The following, which I think is one of the best pieces to have appeared on this blog, is a guest post by TONY UDDIN.
By way of introduction, Tony is a senior pastor at the Tower Hamlets Community Church in Ricardo Street, Poplar; he hosted a mayor hustings last week when Lutfur Rahman declined to turn up. He also chairs the Tower Hamlets Night Shelter scheme (GrowTH) as well as a local youth charity, The Canaan Project. His article is a personal piece and does not represent the opinions of those organisations.
Tony Uddin
Last week saw the negative effects of interpreters in polling booths being widely reported. This gets to the heart of a crucial question. Should LBTH be spending large sums of money on providing both mother tongue and translation services?
Firstly, let me declare an interest. My father, Farid, came from Sylhet to London in the Fifties. His was a brave and courageous generation who took the risk of leaving all that they had and building a new life, in a country where they could not speak the language and where the colour of their skin meant that they instantly stood out. Were he still alive, my dad and many like him would have been righty proud but also somewhat saddened looking around at some aspects of life in Tower Hamlets today.
Although we have lot of Bengali family in the East End, my dad’s connection was not to Tower Hamlets but to London, for one simple reason: for him, coming to London meant becoming a Londoner, being part of a culture wider than just his own.
Tony’s dad, Farid Uddin, as a young man
In doing so he opened a curry house in Tooting in the Sixties, married a white woman of Scottish extraction and set about creating a life that preserved elements of his own Sylheti culture but one with a distinctively British edge to it. He saw no problem with keeping a sense of his own culture and identity whilst also integrating into British society.
In doing so he helped many other Bangladeshi people to settle into the UK and was widely respected for it. This was often at a great cost, the Britain of the Sixties was at times far from welcoming. My mother’s family for instance refused to have any contact with her because she married a Bangladeshi man and that has remained the case ever since.
My dad was fiercely proud of his Sylheti roots and yet often voiced the opinion that the translating of road signs, forms and the like into “community languages” was divisive and in the long term held people back from integrating into British society and contributing to the city that he had chosen to call his home.
For him, a strong and confident community did not need to hold others at bay but could be outward looking and would embrace integration whilst maintaining its own culture. When I got married in 1998, we were preparing to have our wedding and some of the speeches translated into Sylheti. When he heard about it, my dad told me in the clearest terms that he was against it.
Tony with his mum and dad and his wife, Anni, on their 1998 wedding day
I remember the conversation well. His point was that by offering interpretation, we were facilitating something that was not in people’s best long term interest. For him playing a positive role in society here meant people needing to learn English and being comfortable amongst people from a range of backgrounds. It meant being outward looking.
Bangladeshis (and other minorities) in Tower Hamlets have overcome tremendous opposition, outright hostility and discrimination as well as intimidation and violence. They have shown a remarkable resilience and determination to thrive.
Their greatest challenge now is to allow this strength and confidence to propel them to reject the divisive community politics of Tower Hamlets First. Theirs is a politics that relies on fear, the fear of acceptance, the fear of being outsiders.
I was desperately saddened this week to hear of people opposed to our current mayor being described as traitors. Being Bengali-British and rejecting the views of other Bengali-British because you believe them to be wrong is not a sign of treachery, but of growth, of a community that is confident.
The politics of Tower Hamlets First and their rhetoric in a strange way mirror those of Ukip and others on the right. However the community here, our community, are strong enough to reject this politics of fear and be what we really are, and can increasingly be, a great example of the positive contribution that immigration makes to London.
I’ve lived in Tower Hamlets for 18 years now. I love the diversity that surrounds us. I’m half Scottish, half Bangladeshi and am married to a German woman whose mother was born in a remote part of Brazil. My dad loved that. For him it summed up what being a Londoner meant.
As a borough we are not served well by those who want, through fear, to keep our community divided. A strong community with a confident culture can and will embrace the wider city around it, building bridges rather than walls around itself.
To get back to where we started, building a strong united community in Tower Hamlets means putting our precious public resources into things that build a stronger sense of social cohesion. That probably means providing some translation services to help people get established, but it also means that the emphasis should be on putting money into accessible English language courses rather than mother tongue classes.
It means helping our community become stronger through investing into services and projects that facilitate people coming together and creating common ground rather than those that allow them to exist in close proximity to one another yet in very separate worlds.
Trial by Jeory 
Very interesting and I will later recount my recollections of another Bangladeshi who married a Scottish woman. Really good piece.
Tony Uddin…..Steve Stride….Poplar Harca….Labour bla bla bla
Nothing original here Tony. we know your not a fan of Lutfur but of Biggs
Andy. Is the statement untrue? Or do you have some secret information you are withholding from us. On the other hand you could be just attention seeking, I rather tend to think the latter.
Tony hits the nail on the head with some of his questions. WHY is public money going into subsidising other cultures? WHY is Bangla culture even so worthwhile that it needs to be on the life support machine of tax money, which would otherwise fade away into mere tokenism.
What Tony very cheekily fails to question is why was it OK for it to be carried out by Labour all these years. Why were English people deemed racist by them every time they raised these very same questions 10 years earlier. Why was Biggs presiding over a council that carried invented half of these policies?
Tony, you are brave, and I commend you for that. But please pluck up the courage to ask if Labour, if they will change ANY of this!
Why exactly do you say Tony is ‘brave’?
Primarily because he’s has picked on the language issue in spite of the seemingly ubiquitous acceptance of its sacredness among our local politicians.
#
#? CC?
Excellent article.
I’d like to see someone put the counter-argument of why the preservation of so much Sylheti culture should be publicly funded, including the large amount spent on translation to and from bengali and mother-tongue lessons. It seems some of the bengali newspapers are, at least in part, supported by grants. I don’t mean this as a throwaway comment. Seriously: how can it be justified?
Quite a lot of grants are given out to preserve aspects of immigrant culture. For most of us, this mixture of cultures is what we love about London. As an example, around £15k in the last year on carrom boards and “international” carrom festivals. From what I’ve read it sounds a great game and one that if promoted properly would bring the different “communities” of Tower Hamlets together. Instead the opposite seems to happen: money given to a particular section of the community so they stay isolated. This doesn’t help anyone.
When I first learnt Carrom in the seventies everyone bought their own boards. There used to be competitions in the basement of the church on the one way system at Algate.
I’d take comments like the above more seriously when I see those making them are also campaigning for an end to ‘divisive’ Welsh road signs, or Gaelic TV programmes (in Scotland). There are a lot more people with Bengali (and other languages) as their first language than there are those who can understand Gaelic (60K?) Maybe that stopping of translation and interpretation that they want can be extended to courts as well: if you don’t understand the prosecution case against you, that’s your problem for not being able to speak two languages (that’s one more than 99% of white Brits).
There is nothing non-British about speaking other languages. If someone wants to spend their time living in Whitechapel and talking to their friends and neighbours in Bengali, what business is it of the state to tell them otherwise? It is no different to someone living on a Newcastle housing estate and speaking Geordie to his or her neighbours.
Now I certainly agree that you get more from life from speaking and understanding the majority language but it’s no easy task to learn a language, such as when you may be isolated at home bringing up children. The fact is that many will live and die in London not speaking good (or near any) English. Therefore, you can either say: ‘tough, you must learn,’ or you can provide services in minority languages.
Let us look what happened when the Archduke of Newham, Robin Wales, introduced the former policy. An example is that older men were left without their informal club in the libraries to read the Urdu, Punjabi, etc newspapers and magazines by this racist policy.
I use that word carefully but to refuse to stock a newspaper or magazine that is in greater demand than the English language one that you continue to stock (regardless of it being claimed that this ‘promotes integration’) can not be described other than by the use of this terms. But Newham have now partially overcome this by no longer stocking any magazines; replacing this discrimination with a general contempt to all those who don’t have internet access to read such stuff.
If Tony Uddin gets his political wish that he expresses above, you can expect more Wales like monsters, with such politics, in Tower Hamlets.
Appropriate we’d get one of the most idiotic comments under one of the best posts.
However, which older man’s club are you referring to in Newham?
I’d say his point about wales is very good.
That you think such measured comments above are ‘idiotic’, says more about you than me, Jeory.
The specific informal ‘club’ that I was thinking about was in East Ham library and which went from maybe a dozen men sat around before the ban to maybe 2 after. I can give many more examples of cuts to services described as ‘promoting integration’ in Newham
His point about newspapers is good as well. Why is it a danger for people to know about the old country? It sounds like a silly policy, when it’s only going to save a couple of quid.
No it’s not a good point. Why can’t they club together to buy those papers if they’re just a couple of quid? There’s no ban on reading the papers as implied. Kind of comment you get on Socialist Unity.
Calm down, dear. It’s just a commercial.
The ban is on buying them – LB Newham banned the buying of any paper or magazine not in English. http://www.nmp.org.uk/2012/01/update-on-save-our-language-papers.html
They were not banned as you say. The libraries stopped stocking them for all the right reasons. People were free to buy them and read them and find out news from the ‘old country’ as you put it.
