How a game of cricket

in a Scottish town

ended in racist violence

Kenneth Roy

The increasingly outspoken chief constable of Strathclyde, Stephen House, told the newspapers that a combination of alcohol, sun and a bank holiday could create 'the perfect storm' for last Sunday's Old Firm game – their seventh and last encounter of the season. In the event, the teams produced not so much the perfect storm as the perfect result, a goal-less draw symbolising all that is sterile about this ritual.
     There were nine arrests, none apparently related to sectarianism. Whether the rapes predicted by Mr House materialised, only Mr House can say. There has been no word of them to date.
     Meanwhile, 30 miles south of Glasgow, in the seaside town of Ayr, Strathclyde Police is investigating a hate crime unconnected with football. It has gone unnoticed by the national media, yet it says something just as unpleasant about the state of Scottish society. In this case the violence and bloodshed erupted at a cricket match of all things.
     A group of Asian students was playing an informal game on the Low Green, a recreational area close to the beach, the Sunday before last. The group often plays there and had never encountered trouble before. On this occasion it was approached by a gang of 10 young men clutching bottles of vodka and beer. The students were subjected to unprovoked racist abuse and told: 'You don't belong here'. They were then set upon in broad daylight.
     Parminder Singh, aged 21, who is studying aircraft engineering at Ayr College, was attacked from behind by three of the gang. They grabbed his neck and kicked him so viciously that he is now wearing a sling, is unable to lift his arm, and has barely any grip. Three of his friends – Subham Gumbar, aged 20, Manoj Lama, aged 21, and Sandeeb Yadav, aged 21 – were attacked with glass bottles which were smashed over their heads. There were fears for Subham's sight before doctors at the accident and emergency unit of Ayr Hospital managed to pick the glass out of his eye socket. A week later he was still unable to open his left eye.
     Parminder told the local paper: 'We are not aggressive people. When these men first approached us, we said we didn't want any trouble, we were having a good time and told them to enjoy themselves too. We are working hard at college, we work part-time to pay our fees, and we enjoy playing cricket to relax'. They say they will not be put off by the experience: they hope to return to the Low Green and play cricket again. That would be an act of courage. Even speaking out and allowing themselves to be photographed for the local paper has been brave. Less clear is whether their admirable response to the ordeal has been reciprocated.

     Robert Burns immortalised Ayr as a town of honest men and bonnie lassies, bestowing on it the warm glow of international fraternity on which it continues to trade. All so much moonshine – it is probably no worse but certainly no better than most other Scottish towns of its size, its streets an alien environment, if not quite a no-go area, on a Saturday night for anyone over the age of 30. Close to where the students were attacked, there was once a rave venue called Hanger 13, notorious for its ecstasy-related deaths.
     Until now, the Low Green on an early evening in spring has been considered safe; even family-friendly. The weather was pleasant the Sunday before last and there were scores of people nearby. So there were witnesses to the cricket match and the brutal attack which brought it to an abrupt end. Among these witnesses there might have been a few of Burns's honest men and bonnie lassies. If there were, they were not risking their own physical safety to intervene.
     The first minister insists that the authorities will adopt a zero-tolerance approach to sectarian crimes and disturbances. No doubt Mr Salmond, if he knew of the incident in Ayr, would insist upon the same zero-tolerance approach to hate crimes in general. But this policy pre-supposes the co-operation of decent people. For success it requires a strong sense of citizenship. It seems to have been absent on the Low Green. It seems we are quite capable of being intimidated.
     Well, I must be frank. I too am capable of being intimidated. Are you? If both us are, where do we go as a society?
     It is almost a decade since the murder of a young asylum seeker, Firsat Dag, in north Glasgow repelled and, to some extent, galvanised the west of Scotland. A few weeks later, in the late summer of 2001, I chaired a public meeting at which community and religious leaders spoke deeply of this affront to traditional ideas of Scottish tolerance. The sense of shock was almost palpable. It bordered on disbelief. Yet, uncomfortably, it had to be faced that the community of north Glasgow was ill-prepared for the sudden influx of asylum seekers and bitterly resentful of the least entitlement granted to the newcomers. People who had nothing rounded on people with less than nothing.
     The sociology of the Ayr incident is less obvious. The police in Ayrshire say that racially-motivated crime in the area is unusual. But it may be worth considering its timing, a mere three days after a much-publicised and highly contentious speech by the prime minister. In it, David Cameron spoke of the 'discomfort and disjointedness' that, in his opinion, high immigration is causing in British society. His cabinet colleague, Vince Cable, at once distanced himself from these remarks, called them 'very unwise', and said that they could inflame extremism. Was it just coincidence that, the following weekend, we saw this extremism at its nastiest? Is the message of the Low Green that prime ministers, like chief constables, should mind their language? There is nothing cheaper than alarmist rhetoric, especially when we feel no safer for it.

Kenneth Roy is editor of the Scottish Review