Walking pedagogies in Southall: Dr Gurnam Singh and Rahul Patel

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This is walking pedagogies, a series of walking conversations that bring to focus personal narratives around pedagogy and social justice. In this episode, we walk with Dr.
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Gurnam Singh and Rahul Patel in Southall, West London.
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Gurnam is visiting fellow in race and education at UAL. And Rahul is associate lecturer on ba culture criticism and curation at Central Saint Martin's.Gurnam takes us on a journey through the streets of South Hall and leads us through some important sites, buildings and memories that played a part in the revolutionary anti racist youth movement that emerged in the late 1970s.
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Yeah, welcome to South Hall, little Punjab.
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Well, it's nice to be here, Gurnam. It's nice to be in South Hall and it's good to see a sign that says Welcome to Southall. And it's in Punjabi, So could you tell us a bit more?
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We begin at Southall tube station and hear a little of Gurnam's family history and his connection to the area.
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So Gurnam Singh, yes. How old are you?
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I'm 64
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64 years of age and where were you born?
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I was born in the Punjab in 1959, came to the UK at the age of three in 61-62.
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Punjab is a very big area. It's a big area. So whereabouts in Punjab?
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The Jalandar district. So not far from the Satluj River. Just north of the bank to Ludhiana whichis the big industrial belt.
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Okay, And the town is also famous for other things as well infamous, isn't it? That area?
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Absolutely! Well, there's actually lots of migrant workers in that area, lots of small workshops and things. Lots of I mean, the Punjab has the highest concentration of Dalits in all of India. And I think that that that that is significant in a way that's shaped the politics and the culture of Punjab, and I think it's Punjabis in the diaspora as well, actually.
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I know this is, I know, it's gonna be an obvious answer. But why did the family come here?
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Well, we came here as migrant laborers, my father was a migrant laborer.
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But what's really interesting is nothing that this, and is also significant in terms of the evolution of Southall where we are today is that, you know, in some senses, the people who migrated were the ones who were more relatively affluent, who have the resources to send the eldest sons overseas. And many of them were educated as well.
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But when they came here, they didn't really get jobs in those fields. And so they were drawn towards factories and warehouse work and mills and foundries. We settled in the north. But if you're looking at Southall for example, in some senses, it's because of a particular Factory in Southall. It was a rubber factory, where literally, Asian workers, it's called the The Wolf and Co. rubber factory, would literally come off Heathrow airport, and then go straight, maybe get go home and have a wash, then straight into the factory. And there was like a kind of a conveyor belt. So you have this conveyor belt of labor coming in to Heathrow Airport, and the kind of industries around here. And that was really how, you know, little Punjab, how Punjab became West West London little Punjab in Southall. And what's really interesting is and we stood at the station at the moment, and I'm sure you can see the sound sign "Welcome to Southall". It's also in Punjabi in Gurmukhi script, Ji aa aanu, which means Ji aa aanu Southall, Welcome to Southall. So now, I don't know if this is the only station in London, but it's probably only one of a few stations where you actually have a bilingual signage, which is really interesting itself, given the kind of the diversity of London itself, you know, you would have thought that this might have been a bit more normal bit more obvious.
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And it's a fantastic change to see. Because I do remember in the late 70s, early 80s 90s 2000s, that this particular station was always rundown. It felt not very welcome. It didn't feel as if you were going to be part of Sauthall, but something you had to be transitory. You had to have to just kind of move away come in and get out of Southall, that's the impression the the station gave. But what is fantastic to see at the moment is that actually the community itself has established itself and has put his imprint in and saying we welcome to Southall,
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Yes and no, I mean, I think I think that's awful. That is in essence the Southall that's still there.
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Even though we're you know, it's a new station. You've got the new Victoria, the new Elizabeth line. And, you know, around here, you've got all these skyscrapers that are going up, you know, so, so, so this is this is the point that we started all these kind of becoming gentrified, if you like, you know, the Elizabeth line has opened up new kind of residences, but Southall, has always been a churn. So, yeah, you know, when, when my father came, he didn't come to Southall but that generation in the 60s and 70s have largely moved out the children have moved into other towns into other areas, and they've been replaced by other migrants. But what's also interesting is because of its Punjabi connections, has always attracted Punjabis. So there's a huge Afghan Sikh population. I mean, they're not Punjab businesses that come from Afghanistan, but they're Sikhs and they speak Punjabi or they can't speak Punjabi. So, so you'll find a lot of the shops a lot of the restaurants are now run by Afghan Sikhs as well. But even Hindus a lot of Punjabi Hindus are here, Punjabi Muslims, if there is one kind of space that you could say is archetypically, Punjab, then Southall is that place and that's probably why nobody complains that we've got a sign in Punjabi on the station here.
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So the the initial migrants who came here in the late 50s, and 60s, obviously working in local factories, Heathrow was a very, very important workplace, as well. We saw not only men, but women employed in great numbers, at Heathrow Airport, what is termed as menial jobs. But you also had number of women working for airline industries as well. So those two areas were were a magnet in terms of what's taking place, but in terms of daily life, Gurnam, what was it like for people, because because my stock my understanding what those stories were, it was work day in and day in and day out, you know, leisure was not necessarily there.
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Well I, I mean I was obviously a child. So I was kind of observing it, but I can remember, it was work, it was small houses, overcrowding, no heating. So what you would you would do is you would have one group of workers go and do the shift, another group would come from the shift, and in essence, just keep the bed warm all the time. So you have that constant kind of flow of, because a lot of the work was shift work. And sometimes even people used to do double shifts as well. It did mean that the children often didn't get the attention of their parents, and that's another issue altogether.
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But but at work, life wasn't pleasant. Oh, that the discrimination, racism, violence, but just health and safety. I mean, I remember once going to when I was in Bradford, to go into the mill to drop my dad's lunch off because he left it at home. And I thought I'd gone into some kind of dystopian other world, you know, it was a wool mill and the workers were walking around with their faces covered with cloth. And it just felt like you're in some kind of horror movie. And that's what life was like. And, of course, a lot of those workers then suffered later into the ill health, you know, breathing lung problems. A lot of the other problems around heart disease, diabetes, you know, eating comfort food. So there's kind of like, secondary effects of that.
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And of course, mortality rates were much higher amongst that generation. Many of them have died off now you know.
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We leave Southall station and turn left, heading along South Road, we hear about how the area has changed since the 70s. And how important the workers movements were in defending the rights of migrant communities.
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Yeah, so when I saw the station now, and we're walking across to the bridge, the bridge is very significant.
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Gurnam, isn't it? Because there is two sides to Southall, isn't
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Yeah, I mean, it's often said that, to the, to it?
