Guerrilla History - Defiance - Fighting the Far Right in Britain w/ Rajesh Thind & Shahnaz Ali

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

In this timely episode of Guerrilla History, Adnan discusses Defiance: Fighting the Far Right w/ Rajesh Thind, a director & producer of the three part Channel 4 documentary series produced by Rogan Productions in association with Riz Ahmed’s Lefthanded Films. The series is an immersive social history that brings the South Asian activists who combatted and organized successfully against far right racist and anti-immigrant violence in the 1970s & early 1980s to our screens.  Exclusive to Guerrilla History, one of those veteran activists Shahnaz Ali joined the conversation to talk about her experiences organizing in the late 1970’s and 80’s in Bradford, and since then, fighting for equality and justice in UK society and the National Health Service specifically. This history is incredibly relevant for the resurgence of far right violence and rioting being witnessed right now on city streets across the UK.   In addition to watching Defiance: Fighting the Far Right, you should also listen to our two related previous episodes, African & Caribbean People in Britain - A History w/ Hakim Adi, and  Black & Brown Resistance in the UK (1960s-80s) w/ Preeti Dhillon.   Rajesh Thind is an award-winning director, writer & producer of films, tv, stage & prose known for tackling challenging & complex subjects.  Keep up to date with his work by checking out his website and by following him on twitter @RajeshThind Shahnaz Ali OBE is former Director of Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights NHSNW. Now a freelance consultant Making Equality Work and Lay Council member for University of Bradford.  You can read more about her work at the Nursing Narratives website, her Wikipedia page, and on LinkedIn. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You don't remember Den Ben-Brew? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. to Gorilla History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global history for the activist left and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your

co-hosts, Adnan Hussein. Unfortunately, Henry couldn't be with us today, but we look forward to having Henry back on again, Henry Hakamaki in our next episode. But before I introduced the guests and the topic of the episode, I'd just like to remind listeners that they can help support the show and allow us to continuing making episodes like this by joining us on Patreon slash guerrilla history. That's 2Rs, 2Ls, and you can keep up to date with the show by following us on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod. Again, 2Rs, 2Ls underscore pod. Well, regular listeners, you will know that in the past several months, we've had a couple of episodes on the topic of the history of black and brown people in the UK, United Kingdom. We had a conversation

with Professor Hakim Adi about his book, which was nominated for the prestigious Wolfson Prize in History, entitled African and Caribbean People in Britain, a history. And that is a monumental historical resource chronicling the evidence and experiences of black people in Britain from ancient times to today. And last month, we spoke with Preeti Dillon about her wonderful new book, The Shoulders We Stand on, How Black and Brown People Fought for Change in the UK, detailing the era of the 1960s and 70s up until the early 1980s. And it's this last part of the period that we will be revisiting today, but through a very different medium and with a different focus, I'm really pleased to welcome Rajesh Tind, who's part of a small production,

team of Rogan Productions that has put together a three-part documentary series that aired earlier this year on Channel 4 in the UK and can be watched on their YouTube channel called Defiance Fighting the Far Right. Welcome, Rajesh. Hi, thanks. Thanks for having me in Adman. Well, it's wonderful to have you on. We're also joined by Shahnaz Ali, former member of the United Black Youth League, Bradford and a former director in the NHS, an activist from the era. And it's wonderful to be able to have, like the documentary itself, portrayed voices from the era. Shanaz, welcome to guerrilla history.

Thank you. And thank you for having me. Well, it's great to meet you and to have you both on to talk about what was a very powerful documentary about clearly in intense and tumultuous era. of struggle for racial justice in the UK. So I wanted to just start with you, Rajesh, about, you know, why you were motivated to recall this era of history and, you know, dedicate a documentary with your colleagues about events from about 1976 to the early 80s. I mean, the thing is, I grew up in this era. So I'm born in 73 and we lived in Hayes and Harle.

when I was a kid, which is sort of West London and far west London, and we would go to Southall every weekend. My mum worked at the airport, and she had friends who lived in Southall, and we'd go every weekend for a Bollywood film. And, I mean, that was before it's called Bollywood. We'd go for an Indian film and lunch at Sagutaka, which was the sort of, you know, go-to-family restaurant and still is. And the kids around us, you know, my mom had one particular friend, Vina, I'm who from work, and we'd often go to Vina Auntie's house, and Vina Auntie had two sons, Sonny and Bitu, who I think were sort of eight and ten years older than me.

So I was like five, they would have been like sort of, you know, 13, 15. And as far as my mom and their mom was concerned, Sonny and Bittu were these nice lovely boys. But in reality, they were also members of the Holy Spokes gang, which was one of two big gangs in Southland that had the Holy Throkes in the Tutankhamans, that had emerged out of the 1979 uprising in Southall, which is obviously in episode two of defiance.

And one of the sort of repercussions of that uprising was that young sort of, you know, it wasn't the kids who were studying to be doctors and accountants and all the rest of it. It was the kids who were, you know, a bit more rough on the streets. And they, you know, in the one hand, those gangs were sort of just doing what gangs do, sort of petty, you know, a bit of cannabis or whatever it was. But on the other hand, they were

very much part of a sort of ethos in Southland that grew out of 79, which was that we don't brook the far right here. We won't accept it. And in Thatcherite, Britain, that was made at a haven. So I grew up around these kind of sort of defiant older kids, and I absorbed that attitude from them, that attitude of defiance. And, you know, you know, you stand up against people. and I'd never really understood it and over the years I'd learnt the history myself and had always just thought this needs to be better known

and so in a way I suppose my instinct to want to start to make the project or to make work about these subjects was because I knew about it and I thought the whole country needs to know about it because this actually is who we are as a country but this history is just sort of not part of the official record and in my consideration it needs to

to be. And in particular, I think, when I first started sort of poking around in this stuff in 2018, it was a couple of years after Brexit. And it was already obvious that the whole thing was going to be a disaster. And it was already pretty obvious that, you know, who was going to get the blame. It wasn't going to be the people who pushed for Brexit. It was going to be minorities. And that the state was taking this authoritarian nationalist turn. And I just thought, you know, history is a resource, as you obviously know. And I just felt, that it was really important that we revisited that history because the things that people like Shanaz and her, her, you know, colleagues and comrades did were the other things that perhaps

we may need to revisit if you're faced with a hostile state, then community self-organization and radical action by people within, you know, minority communities in aim of self-defense become incredibly important again. So I think that was my instinct behind it was this thing's a historical resource that actually is very urgent that we tell also because, you know, it's a long time ago and the people who were the protagonists

in these events, you know, they're not getting any youngness. And it's crucial that we have first person voices that we hear from the people who are on the ground because they're the ones who can really tell us what it was like, you know, as I'm, you know, Shannas will be able to tell us, you know. Absolutely.

