Teorías Explicativas de los Conflictos en Adolescentes

Family and community influences Racial issues and constraints

Business success – potential, realistic, reasons for difference

Rationale for inclusion

Identify influence on business approach of personal/family/community experience Identify barriers/opportunities for business success

Identify perceived individual/family/community constraints

Findings

Family and community influences

There is a stated strong influence of family and parents traditions on c-store involvement for all respondents except Respondent 1, who stresses the influence of religious leaders as guides and influence in both personal, community and business life. This issue was particularly relevant at the time of the interview, conducted on 12 September 2001, and the potential for increased racial tension and retaliation following the terrorist attacks in America. However, in the Edinburgh context he also notes that this influence lessens with increased integration with the mainstream community, noting the high extent of cohesion between mainstream and minority communities in the city. This factor is also acknowledged by Respondent 16, who perceives a stronger continued traditional influences in larger minority communities less integrated with the mainstream.

There is a varied influence of the Edinburgh Pakistani community links on business decisions. While family influence is the strongest motivating factor for Respondents 2, 3, and 4, there a limited and changing perceived Pakistani community influence on business decisions for Respondents 2, 6, 9, 12. Strong minority community links are

perceived by Respondents 1, 3, 6, 8 and 10, but for Respondent 9 relationships with the local community are more important as:

I have a good relationship with the local community as we all moved in together when the scheme was built … I have a good relationship with my customers. I am well known in the area. Of course, you get some who are fussy sometimes and make life hard for you. But it is not a personal thing, they are just fussy people. (9: 64-5, 105-8)

Minority community members exert both pressures and support on businesses, as illustrated by the experience of Respondent 11’s attitude:

I did have conflict once or twice with my own people as well. But when I explained to them they understood my point very well and I explained one or two conflict I had. I had some people came to my shop with the big beard, some people and they asked me what you doing this is against the religion. They said this is against your religion you shouldn’t be selling it. I said listen, I am selling it, I believe I am not drinking it because I know that is against my religion and I just don’t. But the thing is, if you want to live here, don’t go down this position, for god’s sake don’t go to extreme. If you go too extreme probably you will clash with your own communities and the other people. I feel I am not drinking it, not touching it, it is all in the bottle, I am only making my living. And if you want some donation from me, in the beginning the people were very strict but not now, I feel that is missing. I also sell bread, I also sell butter, beans, tomatoes. If you are wanting a donation it also comes from the bread, butter and so on. If you can only think that the money has come from the alcohol then you are too narrow, you are too strict. My money comes from all the things I am selling. If you are too strict, if you push me too hard then I will probably leave the religion all together. And I mean it when I am saying it because to my belief, if I believe in my religion I believe in all of it. Of course I can’t tell you the things Islam has said from A to Z, but I will do whatever I can do to follow the rules. (11: 386-412)

This tendency on the part of community members to interfere is noted by Respondent 16, and seen as an implication of being a very small section of the city population. Similarly Respondent 17 comments on the existence of close Edinburgh Pakistani community links but perceives being less interference in business activity than in larger minority communities elsewhere in the UK.

For many respondents (1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 21) religion remains a strong influence on business strategies – impacting on approach, finance, stock,

labour etc to varying degrees – and creating tension between acknowledged good business practice and personal beliefs. This is illustrated by the comments made by Respondents 1and 21:

We have a cultural activities. We have a friend with our local people. So we invite our occasion like wedding or anything the local or anything. Majority people come with us, they are local people. so we invite them, they invite us. Er, still we are in culture, you know people. We kept our cultures, you know. But we would never loose our identity, you know. Our children, also they are not lost, you know. They feel as they are Scottish, they feel also they are part of the Pakistani. Er, more, about 99 percent of them they are Muslim, you know. So they’re, they have been given education for the religion. But not a fanatic, you know, religious here, you know. They are knowing well this life, you know, the pillars of Islam. It doesn’t mean that you are aggressiveness, you know. But still you have to follow Muslim, you can sit all of the people together, you know, Muslim, Christian, all the other people. Same, like a culture diversity. There needs to a much culture. [Has that made a problem for the young people?] Well, I don’t think so. Our community have very hardly have suffered. Er, they know they are the both sides. They know the western culture. There is the problem because when they come home they are to a different discipline. But they are not like opposed to do discipline. They are, you know, like how you are bring to your family. For our family, it knows that they are all human. So there is no discrimination for anybody. But if he, my son, has another friend of Scottish family I am happy to take him out. But I am not going to tell my son to take a drink or any hard drink or anything for our religion. But nobody forcing him to do it. Like I am the Rotary Club member. When I go to club most the people drink, you know the alcoholic. But I don’t drink. They’re, they respect. Respect. And I respect what they do. Yea. So these I have no problems. You know like, if you go to Pakistan, like the modern generation. They feel like I’m going from London, I don’t drink it is funny. But this is my discipline, my lifely discipline, you know . I don’t know what will happen next, my son and daughter, but as far as I know they will keep the discipline, you know . Our religion says we cannot touch the drink, but I am selling the drinks, you know. The problem is that because you are in other country. If I don’t sell it or sell it doesn’t matter. My business, because the majority of my customers, 99 percent customer is British customer. So if I don’t sell the drinks, is I’ve not got any business, you know. The same time, I don’t drink myself, it doesn’t normally stop me if I don’t drink. (1: 61-113)