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the north of the bridge, is New Southall, to the south is old Southall. And that's probably because a lot of the factories and a lot of the industries connected with Heathrow Airport, are found on this south side of Southall. And that's also because some of the early kind of institutions that were established by the migrants from the Indian subcontinent, and we'll be talking about those, the other places were establishing on this side of Southall and there could be lots of reasons why that was the case. And so the people were living around. It's only a small town, but there's still these particular pockets where you would find larger concentrations of, of the South Asian community, but nowadays, you know, so it's, it's spread out.
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So I'm not sure that the younger generation necessarily season distinction between old Southall and new Southall.
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Yeah. And while we're walking, we see great developments here as well we can hear, you know, huge machinery building machinery in the kind of the background. So there is huge developments, and, and moving on in a different kind of Southhall as well, as we're going by.
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Well in some senses, this is the new New South Hall. And, you know, it's not a Southall of low kind of tenements, semis and terraced houses. But as we can see, it's a Southall, almost kind of mini Canary Wharf where you've got skyscrapers, almost appearing overnight. And I think that's a whole new story about London and the way in which London becomes transformed and becomes captured in terms of the kind of wider kind of forces at play.
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I mean, their force at play of Global Capitalism.
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Britain needs migrant workers.
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And these housing is quite clearly going to be built for a more affluent number of people that are coming through.
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But we were talking about how the rubber factories and some of those other factories were drawing migrants into Southall and West London. Well, migrants now being drawn into these new factories that are building building these apartments. Yeah. And it's the same kind of patterns of cheap labor, gang labor. But there's another interesting development is that, in some sense, some of these developments are themselves now been by South Asian developers, who they now have become the kind of the ones who are bringing in the cheap labor, health and safety issues.
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And we all know about those aspects as well. So in some sense, Southall is remaking itself as well. And that's something worth interesting, worth kinda lot, really.
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So we walking down towards a significant building a significant building in terms of Southall history in the late 1970s, early 80s. So kind of before we get there, tell us a bit more about it.
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Well, I mean, so we had the, when we were at the station, we were talking about pattern migration, yeah.
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And how workers were being brought to be exploited really as cheap labor. But amongst those were educated people, amongst those migrants were people who, who were literate.
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So. So that education meant that they weren't readily prepared to take some of those conditions.
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And so they started to organizing the workforce, initially through the trade unions, but they faced racism both from the employers and from the trade unions.And so they started to organize themselves and there was one particularly important organization, which was called the Party Mazdoor Sabha or the Indian workers association. And we're going to be going to a building which is the Dominion cinema, which was a cinema that was purchased and this is on the green that was purchased by the IWA in 1965, initially, as a cultural center, so that shows, Indian films Punjabi films, but it also became the hub of political organizing as well, not just for Indians, but it became the kind of center for anti racist organization as well and we will, we will discuss some of that when we get there.
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Okay, so just a little bit more about the Indian Work Association, because their roots were in India, and they replicated some of the politics of India here as well. But, but what was it in India, they were, they were part of.
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A lot of the migrants came from the Punjab andthe Punjab, the history of Punjab is a history of political activism of resistance, and you can go back to anti Imperial movements that gathered party on the Indian independence movement, yeah. The communists, leftists were all always very strong in India. They were heavily influenced by the Russian Revolution. There were also Maoist groups, movements like the Naxalite movements, revolutionary movements. So Punjab had already had this kind of sense of its own revolutionary kind of past, yeah. And so that but then that then became trans transposed into the kind of activism that you found within within Punjabi communities but South Asian communities more generally wherever they're settled, but it was Indian Workers Association that established branches across the country. I think the first branch was in Coventry. I think that's where it was. And Udham Singh, who, who was part of it who was later executed by the British for killing the person responsible the Amritsar massacre, was one of the people that helped to form the in the Workers Association in Coventry, and then they had branches all over the place. And suddenly we're working in the field of politics, race, relations, industrial, social welfare, and culture. And at the forefront of the struggle with trade unions as well actually delve into all kinds of things civil liberties, feminism, women's rights, you know, they were working closely, for example, with our fellow black sisters, and the work that they were doing. So it became a very powerful organization. It also was producing newsletters and publications. So for example, there would, there was early publication Hind, which was the earliest publication and they produce other works, pamphlets. And so education was another important part, they had a journal, which was called Lalkaar, which I think in Punjabi lalkaar means awaken, you know it is a call to act, and which used to be linked with the IWA and that was edited by Harpal Brar who was a part of the Communist Party of Great Britain Marxist Leninist party.
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And it's still going. Even today, I've seen some people on the streets of Britain in some of the demonstrations, still having that publication. So that's, you know, that's really important.
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And it's important to understand that the IWA, and maybe you can tell us about this as well, were, were critical, significant to the anti racist struggles that developed in the 1970s, across Britain, but in Southall, they took a particular significance, didn't they?
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Yeah, well, actually the connection with the Dominion under the IWA, and then the birth of another really important movement in 1976, which was the Southall Asian Youth Movement, which was a precursor to a network of, so the Southall group was called the Southall Youth Movement, but a network of Asian youth movements across the country, which were triggered off by a need to defend the community against fascist right wing violence. And in those days, it was the National Front that was the main group that was organizing under the, the Dominioncinema became a spark point for an incident that happened here, which was the killing of a young Asian boy called Gurdip Singh Chaggar, who was stabbed to death. And he'd just been into the cinema, he was watching the movie and as you can see, he, as he came out, he was attacked by some right wing, racist and he was killed.
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And that really gave birth to a whole new movement.
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So we're outside across the road
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Let's go inside
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We're just outside the across the road. And what we can see is two buildings. One is Dominion towards my left, Dominion center and library.
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It's a 1990s building and nothing much inside. But next to it is much more significant is the Indian Work Association Southall, as it's called. It's a whole building has solicitors above, but downstairs serving the community since 1956. This is 112B the green and the postcode is USP24 BQ. And so the stage is set here, in terms of the politics of Southall. Right.
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The murder was a significant point for the building of the youth movement that came out Yeah.
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Well, it's something worth recalling. So the the IWA building here that was established In 1956, so So next to the next to the office of the Southall of Indian Workers Association, which was established in 1956. We had them purchasing the Dominion cinema in 1965, where they were showing the films. But as I said that this this really became the touchstone for a whole movement, following the brutal murder of Gurdip Singh Chaggar on the fourth of June 1976. He was an 18 year old student, he was an engineering student. And sometimes it's very parallel between the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the murder of Gurdip Singh Chaggar. He was a karate student, he was a student of karate and a keen hockey player as well. And it was on that evening, where Gurdip was going to the cinema, with some of his friends, as he occasionally did, it was outside the cinema that the said that this dreadful stabbing took place. He was attacked by two youth similar to age to him. And they cause fatal injuries and it kind of brought the innocence in the community, a community that up to that point was just getting on with it. Yeah, with the thought of themselves as being kind of guests. And that they almost kind of were grateful to the, to the British for allowing them to gain employment. And then the slogans here to stay here to fight started to resonate on the streets of South South London across the country. slogans like black and white unite and fight.