And I think we'll want to come back also to the contemporary relevance and what we can take from this history for what's happening in the UK now later in the conversation. But I do want to turn to Shenaz, I mean, for me not being a part of this history and not having grown up in the UK watching the images. I mean, it was a very powerful to me, a very powerful visual portrayal that got the atmosphere with the music, with these kind of vivid images. that really evoked a sense of how much tension there was and how much people were suffering from racial abuse and exclusion in these communities. And I just wanted to ask you from the outset to somebody who lived in this period and was engaged in some of these struggles, you know, whether that kind of captured that atmosphere. And this is one of the things I think was so great about the documentary is how much it was arranged and framed around voices of people who were

involved in these movements and in these struggles. And as someone like that, perhaps you could reflect a little bit on, you know, that era and that atmosphere that's set in that first part of defiance about racial relations, you know, in the UK. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I wasn't expecting it to be so powerful. It kind of took me straight back there, which was emotional. You can probably hear it my voice. And also you know kind of just took me straight back to

actually being a child and growing up around some of that before I became an activist. You know because my family, we landed in Bradford in 1965 in summer 65 but I was only three years old so I don't have that many

memories of that. But I do have memories of when we lived in a small mazonet in a council estate. It was small council estate in Wetley Hill in Bradford, 8. And the fear that was kind of instilled in us by a parent sort of saying, don't go out because there was a lot of packy bashing and the teddy boys were around. And my brothers must have been 8 and 11 at the time when we moved to the mazonet. and all we can remember is not being able to be allowed out.

And one of my memories is like my brother coming home and he's been beaten up and, you know, he's bleeding and stuff. And dad used to work nights in one of the mills in Bradford. And really kind of instructing us not to open the door and not to let anybody in after he's left. There's all sorts of issues. my mum was a young mother. She was only sort of about 27 when she came to England with four kids.

You know, so this fear of going out there and being attacked. And having very early memories of sort of not feeling quite comfortable when we were out and about, people kind of looking at us. I mean, now I'm white because I've had Vita Ligo, but I was a brown girl. And then going to school and really one of my, the memories that I have in my, first day at school was there was all these white, well, I didn't know then, working class kids. And there was one other brown girl. She was a Punjabi seat girl. And she is one of the few people, because I'm rubbish with names. I still remember her name till this day. We called

a Sukhi, her name was Sukwinder. And I, as a five-year-old, just completely looked across and thought, at least there's one more of me in here. And then the experiences, and then you know, just basically growing up by the time I was kind of seven, I was going around institutions like the NHS and GPs and all over the place because by that time we moved on to a street

in Manningham area called Morningside. It's still there. There's still people who I knew as a child still live there. And they were back-to-back houses. But it was quite diverse in terms of demographics because Bradford having its mills after the First World War and Second World War brought in people. So I had friends from Ukrainian friends there,

had the former Yugoslavian friends, Polish. There's a big Polish community still kind of visible in Bradford, Italian, Jurekian, and then I think in the early to mid-70s there more of the Asians started to arrive as well because there wasn't many Asian families when we first started to live there. So when the Asian women started to move in stuff, that's when I started to get taken out of school and translating.

And, you know, like having all these traumas the night before, thinking, am I going to get it right? And then kind of facing these white men most of the time, asking these women, all these questions in an awful, awful way, sometimes shouting, thinking that would be, understand if they shall. So those former years of these institutions and going everywhere, clearly understanding that we have been discriminated against, but I couldn't label it like that as a child. And then I think I went through a phase where I thought that if I can integrate

and be like my white friends, because my friends like my Polish friends, my Ukrainian friends, Italian friends. They didn't, you know, nobody would ask them when we were out, where are you from? Because they were white. And in fact, they used to defend me if I said, oh, I'm from morning side. It was a classic one when I was at university. Oh, I'm from Bradford. And then they'd say, no, where are you really from? And, you know, I remember one of my Polish friends clearly saying, why are you not asking me where I really from? Actually, I came when I was nine from Paul and Schnatz came here when she was very young. So this sense of belonging was always there from a young age,

knowing that my family doesn't really belong, we don't belong, because constantly. So I started to think, oh well, you know, if I sound like them and start wearing clothes like them and I sort of really didn't want to wear my little Asian clothes or wanting to wear my little English clothes and really start thinking. And I actually went through a phase where I kind of would deny that I could speak Punjabi fluently at home because I thought if I say that then I will be accepted so there was an issue about belonging and acceptance and and recognizing that you know we're not supposed to be here we're not and parents constantly saying don't do

this don't do that keep your heads down and especially when my brothers were teenagers it was you don't do this you don't do that you don't stay out too late because you you're looking for trouble then, you know, if you get beaten up, then it's your fault, all that kind of stuff. So I grew up around all of that atmosphere all the time and hearing of other families. You know, my earliest memory is as a nine-year-old, my dad's close friend, his son and his nephew got killed in a motorbike accident until this day they never found out who it was. And then hearing of, beginning to hear of, racist attacks and stuff like that up and down the country, petrol bombs and all that thrown

through letter boxes. But it was never acknowledged as racist attacks. It was just an Asian family that got attacked. And most of the time it was the Asian family's spouse or the community under the microscope rather than anybody else. So I grew up around all of that. And then moving it forward, how I became an activist was when I was. When I was doing my air levels. I used to go to the library, Central Library in Bradford, which was like a real landmark at that time to do my home, you know, to do all my work on a Saturday because I couldn't afford most of the books and things like that. So library was where I'd have to get all my essays done. And the second floor of the library, there was a cafe. And at that cafe,

in the corner, there was a landline. In them days, we only had landlines. And the little table around there and there'd be like a small two or three, every time I went two or three Asian guys sitting there in the early 20s, mid-20s, answering the calls and doing all of that and so I met some of the former members of the YM, Anwar, Marcia Singh, Toloch and Darik so over the weeks then I kind of started seeing their faces and then they started to come and talk to me and at the time i think one of the things that was going through was

the the white paper for the national 81 nationality act but this was 1979 so um it was still going through and i remember tarik asking me they were organizing a march i think or we were going to join a national march or something and he said oh we're organizing this and he was giving me the leaflet and about the Nationality Act and blah, blah, blah. My first response to him was, I'm British. You know, I don't need to, why do I need to come to this? I'm British. I've got a British passport.

