British Asians dominate TV programme (well, just one, and on a small freeview channel...)

Yes, a whole TV programme comprised completely of ... brown people, and it's not comedy. 'British Asian' is the (admittedly rather uninspired) name of a programme showing on the 'Community channel' (on Freeview, channel 87). It's a programme, which:

... made by six teenagers from Sheffield, offers a fresh and direct look at multicultural Britain through the eyes of young British Asians of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage.

A wide range of people, young and old, talk openly on the subjects of integration, culture, work, racism and religion.

They explore the growth of opportunities, the mixing of two cultures and what each generation has learnt from their experiences.

The film British Asian highlights the history of South Asian immigration to Britain and the changing expectations and ideas of young British Asians compared to those of their parents and grandparents generations, who came to Britain after the Second World War.

The programme features a number of interviewees talking to camera with virtually no on-screen intervention. Despite this beginning to seem a little monotonous at times, stick with it, and the skill, focus and articulation of the youngsters shows through, giving us an honest and refreshing half-hour with few slick-production bells and whistles. It's the same reason I enjoy listening to some pirate stations occasionally - it's the unmediated, unresearched and unmanipulated honesty of it all.

Many of the interviewees of 'British Asian' are northern folk, but one of the talking heads (a young Asian man brought up in Norfolk for godsakes, poor bloke) tells the story of how 'in the early days' , when he and his brother were walking down the street, such an unfamiliar sight were brown people, that they saw a car crash into a lampost whilst its driver craned his neck to stare at them!

Just thought I'd mention this little known programme - you might want to check it out - it's showing on the Community Channel during July, as part of their Meet the Future month, at the times listed here.

William Morris' art influenced by Islam

You might like to know about this interesting broadcast next week:

Morris and the Muslims
Tuesday 7 July, 11:30 on BBC Radio 4

Navid Akhtar examines the influence of Islamic design and values on the life of the Victorian designer, poet, craftsman and socialist radical William Morris.

Morris was inspired by Turkish ceramics and Persian carpets to create a new movement in British design. For him, the Muslim world had managed to preserve the art of the craftsman and avoid the ills of industrial production. He espoused the philosophy that art should be affordable and hand made; this was already a reality in the Islamic world.

Not stopping at arts and crafts, he was a passionate advocate of social utopianism and believed in the rights of the worker. Today, these ideals have profoundly influenced a new generation of British-born Muslim artists, as they rediscover Morris and look to his artistic work and socialist ideas for inspiration.

The connection had never before occurred to me though when you think about William Morris' designs, it seems obvious. But it's also intriguing (perhaps more so) that he was interested in 'the Muslim world' in relation to his own socialist beliefs. If you miss the broadcast slot, then you will probably be able to catch it afterwards on the R4 'listen again' site.

Picture right: Snakeshead printed textile, 1876 (Morris & Co. textiles)

Carry on Camping

It's been getting pretty hot in the public sphere - what with the general feeling of malaise in politics and the economy (i.e. the tired-looking government, the EU election results and, above all for some communities, what the election of the BNP means and how we should respond.

However, some perspective, people.

With the economic downturn and political storm swirling around us, we carry on, for better or for worse, with our everyday lives, with its everyday concerns. One of the important ones for me is trying to support my family and children, and we've had a busy time of it recently. So I thought I'd share. You know, perspective.

One of the side-benefits of being married to a 'non-BritishAsian' (jeez, what torturous categories, what negative hyphens) - Mr Husband is a 'white Brit' (more laden categories) - is that I get to have loads of 'cross-cultural' experiences. You know, the sort of things alien to a Brit-Asian. For example, all the family sitting around the table at the same time having dinner together instead of the truncated experience of children eating first, then the men and then the women. Another example is going on holiday to places where you have no relatives, not one, none at all. And more than that, staying in a hotel or suchlike rather than in the relative's house. This is bizarre behaviour. But believe me, this is what 'indigenous' English people do.