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And the community then really got charged on its and reclaimed its political kind of heritage, really, you know, that was kind of still there. But found an expression in the death of Gurdip. I think it's really important because one of the people that I was heavily influenced by now still today.
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And you'll know him Suresh Grover. Suresh was one of the founders of the Southall Youth Movement. And he was actually here on that day, and there was a pool of blood outside that obviously, they removed Gurdip's body, and there was a pool of blood. And he came, he was one of the first passerby. So he took a piece of red cloth and covered the blood, and he puts bricks around that space, almost turned it into a monument and saying that we should never ever forget what happened. And that we need to now protest against all racist murders. And that's where the Southall monitoring group also began to, to document and to reveal the kind of violence that was not only taking place through fascist right wing, white supremacist thugs, which was very routine, but also the violence from the police, the violence within institutions in workplaces. And in that sense, that movement wasn't no longer just a movement for Punjabis of for Sikhs, it became a, it became a black movement. And again, we know that there was the Black Power movement in the States. And lots of alliances were built with African Caribbean people, South Asian people, and we were all politically black. That was the other important thing in those days. Although we all had our points of entry, as it were points of origin, the homeland, here we were all politically black. And that was a really important aspect of the politics that that ensued throughout the 70s 80s, and 90s.
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And it's worth noting that let's set the background that in the 1970s in London, we have the Greater London Council elections, and the National Front was coming in third. So it was the third largest political party in London, there was not only the murder here, but across London.
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We know around the Bricklane area, White Chapel, there were attacks there. We know that the National Front were creating provocative marches through areas where there were a larger number of Black and Asian people. So we saw in Lewisham in 1978 that they marched. And there was resistance all the way across the community. So there was a rebuilding. Yeah, a rebuilding of a national anti racist movement against the rise of a fascist organization, in that way. There were declarations from people to say we, we can't have fascism in Britain. You know, Britain is different Britain is not like other European countries, but very clearly, activists from political traditions realized that they were classic fascist organization and targeting minority communities in terms of what's what's happening. Now, one thing I noticed around here Gurnam is there's no plaque.
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What is it?
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Something inside this, I think there's an exhibition in an archive inside plaques in there but no nothing interesting point. Yeah, that that that's something that, you know...
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I mean, later on we are going to be going to Southall Town Hall Yeah, where there are three plaques and we can describe what those plaques are.
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The other important point is that not only I mean, the moment gave agency, the moment gave agency and a does this place mark the death of a young Sikh student, Punjabi student - Gurdeep Chaggar, but it also represents the birth of a whole political movement. Now, that's not to say that people weren't resisting beforehand, but they would resist in kind of their own whereas maybe in quite fragmented ways. But it was something about this, this event that that unleashed the youth, in fact, gave youth the kind of legitimation to fight back, even voice to a whole generation, which just said, Enough is where a Suresh was saying that the older generation would have been bewildered about this and didn't want to upset the applecart. And but later, I think the elders did, you know, kind of line up and support the youth. And as we will find, when we when we had further kind of moments.
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enough. And we will not let our brothers and sisters die at the hands of the fascists. I mean, that was a key slogan.
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There was lots of anger there.
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And so the youth marched to the to the town hall, and we'll be going there later. There were police were there and the elders said, No, let's, let's not cause any trouble. Youth were there were stones were thrown and youth were arrested. And it was to defend the youth, as it were, that then the Southall Youth Movement was formally established in June 1976.
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Yeah. But just as a side, I mean, we can see just we are outside the library, Dominion Center and library.
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Here, as you described earlier on, old Southall and new Southall, and were, King Street and the dominion. There's a information here about the development of Southall from 1838 to 2003. I assume that's when this was put up, quite clearly, giving us kind of a potted history of the area. But what's interesting is it doesn't describe the people here.
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Yeah, and it doesn't actually mention good deeds, I think . Yeah, murder.
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Now, that might just be because they might have thought that this, this, this board has a different purpose. But that's interestingly itself is the way in which history becomes made and then erased.
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And I think this is very important, actually, because in terms of us discussing pedagogy, in terms of discussing history, in terms of Eurasia, and how they impact on education is very, very significant, as well, that how it is important for us to, in a very minute sense, recognize what is in fact taking place because it has significance in terms of how we understand our past, and how that relates to our education.
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I'll give you a good example of that, if think about the ways in which neoliberalism and the whole neoliberal culture has tried to create divisions within the community. So one of them has been the South Asian communities are very hard working community, they're conservative. In fact, we've got that sense that they're naturally conservative, when Rishi Sunak became the Prime Minister, but that's based on a complete erasure of the history of activism against capitalism against imperialism, from those same communities, so you know, but the sad thing is that then the, our new generation don't know about that. They don't know that, you know, across the country, from East London, to West London to to Glasgow, Sheffield, Bradford, we had very powerful Asian youth movement. So who, who, who went on the principle that, you know, it's not a crime to defend your community from fascist? Yeah.
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And in fact, if you if you're somebody who's not the birth of 12 case, which was aware 12 Young, Black and Asian people had organized against fascist violence, and they were arrested because they were accused of terrorism things. They fought that, they fought that and they won the case and they established their right to self defense. And, and there was a slogan "self defensive is no offense, black and white unite and fight" and I think that really kind of shook the fabric but also empowered the community. You know, and you know, we can recall other things like the Grumbach strike. What happened in Notting Hill, the birth of rock against racism, the anti Nazi league itself. And we'll be talking about that when we go to the town hall. All kind of emerged in this period of the mid to late 70s was a critical point in the history of politics in this country. Although as you're saying, it seems to not appear on the curriculum, it seems to be something that you have to kind of dig dig deep to find out about but it's although it's available on the internet.
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So, but also, we have to be clear at that time, what was happening nationally for these races to take to take place, because we had in 1979, the election of Margaret Thatcher. Before then, the Conservative Party was playing the race card in different ways.
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Enoch Powell that his rivers of blood speech earlier on really embolden the right. I mean, if you would go a bit further back in in the 50s, where Mosley's fascists, and some of the Notting Hill, the stuff that happened in Notting Hill was really triggered off by by that moment, but then yeah, you had Enoch Powell. And in some senses, Enoch Powell legitimize the National Front, and join alienated young white boys and men into that movement.
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And
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So one of the significant things that I think we are going to be exploring, potentially, in this series, another area of London, but one of the significant things that Margaret Thatcher said of that time, which was when she said, we are being overwhelmed by people of an alien culture.
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Yeah. As a family, swamping. Yeah, we've been an
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Alien culture. Now, there was, this is quite important, because the attacks that were mounted, political attacks that were mounted on, people from around here, was on a kind of a cultural basis.
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Yeah, that they act differently.