And I think that's when Taui Councilorosian kind of said, oh, I think you need some education. And that's when my education kind of began, and I got more and more interested. And that's, and I think it was at the same time, So I started to then think about things. They'd give me stuff to read. I'd read stuff.

And then, you know, I was at college during my A-level. So they used to hang around the student union at the college in Bradford. And that's where my kind of awareness around politically what was going on, you know, and from the state down, it wasn't just the National Front or the, you know, the skinheads or whatever. there was a huge engine working against us, really. And that's when I kind of started looking into, I remember Dad talking about the Rivers of Blood Speech when I was younger, i.e. neck pound.

And his take on it was at the time that at least we know where we stand with him. He's saying it out loud, and I can remember him talking to his friends. He said he said it out loud that this is what the majority think. and there was discussions and in our sitting room people saying oh well if they're going to repatriate us then maybe we should take it as an option

should we be keeping our children here there was these sorts of discussions going on so basically that was my sort of context to becoming an activist and that's when I then started getting interested in joining some of the meetings about educating us as well and because we never learned anything about history

in school about colonialism, imperialism, anything like that. It was all kind of wow, you know. The jigsaw started to fit free, you know, it was like I was beginning to understand what was happening and what happened in history. And then my dad's sentences like, I think I came back from school when I was very young

and somebody, you know, people, somebody had said to me, go back home. And I must have said that to dad. And dad said, tell them that you, I'm here because you was there. And then when I started to politicise ourselves, through all the colleagues in the AYM and then later in the UBWIL, I realized where that I'd come from. You know, you were there for a long time for a few centuries. We've only been here a few years.

So it's, I think, That was my sort of steyage of understanding and understanding actually systematic oppression rather than what was happening to us individually on the streets. You know, because when they used to say, he called us a packing, you know, a few of my Indian friends would say, well, I'm trying to explain to the white racist. I'm not, I'm not Pakistani. I'm Indian. And then I began to say to them, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. It's not, you know, where you're from, you know, it's the color of your skin and it's not the shade, it's not whatever. And that's when I started to think about, and that's where I think the UBYL thinking was also about how do we unite everybody under the political word black rather than just look at it from an Asian, particularly South Asian at the time as well, the perspective. that's where, you know, I then supported UBYL more in terms of its vision, to collaborate and work much wider under a much wider umbrella. And in that time as well, we were, you know, we had our local campaigns, and now we had, we were supporting national campaigns going up and down the country. And I think defiance going back, that first sort of episode, it kind of took me back to, you know, some of the racist murders and, you know, going to Coventry when Satnam Gil was murdered and, you know, so the earlier murders I'd heard about from the taric or to

loachan and stuff because I was, I wasn't involved then. I was too young. And really, I mean, defiance, I think, took me back there in those marches, in that and the feelings and seeing so many people out and were you there were you there at the Sutton's Guild sing deal yeah I was there in Coventry so we weren't able to make space for that but that's such an incredibly kind of it was really powerful march and it was there that we you will YWYL members when we were leaving so again you know I can relate things back because in recent years we had the Bradford, I mean, the Rodham 12 campaign that my partner, Javid, and I got involved in. And the parallels were kind of there from the 70s, early 80s, was when we, Rotterham was

been, there was marches basically every month by the far right through Rotterham. And then this one, then there was, but the Asian community didn't come out. some of the sort of left groups and stuff were doing counter marches but the Asian community didn't really come out until there was the murder of an 80-year-old Muslim man came out for the mosque early hours after doing his prayer and he got killed

and then the police still allowed the march within his 40-day morning period even though they were asked by the community leaders not to and it was that march that peacefully some of the community went particularly young men with their children actually so they didn't go out to attack

but they did the kettling so you know at the end of the march they kettled you to leave a particular exit the march and exactly the same thing happening rather than where they had to then go past the notorious pub you know the far right pub and they were already waiting with their bottles

and everything to start hitting all the men that were having to lead that way. Similarly, the Satnam Guild thing, when we left the march, we were going towards the coaches. And there was a bridge. I can remember a bridge, walking under the bridge, and that's where we got attacked, by the far right.

And all I can remember is kind of pulling out the pole from the banner, the big wooden pole, and just sort of trying to whack. And, you know, it was just like really weird. I mean, they had a huge big night trying to attack on it. The reports, the reports I've heard suggest that, you know, the people who were gathered in Coventry after Sutton's in Gil, you know, he was killed in Coventry, he was killed in Coventry, he stabbed into death in Coventry's Town Centre. And, you know, for the first time families and, you know, there's incredible footage of, you know, Asian families coming out. The whole community turned out. And the report I've heard should ask, which is like, maybe you can tell me if you confirm it, is that the marches, a lot of you were sort of kettled into a particularly, area under this bridge and led into the hands of the far right and then it was it was only a small group of us I think it was the one we'd come from bradford on the coach and we were going back and it

didn't feel like all of us were there because some of them must have been behind or something and I just have this kind of memory of being thinking oh my god we're going to die and and just taking this I just took the pole out and started you know out of the banner thing that we'd made the night before. The gates, skinhead. It was that the gates far right? Skinhead. I can remember a night and, you know, Tarrick been there and, you know, it was just like,

it was, I don't, I haven't, I think some memories I've blocked out as well. And the same thing happened, you know, the same thing happening still today, the way that they kettle you out of the, the demo lands you right in the hands of the, the far right who were trying to

attack the demo, Sankham Guild's demo in Coventry. It's so interesting how like decades later in the 2010s, as you're saying, you know, a similar sort of situation. No, no, the approach, how they get, how, and the Brotherham 12 would not happen. So

