IHAVE been deeply disturbed at the recent events in the North West. There has been so much time and effort expended in apportioning blame and peddling propaganda, while positions become more entrenched and issues more polarised.

Is it the fault of an intolerant white population? The fault of the British National Party, or is it just disaffected youth venting its anger?

Does it really matter? There are faults on all sides. Perhaps, we are all, both black and white, victims of successive failed policies by governments. However, we must cope with things as they are. The genie cannot be returned to the bottle.

Young Muslim men are apparently suffering a crisis of identity, not knowing where they belong. I sympathise. Unfortunately, it is a dichotomy they must solve for themselves, ultimately and, hopefully, without violence.

Are they British or are they Muslim? It seems a stark choice, but at the moment they appear to have a foot in both camps and want it both ways.

In this area, there seems to be a tacit agreement that Muslim communities can somehow be left to police themselves. When trouble is caused by young Muslims, community leaders and elders are left to 'sort it out.'

This is absurd and cannot be allowed to continue as these elders patently have no control over these young men. If they decide they wish to be British, then they must live by British law and be treated equally with every other British citizen.

Unfortunately, these ridiculous race laws, brought in, initially, with the best of intentions, are blurring the issue. They have outlived their usefulness and are now totally counter-productive. Regarding the rather muddled comments in 'Nothing new in multi-culture' (Letters, July 9), multi-culturalism, in the sense of mass immigration from the Commonwealth, is, in fact, relatively new, occurring only in the past 50 years.

I am no historian, but I have been led to believe by people who have lived in this area all their lives that the degrading jobs referred to were filled not by Asians but by Europeans from Austria, Poland and Italy after the war. It was not easy for them -- they also left families behind, but managed successfully to integrate into their adopted communities.

The statement that Britain has only five or six per cent of immigrants is very misleading. This figure only applies to those classed as ethnic minorities, that is those not born here, which indeed could include Scots or Irish. It does not take into account those such as Asian or Afro-Caribbean, who have settled here, had children and are classed as British citizens.

I believe that, multi-culturalism, as it has been practised in this area for the past 40 or 50 years is dead in the water. I have no solutions. Perhaps those cleverer than I, who created this situation, have.

I often like to imagine a scenario in these days of retrospective justice for crimes against humanity, where all the politicians, who were responsible for this disastrous experiment in social engineering, would be in the dock, accused of complete lack of foresight, total indifference to the consequences of their actions and utter betrayal of the people of the North West.

If found guilty, they would be sentenced to be dispersed to the said area for at least 12 months to live the life to which they have condemned so many. Perhaps, this would make subsequent politicians think more carefully before they play with other people's lives in such a cavalier fashion.

S LOVE (Mrs), Avenue Parade, Accrington.