Oh yes, the problem is there. The problem is always there because religion wise we shouldn’t do it … That’s the problem. Maybe something else would be better to have if my father-in-law would let me. But I am not happy about selling it. I heard, I don’t know if it’s right religion wise, about people selling alcohol, Muslims like, and unfortunately their kids go bad right. I don’t know, just unlucky. And their money, any money

they have they can’t do anything. You know, just go waste it anywhere. Some have their car get broken somewhere. Always something happening. My cousins, two, three families of my cousins are in shops. No alcohol. They are progressing very, very well. We, we in our family, have the alcohol. Our family does not progress. Any business we start is no good. The same as me. I don’t know where the money goes. I can’t even go on holiday any more. You know … It is a problem for poor Muslim anyway, and therefore I don’t like to. (21: 377-99)

This conflict is echoed by typical comments regarding business strategy:

Because … it's OK if you are dealing with the Asian community for your customers. But we don't get any Asian customers … If you look at it from a business point of view, you have your off license then they buy something else … If the Asian community want to expand they are going to have to … If you are going to run a convenience store you have to provide the service. (6: 354-93)

[You don’t have any conflict with selling alcohol and] You mean religious wise? [Yes.] No. If you started doing that there would be loads of things in the shop you couldn’t sell. That would be stupid … You’re not exactly in Pakistan where you can do that, right. You have to go with what people want … You’re meant to provide a service. You are trying to build a business not trying to get rid of the customers … It shouldn’t affect what you do in your business. You keep it separate, you have to. (7: 523-43)

In contrast, for Respondent 18 religious principles outweigh good business practice: We are also restricted in what we can do because we are Muslim. That influences us. It makes a difference, you know, because we can’t go for the, you know, off licence or anything, you know. Some people don’t feel that, you know. The bigger shops are mostly off licences and if you take the off licence away from the shop it makes a difference. [And you definitely wouldn’t do that?] No. So far we have been able to stay away from it and shops like that. [And if you manage to survive then it saves that conflict] That’s right. Yes. You have to draw a line, yes. It also influence the way you speak to people, you know and the way you handle the customers. [So then that affects how much involved you are in the business, and various members of the family as well, I presume?] Yes, all of us and what we do. We’ve survived so far yes. (18: 123-157)

The relative importance of these factors is linked to the business owner’s perception of their embeddedness in the mainstream community and changing sojourner mentality. For Respondents 1, 4 and 10, business is inevitably entwined with mainstream and minority community life, this echoed by Respondents 14 and 15 who

regard themselves as part of the Scottish community. Respondent 20 who takes this perception of embeddedness further, seeing their family as English migrants to Scotland:

I was first told when I came up here in Leith was that one, you are in Leith and you are not in Edinburgh. You’re a Leither. Secondly, what ever you learned from down south, you’re not just a thing, you are Scottish so forget England. I mean, it’s like the old Paul Young song ‘where ever I lay my hat, is my home’. That’s the case here. Work here, stay here. This is as good as my home. (20: 553-8)

In addition, Respondents 1, 3, 4, 6, and 10 comment on the changing degree of these traditions and values with subsequent generations, and, although family demands, expectations and aspirations influence individual business entry and development or exit decisions (4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 15, 19, 21), there is an increasing tendency to encourage second and third generation community members to take up other education and employment options before making the c-store involvement decision (2, 4, 6, 9, 10), these topics being presented in detail in Section 4.6.

Racial issues and constraints

For the majority of respondents (1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21), racial issues and constraints are less evident in Edinburgh than elsewhere in the UK. This is seen as being the result of a combination of factors: the Edinburgh ethnic minority community size and location spread throughout the City (1, 2, 4, 10, 17, 19), the extent of integration with the mainstream community (2, 4, 10, 17, 19, 20, 21), and high levels of shared community involvement and standards (3, 4, 6, 10, 12, 15, 21). While Respondent 4 comments that there are a minority of racists in any location, Respondents 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 13 report limited personal racist experiences. This is seen as being due to issues of ignorance and misunderstanding (5, 6, 8, 10) – Respondent 5 stressing that prejudice is the result of “sheer ignorance … lack of understanding of other peoples' culture or why they are here" (5: 176) and that "Jealousy comes in to it because they just don't understand the conduct of business" (5: 202). Even Respondent 21, the only respondent to have been directly affected by

personal attack, places the blame on individuals rather than the majority population, saying “OK, two are bad, not the rest” (21: 35-6).