lo and behold, what happened, and this happened similarly in Harrodagh, when we had a march in Harragher, again. against, you know, a far-right lecturer there who's teaching politics. I think he was the local chair of the National Front or something like that. Yeah, so we went, UBYL, we took a coach again to that march to support the student union there and everything else. And again, when we were, the march was attacked by the far right

and then lo and behold, the police come and completely, you know, we're under attack by the police as well. And the same happened in Rotterham where the 12 ended up getting arrested when they were attacked. And again, you know, we'll come on to Brow for 12 later, but because the Brideford 12 had happened when the Rotherham case happened was it six, seven years, seven years ago, we got some excellent lawyers and stuff who used to self-default. defences, no depends. Because actually, for me, it was like, when the Rotter and Valk thing happened as well, like, the young men who were told to just plead guilty and take lesser

offences and things like that. And then I think somebody got in touch with Suresh, Suresh Grover in London, and Suresh then contacted Javir that we went to meet them. And then we had, I actually went to, I didn't go meet them individually like Suresh and Jared did. But when we had the first sort of big meeting, when Suresh asked me to speak at that meeting and the parallels were all there in everything that was being done by some of the so-called community leaders,

you know, and the police and I think too had already kind of pleaded guilty and then it was a real challenge to get the right lawyers for them because the legislation has changed since the Bradford 12 where you have to present in front of a judge why you want to change your lawyer

because some of them have been given duty lawyers and stuff like that, similar. So the similarity to the day, I mean, just because you don't know Adnan, just for Adnan's, just, I'm sure you probably do know, but the Rotterman 12 case was, as Shannes exactly says, you know, it was six, seven years ago, and it was, it was a, there was a far right march being held through Rotherham. I'm second to simply for a few months, right, through the community, yeah. And a group of counter-protesters, you know, who were sort of very mild sort of, you know, fan,

and sort of just wanted to make their opposition heard were attacked by a far-right group who were outside a pub in Rotterham. And then they were put, you know, they were put on trial for assault. And exactly as Chanel says, you know, Suresh Grover. And they also, I think I'm right in saying, Shana's that Michael Mansfield... Yeah, we got Michael Mansfield back, yeah. You were originally represented the Bradford 12th and 1922. And he really said to see.

Came back and did it again at the Rotherham 12, 40 years later. Yeah. Well, this is something, yeah, this was something that I saw as a continuing pattern, both within the documentary series and what it covers and also what you've been just recounting about the Rotherham 12, but what we can also see about, you know, protests that's taking place today that so often it is those who combat or struggle against racism, who are the ones who become the objects of, you know, police, you know, police power and suffer, you know, for raising the issues of exposing or combating racism. And so that was one

thing that, you know, this is happening today on the politics. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. Exactly. You know, we're seeing that. In fact, I met Rajesh at an event where the person who had a sign that was deemed on one of the marches, you know, calling out, Maria Hussein, you know, calling out, you know, Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, you know, is the one who has been prosecuted, you know. It's not the war criminals. Oh, that's trial. Yeah.

I actually, I actually went to Westminster. Oh, did you? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Just to sort of observe and sort of to see because obviously, you know, as a filmmaker, I wanted to sort of see for myself. And it is, I mean, several people there and other lawyers as well,

they simply weren't even related to the case, expressed the same opinion that, you know, the arrest of people for intracommunal critique through the use of terms such as coconut or Uncle Tom or, you know, that it's absurd that it's probably unlawful than what needs to happen is a case, and judgments to declare it to be so, so that CPS and police policy has changed.

I mean, what was most absurd at the court of Wednesday it was that the police made several war arrests for people who had made exact replicas of the original banner that Mariah had, which is a sort of clearly a satirical one. So, you know, the echoes are there. I mean, and again, in the same way that Michael Mansfield, you know,

was both in the Badford 12, a barrister, the Badford 12 trial, and the rather than 12, I was very heartened to see that when I got to the call, the first person I was bumped into was Gareth Pierce. Obviously, we also interviewed for defiance and obviously, I mean, I saw her and I was like, you know, haven't you just freed Julian Assange?

You know, she doesn't stop. She said, I don't know how old she is, but she just simply doesn't stop. And she was right there on the case because it is an important test case. And Mariah and her husband who are, you know, I mean, I had lunch with them and their family while we waited for the hearing. And at this lovely Palestinian restaurant just down the road where the owner turned up at the court and said, right, you're all got free food and everything you need at my restaurant. We all sort of rolled down there and 20 of us had free food and the starfall came out. And, you know, I think at one point there was a sort of satirical gift of some coconuts made. And, you know, there was an incredible sort of, you know, food as a political act to solidarity.

It was very interesting. But I think, again, you know, Gareth understands that, as several people said, as I mentioned, that this is, you know, this is the thin edge of the wedge. It's a test case. It's about criminalising, you know, it's part I would suggest possibly of the anti-woke agenda that has been sort of running through our institutions under the influence of this sort of hard-right administrations that we've had for the last few years. The question is whether it will shift and change now with, you know, this coming, you know,

it's interesting having this conversation, you know, a week before the election when we're almost settled to get a change government from Conservative to Labour. question is what will happen next and whether such absurdities as the coconut trials or the emoji trials as the writer Nelson Abbey has been talking about whether those will be rode back or whether actually this sort of as I say anti-wark or sort of anti-racist kind of attitude will be rode back on I mean that's what I'm curious to see Yeah, indeed. Well, you know, one thing that I wanted to ask you about is that, you know, you've subtitled it fighting the far right. And of course, it does begin with these confrontations with racist, skinheads, the national front, you know, coming into communities like South Hall or Rick Lane and, you know, exercising a politics of exclusion and hate. But a lot of the discussion with activists from the time, And what you've just been telling us, Shahnaz, and Rajesh, as you reflect on this history and what has followed from it, is that so much of the documentary deals with confrontations with the police because, A, there was disregard when there was crimes against, you know, people from these communities.

