Budget Speech: 20th February 2019 – Full Council

by | Feb 24, 2019 | Blog: All Things Mile End, All Things Tower Hamlets, Democracy

Below is a transcript of the speech given by me on the Budget in reference to the Community Campaign – Community Language Service (CLS) – picket inside and outside the main Council Chamber.

Cllr Puru Miah (Mile End) – Budget Speech – Full Council – 20th February 2019

“Thank you Mr Speaker.

And I want to thank the audience members here who have been patient.

A lot of them are friends of mine, I knew before I was elected, and were my teachers.

Because I think, learning is lifelong and so is teaching as well.

I am gonna go a bit philosophical, and I just want to pick up on a conversation I had with the Mayor, on the 1st of February, in Whitechapel , a few minutes down the road from where I live.

About the philosophical meaning of the budget, it’s more than numbers, it actually affects people’s lives, we need to look at the values and not just the cost of things.

And also that this document is a dialogue and not just a monologue, it’s a continuous dialogue.  

The conversation does not stop here, tonight, when we have the vote. But it’s a continuous one, we can learn from each other.

We as politicians don’t have the answers, and we should not pretend either.

We can learn from the residents, and empower them as well.

I want to pick up on what Dan said about the meaning of left wing, one of the meanings of left wing is being democratic, democratising and empowering people as well.

That’s one of things we should think about in terms of our budget processes, how do we empower local people, and residents.

Picking up on the conversation on the 1st of February, where I was with the Mayor, I actually sat down with some academics, tomorrow I am having a meeting, hopefully to secure some funding. Actually look at the issue, empower our residents to have a meaningful impact on decisions that affect their lives.  

That is what we should look at.

It’s not a monologue but a dialogue, its does not end today, there is no beginning, there is no end, the struggle is permanent.

Thank you very much.”

Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Portuguese: Pedagogia do Oprimido), written by educator Paulo Freire, proposes a pedagogy with a new relationship between teacher, student, and society. It was first published in Portuguese in 1968, and was translated by Myra Ramos into English and published in 1970. The book is considered one of the foundational texts of critical pedagogy.

Dedicated to the oppressed and based on his own experience helping Brazilian adults to read and write, Freire includes a detailed class analysis in his exploration of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized.

“If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed”

― Paulo Freire