My personal reflection in attending the #SAVEBRICKLANE rally on Sunday 13th June 2021
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The New Colossus – (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887)
A Return to History
My father came to the United Kingdom in 1951 on a ship, arriving at the docks. The first point of call for him was Bricklane and the surrounding areas. When narrating his story to me. He vividly described his experience, including purchasing chicken from the kosher butcher, as at the time there were no halal butchers (Muslims are permitted to eat Kosher meat). Even then the East End was a melting pot for migrant committees. In fact it was has been the first port of call for migrants for over 400 years.
And that is what is at stake, a communal space for marginalised communities. A place where they can make opportunities for themselves in terms of business, culture and arts, making Brick Lane the vibrant space it is today.
The planning application contravenes Tower Hamlet Councils own policies for protecting space for marginalised communities:
Besieging the Truman Brewery: Turning the tables of history #Spiritof1857
History has the knack of throwing up his own ironies. Brick Lane is walking distance from the old headquarters and warehouses of the East India Company. They provided the fine muslin clothes from Bengal for European Markets before the industrial revolution. During the industrial revolution they stored the raw materials such as Indigo grown in Bengal. Post War the same factory buildings and warehouses housed Labourers from Bengal to meet the labour shortage in post-war Britain. When the factories closed it was the entrepreneurial spirit of these Labourers which made Brick Lane what it is, many serving the cuisine from Bengal, popularly known as the ‘Indian Curry’.
Now, standing outside the Truman Brewery with the masses, it seems the tables have turned. Over 250 years ago to this day, the East India Company in 1857 laid siege to the Red Fort in Delhi. Completing the experiment started 100 years ago, of rule for profits, ‘Company Raj’ started in 1757 by the victory of the East India Company. A quarter of a millennium later, things have turned around, the Corporate besiegers are now under siege. Local residents, businesses and activists coming together to take on the ‘Company Raj’ and capture the democratic process by the Truman Brewery.
We will be back!
A few days before the march, the Tower Hamlets Council, Development Committee, would finalise the decision was cancelled. This did not stop our determination to go ahead with the march, in fact, we will be back with even a bigger demonstration.
“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but
for the heart to conquer it.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)
PS: Shout out to all the volunteers, activists, community organisations, local businesses and residents who have made it all possible.
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