They just didn't investigate or they refused to frame it as racial, you know, racially motivated attacks. So many of these crimes were unsolved, you know, when they did. lead to prosecutions, those who perpetrated these crimes against black and brown folk were, you know, let off with, say, fairly minor, you know, sentences. Whereas the people who were really persecuted in attempting to fight for equality and against racism were subject to, you know, vicious prosecution, routine arrests, and characterized and portrayed in the public media as the source of the problem. And so in some ways, the police and the establishment structure emerges over the course of the documentary as increasingly, you know, the problem, or at least part of the problem, in sustaining and protecting the far right, but mostly persecuting black and brown people, which leads to the case of the Bradford 12. So, you know, where the final episode, you know, does culminate with the fact that, you know, even if you haven't done anything, you know, you then can become under the source.

surveillance under charges of, you know, conspiracy and very, very severe sentences that would be part of conviction in those cases. I'm wondering if you have anything you want to say about the way in which the racism that starts from the first episode as a matter of, you know, what's happening in people's experience on the street becomes increasingly embedded in our narrative in the criminal justice system, the, you know, policing. structures and so on and how that it was used to exclude. And, you know, in this case, why it was so important to have some of these key legal victories, you know, if either of you have any thoughts about the importance of that. I mean, from a sort of dramatic point to be in terms

of producing and directing all the theories, that's a very deliberate choice. You know, it's very much, you know, what we, it's clearly that we know, in episode one, it's about confronting far right thuggery on the streets, slouching. And then by episode two, obviously, it becomes that confrontation, as you say, with police and the beginning of the, you know, sort of judicial battles as well with the cases of the Southall 3-4-2, the people who were arrested in Southall on April 79. And, you know, the way that they were treated almost sort of, you know, sort of with contempt, really, by the judicial sort of structures. And again, you know, people like Gareth were there defending them, having to hoist up to Brent Court where they were made. to go, you know, 20 miles away from South or to, you know, this sort of year and a half of fighting legal cases. And, you know, and then in episode three, as exactly as you say, and it becomes about both the sort of police, but also the state as a whole, you know, I mean, one area that, you know, it was great to be able to look at the Bradford 12th story. And one is always very

limited in time in these things with sort of TV hours being 47 minutes. But a few things we weren't able to have time to do. And one was in particular, I mean, Shannas mentioned that 1981 British Nationality Act, you know, alongside this history, there's a whole parallel history of battles against immigration injustices. You know, Tolochi and Gatorora, who was leading member of the UBYL and one of the branch of 12 and a colleague of Shannaz had been, had been, had, had, been instrumental in the campaign for the Anwar Dita campaign, which, you know, which I'm sure

she knows would tell us much more about, you know, just to give the headline, was a, a northern British Pakistani woman whose children, basically, she went back to Pakistan for a bit, had some kids there, and then when she wanted to bring them back to Britain, the home office, just refused to believe they were hers. And she had to fight a years-long battle, which activists, such as Toledo, were centrally. And, you know, alongside the battles that we're showing in the series, there was a whole layer of other battles, both around immigration, both for women's rights, and then, you know, there's a whole other series to be made about women's activism, you know, in that period and since. And that's something I'm looking at the moment and sort of putting people

trying to put together a team from, because there's a lot of these stories. Well, of course, also the Black, you know, Black liberation groups and so on that were targeted also, mangrove restaurant at Oval Four. Yes, yeah, yeah. I mean, she knows what, you know, I'm sort of... I think, I think for me, the Anuritia campaign was quite pivotal to me as a young woman for the first time. So Tolochen was involved with the campaign before I met Tolochen through the AYM. And actually, when we had the 40th commemoration for Bradford 12 a couple of years ago,

sadly, Annuars passed, I had the privilege of meeting her again after nearly four decades from a young woman going on the marches and meetings with her and stuff to seeing her again. And one of the things that she saw, she gave the story of how she came across the YM and Tilochen and people because there was a public meeting in Manchester or something and she had, so she, like Rajesh said that she'd gone back to Pakistan, Paris or Jacob, back when she was very young and then she got married there and she had her three children, two boys and a girl, I think it was,

and came back to England with her husband and then they had another child in Rochdale. But when they got on their feet to be able to bring the other children to England once they had a home and a job and everything so that they can support them, the authorities just wouldn't. She went right up to the high courts. So she said in that moment when she'd got the lease, she saw this leaflet about having a meeting and around some campaign or something like that. She said to her husband, I think I'm going to go there and see what they can do for me. And he said, what are they going to do? Because we've been right up to the High Court in the UK

and they're saying, they're not our children and we can't bring them here. What are we going to do? And she says, no, I'm going to go. And that's how she ended up going to the town hall or whatever they had the meetings and being meeting, the AYM. And that's how her case was taken on.

And Ruth Bundy was the solicitor at the time who took it on. and you know Ruth Bundy was brilliant and still is you know now in her 70s actually went all the way to Pakistan to do a whole investigation and you know world in action i mean it was an interesting moment where you know interviewing the big wives that delivered the children all sorts of everything and bringing back lots of paperwork and lots of interviews that she'd done and finally after well i think it took at least three years or something like that. I think the total was six years.

Yeah, total. Yeah. So I was, and when I met Hanwar, it was just like, it was in the kind of middle of the campaign then. And, you know, we were getting the requests from women's organizations all over the world at that time. Because, you know, despite the fact that communication was crap in terms, we only had landlines that we were using in public spaces,

because we didn't have any money about our own landlines or our own offices or anything. I think we did amazing, and I don't mean me, I mean the whole of the movement, did amazing in terms of communication and everything else.

So she had requests to speak in Russia at some women's conference and she was so nervous. She wanted one of us to go with her, but we couldn't afford to go because we didn't have enough money and the funds, you know, and all of that. And she went there.

I think for me, the powerful, where I got my inspiration meeting women like that she was an ordinary woman just like my eldest sister or something who's now in early 70s like Hanwar would have been

if she was still alive just ordinary Pakistani woman who was fiercely and defiantly fighting for these children to be reunited with her and rightly so they were her children I mean I just had to look at them

when they arrived and we met them But they were their children, and you can't believe, you know, how the powers be just was doing, you know, trying to keep the children away and not believing this young woman that they were her children. I mean, now we've got DNA testing and everything. We didn't have that there. But I think for me that was a pivotal thing. Just to remind you, actually, that's what in the end actually clinched it. Because what happened is, world in action. Ruth Fundy, I think, helped to introduce a.

the campaign to a producer of World of Action. They went off, made this program, including going to Pakistan, where they did the DNA test. And they came back and they put the show on the air and made the evidence, including the DNA tests, available to the... Yeah, and I forgot about that, yes. And it was so embarrassing that I think within like a day or 48 hours. I think it was the next day, actually, the very next day.