More recently, the family and I have been - are you sitting down - 'camping' (I can only ever imagine that word said quizzically and in my mother's Indian-accent English). Yes, camping is where you work very hard most of your life to pay for and equip a lovely home with luxurious mod cons (well, we have, er, two TVs) and you leave it all behind to cook and sleep in...a field. Yes, you prepare for weeks as if going on a major Arctic expedition, pack the car full of stuff as if to survive a jungle isolation and basically aim to recreate your mods cons (in portable, foldy-uppy form) by using a gas canister and lots of zips. All this I did, in the name of giving our two young children 'A Memorable Experience'.

The occasion was a family 'fun camp' organised by my daughter's Beavers group (for the uninitiated, that's the pre-Scouts age-group) - yes, I know, I know, having to swear allegiance to 'god and Queen' sticks a bit in throat of an atheist and Republican, and I'm not fond of some of Baden Powell's illustrious record. But children will want to do what their peers do, and I don't think my daughter, at six, was quite ready for the lecture about the terrible evils of the scout group (ok, I copped out). And so we went.

Would I find rabid, jingoistic, grown-up boy scouts amongst the other parents? Would there be group prayers? (God, no!). Would I be the only 'person of colour'? The answer to all of these turned out to be 'non' (not, obviously so anyway).

There was quite a team spirit and a friendly atmosphere. The family to one side were high-achieving Romanians (a banker and a business analyst - I'm such a desi to have picked that up right-away - well, their 7 year old son was interested in my 7 year old daughter! I had to know). Other groups included one or two Indian-looking men, and two black men. However, before we fall over in homage to assimilation (or diversity, choose your poison) each and every one of these guys (and me of course) was part of a mixed-race set up. Hmm, interesting.

There were no promises to love 'god and country' - the single giveaway in this respect was a gigantic, I mean enormous, Union Jack flag silently fluttering over the small facilities building. Slightly unnerving for someone bought up to cross the road when we saw the flag on show (though that was in the mean 70s and 80s in the former-NF territory of the west London suburbs).

I have to say that it was a good communal outdoors experience in a happy and safe environment - what more could you ask for the children?

RIP Michael Jackson (and the public frenzy)

Sad news that's got to be acknowledged. The premature death of a brilliant artist albeit who seemingly lead a bizarre life. For anyone like me in their 40s, Michael Jackson was a constant presence, providing a soundtrack to their life. No doubt he had his critics and, who knows, there may be more to come, but it's hard not to take a moment to mark his extraordinary contribution, as well as some meditations on the response to his death.

As I sit in the morning traffic of South-East London, on this grey and muggy day, I get the opportunity to listen to the blanket playing of MJ tracks on many stations, with stunned presenters and callers. Although I had been shocked by the news late the previous night, and watching the footage this morning, it was when I was exposed to track after track of his back catalogue that my emotional response was heightened. And it has to be said, it brought back memories of the 'Princess Di' moment in this country in the days after her death in 1997. That extraordinary response has, I think, affected the way in which we now react to 'celebrity' deaths. It also made me think about how we respond to the deaths of artist-musicians as opposed to other types of artists. The music of MJ will now have a particular poignancy in a way that the novels of, say Martin Amos or Hanif Kureshi, would not have, I don't think, if luck forbid, they passed away before their time. Part of the answer is of course that musician-artists achieve a 'reach' and celebrity that other types of artists do not.

I also came across an interesting observation at Next Left:

Alistair Campbell recently pointed out that the increasingly autistic British mainstream media can only deal with one crisis at a time. One minute we were all about to be killed by swine flu and newspapers could think of nothing else, the next minute we were up to our ears in the biggest constitutional crisis in the history of Westminster and hamaggedon was long forgotten....Will new media be any different? It could be; Michael versus Mahmood might be the test.

The death of an icon in the the age of 'web 2.0' is already throwing up some bizarre happenings - for example, David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, has apparently 'paid tribute' to Michael Jackson on Twitter saying "Never has one soared so high and yet dived so low". [UPDATE: this has turned out to be a hoax! That's why The Telegraph have presumably removed their report and my link doesn't now work (harump). Still, shows the power of the medium - the BBC and The Guardian also reported it...]

