Bethnal Green and Bow: battle rages in constituency with all-Bangladeshi field
Labour faces tough task to regain seat lost to George Galloway's Respect party
The Guardian,
Monday 19 April 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/19/bethnal-green-bow-labour-respect
Rushanara Ali, Labour's candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow. Photograph: Martin Godwin
At a meeting of the
For these mainly older, white working-class tenants, the early throes of the parliamentary election campaign have been underwhelming. "We've had a lot of junk through the letter box but you never see them," says Joyce. "I feel terribly let down by George Galloway," adds Margaret. "He was never at his surgery and he never spoke in the house. He had a totally different agenda, and he was courting the Bangladeshi vote."
Joyce then says the unsayable. "This is supposed to be a multicultural area but all the candidates are Asian. I don't feel they represent my views." Her husband Bill concurs: "This borough has a proud history of taking in different people over the years, but we feel we're being squeezed out."
Huguenots, Irish, Jews, Bengalis and, more recently, Somalis have all found a welcome in the East End of London, in no small part thanks to the radical political culture that has always infused the borough. It's a legacy evidenced at the hustings of 2010 – in a national precedent, all the main parties have selected Bangladeshi Muslim candidates, and the largest Bengali population in the country will finally have a voice in parliament. But Bill is also articulating a concern I've heard voiced by many constituents, of other faiths and backgrounds, that the intricacies of Bengali community politics – intimately connected as these are with the politics of Sylhet, the north-eastern region of Bangladesh from where the majority of Britain's Bengali community originate – will dominate the campaign, to the exclusion of all others.
Making up more than 30% of the local population, it's no surprise that Bengali opinion matters in this election. Despite the gentrification that has occurred around the edges of the City, Tower Hamlets remains the third most deprived borough in the country, with 50% of children receiving free school meals, and it is the Bangladeshi community that experiences this most keenly. Traditionally Labour supporting, these are the voters Ali must woo. But, as Jack Gilbert of
In 2005, Bethnal Green and Bow proved a totemic battle: Oona King, the Blair Babe beholden to the whip on
"This is going to be a tough battle," Ali admits, "and we're going to have to fight tooth and nail to win the seat back. The culture that Respect have created is a very divisive one, and that's what I want to change. That is not our tradition in the east end of
Ali, like Miah, moved to Bethnal Green from
The last election campaign was unedifying to say the least, with Galloway menaced at one meeting by a gang of apparent fundamentalists, while King was pelted with eggs when she attended a memorial to Jewish war dead and faced constant insinuations about her ethnic background. "Rushanara is a brave woman," local cultural adviser Naseem Khan says, "because there is a very male, conservative element in Respect."
Ali remains sanguine so far. "As a Bengali and as an east ender, I take my courage from the confidence that the community gives me – people from different backgrounds, men, women, white, Bangladeshi, Somali – to rise above that sort of divisive politics."
According to Miah, this is Labour propaganda. "There's an electrifying activism in Tower Hamlets," he says, "and Respect has generated that. We've gained four years of local government experience [Respect won 12 council seats in 2006, and Miah leads the group] and it's no longer just about foreign policy. We're talking about everything from cracks in the pavement to council tax, and the mainstream parties are fearful."
Ali is invisible, he says. "Strategically, she's concentrating more outside the Bengali community. Use your village people to create more political awareness within the community but don't upset the majority non-Bangladeshis."
It would be powerfully symbolic to have a female Bangladeshi in parliament, Ruhun Chowdhury, chair on the Jagonari Women's Education Resource Centre says . "A lot of younger women will take part because they're happy to see a female candidate."
She reminds me that
The influence of sons and daughters on family voting decisions will be as important as that of their elders, she believes. Respect succeeded in mobilising the youth vote during the last campaign and, according to Ali Afsar, a 26-year-old park ranger, Miah's credentials will ensure this happens again. "He's a local lad and he's done a lot for young people. The Bangladeshi people are very political and that's grown since the war, which is still a passionate issue. A lot of my friends will be voting this year when they haven't before. He makes you let your anger out in a serious way and stands up against extremists like Islam4UK."
As bookseller Sebastian Sands observes: "If you believe the press, you'd think the East London Mosque runs everything around here. But that's not true and it's not my experience that there's too much focus on the Muslim community. There's a big Muslim population in Tower Hamlets and they should be represented, but if you're talking about economic recovery then that affects all of us."
Certainly, there has been a stream of hostile coverage about plans to erect arches in the shape of a hijab to mark the beginning of the
"We pride ourselves that we have Muslim councillors, and why not?" says Miah. "For the last 15 years you've said we're isolationist, ghettoised, unwilling to engage and now that we engage we're fundamentalists and extremists. You can't have it both ways."
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