Ted, so everyone disagreeing with your point of view is an idiot then?
No, but idiotic responses merit the word idiot.
If Wales wants to promote Welsh then that is up to them. Incidentally I know North Wales very well and welsh is very widely spoken. Just under 600,000 can speak it. Bengali is not the national language of England.
Your point about what business is it of ours if people in Whitechapel want to speak bengali to their friends is missing the point in so many ways. For example:
i) Public money is spent promoting the bengali language (e.g. through mother-tongue grants) and so it is my business.
ii) Bengali is often spoken at the expense of english and so you end up with an underclass with limited job prospects who are more likely to need financial support from the public purse. (I’ve a good friend who although relatively young struggles with both written and spoken english and as a result struggles to hold down a job. He goes for days not speaking english around Whitechapel.
iii) Not integrating costs society both financially (the translation services you mention for example) and in terms of cohesion.
The last wave of Bangladeshi immigration was obviously in the early to mid seventies. That is around 40 years ago. Are all these publicly-funded bengali services still needed now and if so why? I hear stories of parents being asked if they need a translator when they go before panels for school places, and those that do (2-3 per day) turn up with a relative who does it for them in any case.
As a society we need to move on from promoting this. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the long run.
Where to start!
English is the ‘national language’ (whatever that means) of Wales in that far more of its residents speak that rather than Welsh.
‘Public money’ is spent teaching English e.g. my ‘O’ Levels in English Language and English Literature. So why not Bengali, Polish, German etc. as well.
It is also not your or my business what people chose to speak. Amongst French expats, they – surprise, surprise – speak French toeach other. Kick them out! Maybe you could get a job patrolling the tubes commanding all the Spanish students to ‘talk English’ to each other – ‘what’s the point in you visiting London, if you don’t improve your English!’ (I am sadly reminded of the EDL drongo, who in a recent TV documentary said he hated it when ‘immigrants spoke in their language when on the same bus as him’ as he reckoned they were secretly discussing ‘how to kill him!’). Your friend in Whitechapel – he didn’t go to school?
Indeed, things cost money. Some things are worth paying for. It is a shame that no remnant that I can see (save a few buildings) is left of Huguenot culture (which I read was the biggest wave of immigration to Britain pre WW2); I would have paid to save some of that. Precious little is left of the Jewish East End either; it is good that Gaelic does get money spent on it to keep it alive.
I do not know when the most number of people from Bangladesh immigrated but it is later than the 70s – think of wives and parents arriving later. And look at the figures from the 2011 census for Britain (with TH naturally being very, very different to that): “Of the eight per cent (4.2 million) of usual residents aged three years and over with a main language other than English, 79 per cent (3.3 million) could speak English very well or well.” How many of those 900,000 live in TH? – quite a few so hence the need for mother tongue services. It will be sad when Bangla goes the way of Yiddish in the UK (as it will eventually) but why hurry that along?
It’s a great pity that southpawpunch fails to recognise that many students come to London to study AND LEARN ENGLISH because they recognise that being able to speak and write English is the key to getting on in many parts of the world.
With respect to Wales, Welsh is the native language of people living in their own land. It’s hardly surprising that a lot of them speak it!
However at the same time, Welsh Councils and very many Welsh Councils have recognised the importance of a good education for their children and place a very high priority on this. Which means that even in the homes where Welsh is spoken at home both parents and children are bilingual.
The issue here is the importance placed on education and the parents’ responsibility to ensure their children get the best chance in life. Prioritising funds at a time of scarce resources for educational subjects which will help them in their careers is the business of the Council. Cultural education is the business of family and friends.
Maybe we should start examining how many other cultures are present in Tower Hamlets and exactly what support they get? In my book if you have a rule then it applies to everybody – you can’t start being partial. For example – what about all the Europeans who now live in Tower Hamlets?
Or do we not need to count them because the Europeans and others from around the world have come here for higher education, to learn English and/or to work in the City?
I wonder who they will be voting for? After all they make up a third of Tower Hamlets’ population…….
It’s a nice article but the points are not so important, because most Bangladeshis thought this way in the early days, before the women came over.
Although the street signs were always a mistake, the reason for encouraging the culture of the Bangla community was to encourage their confidence. The problem was that the policy went on too long and went too far.
There is a record of 1980’s Telegraph articles in the Bancroft library about a debate in County Hall about whether Bangladeshis should have their “own” blocks. It was very fiery and spoke about Bangladeshis squatting if they were not allowed to live together, ie in a ghetto. The politicians believed that they needed to be together to protect themselves from the skin heads, but this turned out to be incorrect, because when the danger passed, they still wanted to be together.
Have you noticed that the Somali community is spread across the borough? The policy now seems to be to avoid concentrations of one ethnic type together.
I don’t know how long Dan McCurry has lived in Tower Hamlets, not very long by the sound of it if he has to refer to the Telegraph for his information about the Bangladeshi squatting movement of the 1970s.
http://www.sarahglynn.net and look at the housing stuff. Google Mala Sen and read the Guardian obituary and search for Terry Fitzpatrick in http://www.swadhinata.org.uk. I have given these links before but it looks as if he has a short memory but more likely reality doesn’t match his politics, whatever they are.
It’s all there Dan and if you had been around long enough you would of course know all of this.
Southpaw punch blogs on various places including Tendancecoatsy. He is some form of a loony lefty and not to be taken seriously in any way.
This is an excellent article. It’s a great pity we don’t hear more from people who have adopted an approach which emphasises integration rather than divisiveness and separateness.
And just when thought that Dave Hill had learned his lesson and had stopped making things up we get the following. Once a Livingstone poodle, always it seems.
” Admirers and supporters of the borough’s independent mayor Lutfur Rahman – who include left wingers form the Labour Party and elsewhere for whome Cable Street is an enduring histrorical inspiration – have been keen to characterise the numerous attacks on him and his mayoralty as the same as those made on the people of the East End 80 years ago, and his resistance to them as being in the tradition of the Cable Street struggle against those same fainthearts and foes: a complacent or colluding political establishment, racism, fascism and the right wing press”.
So what’s all of that mean I hear you ask. It is obvious that someone, maybe his wife whose position as a Guardian executive allows him claim he is a journalist, has pointed out that there is a mass of evidence that points to Rahman being a poltical shyster who is busily looting the coffers of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Obviously his poodleness isn’t going to say that he got it all wrong and that he isn’t simply going to believe everything that Livingstone tells him in future but that he will in fact go out and investigate like what real journalists are supposed to.
That would be too much so what he has done is in the above sentence or paragraph or whatever it is. He has created a group of people on the left who are admiring Rahman and saying nice things about him. The only problem is that he can’t name them because they don’t exist so he is still lying.
If he were a real journalist who made a living from his writing he would of course, even if he had a career which he hasn’t, be completely unemployable. Good job the missus is earning a few quid.
So much for this blog’s ban on libel; see penultimate line of para 3 by mad mullah above.
But that is all you can expect from someone who, despite me pointing out many times that the Mayor of TH does NOT have planning powers, will continuously claim that Rahman has given planning permission for this and that.
There’s political debate and there’s bad faith smearing. So much of Rahman’s opponents just do the latter. I’m no supporter of Rahman (I’d vote Hugo Pierre, TUSC, if I lived in TH) but I find this latter approach to Rahman nauseating.
Southpawpunch. Thanks you for pointing out to us all that when we thought that Poplar Town Hall had been sold off for a tenth of its value to an associate of the mayor who was then given planning permission to turn it into a hotel without going through the normal procedures we were in fact wrong.
In fact no such thing happened and Tower Hamlets still owns the building which will now be sold on the open market and a competitive price will be obtained. Good, I’m glad you made that clear and we can all have a good nights sleep.
You are of course doing the classic Trot move of if something is inconvenient just deny it all. I had forgotten which Trot group the Trades Union and Socialist Coalition is a front for, could you let us know?
Hugo Pierre used to be the Militant’s candidate in a bygone election.
He has a mixture of comrades now in the TUSC.
They have had Glyn Robbins appear on their small gatherings.
It is the same Robbins who also serves as an unofficial cheerleader for
the Tower Hamlets mayor.
Mr Robbins’ partner Eileen has led the Bedroom tax campaign.
But somehow they have lacked teeth.
Stillsquatting. I hope you know that it’s illegal now although I think that the way housing is going we are going to see some spectacular campaigns in the not too distant future, I certainly hope so.
I didn’t know Robbins was still cheerleading for Rahman, I thought the loonies with the exception of Madewell had abandoned him. Robbins describes himself as a housing campaigner but I have never come across him. What has he ever done on housing?
On the bedroom tax for long term claimants there is this from Inside Housing.
” In circular U1/2004, issued last week ( January this year ), the Department for Work and Pensions has confirmed that any housing benefit claimant who has continuously been claiming since before January 1st 1996, should have their benefit rate calculated without the “spare room subsidy” provisions.