In general, there is a perception that any antagonism has diminished over the years and with latter generation migrants born in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK (4, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14). This is illustrated by the experiences of Respondent 8 on coming to Edinburgh in 1982, taking over an empty c-store with encouragement by the City Council and gradually gaining acceptance in the local community and also receiving the Asian Trader of the Year Award in 1989:

The language was a problem at first rather than anything else. Not the language, sorry, it was the accent …. I think we were quite fortunate that our shop was, er, in a I would say working class area then, Lady Nairn Place, at Jock’s Lodge … my brother or I arrived to open up at half past six in the morning and where there until half past six at night. And, er, for the first three months of us trading there, erm, there was so much hatred. It was ‘oh, the Pakis have arrived’ [You felt that was really quite strong?] It was actually. They would not even make an effort to come in. They would open the door half way, look all round, then look back out again to see if there was anyone watching they wouldn’t come in if there was any of their friends around. They would say ‘you weren’t going in to the Paki’s were you?’ [Do you think it was personal or] Oh aye, it was personal. [Was is you, or Asians in general.] Asians in general. [It’s not as if it was you personally they had something against?] Oh, no, no, no. It was against Asians in general, you know. Because, you see, it’s not as if we were the first Asians to come to Edinburgh. There had been Asians living here since the 60s, late 50s, you know. But we were the first in the area. There was no-one there before that, we were the first in to that area … Well we were actually in two minds about closing up the shop, or grin and bear it and hope for the best, you know. Er, I mean there was no personal kind of, there was no attack on the shop, there was no racial abuse. It could have been worse, you know. [So you decided to stick it out.] We decided to stick it out, absolutely… Then they came in, they had to have their paper before they could have their breakfast like … So, erm, they decided to come in, I mean, I was exactly, I’m probably worse now because at that time, you know, our friend told us ‘be nice to the customers, don’t forget you please and thank yous, always say good morning, good afternoon when they come in and that can we help you with this and that’ you know. Er, that was the way we did it then, I’ve kind of wised up on that now. I think that did help sort of, the welcome when they came in to our shop … They began to say we were OK to shop with after all ‘they are kind to us, they are polite, you know, they have what we want, why don’t we go there’. [How long did it take for them to come round to you?] I would say three months, and then it was after the shop closed, then that was it. Then it was up and up and up. A

couple of years late we decided to buy the shop next door, combine the two together, make into a mini-market, you know. Did it all up, had the shop refit. Our sales went from £5000 to £10000 per week. That was so for four or five years. (8: 152-98, 218-243)

However, perceived issues and tensions may not necessarily prove to be a limitation to business success, as in the case of Respondent 19, who explains:

When we came in we were thinking ‘this is a tough act to follow, sixteen, seventeen years’ and we’ve been here that long ourselves now so, I mean it’s er, [How did people take to you when you came?] Erm, not bad. I mean, well I think, er, a few, I think people were, er, used to, you know George and his wife and his family, you know, because I think his daughter used to work in the shop as well and so did his wife Betty, you know. But I mean, erm, yes, I think they sort of came round to our way. It was quite easy, it was an easy transition. It is a good area. You don’t get a lot of hassle, well we didn’t get a lot of hassle until recently. (19: 106-16)

These changing attitudes may also be linked to attitude to customers and reputation for good service and standards, as Respondents 14 and 11 note:

It doesn’t matter how you treat your customers, it’s how the customers treat you as well. It works both ways… Word of mouth is always much better even if like this in here. Because before it was dirty now it is much tidier, the people are nicer and before they were rude. You know, the guy that had it before would just throw the bag at the customers, but know just look at that [indicates staff putting goods in carrier] we have a good level of staff. (14: 137-8, 249-54)

Even in my area, the people are so nice. They always say ‘hello Mr xxxx’ even when we are not in the shop. And the other people coming into the shop in different parts of the city. People’s attitudes are different in this area. The people are so nice. I didn’t find any racial abuse or anything like that. As long as you are nice to them, they will be nice. And I believe it. If I use force to somebody for no reason, they will use force back. And I have advised to my son that service and the hygienic of your shop is more important. (11: 273-81)

There was concern for Respondents 1, 2, 4 and 10 that tensions and attitudes may alter in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 – the day before data collection commenced, however this did not seem to be the case as later respondents (6, 7, 8, 14, 17, 19, 20 and 21) perceive potential for conflict to be related more to generic Asian and c-store external business issues than individual or community