I was about to blog yesterday with a lighter post than of late - things seem pretty bleak out there on the economic and political front. I wonder if the public emotional reaction to this sad and unfortunate death will provide people with the vehicle to pour out out their frustrations, albeit in the guise of a grieving reaction. No doubt therapists will have something to say about this - I await Susie Orbach's words or wisdom...

For now though, in keeping with the millions of blogs, tweets, etc. out there, it would only be fitting to share some of my Michael Jackson memories:

1970s - my first memory is of the childish competition in our primary school days between the two cartoon shows of the day - who do you support in The Osmonds versus the Jackson Five? It was always the Five for us.

High school days - My brother and I practicing our dance moves in the living room to Off the Wall tracks (embarrassing but true)

1988 - Seeing MJ at Wembley (not a good experience and put me off stadium gigs forever)

1989 - A distinct memory of dancing at Fino's (a bar/disco off Oxford Street, London) with my friend L and the rest of the crowd from the ILEA, to 'Baby baby with the high heels on..."

1995 - Attending a spectacular showy Indian wedding (is there any other type?) in Vancouver, Canada, where the stunning bride and groom entered through a flowering archway ( I kid you not) and did the opening dance to 'You are not alone"

1997 - a bizarre scene in Gambia, Africa - the staff of our hotel resort performed a serious enactment in the hotel grounds of the video for 'Remember the time" (they were really good)

Now - My young children never tiring of watching the Thriller video and chanting "Mama-se, mama-sa, ma-ma-koo-sa" (from "Wanna be Startin' Somethin') during car journeys. Hey, it's one route to bilingualism...

If you still want more, see this BBC tribute of Michael Jackson's memorable moments.

RIP.

Breaking News - BNP face legal action

At last, their illegality may be recognised...read the rest here.

Busy and bewildered

I know I haven't posted for a while - life continues to be somewhat HECTIC. I hope to get time to write about some interesting 'cross-cultural' experiences and about some recent English-Desi reading. But whooa...never mind that, the stories in my last post have taken off and how.

On 8 June I woke up to news which left me bewildered and feeling the opposite of the elation I felt almost exactly six months ago one morning (Obama's election). The European elections on 5 June had resulted in the north of England returning 2 fascist MEPs, including the leader of that odious party which would have me and my children 'repatriated' and which would constrain rights according to 'race' (how can they be a legal party?). It was ironic that nearly 1 million British people who has just commemorated the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II had now voted in these xenophobic thugs.

A blip maybe. After all, in the EU elections' alternative voting system, that party only won seats due to achieving a larger share percentage of the vote, rather than significantly increasing its actual votes. But then this week I read the depressing story of about 100 Romanian residents in Belfast, Northern Ireland, being hounded out of their houses by mobs including some chanting nazi slogans and giving nazi salutes. The residents included a pregnant woman, children and babies. What is going on? A good attempt is being made over Pickled Politics at picking apart the manifesto of the BNP, with a list of practical questions posed to them.

And I haven't even had a chance to write about the election next Monday of Speaker of the House, following the resignation of Michael Martin. One of the candidates is one Parmjit Dhanda, Labour MP for Gloucester since being elected in 2001....

Elections, Extremism, and a Speaker resigns

** Parliamentary Speaker resigns - a very British revolution (fascinating viewing the Westminster village at work)

** European Elections 4 June - what will the anti-politics vote mean? (unfortunate by-product of the expenses row)

** What's to be done about the British National Party (BNP)? A laudable post by the Tories here (at last)

** Indian elections - Congress Party's Manmohan Singh re-elected; BJP defeated (a cheer for secularism?)

So much to say this week, but alas, no time to blog it properly. So I might use this ocassional 'weekly digest' format. Any thoughts on any of this?