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That they, they had different churches, they prayed in a different way. They did not fit into normal British society. It wasn't in cakes. It wasn't beer.
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It wasn't pubs, but it was a different way of life. We know we were we were positioned as people who are different.
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In a cultural form, right? It wasn't
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An alien wedge straightforward. You're taking our jobs, and in economic form, but it was our way of life was spent in a significant. So that was kind of a new, new, I mean, nothing new in terms of British British political life, because the same was applied to Jewish people in the 1920s and 30s. But quite clearly, it was a new phase here. We've been overrun by an alien culture. But that the key. The key point was this, because when was we had I mean, remember, we had we'd had Hubble Wilson, and we have labour before then Heath and Heath's victory, and then such overthrowing Heath, but labour had adopted what was called multiculturalism. So, you know, says it's, it's not enough to ask people to assimilate, you have to allow them to return some of the cultural identities and so forth. So and education within schools and colleges were being pushed towards an ed multicultural education. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't done very well, but at least it was recognition that diversity was something that was of value. And but you had the right as we were saying, the right were organizing the dots that always organize the fascist, right? What such a did was by this famous swamping speech, was in effect to capture the voice of the fascist, right, just in a set in a way in which Boris Johnson did with the Brexit element. Yeah, the blue wall, you know, what is the red wall, so that was such as red wall, but she was baiting those who, you know, fell who have been, as it were duped by a lot of mainstream rhetoric around migrants and destroying British Moving on, we walked down King Street, heading in the direction culture. And so this idea was very much behind such as on intervention. What was really important at the time, although in the Gurdip Singh Chaggar case it wasn't it wasn't that the police were at fault here. It was very much to do with the police maybe not responding quickly. To instances like hate crime, it was fascist van. As we will find out when we when we look at the next one, we go The Townhall. It was very much around police brutality and how the police and fascist organization were almost kind of supporting each other and, and backing each other.
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of the impressive things above.
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So next to the Dominion theatre, I call it the Dominion theatre, but it's now the Union Center and library is it's called the New, now it's called a new Asian tandoori restaurant.
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:41.489
But they used to be called Saggu and Takkhat's restaurant, it was the place where we all used to go, a lot of the activists would go and have a meal there. When I was.
00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:54.389
when I was a student in London, I came to London in 1979, which was after the Gurdip Singh murder, and I was drawn to Southall because I was active in the youth movement in Bradford.
00:35:54.570 --> 00:36:03.599
So I got to know people like Suresh and others. And it was that that drew me to Westland.
00:35:59.880 --> 00:36:32.909
And I was studying at Brunel University. So we would come here, if I remember, my first week in London, was spent eating in that place. I think there was a pub just around the corner, where did the Punjabi hospitality that got me drunk, and I stayed in a room just above here. And I remember throwing up and then waking up with a terrible hangover, but then not kind of knowing what to do. And then that actually went to the Gurdwara, the very famous sikhs of Gurdwara around the corner, which we will talk about as well. Yeah.
00:36:33.289 --> 00:36:49.519
So I mean, my recollection, recollection of this restaurant, yeah, was it was called the brilliant restaurant. Right. Okay. At that time. Yeah. as well. And it had a different kind of food. It was Asian food from Nairobi, Kenya.
00:36:49.550 --> 00:37:01.909
Yeah. Okay. So that was important. But let's kind of as we are just going towards it, right. We see another building here, called the National Sikh Resource, resource. Yeah.
00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:47.739
So this is the headquarters of the Sikh Missionary Society. And so that was established about 40 years ago. And this is where the supplier literature on secretly just kind of concerns educational material, also symbols and items and service some of the gurdwars. And actually next door to that is the Southall Buddhist temple as well. I mean, everywhere you look in Southall, you'll find places of worship. And so just across the road, we've got the Mandir. And another irony is that when we think about the subcontinent, we think about all these communities kind of hammered on each other. Yeah, full of hatred. But actually, within Sauthall, they all kind of seem to support each other.
00:37:48.070 --> 00:38:00.820
And there's, there's very little evidence, any communal kind of conflict and violence whatsoever. So I don't know how we can theorize that one, but I'm sure I'm sure somebody will explain these disconnects.
00:38:01.719 --> 00:38:13.989
There's a lot to be said about that Gurnam, definitely. Right. Okay, so we see a building here, and it's called the Shri Ram Mandir.
00:38:07.900 --> 00:38:23.949
Yeah, yeah, Mandir meaning temple. And it's been designed in a kind of a temple-ish way, if you'd like to call it in an Anglicanized way.
00:38:25.210 --> 00:38:43.929
But what's interesting about this is the connections back with the subcontinent on the front, they've got a huge mural of the mandir that has been built in Ayodhya. Yeah, highly politicized, highly sensitive issue. And, as I say, there are huge posters here to do that.
00:38:44.230 --> 00:39:26.739
And in some senses, with with globalization, with social networking and the internet, the subcontinent in a sense, it's even closer to this place. And Southall is even closer to the subcontinent in ways in which those early days wasn't the case. Because the only way you could communicate back home was through telegrams, which would often take a long time, or letters would take weeks, and people didn't travel. So that's another interesting twist,is that in some senses, that the community is more kind of as it were connected with their home than than ever was the case?
00:39:23.860 --> 00:39:26.739
Yeah
00:39:26.739 --> 00:39:28.210
It's more concentrated.
00:39:28.630 --> 00:39:30.400
yeah, absolutely.
00:39:30.909 --> 00:39:34.360
And just next to the temple is a church.
00:39:35.559 --> 00:39:48.579
Literally next to it, is a church. It doesn't look that well used. And it's got a lot of ivy outside it and it's got padlocks on there. So nothing is that busy.
00:39:48.639 --> 00:40:02.949
Another buck, you've got the new Punjab coaches, which is also very interesting because transport is another really important dimension of employment, taxing, work, transportation, we're talking about Heathrow Airport and it all kind of interlinked lingos.
00:40:03.230 --> 00:40:24.019
But okay, so so we we can just see here on our right hand side, on our left hand side. A huge, huge Gurdwara. Yeah. And it makes it's mark on here.
00:40:25.500 --> 00:41:13.829
Well, this is about this Gurdwara. Yeah. Well, this is the things about Gurdwara. It's one of the oldest Gurdwaras in the country. It's one of the biggest Gurdwaras outside of India, um, politically outside of India is probably the most significant institution. And I'm not saying just in terms of Sikhs, but actually Indian diaspora. It has, as you can see, it has a huge influence it has, its has a, you know, 1000s of people that attend every week. And when I came to Southall in 1979. At the time this building wasn't that, it was a converted dairy.