This “exemption” is due to 4(1)(a) of schedule 3 of the Housing Benefit and Council Tax (Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2006. These claimants will be due a back-date of the amount of the amount of bedroom tax from April 2013.”
Obviously it doesn’t cover many but it’s a loophole for some and I hope that is of help.
“The politics of Tower Hamlets First (THF) and their rhetoric in a strange way mirror those of Ukip and others on the right.”
I admire the sentiments of Tony, however I’m surprised by his view of UKIP, which maligns the party and its local candidates representing their communities here in Tower Hamlets.
To help Tony and others better understand UKIP, I would welcome an invitation from Tony to facilitate another husting – this time for the Ward candidates representing St Katharines and Wapping (SKW).
4 (of the 9) candidates have so far confirmed their wish to attend a ‘meet the candidates’ event following a Twitter request from @eastendwestend. But…we need a venue and an independent facilitator.
Tony, if you are prepared to facilitate another husting, I am sure we could have a worthwhile debate for the benefit of all – with the probable exception of THF.
Grenville Mills
UKIP Ward candidate for SKW
Grenvillemills. You could try Stephen and Matilda coop at the bottom of Thomas More St. They have a biggish community hall in the yard. Alternatively there is a church hall in Wapping Lane.
>themadmullahofbricklane
TQ
It would be interesting to know Tony’s views on interpretation services for the courts for example? What about hospitals? The border agencies?
Let’s face it, there will always be a need for interpreters for essential services. I would class the Election as one of them and provider interpreters and assistance to explain the process to as many people as possible.
The question about public funding of mother tongue classes outside school are valid. I personally think they are a waste of time and achieve very little. However, they don’t stop ‘integration’ as some including Tony, are suggesting. Kids who go to these classes are comparatively better ‘English’ speakers then their white and black workings class counterparts and will statically go on to get significantly better GCSE results.
Let’s keep it simple! Are these classes benefiting the children? Probably not. Can this money be better spent elsewhere? Definitely under the current climate.
The politicians are using the mother tongue classes to show they are ‘protecting’ community interests. Its as simple as this. The talk about integration and kids can’t speak English blah blah blah is all horse sh#%t.
Imran. You have summed the matter up when you mentioned essential services. Those and if you want anything extra you pay for it.
At the top I said I would give my experiences of Bangladeshis and Scots who married although the marriage is incidental to the tale.
During the 1970s I was one of a group of people who organised physical opposition to racist gangs who were attacking Bangladeshis across Tower Hamlets. Sundays tended to see attacks and gatherings by the far right around the Brick Lane area so we mobilised Bangladeshi youths into squads to defend the area.
One of the problems we had was where to conceal weapons so all of the Bangladeshi and remaining Jewish businesses were approached and asked if we could leave pickaxe handles, baseball bats etc in their shops and a surprising number agreed one of whom was Abdul who had a grocers shop at what is now Sheba restaurant 134 Brick Lane.
I got to know him well and his life was amazing. He was born before the First World War and like many Sylhetis was a Lascar, a below decks seaman in the British Merchant Navy. When the Second World War broke out like all seamen he was conscripted for the duration of the war.
At the time he was on ships in the far east and was eventually torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Put in a camp in Java he became friendly with a group of Australians who, when they decided to escape, took him with them. They stole a sailing boat and got half of the way to Australia when they were picked up by an Australian warship.
After some time in hospital he went back to the merchant service, ended up on the Artic convoys to Russia and was paid off in 1945 in the Clyde where he met and married a Scots woman.
The moved to East London and he opened the first Bangladeshi shop in Brick lane, what is now Sheba in 1948. He was a mine of information on how the Lane had changed from when he moved in when it was almost entirely Jewish.
Sadly the last time I saw him was in hospital after he was hit on the head by a brick thrown through his shop window by the National Front in 1978. If any of you have seen the last of the series The Secret History of Our Streets about The Boundary Estate and Arnold Circus there is a picture of his shop window broken.
The story of that day is that the SWP front the Anti Nazi League had organised a festival in Victoria Park in Hackney which had drawn away most of the people who could have been relied on to defend the Lane and we didn’t have enough boots on the ground to stop the NF rampaging down.
When we sent people to Victoria Park to ask that an announcement be made for a few hundred to come to help defend the Lane but the ANL national organiser Paul Holborow told them to fuck off and they were threatened with violence if they attempted to get on the stage. He always was a scumbag.
I can’t count the hours I spent talking to people like Abdul and Tony’s father. They really were pioneers who did suffer discrimination in every sphere of their lives.
madmullah, are you Terry Fitzpatrick?
Yes, you guessed it right Southpawpunch. This is Terry Fitzpatrick. He likes to remind us of his ‘glorious’ past, because in recent years, he has changed. He was convicted of aggravated racial harassment which he directed at Operation Black Vote. On average, in his every other comment, he will bring up Simon Woolley and harangue the guy again and again. You see Terry has been banned from most of the online forums for his racist, abusive language. He has nowhere to go. So, he spends most of his time on Jeory’s blogs posting very lengthy comments. He fantasises about being on top of a ‘thumbs up’ league for his comments.
Terry is a changed man. He peddles the same right wing, neocon smears which are currently available on the internet against Mayor Rahman. He happily ignores Rahman’s record for building the most affordable homes in the country. If Terry was true to his old ideals, he would be supporting Rahman. But, alas, Terry likes to pander to the right wing narratives on the ‘blogosphere’. In the real world, no Labour, Tory, UKIP, LibDem or even THF would have anything to do with someone with a conviction for aggravated racial harrassment. One has only to read the vile racist language used by Terry. It is available one of the entries on Jeory’s blog. Sadly, that is the record Terry must stand on.
He was acquitted of the charges against Operation Black Vote on the instructions of the judge. Get your facts right Marc.
Fitzpatrick was found guilty of racially aggravated harrassment, after bombarding staff at Operation Black Vote (OBV) with emails. He may have been a useful figure to the Bengali community back in the 70’s but not anymore. He is often found ranting on internet forums that he hasn’t been banned from or inventing non-existent links with other organisations.
No I’m not. That includes you Southpawpunch. He does have a formidable record though, doesn’t he? That’s only judging by what Bangladeshis think about him.
Course he is!
Man on the Clapham Omnibus – “He happily ignores Rahman’s record for building the most affordable homes in the country”? Sorry but you blew your post with that line. The Mayor hasn’t built any homes, The Housing Associations have. Also the few that have been built have been built against huge opposition from existing residents and estate boards. The rich developers are laughing at us all the way to the bank! The Mayor should have insisted that more social housing units be attached to the planning application. Also, very importantly, the build for the social units be the same quality as the units for sale. But he didn’t! Result = Loads of highly priced, well built and finished, “for sale” units, and a few low quality social units. By all means support the Mayor, but please don’t make ridiculous statements. Some of us are not naïve.
Yes you are quite correct. Everything has been built by housing associations, Rahman just lies.
Let’s not insult people’s intelligence.
All Labour councils subject to stock transfer include the affordable homes built by RSLs in the number of homes they announce they’ve delivered, surely you know that?
John Biggs’ campaign have claimed the mayor had ‘no role’ in delivering the RSL builds – and it’s that that is untrue.
The way it works is the developer goes to the council and says, we want to build X amount of private housing, the council says ‘we’ll recommend to the planning committee that it’s approved ONLY if you include X amount of social housing’. They negotiate, come to an agreement, and the recommendation goes to the committee.
The committee can still reject, but they rarely do because the developer can then go to the Mayor of London or the Secretary of State – who will accept a lower portion of social build.
This process was brought in by both Labour and Conservative governments – you can’t blame Lutfur Rahman for it!
Southpawpunch/man on the Clapham omnibus/Marc Francis. I want you, and you are all the same person, to look at http://www.swadhinata.org.uk and read what Terry said and what Bangladeshis he worked with say about him and then come back and smear him.
I use no other name than Southpawpunch in these forums.
I will not engage with madmullah anymore given that it appears to be the case that he is Terry Fitzpatrick – a low, racist bigot (and despite his sterling ant-racist record in the 70s).
So he did have a sterling record in the 70s. What did you do in the war, mouth off I suppose as you do now. Send me an email and I’ll put you in touch with Terry so that you can discuss your differences in person. I’m sure he will have a lot to say to you. themadmullahofbricklane@gmail.com. I’ll bet you bottle it, your sort always does.
The folk really do need to organise. Give up on the liars who are only after their petty positions and the dish.
Lets reclaim the East End for the people that the politicians don’t care about.
May be we can make a start on 22 May 2014.
By actually turning out and saying No to what we don’t want.
inlodnontodat. Unfortunately you can’t express your objection to what is going on by turning out and voting no as you seem to think you can. There isn’t an option on the ballot paper for that and if you spoil your paper it will be discounted.