Hardeep Singh Kohli on the Indian Takeaway

The closing night of the Festival of Asian Literature at Asia House features Hardeep Singh Kohli talking about, amongst others things, his latest book. Details are:

Hardeep Singh Kohli @ Asia House Festival of Asian Literature

Friday May 22, 2009 at 6:45pm

Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street

London, England W1G 7LP
Get Directions

Hardeep Singh Kohli loves many things in life - but none more than food. So when he decided to travel round India, searching for his roots, the obvious thing to take with him was not a "Lonely Planet", not a BBC camera team, but shepherds pie and Yorkshire pudding. Indian Takeaway is the entertaining story of Hardeep's attempts to cook his way round India, dishing up very British meals for the people he meets. Hilarious, strange and true, Indian Takeaway is a book for everyone who loves to cook, longs to travel, or for anyone who wants to spend a few hours in the company of this warm-hearted and entertaining man.

BAFTA-winning broadcaster Hardeep was writer of the Channel 4 hit Meet the Magoons, a presenter of Radio 4's Saturday Live, Midweek and The Food Programme as well as contributor to numerous radio programmes such as Radio 4's Front Row and Radio 3's Nightwaves. Hardeep is often found clad in turban and kilt as panelist and presenter of Newsnight Review, he is currently presenting on the BBC hit programme The One Show. He was also a runner-up on Celebrity Masterchef.

For tickets, ring 020 7307 5454 or email enquiries@asiahouse.co.uk
Ticket Info: £10/£7

I must admit I think this guy is great - he's intelligent, warm and humorous, and wears a turban and kilt (sometimes at the same time). The BBC have obviously taken to him - I think his Scots-inflected voice comes across very well. And yes, it is good to see a turbaned Sikh guy just getting on with it. My jaw nearly dropped the first time I saw him hosting BBC2's Newsnight Late Review. It was a bit like the moment when, in the 1970s, we first began to see brown people on TV (unfortunately the programme was Mind your Language...) - we'd gather round the TV agog.

I've not read the whole of his book Indian Takeaway but a pdf extract of the first chapter is available on his website - so far so good. Being about the same age a lot of his experiences of growing up in Britain resonate with mine. Here's his take on one of the benefits of the weekly trip to the gurdwara (Sikh temple) - prasad is a sweetmeat distributed to the congregation after the religious service at the temple:

Prasad is a truly amazing thing. If you ever needed convincing that the universe has some form of higher power at its helm, then prasad would be the single substance to convert you. It’s a semolina- and sugar-based concoction bound together with ghee. It is bereft of any nutritional value, but it is hot and sweet and lovely. And it’s holy. What more could you want?

So you might want to get along to this more popular-writing ending to the literary festival which has featured the likes of Amit Chaudhuri, Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger), Kenan Malik (From Fatwa to Jihad – The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy) and Ziauddin Sardar.
p.s. Madhur Jaffrey ('legendary actress and Indian cookery writer') is at Asian House on 11 June talking about A Life in Indian Cooking.

Update p.s.: If you want to read more, Kohli’s writing a regular column for the Spectator at the moment, where a barny is going on in the ‘comments’ about whether he’s any good/should be writing for this right-of-centre magazine.

I would definitely have tried to get along to the Kohli event but will be busy packing up the family to go away the next morning for the May half-term holiday - more of that in another post perhaps (yes,unbelievably I did it). If you go to any of the Asia House events, let me know what you think.

A Town under Seige: p.s. to the Southall Story

For those interested in my Southall post, there's a FREE screening in London on 21 May 2009 of a film about how Southall organised to resist racist and fascist attacks between 1976 and 1981.

Southall: A Town Under Siege looks at Southall, one of the major post World War Two Asian centres in Britain, and focuses on how this community organised to resist racist and fascist attacks between 1976 and 1981. Southall's militancy had been initiated by community organisations of the 1950s, created to help Black workers combat racism at the workplace as well as to deal with discrimination in the community. And as state racism increased - into areas of immigration control and virginity testing, the 'bussing' of schoolchildren, 'overcrowding notices' in housing, harassment by the police - the community fashioned and forged new weapons of struggle. It was during one of this community's historic moments of defending itself against organised fascists and police humiliation that the young New Zealander, teacher and anti-racist, Blair Peach, was killed 1979. [from TUC poster]

From the Institute of Race Relations website:

"21 May 2009

A screening of two IRR films charting Black people's struggles for justice in Ladbroke Grove and Southall.