00:41:06.719 --> 00:44:28.380
But it was always a magnet for subcontinent politics, that what was really important was the way in which you have the IWA activism, you had this Southall youth movement, but the gurdwara was always actively supporting them in terms of providing food, providing resources. And even you know, on the stage, you would find people making speeches. So the things about itself is, as I say, it's a it was it was a it's grown and grown and grown. And we actually have to, now in Southall, two branches, one near the station, and one here, but what's really interesting about this, this place is that it's, it's this what used to be called Havelock road. But it's now called Guru Nanak road. And there was a campaign to have the name change. And in fact, we've had similar changes across the country. Some of us do, you know, the way in which memorials and statues of the past but some of it was to do with changing street names to reflect the kind of population. So in Bradford, the Guru Gobind Singh got the street outside is called Guru Gobind marg. But there's an interesting twist with Havelock Road because they have Henry Havelock, who died in on November 24, in 1857 in Lucknow was a British commander who helped to put down the Indian Mutiny in 1857. He commanded a mobile force, and he fought in Kanpur and Lucknow. And so he got various medals, he got a knighthood. And he was promoted to Major General. And many roads were named after him, including Havelock road. So, I don't know whether that the twist is, you know, he tried to put down the Indian Mutiny and the Indians came and built a temple on his road, or whether it was How dare you have this person responsible for such a massacre be given the privilege of having a rod named after them were the gurdwara is, but anyway, he's gone now. So that's an interesting, but they opened up an interesting conversation around decolonization and monuments. If you think about the kind of the Edward Colston statue that was pulled out in Bristol, or the Oxford the whole kind of roads and was formed Cecil, the Cecil Rhodes statue. I mean, it was interesting that after George Floyd's killing, there were communities across the country wanting to pull down statues, and there was one in Shrewsbury, I don't know if you know, but Shrewsbury, there's a statue of Clive of India, because he was from Shrewsbury. And there's a statue. And he was brutal. I don't know if you know, but he was so violent, that the British had to pull him back to not to jeopardize their from the East India Company projects he was the first person was, and of course, the people in Shrewsbury that wanting to pull down his statue. So that tells you something, because there is this kind of view that somehow, you know, the British want to return, hold on to their heritage, but actually, when actually, I find they want to know about that history. They want to know about the downside of that history. But often, it's the kind of design of literature of curriculum that kinda, we fail them, maybe maybe the educators need to be braver, braver, those people should just be
00:44:28.000 --> 00:45:00.070
there's a couple of other important points within that, which is just when we use the term British, we assume that there is a monolith underneath that. But even within Britain, there was resistance from the majority of the population to what was in fact taking place in the Imperial dome, Imperial areas as well. So there wasn't a one way traffic and to say that there was an acceptance of what was taking place in the empire, or what the British were doing, or an acceptance of history.
00:45:00.130 --> 00:45:30.880
That was conveyed by the kings and queens and their empires. So there was there was quite clearly something else. And, you know, I think there's a saying by someone, I don't know who it is, but saying the revenge of history is bigger than the revenge of, of a colonel, or commander. And I think in that sense, this is a kind of a replication, that, you know, history has bigger forces than one or two individuals who have shot and massacred a few people.
00:45:26.619 --> 00:45:45.610
But it is important is important. And just to describe for people who are listening, you have a very large building here. It's a very modern building, but it has on the top, vestiges of what a Gurdwara
00:45:45.670 --> 00:45:46.539
Absolutely yeah,
00:45:46.539 --> 00:45:54.369
To be as well. And in that sense, I'm sure, on a Saturday and Sunday, there'll be 1000s of people in here.
00:45:56.019 --> 00:45:57.219
Every day, every day.
00:45:58.420 --> 00:46:02.199
For a lot of our listeners, they don't know what takes place on a daily basis in a gurdwara.
00:46:03.260 --> 00:46:20.659
Well, it's really interesting, because, you know, technically, I mean, they're seen as places of worship. But historically, we've never seen as a worship as a primary purpose, there was supposed to be centers for protection for social welfare.
00:46:16.010 --> 00:47:08.690
So you do still have that. So you'll have the langar, the free food, that's the kitchen that's open 24/7. And, you know, especially in West London, places, like Southall you find 1000s and lots of students come here, especially international students will come to get their food, but then they'll they're expected to do some volunteering service as well. So they'll do some sewa, which is called sewa so so that they are hubs, the living breathing hubs, you know, across across the country, I think they've been the other critical role. Most university towns where you have a gurdwara close by you will find many, many students going there, not least because you know, if you're coming in from the subcontinent, you feel a bit lonely in a strange place. And it gives them that sense of belonging. But also they get well fed as well.
00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:27.050
And it is a social center. Absolutely. It is a social center and also we went to earlier as well. And you know, we're talking about nine o'clock 10 o'clock in the morning. There was music. Live music, tabla, harmonium singing
00:47:27.050 --> 00:47:27.380
Kirtan,Yeah
00:47:28.039 --> 00:47:36.710
taking place. One people are coming in for all ages, all ages were coming in for worship and that so that was really interesting.
00:47:37.159 --> 00:47:41.150
Libraries, a huge library and other facilities as well.
00:47:41.239 --> 00:47:42.110
Okay, let's move on.
00:47:42.000 --> 00:48:05.849
So we're gonna go now to New Southall, as it were. So this is this is where our tour of old Southall kind of finishes. And we're gonna go to the Southall Town Hall, to recall a very important, very significant incident that happened in 1979. And we will talk more when we get there
00:48:08.250 --> 00:48:16.559
Walking back up the green and South Street, we crossed back over the bridge, crossing Southall Station on the right, and heading up the high street towards south.
00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:29.943
So we're walking up to the Southall Town Hall in what we were saying is new Southall, just where where you have the Southall Broadway.
00:48:24.809 --> 00:48:34.903
And the town hall itself has been an important space upon point of kind of historical.
00:48:34.989 --> 00:49:57.023
Because instance, of course, one of the most significant was in 1979. And that was the murder of Blair Peach. Now, to this day, there hasn't been anything conclusive. But all the evidence says that he was killed by what was known in those days, the special patrol group, which I think has been disbanded, which was a kind of a clandestine police force that were given carte blanche to go and do whatever they wanted. Yeah. But I think there's subsequently has been uncovered that there were many right wing, white supremacist officers in that police force. And as I say it was I arrived in Southall in September to start my course at university in in Uxbridge at Brunel University. But the incident that we're going to be talking about now at the town hall, occurred earlier. In around it was an April 23 of April to be precise. Yeah. It was actually the St George's Day. And you know how right wing fascist have always mobilized like the George Cross and St.
00:49:57.108 --> 00:50:29.101
George as representing some kind of romantic nostalgic, white supremacist past. And Southall was a place in town hall. I think we're the fifth where the the Wright had booked a meeting to celebrate the day. I mean, I can't quite remember how it was booked. But it was booked into some of them. But everybody knew that there was a fire, right, that was going to get me there.