You are just going to have to select the best of the bunch and hope for the best like the rest of us.
You get an uncomfortable feeling of frustration from this person’s mixed race upbringing, where both parents went through some really hard times, especially his mother whose family ostracised her and she was forced to make a choice.
My friend’s a youth worker and he says the language classes and translations are still very much needed with the older generation, sick and newcomers inside the borough. Also, young British-Bangladeshis appear to be doing better at English language than their fellow school mates, so things are likely to move forward.
There is a rise of Bangladeshi Nationalism in the borough since the horrendous, murderous elections last year in Bangladesh, afterwhich everything Bangla has been increasingly pushed inside the borough.
I can’t help but feel that local people are feeling uncomfortable about extreme expressions of Bengali nationalism spilling into public areas.
Yacoub. I think the rise of Bangladeshi nationalist feeling in East London predates, by a long way, the events in Bangladesh during the elections last year. I have watched it for forty years and have seen how as the community here consolidated itself it began to look outside to events in the wider British society and began to analyse what was happening at home.
All immigrant communities used to spend the first few decades digging in and fighting off hostility, setting up self defense mechanisms and organising themselves politically. In recent years that process has accelerated so that what took half a century now happens in a decade .
I saw the community develop in a decade from no organisation in 1974 to becoming a political force ten years later. The process that brought forward a generation of local leaders happened through squatting and fighting the National Front. The original leadership that had existed in the old Pakistan Welfare Association which became the Bangladesh Welfare Association was conciliatory and dependent on the British state.
Their attitude was very much go to the police and the local MP and they put themselves between the state and their community as the intermediaries whic is where their power and status came from. From the mid/end of the 70s they were increasing sidelined as new forces emerged shaped and driven by the concrete situation the community faced in the battle for housing in safe areas.
There were two things that I believe were important in the rise of political Islam, as I term it, Tower Hamlets. One was the feeling that, certainly by the mid 80s, the community was here and was going to stay and could begin to look beyond its day to day survival and begin to assess where they were going.
The other was the rise of the issues of Palestine and the Palestinians and the state of Israel. This was reinforced in the 2000s by the wider issues of the West and the Middle East. The original Bangladeshis moved into an area that had not only been very Jewish but also Zionist and pro Israel.
They also moved into an industry, the rag trade, which was heavily Jewish and they learnt their skills from those very Jews that a couple of generations later would be excoriated as murderers and exploiters of Muslims.
The first generation lived and worked alongside Jews and I know Bangladeshis who still say the best employers they ever had were Jews. Also if you lived in the same block of flats as an elderly Jew there was a rapport, you were both against the council because they wouldn’t fix things.
The last time I heard Yiddish spoken was in about the summer of 1980, the Jews, that hadn’t moved out, were dying. White families too moved. There was a a large Irish community in Spitalfields now all gone. The schools and blocks of flats and rag trade factories became exclusively Bangladeshi.
Reinforcing this was the media. Starting with the video, moving to the DVD and now with satellite broadcasting it is possible to live in London, Berlin or Paris and be a Bangladeshi, Punjabi, Kurd or Algerian and have almost no more contact than necessary with the world outside your door.
This insularity, which is increasing, was a fertile recruiting ground for political Islam when it began to emerge in the late 80s with the Young Muslim Organisation starting to recruit. The building of the East London Mosque and Muslim Centre and fundamentalist money that started to pour in consolidated and produced a situation where political opportunists like Rahman could find political support.
Rahman himself isn’t particularly religious, if Paris was worth a Mass then Tower Hamlets and its 1.2 billion pound budget was worth being seen at Friday prayers for.
A bit simplified here I know but worth a discussion. I’ll just go to my email to see if Southpaw has been in touch.
Political Islam was best served by Tony Blair; a loaded term used for politcial leverage and a direct consequence of post-colonial policy. If Muslim immigrants learnt one thing from Jewish ones, they have discovered that mobilising their own religious group during times of insecurity seems to have worked in their favour; provided opportunity at hard times within their own community whilst also countering issues like extremism.
I don’t blame Lutfur for finding opportunity in disaffection.
I’ve become increasingly concerned about the Bengali and Bangladeshi nationalism that permeates growing aspects of cultural expressions inside Tower Hamlets borough eg. green and red flags at every instance, Bengali music, 1971 war and rape films and documentaries. These nationalistic expressions reinforce the immigrant’s homeland, tribal conflict and age old prejudices, but not so much the co-existence and multiculturalism here in the UK.
Is there an over-emphasis on showing your allegience to your Bengaliness inside the borough?
inlodnontoday – You are so right. Just remembered something about how it used to be. Remember the cars and vans that used to cruise our streets with loudspeakers on them imploring and begging us to get out and vote? Maybe that’s what we need to bring back, basically, whip the public into such a frenzy that they actually get involved and VOTE!
Still two weeks left.
Hope we can do whatever we can to get people out.
By saying no is of course voting no to the liars
and ticking in the boxes for the ones less likey to lie.
Best wishes for all the earnest EastEnders concerned for our boro’
inlondontoday – your link goes to ‘nothing found’.
Rhetorics! The irony is that this guest post is full of it!
The idea that the only way to cohesion and integration is through inter-marriage is as strong as ‘Tower Hamlets First’!
There has to be better arguments than blowing own trumpet and complain that the neighbours music is too loud!
Read the article vocal. He doesn’t say that at all. His father was one of a generation of Sylheti men who did face real racism and overcame it. In a very few cases there were intermarriages but that isn’t what Tony is writing about.
You could also brush up your grammar which might give your posts a little more credibility, not much but maybe.
Dear Tony Uddin
I want to provide a response to your guest post on Jeory’s blog. I’ll begin by outlining the areas where I agree with you and then demonstrate why your post is completely short-sighted and far removed the reality.
I agree with your point that a Bangladeshi criticising another Bangladeshi is not a ‘traitor’ and if anything, it demonstrates a community which is confident with itself. I think that you were responding to a statement made by the Bangladeshi researcher who worked on the recent Panorama programme ‘Mayor and our Money’. She was wrong to make that statement. However, she does not represent THF nor does she live in Tower Hamlets. She was expressing her view in a personal capacity.
I also agree with you that TH Council should not spend substantial amount of money funding mother tongue lessons and interpretation services at polling stations. People who want their kids to learn Bengali should pay for lessons themselves. Although it is good to learn about one’s culture and heritage, it is probably better for those kids to focus on learning a modern European language i.e. French/Spanish or even Mandarin in the increasingly globalised world we live in. They will have much better prospects when they grow up than Bengali will ever afford them. This is my personal view and it is the approach I take with my children. I teach them Bengali at home and do not expect any financial support from my local authority to pay for their lessons. I am also not entirely convinced about the need to have interpreters at polling stations.
While I agree mostly with your points, you let yourself down by blaming Lutfur/THF for these policies. Lutfur did not suddenly start funding mother tongue classes or providing interpreters at polling stations. These were introduced and funded by successive administrations well before Lutfur became leader and then Mayor. Lutfur probably has to take some blame for continuing these policies and I hope that he will discontinue funding mother tongue classes/interpreters at polling stations if he is elected again. However, it is completely disproportionate and a misperception of reality on your part if you believe that Lutfur and THF are promoting politics of fear and division by funding these services. While I disagree with these policies, I can understand why they were provided in the first place. By funding mother tongue classes in supplementary schools, a service is being provided to kids of parents from a low income background who probably could not afford to pay for private lessons. It also keeps the kids away the street and anti social behaviour. By providing interpreters at polling station, Bengali speakers who struggle with English are accommodated. If anything, these services do not divide the community or cause fear; they make a section of the borough feel included.
Your criticism of Luftur/THF is completely short sighted if mother tongue classes and polling station interpreters are the only points in your indictment of Lutfur/THF. I will explain below:
1. Between 2008 and 2013 under Lutfur’s leadership and mayoralty, Bangladeshi organisations only received 8% of the total pot of money given to community groups (although the Bangladeshi community comprises over 32% of the borough’s population). It is safe to say that probably less than 1% of that 8% of funding given to Bangladeshi groups went to pay for mother tongue lessons. We are talking about a very negligible sum of money here. Unfortunately, I do not have the figures on polling station interpreters.
2. THF manifesto says nothing about mother tongue classes, for example. So, it is not even one of Lutfur’s/THF’s pledges.
3. You completely ignore Lutfur’s record as Mayor. Some of his biggest achievements are: (i) Delivering over 3385 affordable homes – more than anywhere else in the UK; (ii) Spending £168m to install new kitchens and bathrooms in all council homes; (iii) Investing £380m to refurbish and build new schools….the list goes on.