• Thursday 21 May 2009, 7-10pm
• Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS

Screening:

• From you were black, you were out shows community resistance and the emergence of a number of 'Black Power' organisations in 1950s Ladbroke Grove.
• A town under siege focuses on how Southall organised to resist racist and fascist attacks between 1976 and 1981.

Speaker:

• David Clover - Librarian, Institute of Commonwealth Studies

The films form part of a four part series 'Struggles for Black Community', now available for the first time on DVD from the IRR. They were made by Colin Prescod for Channel 4 at the beginning of the 1980s. Free admission event (all welcome). Registration essential. Please either email: sertucevents@tuc.org.uk or call: 020 7467 1220.

More information about the films here where you can also download a copy of booklet which accompanies the Struggles for Black Community DVD

England People Very Nice

I finally went to see the play which has caused a national controversy in the UK recently - England People Very Nice, staged at London's National Theatre, written by Richard Bean and directed by the NT's very own Nicholas Hytner. The run continues into August 2009.

The play gallops through a comedic portrayal of successive waves of immigrant communities in the East End of London. It lampoons either the communities, or the stereotypes of the communities (depending on which side of the controversial fence you sit). To do this it romps through the arrival of the French Huguenots in the late 1590s, the Jews in the 1800s, the Irish over the 19th and 20th centuries, and finally the Bengali Muslims in the late 2oth century. The action is giddily fast-paced, with spoofy, Monty-Pythonesque styled-moments. Typical of its content is the following 'quip' by one of the characters:

"Irish and Jewish, that’s the worst mix. You end up with a family of pissed up burglars run by a clever accountant." Hmm.

Much has been said and written about the play – watch it being discussed here (pretty damning on the unsophistication of the play) and read Alibhai-Brown's more considered review here (ok, I agree with lots she says) - some want it banned because they think it’s racist (Muslims have been the most vocal); some think it is an unsavoury play and are ambivalent about it but would nevertheless support its right to be staged, and yet others think it is a statement about the failure of multiculturalism and are enjoying seeing the liberal world squirm. [Picture above: Trevor Laird and Fred Ridgeway in Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice at the National Theatre]

I guess I fall nearest to the middle category – I enjoyed some parts of it (eg. how chicken tikka masala was invented, the Noel Coward-style Bengali and other ‘goodness gracious me’ moments), felt uncomfortable about others (eg, the mainly white middle-class audience falling about laughing at when the ‘n-word’ was used or the comedic portrayal of the incestuous rape of Irish women) and yet enjoyed being challenged about articulating what I thought about the play and the act of staging it.

I begin from the position that I believe in people being able to say (and here, stage) things that I don’t agree with. The next step must be to discuss it. I think, though, in reacting to the material, the context is the key, isn't it? I mean, what reception would the ethnic-specific material of Jackie Mason, Sanjeev Bhasker and Chris Rock receive if delivered by someone not from that community? Have we moved on enough so that we can feel comfortable about 'ethnic lampooning' being delivered from outside of the relevant communities?

I could go on this, and about storyline and characters, and about censorship and offence but don’t have time! If you've seen it, tell me what you think. Ultimately, the play is not going to go down as a classic - it is not a big play but it certainly throws up a lot of issues – it dramatises in pockets of moments the debates swirling around society, immigration, race, culture and stereotypes, nation and values. And as to what the ‘message’ of the play was (yes, I know there doesn’t have to be a message), perhaps it was the reply of the 1950s ‘Dixon of Dock Green’-style policeman to when one of the lead Bengali characters proclaims ‘England People Very Nice’: ‘well, there’s good and bad in every kind of people’ (to paraphrase).

