Discussions about the next steps of the campaign are laying the possible foundation stones and vision for a 21st-century Civic East End.
On a hot summer’s day in Brick Lane, marching through the Truman’s Brewery
“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone, no sound of water. Only”
The Wasteland – TS Eliot
On the 18th of July, activists residents and stakeholders came together to rally at Altab Ali Park, march through Brick Lane and have a picnic with poetry and music at Allen Gardens. The discussion about the next steps, at the picnic, was an organic outcome of the activities. Conversations focusing on the principles and form of the master plan covering the old Truman Brewery site. The master plan is the second demand of the campaign, following the main demand for the rejection or removal of the application to build a shopping mall in Brick Lane.
Public Institutions and policies that reflect the community
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born”
― Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks
The first thing that hit me when I first got involved in Tower Hamlets politics, reinforced when I was elected, is the complete disconnect between the ‘Politics’ and the realities on the ground. What I mean by politics, is the assumptions underpinning policies and the postures and rhetoric adopted by politicians in Tower Hamlets.
On the one hand, you have a mirage generated by the ‘pouvoir’, the powers that be, of a divided East End, broken into neat silos, of competing interests seeing their neighbours from a different demographic as the enemy. The role of politicians and institutions is to act as arbitrators, delivering their judgement of Solomon on a daily basis.
On the other the reality on the ground, a vibrant mix of backgrounds, perspectives and demographics all rubbing shoulders, collaborating to make the vibrant East End we all know and love today. Making a reality the assumption that threatens the divide and conquers rhetoric of the pouvoir, that we have more in common than what divides us.
By not playing according to the rules of the game, laid out by the pouvoir, the #SAVEBRICKLANE campaign has organically created, what many politicians have sought and failed to do, a civic identity, with civic values with a buy-in, from the whole community. #SAVEBRICKLANE is not a community campaign, it is, the community campaign. The participants in the campaign reflect all the demographics and participants that make up the vibrant East End we all know and love. The master plan proposed by the campaign being the embodiment of a new civic manifesto for the 21st century.
“If we play by their rules, we lose. If we create our own rules, we might have a chance.”
Harry Perkins
Against Social Cleansing and towards a new East End Civic Identity
Once upon a time, there was a Prime Minister called Margaret Thatcher, who as part of her 1987 manifesto commitment of looking after the inner cities, funded along with Prince Charles a community master plan for the old Truman Brewery site on Brick Lane. Fast-forward to the 21st century, we have a community campaign that wants to revive that plan for the area, being opposed by officials in a Labour administration.
The master plan proposed and discussed by campaigners goes beyond the narrow economic confines proposed by the Thatcher government. The plan seeks to make, into a sustainable reality of the built environment, a cohesive and sustainable civic identity and vision for the East End. If successful, it can be replicated and expanded to cover all areas of the East End. A holy grail of successive council leaders in the East End.
The first drops of a political monsoon after a long season of drought?
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
The Wasteland – TS Eliot
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