Recently, I was walking through one of the council estates in Stepney with a relative who is a council tenant in Labour-run Haringey. He was impressed with how every council flat was fitted with double glazing windows, the cleanliness of the estate and how beautiful the new build council apartments looked from outside. He complained that Haringey council has not made any real investment in council properties. For example, the decent homes programme was either cancelled or postponed. He wished if every council could have Lutfur as their Mayor or leader. He is not the only one seemingly impressed and proud of Lutfur’s record. There are many more who I have spoken to in TH and they all agree that Lutfur has changed the face of TH for the better. Tony, while your father may have disapproved of Lutfur’s funding of mother tongue/interpreter services, he would have been rightly proud of Lutfur’s record. Read this letter of support in the Guardian from high profile Labour figures and community and faith leaders (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/17/lutfur-rahman-stand-on-record) where they say “Lutfur Rahman can stand on his record”.
Tony, you are a man of God. So, you will appreciate when another religious figure lends his support to Lutfur. Leon Silver, president of East London Central Synagogue signed that letter in the Guardian. I would urge you to go and speak to Leon. He is not that far from you. If you are looking for someone from within your own faith, Rev Giles Fraser said the following about Lutfur in a column in the Sunday Mirror:
“Good for Lutfur Rahman, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets. A few weeks ago the Panorama programme flung a load of mud in his direction…The Communities Secretary opportunistically sent in the police to investigate. But this week they admitted there was no evidence of wrongdoing. “It’s time to let him get on with the difficult business of trying to run Tower Hamlets.”
Tony, as a senior pastor, I believe that you have a ‘duty of care’ towards your followers and it is important that you offer a balanced view and not regurgitate the right wing smears against Lutfur that are currently available in the media.
Finally, I would make two presentational issues with your blog post:
First, you included two photos of your late father (may he rest in peace) and a photo of your wedding – these have absolutely no relevance to the points you are making about Lutfur’s alleged divisive politics and the provision of funding to mother tongue classes/polling station interpreters. In other words, if you remove these photos, it does not affect the points you are trying to make. Usually, your wedding photo is something you only share with your relatives and friends. You would not put it on the internet and especially when that photo has nothing to do with what you are saying. You are married to a German woman. We do not need photographic proof of that (if that was indeed the point of providing your wedding photo). It is potentially a PR disaster to provide random photos which do not strengthen or add to what one is saying in an article. You might want to pull these photos.
Second, choose to use Jeory’s Blog as the platform for your piece. We all know that Jeory is a journalist who works for the right wing tabloid, Daily Express. The Express Newspapers currently also publish the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday, which portray women as objects by publishing topless photos of women. The Express Newspapers are owned by Richard Desmond who is the owner of the most popular pornographic television channel in the UK, Television X. Tony, as a man of God, I am not sure you want to be associated with someone from the Express newspapers. It is a career suicidal move and a decision which you may live to regret later on. It is quite obvious why Jeory is praising your piece so highly. The right wing journalists, namely Jeory, Gilligan and Ware have found nobody – absolutely nobody – who would come on Panorama or make a public statement against Lutfur. While Lutfur’s endorsements and high profile supporters are there for all to see (in the Guardian, for example), these desperate right wing conspirators have failed to find anyone to substantiate their allegations. This is why Jeory was so keen to seize the opportunity and publish your piece on his blog. Please do not let yourself be used in this way.
All of the high profile supporters are discredited has beens who are desperately trying to get a bit of publicity for their failing careers. Leon Silver is shunned by the mainstream Jewish community for his support for Rahman, anyone who needs Livingstone’s support is in a very desperate state, Simon Woolley is forever tainted with the Lee Jasper missing money and the others don’t matter. Mainstream political and social life has cold shouldered Rahman and this is true across the political spectrum
Thirty years ago there may have been a been a need for mother tongue teaching but those days are now gone and it is now a means of holding back young Bangladeshis from improving their English language skills as well as a means of distributing council cash to the schools whose organisers and teachers are then propagandists for Rahman.
I am in Harringay on a regular basis through business and the council estates are no better or worse than those in Tower Hamlets. As you well know virtually all of the improvements to the former and present council hosuing stock have been done by ALMOs and had nothing to do with Rahman although, until recently, he claimed the credit. At the very top of this article is a photo of his image and logo being removed from one such site as he has now been exposed as a fraud.
As you well know there is still a police investigation into some of Rahman’s dealings so why you say he has been exonerated I have no idea. If no Bangladeshis have been prepared to come out publicly to criticise Rahman how do you explain Helal Rahman a former councillor and prominent Bangladeshi businessman going on the Panorama programme?
In relation to the political orientation of the newspapers you have mentioned do these mean that what is printed in them is untrue? Of course it can’t and you use the pathetic childish foot stamping of the loony left. If it’s in the Daily Mail/Express/Telegraph it’s got to be untrue because they all support the Tories. All this smacks of desperation.
Nothing to do with Rahman? What rot?
All the Decent Homes work is from the council, not the RSLs (I assume mean the RSLs since there is only one ALMO and that is controlled by Lutfur.
Most of the money is from central government, yes – but that was secured by a successful bid made by Lutfur. And even then, he topped it up with council funds, meaning every single home will benefit – virtually unprecedented.
http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/news__events/news/june/mayors_visit_launches_decent.aspx
And I’m sure any reader who is familiar with Helal Rahman’s affiliations is perfectly clear why he went on Panorama.
Son why did he go on Panorama Marc, do let us all know.
Should have said that Southpaw punch hasn’t been in touch. Not that I’m surprised.
Terry, with due respect, nobody in their right mind would want anything to do with a man with a conviction for aggravated racial harrassment. Southpawpunch said as much yesterday. Please learn to live with this fact.
But you’re all Marc Francis.
If calling me Marc Francis is the best you can do, then you have to try harder.
I’d rather be Marc Francis than Terry Fitzpatrick any day.
Out of curiosity, why do you call anyone with pro-Lutfur views Marc? Is there something you are not telling us? In your racist mindset, do you think a Bangladeshi like me cannot string a sentence together? Maybe you do not think that, but what is it? I want to understand. There has to be some rationale. Is there some history between you and Marc that we ought to know about?
Terry, by way of reminder, Jeory confirmed that Marc does not post comments here.
You can call me Ted, I don’t mind. We’re not at public school you know.
Couple if interesting links from the Streetlifesite. http://www.towerhamletsitsyourmoney.org and http://www.lovewapping.org. In the second look for the article by Mike Baynes. Tower Hamlets Grant Funding- Why The Numbers Don’t Add Up.
Some good number crunching here.
I almost stopped reading that when Jeory called someone an idiot for disagreeing with him, a typical right wing response to someone they can’t argue with. A point being missed here is that countless Bangladeshi/British children have gained early Gcse’s in mother tongue, therefore boosting their confidence and future prospects.
I didn’t call Southpaw an idiot for disagreeing with me. I called the response idiotic. Mainly because of the comparison to Welsh and Gaelic.
On the point of substance….it’s the funding of private mother tongue classes that people have problems with. Read and digest.
Jeory, whilst your comment is not ‘idiotic’, it’s not intelligent either. More of half a comment – no substance given to your unsupported view.
Why should it be ‘idiotic’ to compare Welsh, Gaelic and Bangla (& Urdu etc). They are the mother tongue of sections of the British population; languages that are the preference for many people in their day-to-day life.
The difference is that more state support is given to the first two – there are no BBC or C4 programme made in Bangla despite that being the only language for a fair few (all Welsh and Gaelic speakers will also speak English, save some small kids).
The only difference that I can think some will make is that only these 1st two are ‘British’ (many Gaelic speakers would disagree) but so what about the origin of a language (none of which started in Britain incidentally), or the length of time there have been many speakers in the UK.
Is that your argument? Do you have an argument?
All languages should be seen equal and if a million Portuguese settle in Birmingham, adequate resources should be given and everything produced in the two languages – like Canada, unless you think the French-speakers are wasting public resources there and should knuckle down (under the cosh).
Apologies for the machine translation – my ‘Bengali’ has gone shopping.
আপনার মন্তব্য ‘ ক্যাবলা ‘ নয় যতক্ষণ Jeory , , এটা হয় বুদ্ধিমান না. অর্ধেক একটি মন্তব্য কোন – আপনার অসমর্থিত ভিউ দেওয়া কোন পদার্থ .
কেন এটা ওয়েলশ , Gaelic, এবং বাংলা ( ও উর্দু ইত্যাদি) তুলনা ‘ ক্যাবলা ‘ হওয়া উচিত. তারা ব্রিটিশ জনসংখ্যার বিভাগের মাতৃভাষা আছে; তাদের দিন ঠিক জীবনে অনেক মানুষের জন্য পছন্দের যে ভাষায় .
পার্থক্য বেশি রাষ্ট্র সমর্থন প্রথম দুই দেওয়া হয় যে – কোন বিবিসি বা যে একটি ন্যায্য কয়েক কেবল ভাষা সত্ত্বেও বাংলা তৈরি C4 প্রোগ্রাম আছে (সব ওয়েলশ এবং গ্যেলিক স্পিকার এছাড়াও ইংরেজী বলতে হবে , কিছু ছোট বাচ্চারা সংরক্ষণ) .