The Southall Story

A project has started which tells the story of an extraordinary place. The 'Southall' in the title is a West London suburb in the UK which, from the late 1950s, saw one of the earliest and large-scale settlement of immigrants from the sub-continent. It also happens to be the town where my parents first ended up, in 1961, having left the green fields of Punjab, India, and where I spent the first 18 years of my life.

The project's aim is "to create an archival, oral and visual documentation reflecting a dynamic heritage...and to create a popular platform that will propel the story of Southall onto a national stage, with the aim of penetrating the consciousness of the British public.". The feeling here is that the community of Southall has made a phenomenal but under acknowledged contribution to UK music, arts and politics.

"Southall is also a place that has come to be affectionately known as Little India, but for many it is much more than that. Being a port, (Heathrow is a stones throw away), Southall has been a home to such diverse groups as the West Indians, Indians and Pakistanis in the 50’s through to the Ugandan Asians in the 70’s. Most recently, new arrivals include Sikhs from Afghanistan and Somalians."

The Southall story is being launched with a series of public events, performances and exhibitions. Things kick off on Friday 24 April, 7pm, with the launch event at the Dominion Centre, Southall:

Speakers include: Gurinder Chadha film director, Pragna Patel Southall Black Sisters, Kuljit Bhamra The Southall Story, Dalawar Chaudhry TKC, K C Mohan Progressive Writers Association.
Live performance by Vasda Punjab Bhangra Dancers, Kiranpal Singh.
Admission by invitation only.

The Southall Story is headed by Artistic Director Kuljit Bhamra and Creative Directors Shakila Taranum Maan and Ammy Phull. Kuljit Bhamra gives his take here. You can visit the website to read more about the project - though it's incomplete in places there's some interesting stuff especially on the pages about Southall''s 'time-line'. It's brought back a lot of memories (see former musing on 1960s Southall cinema), too numerous to write up properly at the moment, but, for now.....

I remember under the ‘The Boyle Law’ being 'bussed out' from Southall to attend primary school in neighbouring Northolt (also known as 'NF country' then); I was also taken by my mother on the march in 1976 following Gurdip Singh Chagger's murder - I have a vivid memory of everyone chanting with great gusto 'Enoch Powell bakara' ('goat') which was obviously a devastating slur! We were also on the march in 1979 which sadly resulted in the death of Blair Peach. In my Southall sixth-form soon after, the school common room would buzz with tales of the NF 'invading Southall' and various of us dashing off to join various groups. It was where we learned about politics and society. Thinking about this period, I came across a great video clip which includes news footage and interviews from the time - it's further down this article on the The Langar Hall site.

I hope there's a lot more to come from The Southall Story - it was a project waiting to happen.

Top two photographs courtesy of David F. Gallagher at lightningfield.com

UPDATE: there's a FREE screening of a film in London on 21 May 2009 about how Southall organised to resist racist and fascist attacks between 1976 and 1981

Nawal El Saadawi in conversation

Last Friday I had the pleasure of hearing Dr Nawal El Saadawi - Egyptian writer, doctor, activist and feminist are just some of the labels used to describe this remarkable woman. She was 'in conversation' at a event at Goldsmiths, University of London, as part of a three-day Race in a Modern World conference there.

It was at the age of seven, she told the packed audience, that she became aware of inequality in the home with her brother. Whilst she did more housework, more schoolwork and was "more intelligent" the brother got to roam free and be feted by the family and society (yeah, we know about that one...). The experience burned into her the desire to express injustice - she did this by writing. At first a letter to God - but she didn't know his address and he didn't answer. She then moved on to stories and eventually, award-winning novels, writing about the rights of women and of the poor, with criticisms of sham democracies ('mere voting is not democracy...') and oppressive religions. Her most well-known novel, Woman at Point Zero, was published in Beirut in 1973 and she has clocked up over 40 novels altogether.

She spoke about a relationship between "creativity and dissidence" - if you feel injustice and you feel you can't do anything, then "at least you can write". And this she did, at a great personal cost of censorship, imprisonment and exile. In 1981 Nawal El Saadawi publicly criticized President Anwar Sadat's policies and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned. She was also on a fundamentalist 'death list' following publication of her novel The Fall of the Imam in Cairo in 1988.

