Wonderings.
Need for VitD and something for the soul.
(Stepney Green & Lambeth)
Need for VitD and something for the soul.
(Stepney Green & Lambeth)
When you are sat at an event literally giving you life - Bengali Resistance in the East End brought together activists in celebration of the enduring presence of London’s Bengali community. Using local archives and testimonies we discussed how the racially motivated murder of Altab Ali in 1978 was a turning point for locals who rose up to protect and agitate for their community. (Hosted by Tower Hamlet Archives)
Within marginalised stories of resistance are the marginalised voices of our aphas, khalas & mothers. A credit to the organisers for championing female activists. In 1971 Shuva Motin (right) was just 18 when she marched in support of the Bangladeshi liberation movement (image in the background) and wasn’t much older when she organised night patrols to protect locals from the National Front. Her flat was open with tea and pots of kisuri through the night and to this day she’s continued to feed the community. It didn’t take us long to finish her prize winning Sylheti Naga pickles!
We were also lucky to have a chance to hear from the Mayday Rooms who brought with them some of their activist archives. Their collections can be found in their base in Fleet Street where they also offer free spaces for groups furthering social action.
There were fragments here and there of the museum attempting to reconcile itself with decolonial histories. This was part of a series by Joe Cruz drawling light to the inferior treatment and forced conscription of colonial subjects. In this print, men of the African Pioneer Corps from Lesotho can be seen fixing tanks in the Middle East.
The museum’s exhibitions offers a sober testament that there is little to celebrate about imperialist wars and none more so than the Holocaust galleries. In class we investigate ‘how could the Holocaust have been prevented?’ As never again means never again. The final image is of secret photos taken at Auswitch-Birkenau, one of the museum’s 2000 artifacts that bare witness to the life and destruction of Europe’s Jewish community.