Muslim Gang Culture in Glasgow

BOUNDING down Forth Street on the southside of Glasgow, 15-year-old Atif is waving his arms around as he talks about his experience of gang fighting.

“I remember when we were playing football at the Holyrood pitches and there was this big riot, there were about 50 people,” he says, barely gasping for air in between sentences. “It was crazy, we had just come out of football, and hammers and knives were getting thrown everywhere.”

Brawling mostly happens on “special occasions”, he says, such as bonfire night, or Eid, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, or at the Glasgow multicultural festival, Mela.

“Fighting is fun,” he says with a huge grin. You get pumped up, you get really into it ... but you regret it after.”

His friend nods in agreement but claims Shields – the Pollokshields neighbourhood in Glasgow which has a large Asian population – isn’t that “scary”, he says.

Walking ahead of the pair are Amir and Humza.

It is an unseasonably warm October evening and Albert Drive, the heart of Pollokshields, is littered with people popping in and out of the shops and cars pumping out rap music.

The lads are all on the cusp of turning 16. They are all in fourth year at different Glasgow schools, and they are all young Asian Muslims living in Glasgow’s ethnically diverse southside.

Some come from families with criminal connections, some are from one-parent families. One is a carer for his disabled mother. These are young men on the brink of losing themselves to gang culture. Tonight, they are with their youth workers – men who are attempting to make sure these teenagers don’t take the wrong path as so many of their peers are now doing.

At the moment, all they seem to care about is playing football, going to the gym and smoking cannabis. But they risk falling into serious criminality.

Atif’s uncle, who is 19, recently spent time in Polmont Young Offenders Institute. Atif says he was charged once but the case was dropped. He refuses to say what the charge was, however.

His friend, Rashid, cites the eternal woe of the teenager for the attraction to petty crime: “There’s just not enough to do here.”

Atif agrees: “Everyone smokes hash because there’s nothing to do.”

The teenagers belong to the Youth Community Support Agency (YCSA). Dozens of teens throughout the community attend every day. There are around 20 workers and volunteers for the Pollokshields charity, which is currently facing worrying funding cuts. Youth workers say the mid to late-teens are a tightrope walk for young Asian men – and they can easily fall into gang culture.

Billy Halliday, 49, a young person’s support worker who has been with YCSA for almost two years, is sitting in the “quiet room” of the striking A-listed building, which was formerly a Masonic lodge and a base for the Seamen’s Mission.

A swirling stone dragon pops out of the wall above the toilets and erotic nude pictures of mermaids are painted over wall tiles.

Given that the clientele of the organisation is predominantly Muslim, the mermaid’s modesty is covered by giant posters.

“We have to recognise different cultures and respect them,” he says.

Halliday calls the young people “role models” and says the work the YCSA does in the area is vital.

Many young people, he says “aren’t actually in gangs ... but they adopt the gang of the area as a badge”.

He says: “Young people who are doing well at school and who have got real good prospects see themselves as a Shielder [Pollokshields gang] or a Gabba [Govanhill gang] because they stay in that area.

“But as they get older, if no-one’s tackling that identity and if there’s no activities for them to do, then the older people will draw them into the activities.

“We get them to see that they can make their own decisions and take responsibility for their own actions.”

The overwhelming feeling from the teenagers is that they are perceived negatively. “I was coming back from my mate’s and two police officers pulled me over to ask me what I was doing and then searched me,” says Humza.

“Everyone thinks Pollokshields is a bad area,” adds Rashid, who is from the area but now lives in nearby Govanhill. “But it’s just a stereotype.

“People see a group of people and they think, ‘it’s obviously a gang’ but it’s just a bunch of friends.”

The YCSA is clearly a lifeline for them. “We like coming here because it gives us opportunities to get a job,” says Rashid.

“I was charged once. If I didn’t come here it would just keep happening,” Atif adds. “It keeps us off the streets.”

Source: The Herald

Scottish Conservative Quits Over Vote-Rigging Allegations

The Herald today reports that Glasgow's only Conservative councillor, David Meikle, has quit the party's regional list amid allegations of vote-rigging.

