A year after I was surrounded in Birmingham, have community rifts healed?

Sky News

15 hours ago

As riots broke out across the country last summer following the Southport attack, fear spread in a majority Muslim part of Birmingham that far-right protesters were on their way.
Locals came out on to the streets, and as I was reporting live on air, I was surrounded by a small group of masked men, swearing and gesturing to the camera.
Afterwards, as we were trying to drive away from the area, a man with a knife followed us and attempted to slash a tyre on our broadcast van.
A year on, I have returned to the area to discuss what happened with some of those who saw their city descend into chaos.
"The local community had lost faith in the local elected members as well as the local policing units," says Naeem Yousef, 48, who lives nearby.
"They thought…the only way to protect themselves and the community was by coming out in force."
'You can't control their behaviour'
Tanveer Choudhry, 56, agrees. "In every community we have our sort of, shall we call them… idiots, and you can't control their behaviour," he says.
"I think there was a concern that the far-right group that was coming may well be armed… so I think it was just trying to counteract what they thought was coming."
We are sitting in a cafe, not far from where the unrest broke out last summer.
'They were looking for who they thought were the enemy'
The group I'm with were invited by community activist Naveed Sadiq, who was there that day.
As well as Naveed, there are three other local Muslim men, and two white residents, including Gerry Moynihan.
He recalls deciding to stay at home that day.
"They were looking for what they thought were the enemy - white people - and trying to find white people," he says.
"Which is why I stayed in my house, because the intelligence I had was, don't get involved, don't walk around, and you know, it will pass."
I ask the group if my team and I were targeted because we were white.
"It's not because you're white, it's because they're actually bored," Naveed says. "They were wanting a bit of excitement."
I ask if they think it would have happened if we were all British Asian.
"Of course," Tanveer replies. "It wasn't the fact that you were white… it was just the heat of the moment".
Naeem believes it happened simply because the men involved "do not want anyone filming what they're doing".
"You could have been Asian… they would still try to get you out of the area," he insists.
'Are we going to be accepted?'
I'm keen to understand how these men feel now and whether the sentiment that brought people out on to the streets to "protect" them has been reignited by the recent protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers.
The answer, from Joe Khann, a local Muslim man, would surprise many.
"I would like to go and join them," he says, referring to the anti-immigration protesters who have gathered several times in Epping.
"We have this problem within our own communities, and people don't talk about it. We feel exactly the same and we understand how the English feel with the immigration," he explains.
"We're having people who are getting married back home, they get married for six months, get divorced…and the government gives them all their help to get accommodation, their national insurance numbers and all that," he says.
"We're getting fed up within our own community because we hear this constantly."
However, he thinks if he did try to join in protests, people would "think I'm an immigrant".
He says he is "born here, 58, and they look at me as a foreigner or a migrant".
Naeem agrees. "The question is for us now, as people who are born and bred in this country, what is our identity? Who are we?" he asks.
"As a white person born in this country, you are automatically accepted. Are we going to be accepted? How many generations will it take for us to be accepted?"
'You have to blame someone'
Naeem is also concerned about immigration.
"We have an influx of people that we do not know about, and they have no loyalty to the area," he says.
"I believe that the average white guy… isn't racist, they're just fed up," adds Naveed.
However, these men do have grievances, particularly with the media.
"We feel that we have a two-tier journalists system where when the colour is like mine we get different justice and when the colour is a bit paler it's different," Naveed says.
'We have become the bogeyman'
"When there's criminality, and it's on the news, a Muslim has to be identified by his religion," Naeem says.
He believes Muslims have become the "bogeyman" in many people's minds.
"Where you don't have housing for example, where the crime has increased, you have to blame someone," he says.
"Prior it was the Irish community, now it's the Muslim community.
"It's a distraction from the actual real issues and how you can resolve them but let's just put it on to the Muslim community for now, let's just distract the whole nation and say look it's the problem with asylum, it's a problem with Muslims," he says.
After leaving, I head over to the spot on the roundabout where my team were targeted last year.
As I stand there, my colleague sees a man imitating pulling the trigger of a gun at me from his car.