The Home Secretary himself said, well, this is a total injustice. We have to look into this because it becomes. such a scandal by being on sort of mainstream television when they were still only three channels. So it was a huge national sort of debate. So it was very interesting, I thought that. And then, you know, that was one of the earliest

uses where DNA evidence was like, well, look, they're her children. And it just caused embarrassment. So it's interesting, I think, from a sort of thinking about it from both a film perspective and a public sort of perspective and an activist perspective, that sometimes, despite her exhausting all the legal evidence, the

thing that actually worked was the power of embarrassment you know yeah and also she became a well she became a well-known name everywhere you know

and she was a brilliant speaker I mean anybody she was really powerful speaker I mean she's inspired me loads you know I you know a wonderful woman and she's left a great legacy to say don't give up

then I mean her story of saying I turned up at the town hall with this leaflet and said right you guys are saying you can do all this what you're going to do for me I've been to the I thought and I've been everywhere else.

You know, it's quite an inspiring story. For me, I think those earlier campaigns, so another local campaign was a Gary Pemberton campaign. Gary, I knew well because he was a security guard of the college. I was with my air levels and he got, there was

an attack, the student union place and he got arrested when he was trying to, you know, because it was a black Caribbean guy in his mid-40s at the time. And In talking, going back to, I think we were talking about surveillance and everything, what was interesting is

that, so these campaigns then, when you win them, so we won the Gary Pemberton campaign as well, and everything, and when you win them as a young person, you kind of, it really does inspire you to think, actually, I can make a difference. And I

really give all credit to my activist day. or inspiring me to go further and further and we'll talk about my career later is how you know that you can create change and I've seen colleagues and I've seen, you know, the same kids that were grown up now in Bradford

still haven't got that how you can inspire change. You're just sitting there and so what can I do? What's the point of my vote? What's the point of me saying anything? What's the point of this? I think there is a point. and I think we have to have more and more of these stories but talking about surveillance

when I got picked up to be questions for the Bradford 12 it's like they had there was photos like big photos it was outside the magistrates court you know when the Gary Pemberton campaign

it was going on you know various marches and stuff so they were we were under their microscope. We were a group of young people, the AYM and UBYL, that they saw as anti-establishment and pushing for change not just sort of, not just challenging the National Front or whatever, but now it was challenging its system. And I was shocked. I thought, where did they get these photos from with me being at the front or with a megaphone or whatever? I was saying to Ken, because Ken's making the film and Barrick, I said, they've got loads of Bradford police.

We need to get them from their archives or something. They probably burn them or throw them away, I don't know. But I think to me, the Anwar Ditter campaign was quite a change in my thinking and giving me inspiration and thinking, I can do this. Anwar is a traditional woman, you know, housewife she was and everything. and here I am growing up here or less I can do it, you know. And I think that's really good. And then, you know, meeting people like I'm Rick Wilson and other Asian women. Then I learned more about the Brunswick strike and, you know,

just seeing Asian women in those positions where they defiantly, really, really. And we're really resilient in, you know, like you said, with annual data, it took six years. You need a certain amount of resilience. because actually in the communities as a young woman and what was seen by the communities all while you know you need to shut up and stay at home type of thing why are you challenging they're going to make it worse they're going to make immigration even worse if we are challenging it so anything so at the time in the community you weren't seen as an inspiring woman

all these women who were older than me you know it was really really well really great that they were out there. And immigration was terrible at the time because in the 70s they began to then stop people coming in and families were split, like animals and stuff. And also things like, I don't know, in the research

you've done, there was like virginity tests for women coming go over from the Indian subcontinent. They'd come over as fiancys and at the airport they were given virginity tests and if they failed they were sent back with, you know, I've never researched it, but I'm sure some of those got killed when they went back because of honour killings and stuff, you know, because it was such a disgrace

to be sent back that you're not a virgin. And those were, you know, it was campaigning by a lot of the, you know, black and Asian feminists up and down the country that fought to get rid of those regulations that were happening. I think people now, when I speak to young, people now, they have no clue what it was like in the 70s and 80s in terms of what was allowed to be done to us compared to now. You know, my deputy head saying, oh, there's no point you're doing A-levels for now because your dad will marry you off at 18, just do a medical secretarial course or something like that. It might come of use when you married. So this was the career advice that we were getting because young Asian women, the stereotyping, the assumptions that

were made all the time and decisions made about your future based on those. And then at that time you had parents who said, oh, what the teachers say is the best. You know, I had a friend, Tasnheim and her and her brothers and sisters were very bright young kids, the very, very, very bright young Asian family and her brother was told oh you might as well just apply at polytechnics when he wanted to go to university and then you know you got all straight A's and stuff mathematics and stuff I mean he's later become professor and all sorts but he was told to just apply at polytechnics as lots of young Asian people were if we if they did want us to go to university our parents would say oh well they know the best

So people's, you know, life decisions were made on all these racist assumptions about who we were and what our lives were and stuff, instead of helping us to reach our potential and, you know, helping us to negotiate that with our parents. In fact, it was the opposite. And I saw a lot of young Asian women of my era, you know, the parents said, oh, but the teachers think, you know, I'm going to do well, So you might as well leave and I'll hit you might be distiller by the way.

