Eastwood – Reflections from a Conservative perspective

Litter infested streets, houses crying of depravity and a sense of failure and misfortune. That’s how it feels walking the streets of Eastwood these days.

Personally speaking, I don’t recognise this section of Rotherham any more. For a brief period in the early 2000’s, I lived on Grosvenor Road with my family. The decay hadn’t quite set in then and Eastwood was a relatively mediocre but friendly enough place to live.

Fast forward over ten years, and the abysmal state of Eastwood makes one question whether it’s even Britain, let alone Rotherham! I refer to the dereliction and abandonment of this area which seems to have accepted decline and dismal nothingness. I’m not interested in pointing the finger at the Council or at certain individuals, but it is a source of great concern to us all in this town that every migrant community in the world is being discarded into Eastwood and cast to the periphery of the social community. Uncared for and forgotten. Just because we are committed to reducing net migration in the UK, that does not mean that we simply abandon or cast aside those who are already here. That would be inhumane, yet it is happening in Rotherham.

It is no surprise that there is such a lack of cooperation from both British residents and the migrant inhabitants of Eastwood because people seem to have accepted what is fast becoming an unbelievably obvious apartheid. Crime rates are forever rising, the streets are either swamped with litter or blood stained; it’s like a scene out of Beirut.

Where is our pride in our community? Where is the community spirit? I regret to say that it has perhaps been buried under the conniving banner of multiculturalism, and state multiculturalism at that! Eastwood has effectively been ‘ghettoised’ in the past few years, and any decent person would not be afraid to admit so. But what is the solution? After all, I did say that I’m not here to point the finger.

The answer can be summed up in one word: integration. People seem to underestimate the power and the effect of integrating, communicating, and uniting as one. We must accept that ‘state multiculturalism’- where people don’t speak to each other and enforce their own culture within their own community is a flawed concept and a concept in which extremism and division breed and thrive. Education on both sides is required and on an industrial scale. However, this cannot be a long, drawn-out process. There has to be some sort of transitional period where people are adjusting from their native culture to British culture. After that brief, interim period they must then be encouraged to break down barriers and communicate with each other. That’s the only way that we’re going to establish a unified and decent British race. Frankly, relying on a state which promotes welfare instead of work is the catalyst to a failing nation, and I’m quite certain that none of us is prepared to accept a failing Britain after emerging victorious in two world wars. Any individual who is opposed to such a view, irrespective of where they stand politically, is part of the problem that we face.

There has to be an onus on communities talking to one another, accepting one another and respecting one another, united by a common language and common values and beliefs. Eastwood can seize the initiative and take a lead as far as that is concerned. The walls must be torn down and our common values of living together, working together and cooperating as one community must be the lynchpin of every section of Rotherham. Promoting the English language is another way of ensuring integration and communication. It is vitally important that we accommodate people where it is practical and necessary but there has to be a limit to that, and we ought to meet each other half way. I have been to the doctor’s surgery and various other places with notices in numerous languages that I do not understand. There’s nothing British about that!

It is not racist to ask people to speak English, nor is it racist to ask people to integrate. The biggest racial discrimination lies in multiculturalism, where people do not have to speak to one another, where they can form their own ignorant views on each other without any respect or consideration for the people against whom they are stereotyping.

I think people ought to support, promote and encourage these ideas and beliefs. The Council can really make a difference in Eastwood if they learn to adopt these principles and stop using Eastwood as a dumping ground. It deserves much more, Rotherham deserves much more.

Omar Mehban, Prospective Conservative candidate, Hellaby Ward.