Good evening, I’m from Essex,in case you couldn’t tell,
my given name is Dicky, I come from Billaricay, and I’m doing very well.

How are things in Siramishi these days?

Hmmmm. (she says smiling….)

Why don’t you write a piece on an aspect of East London, seeing that it is a locality that captures the national imagination? I think PP is to ‘open’ to alternative voices and makes for a richer blog all round.

We have to distance ourselves from the petty minded immigrant activist types living in their own nostalgia on this thread who are siding with BNP/NF types in their opposition.

This scheme is a harmless attempt by local restauranters to make some money. It is not a clash of civilisations or ideological. Only a handful of ppl, the ethnic opponents of the residents of Brick Lane, wish to portray it thus.

It is a shame PP went with the Non Sylheti author than someone local and from ourt community. Hence the inaccuracies in this article.

I wonder if the time is right for billericaydicky to come out from under the burkha now.

Interesting .. I like that you bring the focus back on 1976 and Altab Ali – it is not just that people on this thread were too young – it’s just that this site is probably not one with activists and activism in its blood – that would be Red Pepper type audiences. Few of us are activists, including me, though I am sure we would like to be more active. I still have a friend who goes by the name of Terry Fitz who was around then and is around now – and he’d agree with you on many of the points.

I was a wee kid in the lat 1970s but lived in Brick Lane and crossed the road to get to school with my Mum walking past the violent clashes you describe. My parents weren’t organising in this way but we were living with the violence you describe. I also thought it would be interesting to look at the politics of space in Spitalfields in later years – seeing as it’s a micro-cosm of so many other issues in London , as it was for Jack London and many other poverty chroniclers in the past.

I’d agree with most of your points – but would also point out that Muslim groups are those that most oppose Banglatown – the reason being they don’t like to put nationalist stamps on territories – it be-littles their sense of a global identity – be it Bangaldesh or Britain. It is Muslim and Bangladeshi women, in particualar, who voice their opposition to Banglatown.

Cable Street is anti-racist monument, but some would argue Brick Lane in the 1970s was also an anti-racist moment. To me it matters less that a place is used to represent one group or many – the point is that symbols like Nelson Mandela represent all oppression – not the oppression in SA alone. Sure – using Mandela in the same vein as Banglatown isn’t quite right .. but it illustrates the general point. Mandela is a symbol of anti-racism – not SA black movement alone.

Cable Street could’ve equally had a stronger Jewish identity – but to subsequent generations it would stand as anti-racism – not just a Jewish symbol – it’s identity would’ve surpassed the religious/ethnic/racial markers.

But that said when gentrification marches onwards and let’s face it , Spitalfields is ultra, mega trend and kitsch quarter of London – itself one of the more tourist heavy cities in the world – commerce also absorbs the politics and legacy of a neighbourhood/nation – and then it’s businessmen and councillors that allege to defend these values… It would be nice, though, to reclaim symbols for their original purposes – to serve and commomerrate past injustices and not let the market colonise its true value.

I was on and helped to organise the first Bangladeshi march against racist attacks which took place on the 12th July 1976. Three thousand Bangladeshis and supporters marched around the edges of the community to demonstrate that they were prepared to defend themselves.

I was on the march when Altab Ali was murdered the following year and took part in most of the fighting at the top of Brick Lane every Sunday. I agree with the park being named after him but what the monument to the language martyrs is I don’t know.

What has not been mentioned here so far is the power struggle that is taking place within the group of Bangladeshi councillors from across all the parties. This is developing as I write and I will keep people briefed as it goes on.

All posting here will be aware of the importance of graam rajniti, village politics, and how some are more important than others. The reversal of the position on the namimg of the station is about a group of councillors involved with Islamic Forum Europe and operating out of the East London Mosque demonstrating their power, it’s a show of force and nothing else.

To allow it to go ahead would be to give in to a group of sectarian third rate communalist politicians and would denigrate the struggles of previous generations of immigrants. To the group behind this these struggles are of no importance, their knowledge of local history is vitually non existent and their world is Syhlet and East London.

What is needed is not just a monument to the majority community in Spitalfields at the moment but the others that preceded it and on whose struggles the Bangladeshis have built.

Cable Street was not just a Jewish struggle, they were assisted by the Irish dockers of Wapping whom they had raised money for and given food to during the dock strikes of the 1920s.