That reminds me actually of another observation I had and I wanted to get your thoughts and sense of it is something in the, that seems so clear and is vividly portrayed in the documentary is how much this was a youth movement. And that generational shift, and you referred to it several times, Chechnaz, when you were mentioning that the early stages, that of course there was pressure even from within the community by the, the elders and those who would be, you know, trying to cooperate and not, you know, cause problems, right? And seeing themselves as very vulnerable in this, in this society and in this situation, that there was a real difference between that perspective and these emergent groups and these mushrooming of Asian youth movement. I mean, it seemed like almost all the big cities ended up having, you know, these branches. I mean, there were their own independent organizations, but the South Hall youth movement wasn't, you know, was the beginning of something

quite big that spread around the country. And it seemed to really catch fire with a different generation. And I'm wondering if you could maybe talk a little bit, because I think the reason why I'm mentioning that is the hope that I see today is exactly in the youth in these protests. We're in this era of Palestine solidarity, and it's really being led by the youths who are rebelling against the world that they've been given very much like what was happening in your time. And the other thing that really reminds me between the two is the kind of solidarity across different groups. And that since this period of the 70s and 80s, there's been a lot of fragmentation, it seems, you know, different religious communities, different. ethnic communities, whereas there's such a clear focus of Asian youth movement and even also the politics of being black, which isn't exactly defined in the way that people might think

it would be defined. It's a kind of broad political category. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how people saw those connections so naturally, you know, that are, I think, an important and interesting, you know, lesson for us today and also really kind of genuinely resonates with what's happening today in terms of youth and solidarity in the kinds of resistance movements that are emerging now. I suppose the connections were whether it was through the campaigns or, you know, lose terms, call it case work that we might have taken on us the connections were that people had similar experiences when they heard about these cases going on

whether it's the ANWDITA, there was probably many ANWRIDTAs out there that we weren't aware of. There was many Gary Pemberton's out there whether they were, you know, whether they were African Caribbean or Asian or whatever. So I think the connections then came like people could relate to those experiences

and relate to all the racism that was going on that we were making aware at public meetings and talking about these things because, you know, we had lots of meetings within the communities and stuff like that. So I think it is about, you know, I realised when I started to go out the world through my, you know, activism in the early days

that actually there wasn't just me, Shadaz Ali, sat there thinking, oh my God, I don't fit in, I don't, you know, what's happening or whatever. I want to do more. I want to go, you know, out there into the world. There was, I met other young Asian women through this journey up and down the country because some of them were a bit older than me so I could hold my hand and kind of

show me and connect me to different things. So I think it sort of grew like that. It was just like, you know, growing and growing and connecting and see. that actually there's so many similarities, like I said earlier on, similarities, whether I was this shade or that shade or from a different part geographically around the world, we had similar experiences within as individuals, then our families and then our communities. And that's what united us all. And I think the more of these stories are told, the more people can connect. It's like with

Palestine, you know, it's like more and more connections have been made. And I think in my lifetime now, this time, I've seen more people connect with the cause than ever before. And that's, and it's not because BBC is doing it or whatever. It is, you know, through the social media, which is great now and through all of that. And through going on demos, it was absolutely fantastic last weekend the Palestine Solidarity Group in Sheffield, which is very strong and stuff, did

Palestine run, which they do every year in conjunction with Gargzer run. And they did it over a whole weekend. And, you know, I saw so many people from different walks of life. And there was two young women that came from Rotram. They must be like

19, 20, to speak to my husband who's very active in the Palestine Solidarity Group in Sheffield and organising the marches and they organised these young women had organised a march in Rotterham the week before which was really really well attended and they were all excited about doing the run in the park and doing all of that and really you could feel the you know the inspiration in them so it's happening still and it's really good and it is about collaborating I think in Sheffield for example again using the Palestine issue at the moment

as a collaboration is like because so many different groups were doing different things Muslim groups and we've got a big Somali Yemeni community here as well as well as Pakistani community we've got so many different

groups they were all doing things separately but then you know last quite a few months ago early into the the genocide that's going on they all met together and talked about how they could collaborate

and support each other and they do they support each other's events and publicise those events and sometimes come together and it's great. I'd echo that. Yeah, I'd echo everything for you and as it's saying and I think it's important, yes, there was a sort of sense of which there was a generational shift

but I think it's also important not to fall into an oversimplistic binary because it's not that the first generation of people who immigrants who came from South Asian communities were just sort of meek and mild. I mean, yes, there was a tendency to be a bit more sort of keep your heads on, but there were also

very radical people work, you know, there were people at the Indian Workers Association. Yeah, Prabha, exactly, Vishnu Sharma, you know, it wasn't, you know, in the same way that, you know, young activists might look at, you know, for example, the three of us in middle age. And, you know, hopefully we also couldn't be sort of, you know, sort of necessarily sort of put into a neat box. And I think it was the same there. There was a lot of cross-generational, cross-group, cross-minority group, cross-minority group, cross political causes, whether it's between feminists, you know, the people who turned up on the steps, the protest for the Bradford 12 at 1982 at the trial came from all walks of life, from feminists, black, you know, what were those protests like? I mean, I've seen the footage announced, but I mean, it's interesting when you go through and you're making a film and

you sit and you go through all this archive and then you get to talk to people and obviously what we were trying to do was sort of make it feel as immersive as possible and urgent and make the material feel, give the viewers an experience and actually sort of feeling like they were there. And that's partly how we should have tried to find people where, you know, if we're interviewing someone in the present day, we should have also able to cut back to them back in the time

and go back and water during the archive. But I must say, working in that way leaves you as a filmmaker just constantly. I've got so many questions I can ask you to answer about what those marches were like. I mean, practically speaking, you know, kind of keeping the pickets out there going for nine weeks, day in, day out, and having the big ones on a weekly basis, where everybody came from London and everywhere. People like, you know, we had defence campaigns pretty much in the big cities like Birmingham, London and stuff. We had trade unions and all sorts.

