\n<\/p>\n
It was a filthy day in Rotherham as Storm Bram swept through the town earlier this month. Roads had turned into rivers and sodden St George\u2019s flags flapped from lamp-posts at half mast.<\/p>\n
Inside the community centre, the heating was turned up, the bacon butties were on order and the tea was brewing. It was time for some Difficult Conversations. Some of them, it turned out, about those soggy flags.<\/p>\n
A group of about 15 military veterans were gathered for their weekly natter. One jovial man sported a Christmas jumper that said \u201cWhen I think about you I touch my elf\u201d. Another, an ex-SAS officer, was in a black polo shirt bearing the insignia \u201cTaliban hunting squad\u201d.<\/p>\n
The group likes to trade war stories and exchange the sort of near-knuckle banter that, they freely admit, \u201ccivilians find offensive\u201d. But recently the group has been working with a charity called Who Is Your Neighbour?, which facilitates conversations in white working-class communities along the general topic of \u201cthings you can\u2019t say any more\u201d.<\/p>\n
Who Is Your Neighbour? is one of five charities partnering the Guardian in its 2025 Hope appeal, which supports grassroots organisations whose work brings communities together through practical projects that create hope and pride and provide an antidote to division and despair.<\/p>\n
This area of Rotherham is 94% white, a community that sprang up around a mine that closed more than 30 years ago. Grievances run deep. Inside the centre is a wall of black-and-white photos of the battle of Orgreave, where miners were beaten by police officers. They like things smart here, especially on club nights. A sign on the door reads: \u201cPlease note! No one will be allowed into the club as from immediate effect wearing tracksuit bottoms on a Friday\/Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>The morning\u2019s discussion covered, what does it mean to you to be British? And what does the union jack or English flag mean to you?<\/span> Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Two miles away is the hotel set alight by protesters in the summer of 2024 when asylum seekers were inside.<\/p>\n Brad and Anna, the two facilitators from Who Is Your Neighbour?, announced the morning\u2019s discussion topics: what does it mean to you to be British? And what does the union jack or English flag mean to you?<\/p>\n For the next 45 minutes, the group drank tea and shared their thoughts. There were disagreements, one woman, Jane, said afterwards, but no fallings-out. \u201cWe\u2019ve disagreed on a little bit, haven\u2019t we?\u201d she said, smiling at Ali, the only Asian person in the group, a veteran who served in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you know the child sexual exploitation that happened in Rotherham?\u201d Jane explained. \u201cI was saying, why do Pakistani men and Pakistani boys see white girls as trash?\u201d Ali did not take offence. \u201cThe guys who got arrested and all that kind of stuff, they were my generation,\u201d he began. He objected to the labelling of the abusers as Pakistanis. \u201cThey say Pakistani boys but they\u2019re born and bred here, most of them. Which is quite scary.\u201d<\/p>\n Ali told the group how \u201csince the flags went up\u201d, Rotherham feels increasingly hostile to people with brown skin. Just the other week he was in a park and was \u201ctold to get out of the country\u201d. He told the person shouting at him that actually he was born in Britain and had served in the army. \u201cWhen I tell them I\u2019m a veteran then they go: \u2018Oh mate, yeah, yeah, brilliant, you did good for the country.\u2019 But that\u2019s too late because they\u2019ve already judged me by my colour and because I\u2019m Muslim and I\u2019ve got a beard.\u201d<\/p>\n Who Is Your Neighbour? was formed in South Yorkshire in 2010 after various community activists noticed they were hearing the same thing when they talked to people, particularly in the most deprived neighbourhoods: a complaint that people \u201cweren\u2019t allowed\u201d to say what was on their minds.<\/p>\n A lot of it was about immigration. A sense that their community had changed, quickly, and it no longer felt like theirs. The solution? A programme where people could have conversations in a constructive, thoughtful way.<\/p>\n Who Is Your Neighbour? works on three principles. One: \u201cBetter out than in\u201d \u2013 they invite people to say what\u2019s on their mind. Two: \u201cMost people are alright\u201d \u2013 they don\u2019t judge and they start from the assumption that nobody in the conversation intends harm. Three: \u201cCuriosity is good\u201d \u2013 they don\u2019t aim to preach or push forward an agenda.<\/p>\n The group doesn\u2019t let racism go unchallenged, but the facilitators gently prod to find out what might be behind a comment. Very few people are deliberately racist, says the charity\u2019s chief executive, Tariq.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cMost people are sincere and good-hearted and well-intentioned and don\u2019t want to set out to cause hurt to other people. But where we are now, this time that we\u2019re living in, the voices of not wanting us to live together are really loud. Social media, media, it\u2019s so loud.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re being told everything\u2019s shit: \u2018Look at this shoplifting!\u2019 \u2018Look at them lot just having a row about nothing on the street!\u2019 \u2018Look at that bus stop where people aren\u2019t in a queue.\u2019 And along with \u2018we can\u2019t get on together\u2019 is a narrative that\u2019s all about \u2018this lot that\u2019s been brought in\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n But we can<\/em> get on together, Tariq insisted. \u201cAt the end of it and the bottom of it and the top of it is: we all \u2013 most of us \u2013 want the same thing. I want my family and the people I love to be safe and looked after. And I don\u2019t want harm for other people. A group of people in a room going: \u2018We\u2019re really struggling with how everything on our streets changed, but we want to figure out a way to make it work\u2019 is not racism.\u201d<\/p>\n What Who Is Your Neighbour? does is simple \u2013 and yet rare. \u201cWe give people a voice,\u201d says Brad, one of the facilitators. \u201cWe give people the chance to speak on subjects many of them feel like they can\u2019t discuss\u201d. And they do it, says participant Sue, \u201cwithout anyone falling out\u201d.<\/p>\n * All names of participants have been changed<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a filthy day in Rotherham as Storm Bram swept through the town earlier this month. Roads had turned into rivers and sodden St George\u2019s flags flapped from lamp-posts at half mast. Inside the community centre, the heating was turned up, the bacon butties were on order and the tea was brewing. It was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[983,1554,3059,364,122,3094,3247],"class_list":{"0":"post-38384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-charities","9":"tag-charity","10":"tag-mind","11":"tag-people","12":"tag-south","13":"tag-speak","14":"tag-yorkshire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}