আমি কিছু করতে হবে মনে করতে পারেন যে শুধু পার্থক্য কেবল এই 1 ম দুই ( যা কেউ প্রসঙ্গক্রমে ব্রিটেনে শুরু ) ‘ ব্রিটিশ ‘ হয় (অনেক গ্যেলিক স্পিকার অসম্মতি হবে ) কিন্তু তাই কি একটি ভাষার উৎপত্তি সম্পর্কে অনুপস্থিত বা দৈর্ঘ্যের সময় ইউ কে অনেক স্পিকার আছে.
আপনার যুক্তি যে কি? আপনি একটি যুক্তি আছে?
সব ভাষার সমান দেখা করা উচিত এবং বার্মিংহাম মধ্যে একটি মিলিয়ন পর্তুগিজ স্থায়ীভাবে বসবাস যদি পর্যাপ্ত সম্পদ দেওয়া এবং করা উচিত দুটি ভাষায় উত্পাদিত সবকিছু – কানাডা চান, তাহলে আপনি ফরাসি – স্পিকার আছে পাবলিক সম্পদ নষ্ট হয় এবং অধীন ( নিচে গিঁট উচিত যদি না আরামদায়ক ) .
মেশিন অনুবাদের জন্য দুঃক্ষিত – আমার ‘ বাংলা ‘ শপিং গেছে
You can also call me Ted: it’s friendlier.
And yes I do have an argument; it’s been made many times on this blog and I can’t be bothered re-running it just for you.
But thanks for gracing my blog with your presence.
Jeory, this ex-public schoolboy can see the benefit of continuing formality with some people.
Glad you think you blog is improving with my comments – perhaps we can discuss a rate per word for my text (English or Bangla)
Then use the title Mr. I’d quit at the top though if I were you. Diolch.
If in doubt about an argument always try it in reverse.
So does that mean that southpawpunch would support the government in Bangladesh providing funds for mother tongue classes for anybody from another country who settled there.
Southpawpunch misses the vital point – Welsh classes are funded in Wales but not England, or Scotland or Northern Ireland – i.e. the funding is to support the native language from dying out in the land where it started ( ditto re. Gaelic – the fund relate to where it is spoken and it is the native language ).
The CURRENT normal course of action anywhere else in the UK re. non-native languages is that parents take the responsibility for teaching their children the language of their culture and/or get support for the cultural group – NOT their Council.
If you are going spend public funds on mother tongue classes then in order for the Council to avoid discriminating against certain groups of people, they will need to fund language classes for 50+ languages (I suspect it’s nearer a 100).
Maybe we should list all the languages spoken inTower Hamlets which do NOT get any form of funding support from the Council?
Nobody is objecting to the many different cultural groups encouraging their kids to learn their own languages or the adults making use of English as a foreign language lessons. The objection is to public funding of mother tongue classes which favour just one group in the borough. That’s very partial and it’s ultimately divisive.
Man on the Clapham Omnibus. How long have you been Bangladeshi? What’s your gram so I can make enquiries? When did your family arrive, where did they stay, were they one of the 2000 Bangladeshi squatters?
Terry, I have been a Bangladeshi since I was born. Not everybody from Bangladesh is from a village. You expose your apparent ignorance by asking about my ‘gram’ (village). The first question you ask a Bangladeshi is which district they are from if you want to know where they hail from. If you are familiar with that district, you would ask which ‘upazilla’ (sub-district) and then you might ask which town or village. On the other hand, if they said one of the metropolitan cities like Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi etc., you would ask which area within that city.
And will you please stop your constant references to squatting in the 70’s. We live in 2014.
The rise of confidence levels with Bangladeshis in the UK has happened in the last 10-15 years. You could correlate this with the post 9/11 events; West talking about Islam in Europe/ America, construct of political Islam, Western attacks, counter attacks and the subsequent oil wars. In a way these events mobilised Muslim communities and Bangladeshis did not feel alone in their struggle/s (Muslim on Muslim killings of 1971 became slightly more distant)
There has always been a small group of ‘elitist’ Bengali language groups who thought they could speak on behalf of the Bangladeshi community in the East End; increasingly using Bengali language divisively to counter any perceived threat from Arabisation. But Sylheti Bengali remains an oral language, so Sylhetis always felt a disconnect with these groups.
I can’t help but feel modern Arabic is becoming more relevant to Bangladeshis in the UK as they seek answers to modern problems, compare Quranic translations into English and seek opportunities further afield in the middle east.
Yacoub. You are obviously writing to a script and have nothing constructive yourself to say. Who are these “elitist” Bengali language groups who thought they could speak on behalf of the Bangladeshi community?
Can we have some evidence to show that they were using the language to ” divisively counter any perceived threat from Arabisation”.
The only Bangladeshis seeking opportunities in the middle east are those doing low paid dangerous work in the gulf states. Evert time I have flown back to the UK from Bangladesh there were always a large number of guys in some uniform or other, clearly manual workers, who got off the plane at Bahrain or somewhere similar.
The vast majority of Bangladeshis who want to work abroad look to this country where they will need English to get on.
I’ve met plenty of Bangladeshis from Bangladesh who work in the restaurant industry who earn more than in the middle east than a British born, English-speaking graduate.
The written translation of all texts in the borough is in standard Bengali, not Sylheti script, which is no longer in use. Do most Sylhetis ever read the Standard Bengali written script? Probably not.
Perceived threat from Arabisation can be seen by taking a short walk from East London Mosque to Brick Lane. I’ve heard Muslim Bengalis say that this short walk is quite significant; one asserts religion whilst the other Bengali ‘culture’ without religion.
My concern with Bangla is the constant reassertion of it in the borough, not so much the language translation, that’s needed for the time being, but the nationalism which inevitably comes with it eg. flags, 1971 war reenactments, “All Pakistanis are rapists” mentality. I personally find these events polarising and sometimes oppressive to our multicultural constitution here in the UK. At these events Bengalis are forced to either reassert their allegiance in a thuggish or else an apologetic sort of way.
themadmullahofbricklane your first link is actually
http://towerhamletsitsyourmoney.co.uk/
(not org) — brilliant site, no goss or allegations or rumours, just lots and lots of information and information the council didn’t make easy to get, site owner mentions they were entering it themselves since last year, looks like a lot of work. Some of those charities getting our tax money just formed recently how can that be?
It helped us to decide how to vote it did. I printed pages took them to our local for a sit down, changed more than a few minds. Now a few of us are going door to door here on our estate, we’re going to change a few more minds.
and that LoveWapping site is superb! he’s (Mark I do believe not Mike?) also been on the case for a long time. Good writer. Lots of good posts there.
Sorry about that Marc but you have put it right now. Yes, brilliant site with lots if info that some of those shilling for Lutfur need to answer, I don’t suppose for one moment they will. There is some info on Ken Livingstone’s latest rant against Jews on http://www.hurryupharry.org. I think e having a slow motion nervous breakdown.
Rant against Jews? He said income and class were more definitive in voting trends than ethnicity. Do you disagree?
Yes. He was implying that Jews had got on as a group and left Labour. I know plenty of Jews, one in particular who is nearly ninety and still lives in Spitalfields who was a cabby all his life and struggles to make ends meet. I also know and do business with plenty of first and second generation Irish who are wealthy.
Livingstone deals in stereotypes. Rich Jews and poor Irish. One of the reasons he lost last time was is drunken diatribes against Jews and his cuddling up to open anti-semites. The man is disgusting.
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100145765/ken-livingstone-jews-wont-vote-for-me-because-they-are-rich/
Terry Fitzpatrick, it is incredible that you regurgitate some smears about Livingstone from that right wing, neocon Gilligan when your own track record is shameful and utterly disgraceful. You were convicted of aggravated racial harassment by a criminal court. The standard of proof in an English law criminal case is extremely high – it was proven beyond any reasonable doubt that you were indeed guilty of aggravated racial harassment. It is worth reminding the readers of your indictments from Ted Jeory’s blog post on 9 August 2010 (Terry Fitzpatrick: his court appearance).
“The indictment detailed in court shows he is charged with two counts of racially aggravated harassment.
