did, and the rest, as they say, is history.
"This city gave me the support to bring up my children and live with dignity," says Manjula.
It is a debt Manjula has undoubtedly paid back with interest – just as today's new arrivals will do, she believes.
When Manjula sees Eastern Europeans cleaning cars, opening shops and working on building sites for the minimum wage, she sees the same determination to succeed she saw in Indian immigrants 30 and 40 years ago.
Lazy people don't cross continents. If someone leaves their country, they do it because they want to build themselves a better life.
Given time, they too will be part of Leicester's establishment, says Manjula. You can't pull the shutters down on immigration. Try to do that and society stagnates.
That's not to say she doesn't understand people's concerns, particularly in the Indian community.
People mortgaged their lives to buy into the British dream, and now, they can see it evaporating before their eyes.
Is it any wonder if people have concerns about new arrivals, she asks. The recent English Defence League rally brought back unhappy memories for lots of people.
There is a fear that minority communities could bear the brunt of any backlash if immigration concerns are not addressed.
"I can stand on a rooftop saying I'm British, but others don't see me as that. It's not what I say, it's what others think," says Mr Nagdi.
There is a fear in the Asian community, says Manjula, that they "could be the first targeted if anything goes wrong".
"Go into the communities and you will find this is the talk at the moment."
Such concerns are perfectly understandable, says Prof Benyon. People who come to a country for a better life are often less likely to take that life for granted.
There is another factor at work, too, he says.
"Immigrants are often fiercely proud and loyal of their new country, much more so sometimes than people who have been here for generations," says Prof Benyon.
As far as Mr Nagdi is concerned, he's not saying the unsayable. We have to talk about such things, he believes.
"Immigration is a debate we all should be having," he says. "I'm the first one to say I don't have all the answers.
"If you had asked me about this 20 years ago, my answer may have been different. I think more about being a British citizen than an Asian citizen. My focus has changed."
Just to set the record straight: this article describes Cllr Manjula Sood as "first woman chairman of the city's council of faiths". The first woman Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths was actually Minou Cortazzi (2007-9).
Today is the first full day of our exhibition at Highcross for Inter Faith Week. Lord Mayor of Leicester, Cllr Roger Blackmore, and Lady Mayoress, Mrs Hilary Blackmore, officially open the exhibition at 12 noon. It's a low-key affair, but entirely appropriate given the setting. Chair of the Council of Faiths, Deputy Lord Mayor Councillor Manjula Sood, is present, as are our immediate past Chair, Minou Cortazzi and Vice-Chair, Tony Nelson. No ribbon to cut, no big scissors to wield, but the Lord Mayor makes a short supportive speech to the dozen or so gathered around him. Manjula says a few words too. We look round the display together, talk about the messages on the banners, enjoy some positive chat and have a few photographs taken. John Coster, from Citizens’ Eye Community News Agency takes several which he posts to Flickr within a couple of hours.
We're joined by Sarah Harrison, City Centre Director, who spoke recently to a full meeting of the Council of Faiths about her work. The Council of Faiths would seem to be a natural ally in what she’s trying to do in the ongoing regeneration of Leicester city centre.
A few words about the exhibition itself would be appropriate here: Julie-Ann Heath, “Workplace Chaplain” at the Cathedral, made the initial contact that led to us having this exhibition. She's a member of Leicester Council of Faiths and brought us into contact with the management at Highcross some six months ago or more, when they expressed an interest in having a display about the city’s faith communities. Without going through all the ins-and-outs of it, we were given this space for National Inter Faith Week to put ourselves on show to the public. We agreed informally with Highcross management on a number of terms, none of which were especially onerous:
- that we should be even-handed, promoting all the faiths involved equally, not appearing to favour one faith over another;
- that we should avoid dispute and contention among volunteers fronting the display or between those on the display and members of the public who might stop and look;
- that the message of the display should be positive;
- that the exhibition material should be harmonious in style and of professional design and production;
- that it should be accessible to members of the public using Highcross;
- that the content should say something relevant to the lives of the people who see it on show.
We were told that we could expect up to 400,000 footfalls over the week! Whatever else it might be, it’ll be the biggest single exposure to the people of Leicester of the Council of Faiths, its member communities and the relationship between them. There’s more to say about the exhibition, but I’ll stretch that out over the posts for this week.
The Leicester Mercury runs the second column in its First Person series for National Inter Faith Week, but I couldn’t get my hands on a copy today (too busy even to step into a newsagents – can anyone really be that busy?) so I don’t know who is featured or what they said. I’ll catch up with that later in the week. I’m disappointed to note that the First Person column isn’t available electronically on the Leicester Mercury’s website. I’d like to be able to link to that occasionally.
From today's entries in the reflective journal, written by one of the volunteers on the stall:
“The banners are great! So far most pass by with a passing glance, but some do slow down and read and some even ask questions – a step in the right direction!”
