[chottala.com] The ECONOMIST....From Brick Lane to the fast lane

 

Oct 25th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Against all odds, Britain's poorest big ethnic group is streaking ahead

Imagenet

IN THE end, the book burnings never really kicked off. The silver-screen adaptation of "Brick Lane", a best-selling novel about a young Bangladeshi woman's uphill struggle in east London, irked some of those who live around the famous street. Community bigwigs (mainly self-appointed) called the portrayal of their neighbourhood a "despicable insult" and threatened bonfires, blockades and worse. Filming on location was hampered, and last month Prince Charles pulled out of a special royal screening, reportedly fearing controversy. The film's London premiere is set for October 26th.

Monica Ali, the book's author and herself born in Dhaka, points out that the small crowd of protesters was dwarfed by the number of local people queuing up to be extras in the film. Indeed, Brick Lane itself is a monument to multicultural tolerance of the most photogenic sort: Bengali curry houses compete with beigel bakeries; a Church of England school sits opposite the Bangla City supermarket, where restaurateurs heave away jumbo frozen fish. Up the road, snowboard shops and art galleries announce the invasion of cool-seeking yuppies. A tiny bedsit is yours for £350 ($700) a week—and how much those rents might have risen had the elders allowed more filming to take place.

The film ends cheerily—and, although the experience of Bangladeshis in Britain has not been all plain sailing, they too seem on course for a happy ending. Historically bottom of the heap of Britain's south Asian immigrants, they have in recent years been bounding ahead. Bangladeshi children (including those born in Britain) have overtaken Pakistanis at school; they have even narrowed the gap with Indians, the most successful south Asian group (see chart). After controlling for poverty, the results are brighter still. Among children receiving free school meals (a useful indicator of poverty), 26% of white children manage five good GCSEs. For Pakistanis this rises to 40%; poorer Bangladeshis rack up 50%.

This is all the more surprising given that their parents are faring less well than others at work. Pakistanis (the most useful group for comparison, as they, like Bangladeshis, are south Asian, Muslim and of mainly rural stock) are more likely to be employed and to earn more per hour. And Bangladeshi children are not outperforming because their families have had longer to bed down in Britain: immigration from both places accelerated through the 1990s.

Part of the answer lies in geography. Pakistanis are spread all over the country but Bangladeshis, like Indians, are heavily concentrated in London. More than half of the 330,000-strong community live in the capital, and of these almost half live in the borough of Tower Hamlets, within whose western border runs Brick Lane.

Overcrowding is rife in the borough, and inner-London state schools tend not to be brilliant. But the highly concentrated nature of the community can be a strength, argues Rushanara Ali of the Young Foundation, a think-tank. Ms Ali hopes to become Britain's first Bangladeshi MP, for Labour, at the next election. "There is masses of social capital," she says. "People pool their resources to support kids in after-school classes. There's a lot of informal home-based learning." The fact that most Bangladeshi migrants come from just one region, Sylhet, binds the community tighter still. And the sheer numbers mean that schools in Tower Hamlets are used to negotiating the language barrier and working with parents and religious groups. Perhaps coincidentally, the borough was also the testing ground for "synthetic phonics", a way of teaching children to read that seems to work especially well for pupils whose first language is not English.

Stumbling blocks persist. Despite their stellar GCSE performance, Bangladeshi students are less likely to stay on in school after the age of 16 than are Pakistanis, and those who do fare slightly worse. Poverty is one cause, since it is from this stage that students forgo paid work in order to study (and may face tuition fees at university). But there is also an aspirational hurdle, reckons Misbah Mosobbir, founder of bobNetwork, a professional association for British Bengalis. "It's a question of confidence in the community. There's a lot of cultural baggage: the parents are all focused on catering and there is a lack of role models." Mr Mosobbir was channelled into waiting on tables, like his father. Eventually he took up evening classes, then studied for a university degree. Now aged 37, he is an investment banker, and next month will take a group of teenagers to visit a bank in Canary Wharf, London's new financial district, to widen their horizons. (Boris Johnson, the wily Conservative candidate for London mayor, will attend their next session to inspire youth and perhaps chase Muslim votes.)

As Tower Hamlets turns out more bright sparks, however, Bangladeshis' economic situation is slowly improving. Today's workers are getting better jobs: a study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a charity, found that between 1991 and 2001 Bangladeshi men ditched manual work in droves to go into skilled and professional occupations. And Bangladeshi women are now working or seeking work as actively as Pakistanis (still a woeful 33%—but that is ten percentage points better than a decade ago). Wages are catching up too: hourly pay is now a quarter below the average in Britain, compared with a third below in 2001.

As the community pulls itself up, it means more change for east London. The Jamme mosque on the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane is a symbol of the area's history as an immigrant launch-pad. Before 1976 it was a synagogue; before that a Methodist chapel; and earlier still a church for French Huguenots. One day the Bangladeshi graduates of Tower Hamlets College will move up and out. Who will star in "Brick Lane 2"?

Back to top »

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com __._,_.___

[* Moderator's Note - CHOTTALA is a non-profit, non-religious, non-political and non-discriminatory organization.

* Disclaimer: Any posting to the CHOTTALA are the opinion of the author. Authors of the messages to the CHOTTALA are responsible for the accuracy of their information and the conformance of their material with applicable copyright and other laws. Many people will read your post, and it will be archived for a very long time. The act of posting to the CHOTTALA indicates the subscriber's agreement to accept the adjudications of the moderator]

Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___