The United Kingdom has a long history of the urban disturbances. The 1958 events were the first riots discussed in connotation with the post-war migrants. Although many migrants entered into Britain after the World War 2, they were relatively invisible and rarely represented in the media in the period of pre-1958 (Hayward 1997). The events in Nottingham and Notting Hill in 1958 are often regarded as a watershed in representation and politicization of “coloured” people. In fact, there was a series of attacks on Blacks by Whites which was claimed as a threat of immigrants to the law and order (Solomos 2003: 54-56). Conservative politicians exploited the occasion to suggest that immigration control should be reinforced. In response, on the one hand the Commonwealth Immigrants Act was introduced as the first control legislation in 1962. On the other hand, assimilation policies which were predominant until the early 60s were eventually replaced by integration policies which gave ethnic minorities more freedom to foster their own culture (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992: 159).
The events in 1981 were more clearly viewed through the prism of “race”. The press circulated the images of the disturbances with such phrases “black war on police”, “the race bomb” or “profile of ghetto” (Solomos 1988). Race, black youth and inner city areas played an important role in the discussions, even though racism itself was rarely mentioned. However, in fact the vast majority (67%) of the rioters who were arrested in the July 1981 events were white (Benyon 1985: p.410). A sizeable number were Black, but it merely reflected the racial composition of the area. A link between Blacks and the riots in the media was partly understood in connection with the images of street violence and a “moral panic” of Black youth in the inner city areas from the 1970s. “Race” was given a further central place in the debates of the riots in 1985, which will be discussed later.
Again, the 2001 riots in Bradford were portrayed as “race riots”. Newspapers carried the headlines, such as “race riots grow out of the Balkanisation of Britain (Sunday Express, July 1, 2001)” or “race riots the work of extremists (Sunday Times, June 3, 2001)”. One of the features this time was that religion attracted much attention as well as ethnicity. Although many British Pakistanis who have involved in the incident were by no means religious, they justified their acts by reference to Islam. So, while Macey claimed that it was an “ethnic riot”, Parekh regarded it a “Muslim riot” (Macey 2007: p.162).