00:50:29.186 --> 00:51:08.621
And then, given the kind of establishment of Safa youth movement, given what had happened a few years earlier with good beet sugar. Yeah, a demonstration was organized to say that this was not acceptable. I mean, there were plenty of campaigns that were a petition that was done over 10,000 people that actually signed a petition to Ealing Council say that this meeting, should not go ahead. And that the National Front coming into South Hall was a real threat.
00:51:08.706 --> 00:51:35.309
And in those days, that FireEye actually, were openly declaring this, that we're going into these communities, to literally terrorize them to find them. So that they somehow magically to leave the country. Yeah. So that was very much the context in which that incident took place.
00:51:30.007 --> 00:51:40.871
And rather than canceling this meeting, the meeting went ahead.
00:51:35.396 --> 00:51:51.733
And nearly 3000 police officers were drafted into South Hall to protect the far right for them to have their meeting. And then, you know, they went horseback.
00:51:51.820 --> 00:52:02.255
And various classes took place throughout the day, the meeting was due at 730 in the evening.
00:51:57.208 --> 00:52:17.652
So the protests had happened throughout the day. And I just said, the town hall was the epicenter of that, but the police had cordoned off quite a lot of the streets. And the anti Nazi League was very active.
00:52:17.739 --> 00:53:46.360
Particularly, to oppose any, any public demonstration, by the far right. And Blair peach, who was a school teacher, was one of the activists. And, as I say, unfortunately, he he was struck on the head, I mean, that was in terms of the post mortem. That was established. And he died from his injuries. And he became something of a figurehead, again, for that movement to fight fascism. And that's significant burpees as a white guy. And there were all kinds of debates about whether only black people could lead the anti racist struggle. What role did white people have? Now, nobody said the Blair, Peach was the leader of that struggle. He was just one of the people who were protesting, but I think symbolically that was really important that he's seen as a martyr of South Hall. He's almost seen as a son of South Hall, who came into South Hall to defend South or to defend the community. That's a really important message that we need to kind of put into the kind of educational space that people don't just act out of self interest.
00:53:49.110 --> 00:53:57.179
The point has gone on as well, that he was a teacher. And he was a teacher.
00:53:51.300 --> 00:55:33.840
And on that day, 10,000 people mobilized including trade unionists. And his union, the National Union of teachers, as it was known then, had mobilized large numbers of teachers to come and defend our thought he was about the day was termed as defense of South Oh, let us not let the fascist or north as as they were called, Rome, South all it was about defense of the communities. So it, it became a challenge as well by the police, who were back in backing defacto the fascists. And also, at that time, right wing forces, including the Conservative Party, who were saying, the meeting that the Fascists were holding, should go ahead because freedom of speech, speech, that abstract notion of freedom of speech, was then used as a way of terror Rising local communities and Southall resisted, and Southall came out in the 10s of 1000s. But he wasn't just young people. It was the whole community. So we've just talked at length about the good bylaws, and Goodfellas, mobilized in large numbers to save people had to be outside onto the streets to defend the community, as well as the Indian worker associations that we mentioned, anti Nazi League, anti Nazi Lee socialist
00:55:33.840 --> 00:55:37.349
worker party.
00:55:33.840 --> 00:55:39.179
Well, yeah, we are teachers and UT was here in large numbers as well.
00:55:40.260 --> 00:57:25.349
And the significance of teachers was was, was very important, because what was happening in schools at that time was about anti racist education, that we wanted a curriculum that talked about colonialism, imperialism, but also, that we did not want our children to be signified as having less of an ability, because what was happening in education in the 1970s, was this notion that children of immigrants, as it was known, didn't have the didn't have the facilities, mental, physical, or intellectual capacity to be in education. And so they could not aspire to something that the rest of the white community community could do. And here within the education system, there were groups, large groups of teachers saying, We do not accept those notions of intelligence or anything like that, that had been foisted onto also white working class children. And therefore, there was a new type of education system that we need to have. And therefore the teachers were significant. But they also said it was not a passive issue of just the classroom. But we will be in the community and be on the streets, to ensure that that new form of education was put into practice. So that's why I became significant when
00:57:25.349 --> 00:58:49.230
I came to London to study at the university. Actually, the real education I got was on the streets of South. Downing in Brixton, down in West London, and other places are a different kind of education, and education that was truly transformative for me, and sustains me to this very day. And a lot of other young people that my age endorses, that's what they were getting as well, what was really upon for them. And I call it auto didacticism is that it was allowing us to develop a clique of the alienation that we were experiencing school, why we were underperforming, or we were told that we were underperforming, why we were encouraged, not to go to university, but to take on practical jobs. And, and connecting that to history, to coloniality. And what some of those themes until we were reading. The other important thing is that these youth that were, you know, part of the movement, but being projected as I don't know, lazy as the kind of got nothing else to do students who are spoiled, etc, etc. But for those we were, we were doing an evolution, we were part of transforming society.
00:58:44.730 --> 00:59:12.659
And we were reading, you know, we were we were using the libraries. We were reading all kinds of histories. And we were accessing a kind of curriculum that was denied to us through the education system. In fact, not only were we accessing the curriculum, but we're using that to counteract the kind of the, the images and the kind of ideas that were given to us about our inadequacies, through napkins.
00:59:13.260 --> 01:00:14.670
That was true kind of critical pedagogy. But we had to create our own kind of classroom was it where the street became the classroom. You know, the town hall was the teaching. And sometimes it was a very brutal kind of experience as well, you know. So as I said, other said on the day. I mean, the other interesting thing about this incident row is that the Conservatives were defending the council that we're defending the right for the National Forum to hold this event. But when black communities were saying to the police When we get racially attacked, we get no defense. Yet to defend these people, you send 3000 police officers, along with vanload of special patrol group police officers who were doing and the word was snatch squads.
01:00:15.210 --> 01:00:40.590
So they would go in and snatch anybody who they felt had an influence. And that was their tactic. And it was one of those nuts God, that led to Black Beach, being hit over the head with a junction. Just to give you some indication on not bad nivia 350 people were arrested.
01:00:35.159 --> 01:00:48.449
Yes, police officers were injured and I just have nothing.
01:00:40.590 --> 01:00:51.420
Remember the public as well. But the important point is that all of that could have been avoided.
01:00:52.860 --> 01:00:56.639
And we were of the opinion that it was an ideological decision.
01:00:57.210 --> 01:01:00.150
Just support the National Assembly. Absolutely. It wasn't.
01:01:01.139 --> 01:01:03.269
There wasn't anything to do with freedom of speech.
01:01:06.840 --> 01:01:17.309
Arriving at South all Town Hall, we enter the building to escape the sirens and find out more about the events before and after the demonstrations in April 1979.
01:01:18.750 --> 01:01:36.570
So this became the center point of the demonstration on the 23rd of April 1979. This is where the National Front were given space, and outside world 10,000 people.
01:01:36.780 --> 01:01:47.280
And it was big, it was big. And it wasn't just obviously his household where people from around the country came in defense of South Hall as well.
