BY PHIL HEARSE
LONDON — The recently concluded triangular one-day cricket competition between England, Pakistan and Australia was noticeable for two things. First, as expected, Australia thrashed both the other sides. Second, the British press, the English cricket establishment and Australian captain Steve Waugh collaborated in a hue and cry against the thousands of noisy young Pakistanis who flooded to grounds around England to support their team.
On the Lords pavilion balcony at the award ceremony after the Australia-Pakistan final on June 23, Aussie one-day specialist Michael Bevan was struck a glancing blow from a tin of Victoria Bitter beer hurled from the crowd. No injury was sustained from this minor incident, but Steve Waugh "had no choice" but to lead his players off the balcony, making a mountain out of a molehill.
He had previously taken his players off the field during a match against Pakistan, after a few empty beer cans had been chucked onto the field. Of course anyone familiar with Australian cricket knows that no such thing has ever happened down under! The likes of Keith Miller and Doug Walters would have laughed themselves stupid at the idea that this constituted a "crisis".
The British press went berserk. "You Maniacs" was the headline in the Daily Mail. New Scotland Yard has published the "mug shots" of six young Pakistanis wanted "for causing trouble" at the Lords final.
The real reason for this hysteria is simple — racism, and behind that the long hot summer of clashes between Pakistani youth and white racists in a number of northern towns. In some of these towns the fascist British National Party (BNP) got big votes in the June general election.
The huge interest in the series among young Pakistanis should have been welcomed with open arms by the British cricket authorities. Every ground at which Pakistan played was packed with kids paying ridiculous sums — up to A$80 — for the privilege.
But the Pakistani youth spoilt the unwritten deal, namely pay your money and keep quiet. They created a constant cacophony from horns and other instruments and demonstrated a quite unseemly partisan excitement. During some desperately interesting passages of play, many of them seemed more interested in making mobile phone calls!
In the final game between Pakistan and England they even ran on the pitch before the end, God forbid, forcing England to "concede" the game. (Some concession: Pakistan needed two runs to win with most of their batsmen left and eight overs to go).
The cricket correspondent of the Independent made an unwittingly telling point when he said that many Pakistani youth are not really cricket fans. This is probably true: they turned out in their thousands to support their "side" and that involves a lot more than cricket.
The incomprehension of this phenomenon was beautifully demonstrated by the England captain Nasser Hussein, who at the end of the May England-Pakistan test series expressed his disappointment that the grounds had been filled with green-shirted young people supporting Pakistan.
"I can't understand why they don't support England", said Hussein, pointing out he too is a second generation Asian immigrant (from Bombay). The very next evening huge riots broke out in the Lancashire town of Oldham, as Pakistani youth reacted to the story that a Pakistani taxi driver had been maced by police during an arrest over a driving offence.
Since then there have been riots in Leeds, Burnley and Accrington. Generally, this has not been a conflict between Pakistanis and the police, but fighting against white racist gangs, following a spate of beatings and petrol bombings of Asian shops and restaurants.
The surge of white racism in northern towns is a very dangerous phenomenon, stoked up by the BNP and the National Front. Usually the racist gangs and their supporters come from the ultra-poor ("sink") housing estates, areas of high unemployment which the last fives years of relative prosperity have passed by.
Unlike the multicultural big cities, the smaller towns which ring Manchester and Leeds generally have just two communities, whites and Pakistanis. Some Pakistanis, mainly small traders and restaurant owners, have done well economically, although the Pakistani community in general is poor.
Right-wing groups and populist demagogues have seized on the "special treatment" given Pakistanis, such as community centres and translation units funded by local authorities. The message is that we are poor, nobody does anything for us, and the "Pakis" get special privileges.
The core of the problem is uneven economic growth centred on the finance sector and high-tech industries, overwhelmingly in London and the south of the country. This combines with the total shambles of public services, and the failure of Tony Blair's New Labour government to address long-term unemployment in areas where traditional manufacturing industry, like the Lancashire cotton mills, has closed down.
These concerns are a million miles away from the consciousness of the pampered millionaire stars of international cricket, and indeed the philistine English cricket authorities who responded to Pakistani enthusiasm which threats of "snarling dogs" and building new perimeter fences.
Let's face it, mass poverty, racist violence and a surge of support for fascist groups is really unimportant compared with Michael Bevan suffering nil damage from a can of VB.