El Saadawi also had much to tell us about capitalism, patriarchy and imperialism - none of it flattering of course. Having been in London whilst the G20 theatre was going on two days before, she said she saw the posed photograph of Brown, Obama and Sarkozy and they looked to her like "the gang of the world", trying to solve a crisis which they created. She would tell them what to do, we were told, "but they wouldn't let me in".

She regaled us with a detailed tale of how the original manuscript was stolen, years ago on a train to Belgium, of her most recent novel, Zina, The Stolen Novel, (2008). Dr Nawal El Saadawi spoke with great humour, intelligence and, perhaps belying her 77 years, with a little occasional mischief. I'm glad I went to see her, it was an inspirational experience.

You can read more about her here, at her publisher's website here and, if you want to, a Guardian interview from yesterday, here .

London Calling: G20 and 'Jobs, Justice and Climate'

Londoners may have noticed SOMETHING happening in town today. The G20 summit is being held in London this week to discuss 'the global economic situation' while at the same time thousands of people have been protesting in the streets of London in relation to causes around tackling poverty, the recession and climate change. This was proceeded by a massive Put People First march on Saturday 28 March.

As far as the three broad strands of 'jobs, justice and climate' go, there's not a lot to disagree with. But what do the protesters specifically want? The BBC has quotes from various of the campaign groups involved. Sounds good, as I say, but the devil would be in the detail of course, and crucially whether those in power - in government, in business and elsewhere - are willing to change the status quo. How is all this to be achieved? How much pain will it involve and for which interest groups? On the hopeful side, some of these cosy groups themselves are starting to suffer as a result of the economic situation and may therefore be more moved to implement change on the economic front if not quite on climate. It would be good though to think that someone is listening and taking note of the strength of feeling expressed on the streets this week but given an earlier post, things are not looking hopeful.

Still, the personnel have changed (for Tony, now Gordon; for George, now Obama) and these two new leaders, at least, are thought to be more progressive and concerned with social justice than their predecessors. And seeing as I have been tracking The Great One, it would remiss not to note that today was of course Barack Obama's first time in London as Pres. According to Jan Dalley on Newsnight (at 40.45 mins) last night Obama can still enjoy a honeymoon period in Europe for a while longer though she reckons the shine's worn off in the USA. Some though reckon he matters little in any case, mere figurehead that he is for other powerful groups and interests whose views must prevail - I meant to post a while ago this typically frank assessment of Obama by John Pilger in the New Statesman. Hmm, I always enjoy reading Pilger and often agree with him but on this I'd like to wait and see about Obama. Anyway, I digress, a bit...

What do you think about the summit and what the protesters want? Ultimately only history will reveal what part, if any, this week's events will have played in sowing the seeds of seeking a new way of organising society and the way that we all live together across the world. Because let's face it, capitalism in its present form is just not sustainable.

Dis-Orienting Rhythms: the politics of the new Asian dance music

For anyone interested in the British-Asian music and cultural scene up to the mid-1990s, here's a quick mention of a book now available to download on the web here or here (or below). It's being made available "to celebrate the landmark edited collection being published over a decade ago".

Dis-Orienting Rhythms: the politics of the new Asian dance music (1996, Zed books), edited by Sanjay Sharma, John Hutnyk and Ash Sharma.
“This book writes back the presence of South Asian youth into a rapidly expanding and exuberant music scene; and celebrates this as a dynamic expression of the experience of diaspora with an urgent political consciousness. One of the first attempts to situate such production within the study of race and identity, it uncovers the crucial role that South Asian dance musics - from Hip-hop, Qawwali and Bhangra through Soul, Indie and Jungle - have played in a new urban cultural politics …” (Back cover)

This book was the first of its kind as far as I'm concerned, giving attention to a particular lived cultural reality of many second-generation Asians. It came out at a time when we were surprised to find that being Asian could be kinda cool (at last, we had received the permission of the west to be fashionable...). After the thirsty years of trying to appropriate 'black' music as ours (after all, which London British-Asian didn't follow jazz-funk and lovers reggae in the 70/80s?) this seemed a time of plenty for '2nd-generationers' - there was the music (Bhangra), dedicated newspapers (Eastern Eye) and cable channels (Zee TV) galore. But be warned, this book is more than a nostalgia-trip - it grapples with some serious concepts, connecting music with race, identity and political consciousness.