01:01:43.860 --> 01:02:09.900
When you look at the pictures during that time, you'll see how the whole High Street was occupied on all four sides by people who said we did not want the National Front in the slogan was the National Front is a is a naughty front. So that was really, really that resonated across south. But
01:02:09.900 --> 01:02:15.750
really, the important thing was that by now, there was no organized, coordinated interest movement.
01:02:15.780 --> 01:03:58.050
So you know, the south of the youth movement, which as we said, emerged after the good leaps in sugar murder. Had now we're well well organized. They had lawyers, Rudy Ryan, if you remember Rudy, other lawyers because you know, it wasn't just a question of going and protesting, you knew you're gonna get arrested, then he had to have somebody who could then represent you and the so so we there was an infrastructure that was really important, and in some sentences because the police and the state knew that these people were not rogue protesters, but were part of a movement, that that made them think twice as well. So you know, many were arrested, but many were then released without charge. But in some senses, if we will fast forward to 1981 Raho. We see a repeat in some senses of that, that terrible the events of 1979. But on a completely different scale. In 1981, we had the spectacle of the British National Party or BM, BNP we're threatening to march through some form, or threatening to attack. And they did, they came to salvo and, and so there was an impromptu protest that was organized to defend the community. And along the Broadway we can see just outside the town hall. Again, the the police came in, they blocked off many of the streets, not to defend the community. But to defend the National Front.
01:03:58.980 --> 01:04:26.519
The National Front had organized the congregation in a pub, which is about just a five minute walk up the Broadway here called the humbler tavern. And the 100 tavern was the kind of release of bands and punk bands and right wing band. But this time that it was seen as almost the Battle of South Oh, this was going to be the test. But if we can conquer our thought, then we can conquer the whole country.
01:04:23.369 --> 01:04:47.579
So it became another critical moment and the community mobilized almost spontaneously came out of the streets to a point where you had a pitch battle outside the pub with the with the National from coming out, and they were all told, and then they were already attacking the elderly people and women.
01:04:44.130 --> 01:05:22.199
And then you had a line of police in between. But what really shocked me shook shook the protesters was that the fact that the police had their shields, and they were they were there defending the national and they were picking up stones. And they were throwing them back at the protesters. So symbolically at that moment, the police was the armed force of the National Front. And there were many arrests. I mean, I was actually further down the Oxbridge road at the time I was at university.
01:05:18.869 --> 01:05:30.360
And that cordoned off the just by pairs. And so we were living digs there. So we weren't able to get get through. But we knew.
01:05:26.159 --> 01:05:39.719
And I could see the humbler tavern wasn't far from the, it got burnt it got it. I mean, it was. And that was very symbolic.
01:05:35.010 --> 01:05:46.230
And it was never rebuilt. And it was always left as a kind of memorial for the defeat of the National Front, in salvo.
01:05:43.440 --> 01:05:46.230
Because
01:05:46.230 --> 01:06:21.719
at that time, I mean, we haven't brought this into the frame. But by the late 70s, I mean, you talked about earlier, the birth of rock against racism, and music played a significant part in the fight against racism. And we see outside when we go outside the town hall, we see three plaques outside this town hall. One is to Blair peach who was murdered by the police. Let's go and describe the other two, because I think they're very, very significant. And I'll let you go on and describe those two plaques. So let's go outside of
01:06:21.719 --> 01:06:26.550
that. Okay, we'll do that because I didn't want it. You mentioned music.
01:06:24.179 --> 01:07:15.599
And we mentioned punk band, though. I mean, Punk was seen as kind of, you know, anti establishment. It was seen as that the avant garde, but it was also a vehicle where right wing, fascist and misogynist views were expressed. So they were bonded, like the screwdriver or a band and others who were kind of skinheads who were drawn into that space, and as I said in 1981. So this happened on the third of July, and that was seen as the what would you call the hot summer. And Sappho wasn't the only place where we we saw buildings being burned down. I mean, we will be going to Britain as well in the future, that we can recall what happened in Brixton, Toxteth in Handsworth
01:07:15.719 --> 01:07:42.179
there was an uprising, there was an uprising up and down the country. And you had to and then it had to do with unemployment. But it wasn't a more significant about that time was, it was both black and white youth together. Who had said we had enough of what was in fact taking place because it was unemployment was raging through Britain, with with Margaret Thatcher then being the prime minister.
01:07:42.809 --> 01:08:06.480
I think that's right, because, I mean, clearly, some working class white young people have been drawn into this fascist movements, but often on really false pretenses on a lack of them having access. And I think, again, I think education was partly to Blended Schools.
01:08:01.500 --> 01:09:08.640
We're not really offering a balanced curriculum. And, you know, I think that that, that that was a something that came up, but we also had institutionalized racism. If you think about the term itself, it was in 1981 that we had done after the riots, the Lord Scarman inquiry. And, you know, that's the first time that institutional racism was mentioned. I mean, you know, it was a Metropolitan Police. But it wasn't just the police, it was most of the public services, most of the professions which were wholly white. And you know, one of the consequences for me after 1981 is that, you know, being an activist on the streets of Bradford Sappho, in 1982, after finishing my studies, I became employed by the state as a social worker. And I remember in my interview that I had for the job. And it was a really tough kind of talk about that 200 people applied this job and how good it was the fact that I was a member of the Asian youth movement, I was an anti racist activists that got me the job.
01:09:09.630 --> 01:10:30.359
Now, I'm sure that the person who appointed me will probably did it for all kinds of good reasons. But I'm reminded of John and Antonio Gramsci is, work on hegemony, that, you know, you either you either kill the opponent, or you bring them in, it's a bit like a Machiavellian strategy, and then you give them a job. And, of course, it was after 81 When the state started to draw those young activists into the professions and the occupations that led to divisions within those movements. So the Asian youth movement and, and split because, you know, the government was giving a funding to do things and the other thing well, once you start taking their money, then they're going to drag you to another place and that happened, you know, so. So in some senses, Margaret Thatcher's strategy was to divide and rule two To just split them to create good Asian, young people, good black people and bad black people. And you know, we can talk about this till the cows come home. But the politics of identity then also is unleashed. You were talking earlier on about how these movements, although they're still, you know, they will still identified with, you know, people from a particular part of the world, if you like, the ideology, their politics and their activism was very much around political blackness.
01:10:32.310 --> 01:10:38.189
We head back outside to see the three blue plaques on the front of the Town Hall. Yeah,
01:10:38.189 --> 01:10:48.060
so we said, Blair page, killed on the 30/23 of April 1975 units again, just
01:10:48.060 --> 01:10:53.729
do that again.
01:10:48.060 --> 01:10:53.729
Start on the left, gone. So
01:10:54.300 --> 01:11:07.800
we have three plaques. On the left. It says Souto remembers the zips in Java, killed on the fourth of June 1976. Unity against racism.