David Meikle, Glasgow’s only Tory councillor, withdrew from the city’s regional ballot for May’s election, claiming his complaints about a recent internal selection contest had been stonewalled by the party hierarchy.

Meikle and and another candidate had filed official complaints about the procedure a couple of weeks ago.

The Herald revealed earlier this month that Mr Meikle and another Holyrood candidate, Richard Sullivan, had demanded an investigation into the ranking of candidates for the party’s Glasgow list, alleging “electoral malpractice”.

The pair claimed a sudden influx of new members had skewed the result, and that numerous ballot papers bore similar handwriting.

However, the party’s headquarters refused to instigate a probe, arguing there was no need for one.

Mr Meikle, 27, a councillor for Pollokshields since 2007, last night confirmed he had refused to sign nomination papers for the regional list as he felt the process and the result were tainted.

He added that, out of loyalty to his local association, he would remain the candidate for the first-past-the post seat of Glasgow Southside.

Could the vote-rigging allegations relate to our Muslim friends? There is no hint of this in the article, not even "Asian", the usual elite code for "Muslim" whenever wrong-doing is being discussed.

Last year the Herald did report on "Asian" infiltration of the Scottish Conservative party in Glasgow.

Senior Conservatives in Glasgow have raised the alarm over an alleged plot to influence the selection of party candidates.

Seven constituency chairmen and women have written to the party’s central office in Edinburgh about a mass sign-up of members linked to the newly-created One Nation Forum.

Mark McInnes, the director of the party in Scotland, is to meet the seven today to listen to their fears.

The forum was formed last year by businessman Majid Hussain in an attempt to improve links between ethnic minorities and the Scottish Tories, as well as to raise funds for the party.

However, senior Glasgow Conservatives are concerned that the forum may have signed up hundreds of members ahead of the candidate selections for next year’s Holyrood poll.

The retirement of the Conservatives’ sole list member in the city, Bill Aitken, has sparked a scramble for this seat as well as other constituency nominations.

It is believed an influx of forum members to the party could decide the election for top place on the list, as well as influence the contests for constituency selections.

The party is due to select its candidates this week for the Glasgow Pollok and Glasgow Southside seats, the latter of which is being targeted by Mr Hussain.

Note that David Meikle represents Pollokshields, indicating a possible connection between the two reports.

This area has been heavily "enriched" by Muslim colonists. To quote from the Wikipedia page on Pollokshields:

Modern Pollokshields is an area of ethnic diversity, home to large communities of mainly Asian peoples including Pakistani, as well as Indian origin. The area's commercial eastern side is home to a large number of South Asian shops (fruit, meat and clothes shops) attracting shoppers from all over Scotland.

Albert Drive is the location of the two Eid celebrations when the Muslim community of Glasgow congregate to commemorate the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Note also that Richard Sullivan, who joined with David Meikle in making a complaint about
the recent vote-rigging allegations, was also one of those who signed a letter calling for an investigation of the Muslim infiltration organised by the One Nation Forum last year.

The signatories to the letter were: Patricia Cunningham in Glasgow South, Richard Sullivan in Glasgow Central, John Anderson in Glasgow North, Archie McIntyre in Glasgow South West, Barbara McCulloch in Glasgow North West, George Clark in Glasgow East, and Randle Wilson in Glasgow North East.

This political discussion forum, where many of the posters seem to have inside knowledge of the goings-on, mentioned the vote-rigging allegations last week (in connection with the departure of another Conservative candidate):

I've heard allegedly MacAskill has been sacked regarding irregularities of a somewhat Rahman nature, specifically the Tory membership in his local area jumping tenfold just before the selection process!

The phrase "of a somewhat Rahman nature" is certainly intriguing. It refers to Lutfur Rahman, a former Labour candidate who abandoned the party and stood as an independent. He succeeded in becoming mayor of Tower Hamlets despite being linked to Islamic supremacist organisations and vote-rigging.

All in all, I'd say the likelihood of our Mohammedan friends being involved in the latest shenanigans is high. Political correctness has now so suffused our media, though, that we are forced to play these ridiculous guessing games instead of being able to read the plain, simple truth.