Forty Years On: How the Murder of Altab Ali Mobilized Bangladeshis in London’s East End
We have, however, no option but to remember.
It was the mid-1980s. One summer, my cousins and I were in Mirpur Botanical Gardens, on the outskirts of Dhaka, discussing the relative merits of growing up in Bangladesh versus bidesh. Having been born and brought up in London, I had a love/hate relationship with Bangladesh. While I enjoyed the temperate winter weather and the warmth and love of my extended family, I also found the poverty overwhelming and, unfortunately, had internalised the negative portrayal of Bangladesh in the global imagination. My fufatobhai, dragging on a sneaky cigarette, asked me, “But, how can you live in a country where people want to kill you for the colour of your skin?”
I was shaken out of my bideshi arrogance. Growing up in 1970s London as a British-Bangladeshi didn’t always make for the smoothest sailing of childhoods. I was, however, fortunate in many ways. Not least that I grew up in a multi-ethnically diverse part of North London where I was only subjected to mild, casual racism. In London’s East End, however, where the majority of Britain’s Bangladeshi community were living, I knew things were rather different. It was only later that I realized how different.
The East End of London has always been a point of entry into the city because of its proximity to the docks. Many migrant communities have historically started their journey here before moving to settle elsewhere — Huguenot exiles from across the English Channel to Irish migrants, to Jewish refugees in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and Bangladeshis since the 1960s. So tied to Britain’s Bangladeshi community is that area, that it is now known as Banglatown, where even the street names are written in Bengali as well as English.
As a place inhabited by new arrivals to the city, it has also been the epicentre of anti-immigrant hostility and racist violence from fascist groups and their supporters. For example, in the 1930s, Oswald Mosely’s Black Shirts, who were vocal supporters of Hitler, targeted the local Jewish population who had previously fled Russian pogroms. The Black Shirts were ultimately thwarted in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street in 1936. Later, in the late 60’s and 70’s the National Front (a fascist party active at the time) targeted East End Bangladeshis exploiting local tensions and racial insecurities about housing. My chachatobhai, who had arrived in the UK in 1972 and lived in the East End of London, described how Bangladeshis experienced racism in all its various guises, from street harassment to racism at work to racist attacks in the places they were trying to make home.
Formalised far right activities organised by the National Front were met by resistance from local Bangladeshis and their anti-fascist allies in what became known as the Battle of Brick Lane. There were of course small pockets of the local population who participated alongside fascists or were arguably complicit through their silence. More damaging, however, was the behaviour of state actors such as local housing departments and the police who failed to protect local Bangladeshis, and indeed minimised their experiences of racism and treated them as the problems rather than the racists who were attacking them.
On May 4 1978, during the height of this sustained attack on Bangladeshis in the East End, Altab Ali, a young Bangladeshi who worked at a leather garment factory, was murdered on his way home from work. It was the day of local elections, where debates on immigration were a key issue in the campaigns. Earlier that year Margaret Thatcher, then leader of the opposition, had made a polemic anti-immigration speech saying that people were “afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture.” Altab Ali was by no means the first, nor unfortunately will he be the last, person to be racially attacked and murdered in the U.K. But his murder, at the hands of three teenaged youths, was a catalyst which galvanised the local Bangladeshi community and their allies into organising resistance.
Older Bangladeshis were fearful about taking a stand, understandably perhaps wanting a quiet life. By contrast, younger Bangladeshis, such as my chachatobhai, were tired of waiting to be protected by the police and decided to take action into their own hands. They argued as many other recipients of racist violence have argued, that “self-defence is no offence.” Inspired by anti-racist activism in other areas of London such as Southall and Lewisham and earlier local histories of resistance against fascism, they protested the presence of the far-right in the East End. People organised and drew on solidarity from anti-fascists across the city and other cities in the U.K. were minorities were being similarly targeted. Ten days after the murder, 7,000 Bangladeshis across Tower Hamlets left their workplaces, mainly local restaurants and textile workshops, and marched behind Altab Ali’s coffin to Downing Street and on to a rally at Hyde Park. More generally, organisations committed to political change and social justice for Bengalis were able to build on this momentum in an effort to secure positive change for the local community.
Forty years after Ali’s murder, the East End of London is almost unrecognisable. The local MP, Rushanari Ali, is a woman of Bangladeshi descent. Furthermore, like many erstwhile ‘no-go areas’ it has succumbed to the ravages of the quiet violence of gentrification, where Bangladeshis’ presence in the area adds to the cosmopolitan allure of East London for hipsters across the globe. Local Bangladeshis haven’t forgotten about Altab Ali’s murder and what that murder meant for their community. But as the generation that fought the Battle of Brick Lane grows older and their children move out to the suburbs, many worry that the significance of his story will be forgotten. As a result of campaigning, St. Mary’s Gardens was renamed in honour of Altab Ali and every year, (on or around 4 May), local activists and dignitaries, school children and interested passers-by gather on Altab Ali Day to honour and to remember.
We have, however, no option but to remember. When “paki-bashing” has been replaced with Islamophobia and the English Defence League, a far-right street movement, target cities with visible Muslim minorities, when the media and our political landscape are full of toxic narratives about immigration and migrants, particularly so in the wake of the debate on Brexit, it is incumbent on us not to forget.
The battle might have been won, but the war continues.
Glossary:
Bidesh/bideshi — foreign land/belonging to a foreign land
Fufatobhai: Cousin (son of paternal aunt)
Chachatobhai: Cousin (son of paternal uncle)