So what does the book cover? These are the chapters in the book (downloadable here as pdfs):

Introduction - Sanjay Sharma, John Hutnyk and Ashwani Sharma
Sounds Oriental: The (Im)possibility of Theorizing Asian Musical Cultures - Ashwani Sharma
Noisy Asians or ‘Asian Noise’? - Sanjay Sharma
Asian Kool? Bhangra & Beyond - Rupa Huq
Remixing Identities: ‘Off’ the Turntable - Shirin Housee & Mukhtar Dar
Psyche and Soul: A View from the ‘South’ - Koushik Banerjea & Partha Banerjea
Re-Sounding (Anti)Racism, or Concordant Politics? - Virinder S. Kalra, John Hutnyk & Sanjay Sharma
Repetitive Beatings or Criminal Justice? - John Hutnyk
Versioning Terror: Jallianwala Bagh & the Jungle - Koushik Banerjea & Jatinder Barn
New Paths for South Asian Identity & Musical Creativity - Raminder Kaur & Virinder S. Kalra
References & Index

So enjoy this book, though be warned it is steeped in Cultural Studies and Anthropology-speak and needs a bit of attentive reading.

6th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq

I'm a day late in posting my acknowledgement of the 6th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. On 20 March 2003 the bombs started raining down on the people of Iraq in this misguided 'war'. People were fooled by the US coalition, which included the UK, into believing that the war was necessary was because of Saddam's 'weapons of destruction'. In the end, defeated by the 'dodgy dossier' debacle, they settled for 'regime change'. In February 2009, true to his election promises, Obama announced his plan to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by August 2010. Let's hope the Iraqis themselves can work towards filling the various power vacuums.

There's been surprisingly little about this anniversary in the UK press -the BBC has a jaunty piece about the "pigeon fanciers of Baghdad" and "how they have managed to keep up their passionate pursuit through the darkest of times". Interesting, though hardly reflective of the suffering involved and anger about this invasion.

Many tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in this war (the precise number is contested), as well as over 4,000 military personnel - you can read the American Huffington Post's take on this here.

France24 tells us that "Neither the US military nor the Iraqi authorities have announced plans to commemorate the March 20, 2003 invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein, an anniversary marked only by anti-war protesters and hastened US pullout plans."

Interestingly, France 24 goes on to quote Tariq Ali, a Pakistani-born, British-based author and activist, speaking about the supposed success of the recent surge of US troop:

“I think basically what the US did in Iraq was to buy off the opposition. Large numbers of people who were fighting them, especially from the Sunni section of society, were paid a lot of money and partially given control of their towns,”

Doesn't bode particularly well for the future.

Micheal Moore gives us a piece about veterans reflecting on their service, including one former U.S. marine who, home after a tour in Iraq, has taken to taking cover under the kitchen table every time local fireworks go off.

Before the invasion, I remember in late 2002 to early 2003 the growing anti-Iraq rumblings building up following the terrible 9/11 attacks in New York. When the prospect of government action started looking serious, I remember joining the largest ever number of street-protesters in the UK . This was when hundreds of thousands of people (again, figures contested) took to London's streets for a three and a half mile march to demonstrate their opposition to military action in Iraq. The march was organised by Stop the War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Muslim Association of Britain.

The photographs in this post were taken by my husband and I on that bitterly cold day, Saturday 15 February 2003. They show views of the march by Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus' Eros and heading north up Park Lane towards Hyde Park for the rally.

Alas though, our display of 'people power' had no effect at all because just over a month later, in a complete disregard for public opinion, the invasion began.