As British as it sounds, Ralph Road bears almost no resemblance to what used to be England. Like so many other inner-city areas, it has turned into something else: an amalgam of Karachi, Kabul, Dhaka and other far-flung lands thrown like a grubby blanket over British-built houses and roads. Grubby, because the local authority has failed so dismally to resolve a long-running industrial dispute with its binmen, and rubbish is literally piling high.
The filth – from rotting meat tossed in the gutter and swarming with flies, to filthy mattresses, soiled nappies, bits of cardboard, polystyrene, plywood and plastic bottles and bags – points to a near collapse in standards of public behaviour and administration in this part of Birmingham. While residents in more affluent areas have found their own solutions, people here have neither the will nor resources to clear it up themselves.
Dressed in a grey shalwar kameez, an old man with a long white beard, chapal sandals and a topi cap stands on a street corner trying to sell plastic jewellery from a wonky shopping trolley. How he ekes out a living from the trinkets is hard to imagine, but neither he nor his rudimentary street stall look out of place in an area known locally as “little Pakistan”. Almost every retailer and business has a foreign name, from the “Pak Supermarket” grocery store and “Al Madina Halal Meat and Poultry Centre” to the “Zara Khan” Pakistani dress boutique and “Mama Sheeryakh”, a café which specialises in “authentic Afghan handmade ice cream”.
Where exactly are we? As an outsider, to wander around Alum Rock in Saltley, an area two miles east of the city centre, is to feel like an alien in one’s own land. According to official statistics, almost 94 per cent of the 28,000 population of this council ward is black, Asian or minority ethnic. Some 15 per cent speak little to no English. Unemployment is sky-high.
In the most potent symbol of the erosion of British cultural identity, the only flags on display are Palestinian. Hoisted high on lamp posts, bleached by the hot summer sun, the now familiar red, white, green and black symbols seem to be everywhere, fluttering defiantly above shops, from makeshift poles on street corners and stuck to sitting-room windows.
As British as it sounds, Ralph Road bears almost no resemblance to what used to be England. Like so many other inner-city areas, it has turned into something else: an amalgam of Karachi, Kabul, Dhaka and other far-flung lands thrown like a grubby blanket over British-built houses and roads. Grubby, because the local authority has failed so dismally to resolve a long-running industrial dispute with its binmen, and rubbish is literally piling high.
The filth – from rotting meat tossed in the gutter and swarming with flies, to filthy mattresses, soiled nappies, bits of cardboard, polystyrene, plywood and plastic bottles and bags – points to a near collapse in standards of public behaviour and administration in this part of Birmingham. While residents in more affluent areas have found their own solutions, people here have neither the will nor resources to clear it up themselves.
Dressed in a grey shalwar kameez, an old man with a long white beard, chapal sandals and a topi cap stands on a street corner trying to sell plastic jewellery from a wonky shopping trolley. How he ekes out a living from the trinkets is hard to imagine, but neither he nor his rudimentary street stall look out of place in an area known locally as “little Pakistan”. Almost every retailer and business has a foreign name, from the “Pak Supermarket” grocery store and “Al Madina Halal Meat and Poultry Centre” to the “Zara Khan” Pakistani dress boutique and “Mama Sheeryakh”, a café which specialises in “authentic Afghan handmade ice cream”.
Where exactly are we? As an outsider, to wander around Alum Rock in Saltley, an area two miles east of the city centre, is to feel like an alien in one’s own land. According to official statistics, almost 94 per cent of the 28,000 population of this council ward is black, Asian or minority ethnic. Some 15 per cent speak little to no English. Unemployment is sky-high.
In the most potent symbol of the erosion of British cultural identity, the only flags on display are Palestinian. Hoisted high on lamp posts, bleached by the hot summer sun, the now familiar red, white, green and black symbols seem to be everywhere, fluttering defiantly above shops, from makeshift poles on street corners and stuck to sitting-room windows.