There is a need for a monument to all of those that struggled against prejudice and the violence that came with it when they first arrived. There is a line of continuity from one set of struggles to the next that rises and fall thoughout this part of east London from at least the formation of the first proto fascist organisation the British League of Brothers in 1909 to the present day.

All of this should be recorded and taught, especially to the younger generations. There should be a monument of some sort to all of those who have shaped the area and not just one group.

This is what a discussion on symbols should be about. What do people think?

and now that it is clear that the english of this area have lost their home towns-even, it seems, down to the very name-I feel sympathy with the National Front. We have been colonised.

Good you raise Altab Ali Park – a real anti-racist marker and should never be forgotten. It’s there in the hall of fame like Cable Street for East London.

Interestingly the Nelson Mandela plague on the south bank regularly gets trashed by racist graffiti… but never takes away from the power of what the symbol represents for Londoners

You have the luxury of living in the UK along with all the special benefits multiculturalism has given you in a democratic social welfare state for generations whilst talking up a military dictatorship that is now in operation Bangladesh.

But I’m sure you won’t be turning down clients who are claiming political asylum from that regime, because you know you’ll be getting funds from Legal Aid. Immoral, shameless opportunism isn’t the word for it.

While I oppose the renaming of the station I think this article contains some factual errors in not clarifying between Sylheti and (Dhakaiya) Bengali culture and language.

In addition, it shouldn’t have been spun to try and portray this as competing identities and ghettoisation. Halima has put forth some cogent arguments against the renaming and the real reasons behind the campaign ie. commercial motivation for local restauranters and businessmen.

A fuller discussion needs to take into account the history of the local Sylheti Bengali community and the struggle against racism and exclusion in years past. This is a serious matter, Altab ali park was named after a Sylheti murdered by caucasian racists. Presumably those who oppose the renaming of the station because they fear ‘ghettoisation’ also want to change the name of Altab Ali park and remove the Shohid Minar monument therin (commemorating the war dead from Bangladesh’s war of liberation from Pakistan)? These are quite sensitive issues.

To clarify regarding Rizwan bhai’s experiences in the UK, I am on record as stating that the matter should be investigated and warning that the incident should not be used by the likes of Sid to scream for a return of the ‘democratic’ criminal oligarchy of either AL or BNP. It is well known that Sid’s group Drishtipat is a Pro-AL mouthpiece.

My criticism of Sylheti leaders at 51 and 53 for trying to Banglafy local politiocs in the UK illustrates that unlike you, I can criticise when things go wrong. Unlike you I have NO record of participation in exclusivist culturo-political groups with alligiences to ye olde social/political hierachies in desh. So much for integration, eh Sid!

If we were anti-Sylhety and pro-BD government we wouldn’t have publicised the beating of Barrister Rizwan at the hands of military officials in Dhaka airport. Actually, it is you who is on record for voicing support to the military government right here on PP. And so is, I see, His Excellency Anwar Choudhury HC of Britain to Bangladesh. I notice he has done nothing to support Rizwan’s cause, stalwart of human rights and democracy that he is. [sound of suppressed laughter]

You’re also on record here on this list for using less than complimentary language of your own community (#51 and #53). So what does this mean? It’s OK for you to citicise Bangladeshi Sylheties for having regressive outlooks and values in the UK but if anyone else does, then it’s a case of culturtal superiority of the non-Sylheties over Sylheties. Come on mate, one rule for all please.

When young Bangladeshis like you from the Sylheti community enter the real world outside of your cultural ghettoes, you start getting beatings in arguments by people you have been taught to regard as anti-Sylhety and then all hell breaks loose and they are screaming “Bangladeshis are 99% sylheti!” in a vain attempt to protect your preposterously conflicted self-image.

For an individual who portrays himself as a wordly middleclass denizen of suburbia you have a strange habit of participating in controversial feudal expat Bangladeshi party politics through your membership of groups like Drishtipat. I would expect such ‘political activism’ from newly arrived inner-city working class Bengalis uneducated in the Western style politics of policy and action rather than personality and 1970’s style stagnant Bengali identity politics.

As for ‘reinforcing abstract divisions’, you do just that by participating in a group which represents a minority of a minority in the UK. Drishtipat should not expect to celebrate a politicised and artificial Bengali culture and language in it’s works when it is a well known fact that the vast majority of the target group speak a different (if related) language and have their own culture.

It’s very easy to portray oneself as an enlightened and liberal person over the net. However, actions speak more than words