You've heard of Brick Lane! Altab Ali, the martyr, used to work in the area... But have you heard of Drummond Street?

0258 Hrs GMT
[0358 UK local time]
London
Thursday
13 May 2010.


By © Muhammad Haque.

Tower Hamlets Borough Council has a new councillor. Abdul Mukit [left] is a first time councillor elected to represent the Weavers ward in the borough. Here he is seen with a local businessman Mr Miah. Abdul Mukit has been an active member of many local groups and was involved with a youth group in 1978. Where is that group today? I shall be updating on that here in the near future. This in the context of the euphoria that has been the central theme that the Bangladeshi community-linked ‘newspapers and media’ in the UK have promoted in the past month around the 6 May 2010 elections. So strong has that contrived euphoria been that some Even confused Altab Ali’s martyrdom with a perceived [but factually totally untrue] ‘community ambition’ to have representatives on the local council. As Abdul Gofur from Camden recalled earlier this week, ‘Tara eeta bishhaashoo korto naa-ae’. They won’t believe it! The ‘they’ being ‘the packaged leaders’ appointed by the ‘powers that be’ to pose as the legitimate voice of the Bangladeshis in the UK. Things were not so ‘perfectly [packaged’ in 1978. NO! The atmosphere was a million miles different from that of May 2010. Back in May 1978, the community was in a state of siege! Fear of being attacked was a daily, no, hourly reality and it defined the agenda of every individual adult’s day.. And night. Thirty-two years on, what are the lessons in the inner cities UK of the struggle for safety in the streets that everyone joined. In their mind if not with their body! One street, Brick Lane, London East One, is forever associated with the community’s struggle that we mobilised in the wake of Altab Ali’s martyrdom. But another London street deserves mention in the true story of the Bangladeshis fight back for survival in the UK. Drummond Street!

[To be continued]