The first count states that:
Between March 26, 2008, and December 2, 2009, Fitzpatrick pursued a course of conduct which amounted to the harassment of [OBV director] Simon Woolley and which he knew or ought to have known amounted to the harassment of him in that:
1. On March 27, 2008, he sent an abusive and insulting email to OBV in the knowledge that Simon Woolley would read it stating, inter alia, that “when are you black wankers going to get off your black arseholes and actually do some work”;
2. On September 12, 2008, he sent an abusive and insulting email to OBV in the knowledge that Woolley would read it, calling him a “cunt” and, inter alia, “Yo, Bro, Big Up, innit?”?;
3. On February 1, 2009, he sent an abusive and insulting email to OBV in the knowledge that Woolley would read it, calling OBV a racist organisation;
4. On April 8, 2009, he sent an abusive and insulting email to OBV in the knowledge that Woolley would read it, starting with “Big up, innit?”;
5. On December 1, 2009, he sent an abusive, threatening and insulting email to OBV in the knowledge that Woolley would read it, stating that, inter alia, “You have called me a coward, you fucking nigger, so I challenge you to a fight, not just you, but the other two named niggers, I will batter the shit out of your almost black hides”;
6. On several occasions between March 26, 2008, and December 2, 2009, he made physical appearances at or near the premises of OBV where Woolley works during closing times knowing that he would be seen by Woolley and other staff members and at the same time pursuing the course of conduct was wholly or partly motivated to do so by hostility towards members of a particular racial group, namely Black, based on his membership of such racial group.
Count 2 of the indictment detailed in today’s hearing states:
Between March 26, 2008, and December 2, 2009, Fitzpatrick pursued a course of conduct which amounted to the harassment of the employees of OBV and which he knew or ought to have known amounted to the harassment of them in that:
1. he sent several abusive, threatening and insulting emails to the general email address to which all members had access;
2. on several occasions between March 26, 2008, and December 2, 2009, he made physical appearances at or near the premises of OBV at closing time knowing that he would be seen by the staff members.
and at the same time pursuing the course of conduct was wholly or partly motivated to do so by hostility towards members of a particular racial group, namely Black, based on their membership of such racial group.
Magistrates also re-confirmed Fitzpatrick’s bail conditions, which are not to contact, directly or indirectly, Woolley or [OBV deputy director] Ashok Viswanathan, or any staff of OBV, or to go to or to enter [OBV’s office at] 18A Victoria Park Square in Bethnal Green.”
Terry Fitzpatrick, you have shown no remorse or regret for your criminal conviction, because you continue to insult and harangue Simon Woolley almost on a daily basis on this blog. A significant proportion of your comments contains some scurrilous remark about Simon Woolley irrespective of whether it is relevant to what you are commenting about or not. Like a criminal, you also behave in the most despicable and intimidating manner vis-à-vis other people who post comments here and disagree with you. You employ the following shameful tactics:
1. Dismissing the person by advising them to brush up on their grammar or spelling or
2. Completely undermining them by suggesting that they have nothing constructive to say.
I’ll just stop here, because I feel sorry for you.
I don’t know if Ted Will allow this post as he has deleted similar ones before. The quotes are from the first indictment against Fitzpatrick at his trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court based on a statement by Simon Woolley given to Trainee Det Con Ash Rossitter. After hearing the evidence the presiding judge, Judge Hand QC, instructed the Jury to find Fitzpatrick not guilty. There was no evidence for the jury to consider.
In other words there was no case to answer and never was. If you do not allow this post Ted a complaint will be made against you today to your employers and whatever the press complaints people are called today.
The moral of this case is that whatever a white persons track record is in fighting racism and fascism when a black person points the finger of racism every white person should be afraid, be very afraid.
I think the threats are more likely to get you banned from this blog.
Are you saying that Terry Fitzpatrick was not convicted of aggravated racial harassment by a criminal court or just that the indictment is wrong?
@Southpawpunch – what do you make of Kernewek? I am referring to the Cornish language. The Cornish people have been granted a minority status by EU recently and public money has been allocated to revive the Cornish language.
I would like to draw readers’ attention to this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-26675839. £120,000 of government funding was allocated to promote and develop the language.
I wonder if the same people who condemned council funding to promote ‘Bengali’ lessons in TH would react with the same outcry when taxpayers’ money is allocated to promote Kernewek, which hardly anyone speaks!
Southpawpunch certainly makes some interesting arguments comparing the status of Gaelic and Welsh with Bengali.
Yes, Clapham, it’s interesting about Cornish and I think a useful comparison can be made between the emotion charged debates about ‘foreign’ languages’ (sic) and the mild discourse about ‘British languages’ (sic), including those spoken by next to no-one (Cornish).
I think that’s because there is a grim push towards a monoculture – this is allowed to include Morris-dancing, Derbyshire well-dressing, Shetland Viking Boat burning and Cornish Druids (yes, really) and the Cornish language, but frowns upon (or soon will) Polish Easter parades, Sikh Joloos and Traveller horse fair gatherings. I think eventually this will also move against Melas and the Notting Hill Carnival, or will at least make them completely banal and remove the Asian or Black cultural dominance from them in favour of something more ‘inclusive’ – that has happened to a degree already.
As this happens, what is banned (e.g. buying non-English papers or magazines in Newham libraries), or what becomes ‘beyond the pale’, will spread as the ripples move on to neighbouring things. My prediction is that the popular east London street celebrations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh Days of Independence will be the sort of ‘divisive’ act that Wales & co will go for next – ‘Why can’t we all celebrate St George’s Day instead?’ will be the refrain, but the celebrations of the ‘foreign’ St Andrew’s, David’s and Patrick’s Days will be fine and I can also see the rise of St Pirian’s Day (patron saint of Cornwall). English (& British) eccentricity and ‘Roast Beef’ culture – yes; ‘old country, backward superstitions’ (as they will see it) – no. No-one yet calls for the banning of Bengali shop signs but you can imagine Biggs in 5 years: ‘Why do you call your shop a name some can’t understand’, ‘Why are you trying to make yourself different?’, ‘Is this an attempt to avoid consumer legislation by hiding the name of your shop in a foreign script?’ and other such guff.
If you think I exaggerate about the spread of this toxicity, I think I can show that the new patriotism of Wales (he’s a lover of military parades; ‘The Glorious Days of the Thin Red Line of Empire’ must now be in his pipeline) is a corrosive initiative that’s gaining momentum: I was on a course in Newham today and watched a Newham British Bangladeshi professional woman proudly relate to her students (white City types) how she never used her ‘mother tongue’ at work as it is ‘unprofessional’ and her also boast that she told off some students for speaking Bengali in a class once because there were others there who may have thought that group were secretly discussing them (and so she tragically echoed the EDL drongo I mentioned above who said exactly the same thing).
I felt (patronisingly?) quite sorry for her but maybe she was just doing what she now thinks to be expected and I am doing her a big disservice. That is because all these discussions here (and elsewhere) are overwhelmingly by whites (and who orientate from outside east London) patronisingly telling Bengalis what is best for them. I would love to hear what Bengalis, such as Clapham, think e.g. is too much or too little support given to Bangla? I hope the barely disguised ‘post-Enlightenment’ types here – the sorts who never physically cross the apartheid line that divides Brick Lane just south of the Truman brewery – and who see themselves as munificently helping pull their backward council-house dwelling Bangladeshi neighbours out from their obscurationist fug are shown to be completely out of sync with the views of those for whom they think they know best. But maybe it’s me in the wrong.
Actually Southpaw, the lecturer at the event you claim you went to in Newham is correct. In mixed company it is now considered bad form to speak Bangla when there are non Bangla speakers present. I have been pulled up on this myself. It would of course be necessary for you speak the language and to know the Bangladeshi community which you clearly don’t.
Southpaw, very interesting indeed! I’ll share my thoughts tonight. I’m at work now. Take care.
Southpawpunch, your observations are very interesting indeed and I agree that there is increasingly a push towards a British/English mono-culture and a disdain for anything considered to be ‘foreign’ to the British Isles. How did this happen and become so mainstream amongst politicians of both the Right and Left?
The answer is simple – Blairism. We know that the Tories always held traditional, conservative views about preserving the so called British values with a dislike for anything ‘alien’. Then, Blair came on the scene and started destroying the ‘soul’ of the Labour party by adopting a populist agenda and formulating policies which were based on the sentiments expressed in the Sun, Daily Mail etc. He influenced a generation of politicians on the Left who feel it is okay to think and act like their peers on the Right. Blair made it acceptable and fashionable. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in TH where both Labour and the Tories work hand in hand to conspire against Lutfur, who actually represents original, true Labour ideals.
These despicable populist politicians might like to push their mono-culture ideals, but the real battle is actually being fought elsewhere (away from the politicians). Yesterday’s Sun newspaper front page headline was ‘PIZZA EXPRESS HALAL SECRET” and Pizza Express hit back saying that it is no secret that all their chicken is halal slaughtered. There was another hoo-ha recently in the right-wing press about Subway serving halal meat and ditching pork. KFC is serving halal chicken in selected stores, as is Nandos. The Daily Mail reported today about complaints received by Channel 4 following its broadcast of the Muslim call to prayer during Ramadan last year. A number of pubs in London and other areas have shut down due to lack of demands where local Muslim communities purchased those properties and converted them into mosques. My point is that the culture is already changing in Britain and it is being driven by consumer demands. The right-wing media are focusing their attention on companies who are allegedly betraying the British mono-culture and selling out. While politicians were influenced by the right-wing media in Blair’s new world of populist, reactionary politics, the same thing will not happen to the shareholders of these companies that are ‘selling out’. The reason is simple – profit.