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Southall resist 14, this was a these were put up on the 40th anniversary of those Southam remembers, in the middle is Blair page killed by killed on the 23rd of April 1979. And then, and the final one on the right, is misty in roots, and people united musicians cooperative as well. A very important reggae band, British British born ragged band was missed in roots, and they played on rock against racism, carnivals, and therefore very, very significant. And so quite clearly, missing roots were my son, he was wearing samples that day. And they were part of a music
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float. But not only that, there were, I mean, recommend LinkedIn careers, he Johnson, there were a whole lot of others who were really part of this movement. But what you've really touched on is really important that there was activism but in some senses, we couldn't have done activism without the kind of creative input through silkscreen posters, we used to put fly posting, through having events where we'd have music, poetry, and political speeches, because, you know, it was, it was both affective and cognitive, the struggle was a whole body soul, it was your body, it was your soul, and it was your mind. And for me that, that, for me, it offers you a perfect kind of way of thinking about education, as it were holistic education, Hall education, and suddenly, I think what we have in a lot of our universities, is the kind of dismembering of the body and the soul and the mind. And, you know, university, like University of Arts, London really needs to bring those elements together, both in the kind of curriculum, but in the assessment as well. You know, rather than just focusing on cognitive kind of ability to regurgitate assignments and things like that,
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I think the critical point for us is, in a university setting, is that, you know, there's an assumption that learning takes place formally, within texts, reading texts.
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Well, learning, I believe in a culture is, is, as you said, a holistic, but it's from within and without, as well plays a key role within a university setting, you cannot abstract what is taking place around you, from your own experiments and your own learning processes as well.
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But what do you expect? I mean, it was the John Doe that famous said that, you know, education is not a means to an end, it's an end in itself. But what we've done is in universities, we've turned them into commodities, so that students are really focused on, you know, the, the market, the end the grid that they get, and how can they use that to leverage into a job? Rather than saying, How can I grow as a human being? How can I extend my remit as a citizen? How can I be part of a transformative movement? Now, the good news is, I think that there is a younger generation, particularly with the environmental movement, that is beginning to ask those questions. So for example, we've seen with the protests More recently, the gar, the Gaza, genocide, protests, where you've got, again, a similar kind of current of, you know, not kind of blocking the political blackness of before but there are, there is a new form of kind of people identifying as human beings coming together. And I know that's something that's really been important for some of the work that you've been doing recently.
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Well, I mean, I'm gonna read Talk about clouds, we see a poster just outside of the town hall saying Palestine imperialism, and revolutions. So what is taking place in Gaza, the annihilation, the genocide is something that people want to make sure that they fight over, they do not want to see these things taking place. But, but we're universities, you know, are going to bring in throwing in r&d, because the old type of universities were consumption, were seen as you get the knowledge from the teacher, sitting at the front of the classroom, and, and directing you towards texts. But actually, in the 70s, and the 80s, they were there was huge rebellion in the universities about that type of education. And as you said, the marketization kind of brought back this, this kind of formalism in what is taught what is assessed, but also what you find, and what's taken place is that the outside has has impacted the inside again, with the Black Lives Matter. And that has been significant in terms of what's been taught in the curriculum for for us.
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I mean, when I came to London, I came from Bradford 200 miles away. But I was able to come here, because I didn't have to pay a fee, because I actually got an allowance. And not only that, in the holidays, I was allowed to sign on and claim benefits. So that meant that I wasn't working treble shift numbers, I was actually involved in political activism. And in some senses, I think if the conditions that apply to students today would apply, then I don't think I would involve, you know, this stuff, because I would have been just too busy trying to pay a bill or something. And in some sense, is that the introduction of those 9000 fees, has been utterly tragic. And it's been, it's destroyed, I think, the idea that going to university, it should be about discovering yourself about transport becoming transformed, becoming, in some sense, a new person, and even the idea of education as transformative as disadvantaged, it sends a well that's, that's indulgence. That's kind of people's on kind of personal development, what, you know, we need to get a return on investment, and commodity
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at the end of the day. And that's, that's the position we're in. But it's not all one way traffic in the sense that people are kind of constantly resisting. But at the moment that traffic is your a commodity, in terms of education. And within the curriculum, there's fluidity, there's a fluidity from tutors, as well, because they're not accepting what the universities are telling them to do, but also among students, as well. And I, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the decolonizing, the curriculum movements have been very, very significant as well, although those movements were there in this in the 60s and 70s, in terms of real liberation of our universities.
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We know, the authorities pushed it back. And now, we have pushed back against that notion as well. Because Because we remember, we had, we had decolonize actual decolonization of third world countries that were called at that time. But then, then the decolonization of the mind. And the studies did not happen. And so we're now in that kind of stage again. But
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but but just Yes, and no, I think that, I mean, we were involved in anti colonialism because we were reading fun. And in those days, you know, we were, we were referencing that literature, Stephen London's work. But I think what's happening now is it's become a very limited project. It's a project about an assignment. It's a project about a project. Now, I'm not saying that they're not important. But there's no sense of a bigger social project or historic project. And in that's the problem with, I mean, in those days, we, we were Marxists, we were we had this sense of revolution. We were part of movements with with with Attilio hacia. Today, there is opposition, but like, what, when you decolonize? What do you create? And that's where I think you leave a vacuum. And I think that vacuum then gets filled by new kinds of politics of identity by new kinds of Neo nationalism, of nationalism, you know, the more the more dissent, we are decolonizing you'll find African dictators, same were decolonize. And yeah, even Putin is claiming that, you know, he's kind of decolonizing he's reclaiming his past. So I think that, you, you, you have to create an alternative way of organizing the world and I think that's where the left has really got to get together and you know,
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absolutely, look, I mean, we talked about The horrors of 1979. But they're not no more than if we look at the catastrophe that's happening around climate change, the rise of ultra right? Racism across Europe in that way. And we're entering an age where war is normalized, in a huge, huge way.
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And, you know, the times are different and resistance, and reorganizing, and a different future of the world is more imperative than ever you have
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political parties are just trying to outdo each other to try and let the public know that they are not radical, that they will be better at doing neoliberalism than the other lots. Yeah. Oh, no, absolutely.
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Hey, what's gonna happen in our election in October, you see, we've got two parties, where you, you can just I know, we don't use cigarette papers as a analogy anymore, but you couldn't hardly put a cigarette paper between those two in terms of their policies.
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So that's where we are.
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So we'll pick up on that next time we meet.
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Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to speak today and share my own experiences roll.
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Okay, thank you.
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Thank you very much as well.
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Thank you Gemma for helping us support this recording.
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Okay, let's do we got get on the train and we can do it. If you want to do anything on the train. Do we need the mics now?
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For more information on walking pedagogies please visit walking pedagogies start my blog.arts.ac.uk