The government (local and central) can step back and watch this new and evolving cultural landscape. They are not in control. In a capitalist, consumer society like Britain, the individual is in control. You have money in your pocket, you spend and you get what you want i.e. culture, religion, language. This brings me back to the funding of Bengali lessons in TH. The language which a lot of people in TH are learning is Arabic. There are great many good quality Arabic language institutes in TH which are attended by people from TH and from outside of TH. These are private institutes where people pay for lessons with their own money. That is exactly my point. I don’t want the council to fund Bengali lessons. It is only effective when people pay for it with their own money.
You espouse conservative political philosophy very well.
But odd you think Lutfur represents true Labour values when he rides around in a Merc and fails to attend debates. Do you think the likes of Lansbury would have acted like that?
I think your criticism of Blair are correct but it should be not forgotten that the politics of previous Labour Leaders were much of the same – when they fear Daily Mail Droitwich is concerned about ‘Ugandan Asians’ or, as Clapham well points out, the growing hysteria over the ‘The plot to make all freeborn Englishmen eat halal’ meat’ or something, they act.
That foul hegemony of supposed ‘common sense’, that is the controlled environment, fuelled by the reactionary comments spewed by hacks like Jeory, which means there are no depths they will lower themselves to when acting to reassure them.
Labour PM Harold Wilson in 1965: “There are towns and cities in Britain which are being asked today to absorb a degree of immigration on a scale beyond their social capacity to absorb, without serious risks, having regard to the time required for absorption… We cannot take the risk of allowing the democracy of this country to become stained and tarnished with the taint of racialism or of colour prejudice. I want to make it clear that in the positive policies set out in the White Paper for assimilation, for absorption, for integration, we proceed from the proposition that everyone living in this country, everyone who has come in or will come in is a British citizen, entitled to equality of treatment regardless of origin or race or colour. Time will be required for assimilation and this is why we must have restriction, particularly having regard to the widespread evasions. But I repudiate the libel that the Government’s policy is based either on colour or on racial prejudice.
The language is the same – Wilson or Cameron. Racism is ugly but if you want to stop it. then try to start acting ‘British’. And what do you expect us to do – we have Lincolnshire marginals to win.
This Labour initiative above led to the 2nd Commonwealth Immigrants Act (1968) – condemned by the Times, no less, as a shameful “colour bar”. This was introduced amid concerns that up to 200,000 Kenyan Asians fleeing that country’s “Africanization” policy, would take up their right to reside in the UK.
The bill went through parliament in three days.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=R5400Y3ExjcC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=harold+wilson+immigration+1965+repatriation&source=bl&ots=cawO9rOA4c&sig=DxTAGjjSch_enVU34qa7hPa8Qiw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ur5sU_veHMG00QXXw4GoAQ&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=harold%20wilson%20immigration%201965%20repatriation&f=false
You miss the point just as southpawpunch does. There is a world of difference between:
1) supporting a language in the part of the world where it started out in order to avoid it dying out and
2) supporting a non-native language.
Have you any idea how many non-native languages are spoken in London or Tower Hamlets? I know it’s well over 100 in London – and Tower Hamlets.
see http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/census-data-shows-100-different-languages-spoken-in-almost-every-london-borough-8472483.html
So how exactly do you avoid discriminating against the genuine minorities?
Making the resources available to get everybody up to a decent standard of written and spoken English is the most “equal” way forward.
‘originate’, not ‘orientate’
Jeory, Esq. Shall we call that £50?
If it’s enough to buy you a bucket of pills to make you happier, deal. Are you a nihilist?
No, but as agreed, I’m trying to help you improve this blog, In this case, I was feeding you an obvious ‘straight’ line to help but you out but I will need to lower my game as you missed what even a passing 5 year would know should have been the reply; ‘Yes, ok Southpawpunch. Send me the cheque’.
You need a colon, not a semi-colon before opening a quote. And you’ve missed the word ‘old’ after ‘5 year’.
You get nothing in this world for poor grammar. Didn’t your housemaster tell you that?
On a lighter note some news from today’s East London Advertiser. Miliband, I’ve been spelling it with two Ls, has finally decided to honour the borough with his presence. He had a walkabout in Brick Lane and laid into Lutfur, I say laid as it was pretty much the equivalent of being savaged by a dead sheep, still, it’s a start.
I hope this is the start of a two week onslaught by Labour’s great and good as the time is right, Lutfur’s support isn’t going to grow and is fraying at the edges.
For his part Rahman has managed to spend £47 000 on one day’s curry tasting, jugglers and acrobats. The idea was to get people to use the restaurants in Brick Lane more. I did a short survey of those whose owners I know and none had sold a single extra curry except the ones the Mayor had bought.
You know its election time when the politicians start to make promises they can’t possibly keep. From the Advertiser again.
” The Mayor of Tower Hamlets has launched his election manifesto, promising transformational changes to including 20,000 jobs and 5,500 affordable homes.
Lutfur Rahman unveiled his plans for a second rem if he is re-elected on May 22nd, which also include 14,000 training opportunities, 8000 apprenticeships, a new mobile police centre and extra investment.
Many of his changes are part of his £100 000,000 Whitechapel Vision regeneration, for which ex Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is providing advice.
Mr Rahman said: “I’m asking local residents to give me the chance to continue what we’ve started”.
What’s this Whitechapel Vision? There are enough opticians around already, it seems a lot of money for a Specsavers!
When I see the word vision and Ken Livingston I smell very a expensive scam. The last time he was involved in anything of this kind one Karen Chouhan who “General” Lee Jasper wanted to “honey glaze” (sic) walked away with a few hundred grand of Londoners money even though she was based in Leicester.
She was one of the “Visionaries” funded by the Joseph Rowntree CharitableTrust who could see things that us lesser mortals couldn’t. What she did see was racism everywhere that required large amounts of cash to sort out. Sound familiar?
Terry, it’s funny how your comment ends so predictably as it always does by bashing one of your usual targets. You go through the following motions daily:
1. Lambasting Lutfur
2. Bashing Ken Livingstone
3. Haranguing Lee Jasper
4. Harrassing Simon Woolley and
5. You start at 1 again.
There is also the non-stop harking back to squatting in the 1970s (although you were good today – you did not mention it once).
I hope your intimidation of other people who post comments here will also stop.
I believe you can teach an old dog new tricks.
I don’t know where you get your information from and you can’t be a Bangla reader if you can say things like this.
You should allow balance which you are because the post hasn’t been deleted so you have nothing to worry about. Don’t worry Ted, allowing criticism of Simon Woolley won’t affect your career.
How could southpaw improve one of the most watched and quoted blogs in the English speaking world? Delusions of grandeur, either that or class something substances.
Most second generation Bangladeshis read Bengali with great difficulty if they read at all. Most first generation Bangladeshis are not literate enough to read the high standard Bengali of the translated leaflets. Why do politician’s Insist on all this translation business? It provides no benefit other than racist fodder.
Brilliant comment
Those pages in EEL aren’t read by anyone. Their real reason is to provide a different backdrop to some more pictures of our esteemed leader.
Bengali are people that speak Bangla and are from West Bengal and Bangladesh. Bangla is their language.
Ash, you are somewhat confused. The explanation below should help:
Bengali = Bangla (language)
Bangali = people of West Bengal (ethnicity)
Bangladeshi = people of Bangladesh (ethnicity)
Bengal = Bangladesh and West Bengal under British colony and before (area)
Why do you not see ‘Bangali’ written anywhere? This is a reference to the race or ethnicity of the people of West Bengal, but they are normally defined as Indians (i.e. on diversity monitoring forms). Similarly, you do not see people of, inter alia, Punjab, Gujarat or Tamil Nadu referred to by their ethnicity, but by their nationality as Indians.
There is also some debate as to whether people of Bangladesh should be referred to as ‘Bangalis’ like people from West India. Afterall, at one point, it was all one area and they are all part of the same ethnic group. However, on 16 December 1971, a new country was born with the independence of Bangladesh. People of Bangladesh got a new identity, which is why I prefer to identify myself as a Bangladeshi (not as a Bangali).
In short, Bengali is never a reference to anything other than a language. It may be used in common parlance to refer to people, but that is technically incorrect.
Funny world. You have no idea what you are talking about.
I’m coming in on this a bit late in the day but if there was one policy area that I would single out as completely asinine, then it would be the policy to continue funding the Mother Tongue classes at the expense of taxpayers. If it was Mandarin or Arabic I would understand but what purpose does it serve teaching Bangla to Syheti speaking children? That is Syheti speaking children who choose to speak English now than the language of their parents.
I would expect the new Mayor to get rid of this service completely!
There won’t be a new Mayor unless you, and more than 50% of the local electorate vote to replace the current incumbent..these are the hard facts!
Number Ten, I completely agree with you on this.