I can remember just the year before leading up to the campaign just going from one trade union meeting to another speaking and stuff I mean but being out there was it was it felt good because we knew that they could when we were chanting that they could hear us in the courtroom that kept me going every day thinking they can hear my voice from out here and that was really really important and then keeping people updated or a daily basis or a weekly basis was really important and virtually you had to

you know write the leaflets and stuff and there was lots and lots of people that supported us somebody who was still very active in Leeds Max Farrow and he was like a journalist and stuff you know all the other campaigns and Seresh and there was a whole lot of other people that used to come every week and actually then end up staying for a whole week with us to support us

locally and students again coming out because we've got the two universities in Leeds, Bradford all of that, people from far away we also built links with like the Liverpool A campaign and other campaigns that were going on at the time and the Liverpool lot had turned up as well

in solidarity every week you know it was it was just fantastic hard but fantastic At the same time, the hard bit was finding a place to stay every night in Leeds, because our comrades who were students, and them days it used to be really, really strict,

we'd get thrown out after a few days when it had been known that we're sleeping on their block. But, yeah, it was a great time. And I think, again, going back to the point about how the movement happens in the communities is that I think winning the Bradford 12 was great but during that process I think there was a change certainly in the community

and certainly in my family as well the way that they were perceiving it from the beginning how it was solved like these are petty criminals and my dad was saying I told you not to hang around with them you know all of that sort of stuff to actually really understanding what they stood for And actually, you know, that they, you know, they stood for justice and to defend their community

that the police were not doing at all. And I think that was really, really powerful. Yeah. I mean, in a way, that's what we've tried to do with the series as well, actually. It's a sort of, in a way it's a sort of a mirror of the way that that campaign and that case was fought in that we wanted to bring the lived experience into people's living rooms through their TV. And that was the same legal strategy that was taken in the Bradford 12 trial, and also in the mother of 12 trial, to bring the lived experience of a community in front of a jury of your peers

and to let them start based on natural human notions of natural justice. And that in a way inspired the way we thought about structuring the series as well, to sort of rely on the fact, you know, we've only spoken to people who were giving first-hand testimony because they were there. And that approach allows us to really just sort of kind of, you know, that's the way the power is. It's in the testimony of people you were fighting these battles,

such as shunas. And as she says, you know, while we could look back and see it as the heroism, it really was, at the time, a lot of those people would have been treated with sort of censure. We were not seen as heroes. No, I'm very sorry, but I've got to go to a school of viewing of a film.

So I'm going to leave you at this stage. But it's been very great to talk to you. And I look forward to here. It's been wonderful. Maybe you can just tell the listeners how to keep in touch with your work. I will certainly tell people where to see defiance, but how to keep in touch. Yeah, I'm on Twitter as Rajesh Thind. I'm on Insta as Pindu Gays, P-I-N-D-U-G-A-Z.

and I've got a website, Rajeshthin.com. We really appreciate it so much, Rajesh, and it's wonderful work. Everyone should go out and watch this documentary series, a lot to learn from it. Thank you.

And thanks very much, for joining us. It's been fascinating talking to. I look forward to talking to you lots more. Thank you. Thanks, Vice. Bye. Well, listeners, again,

just to plug the film, the documentary series, It really is a very vivid. It's wonderful to hear from you, Shahnaz, about how much there is a correspondence between your experience of that time and the way the film really feels. And to see from Rajesh that that's actually what they were after

is really platforming and building the film around the voices and experiences of people who were there who were involved in these struggles. That's, you know, indeed very inspired. There was one conclusion. I hope the picture film, the Bradford 12, which is currently being edited

and hopefully launched. So we'll kind of give a much more detailed of what happened because some of the Bradford 12 will be speaking and stuff. Absolutely. That'll be a more forensic account. Hopefully like defiance of, you know, I think the idea is to kind of use that as an instrument to start the discussions and debates and bring them to present

day and what we can do. And so it'll be really good. And indeed, indeed. You know, defiance, the last episode ends with a question to one of the people who were interviewed over the course of the series, Pritpak Sahota, about like, well, what lessons should you draw? And it was such an interesting conclusion to the film because she said, well, what lessons could I really draw? You shouldn't trust the police. You shouldn't trust the politicians. You should really just work on defending yourselves. I mean, you know, and she said, well, there can't be any lessons it happened to us. And so I'm just wondering if you have any other thoughts or reactions to that. I mean, I do feel this history is so important. And we've talked about some of the correspondences

between that era and what's happening now. So I just wonder if you have any sort of concluding thoughts about what that history and recalling it means to you. I know you said it really takes me back when watching that film. And I have to say that that was also something that I have relatives who are here in the UK. And I asked them thinking that, of course, they must have watched this amazing documentary series. I said, have you watched it and said, well, we want to, but we have to really be prepared for it? because it was so intense and it'll just bring up so many difficult memories.

And I want to thank you for sharing those because they are painful. But what do you think we can take from it that would be positive? I think just to go back in terms of me as a person and all of that history and the impact that it had on me was in terms of what I did as my career in every kind of a role that I got, you know, equality was at the heart of whatever I did. And, you know, often people going to large institutions, like, for example, the NHS, I think people, most of people don't know this, but, you know, it's got, it's the largest employer after the Chinese army. It was the third, but the Indian Railway broken up and franchised everything. So,

you know, I think at the moment, 1.3 million. It used to be 1.4 million. In the National Health service, right. Service. It's a massive institution, massive. And in terms of, you know, service provision and then workforce. And again, I think going back, you know, I ended up in working in one of the first jobs. There was in Camden Council as a campaigns officer. So, of course, I took all my activist campaigning stuff in there.

But what I quickly learned when I was in the structure was actually the end. that drives local authorities and how decisions are made, that's what I started to become interested in. Most people my age, you know, in the early 20s, weren't interested. They just did their day job and they went. And I was looking at, well, if we're doing this campaign, I was doing the women's signing on campaign. It was one of my first challenges because women didn't sign on, didn't get the national insurance contributions. Behold, when it came to pension age, they didn't get their rightful pensions and stuff. And I went to work in, in Camden

with basically working class white women and Asian women Bangladeshi women in particular but again it was like how do you tick that all of what you find all the evidence out there how do you motivate people to

but also how do you then you know really get systemic change in a massive organisation and I think that's where I took the activism to a level in organisation where I started to build my movements in those organisations years ago when I was in the North West as the director of inclusion, equality, and here arrives in the North West, one of the chief execs said to me, he says, you're building a movement here, Shana's, about change and systemic change, which is about inclusiveness, whether it's accessing services and then it may, you know, tailor-made to you or

needs or accessing in terms of workforce and then development within that. And this case after case in the NHS around institutional racism all the time, every single new tool that came out, even medical revalidation was the last national policy that came out. I could see straight away how it was going to be used as a tool to discriminate against nearly 40% of our BAME doctors and stuff. you know, anything that comes out, institutions are so good at using it as a tool. You know, COVID, for example, COVID, you know, because there's systemic racism in the system,

it was so easy to have all the same staff at the front line, you know, and lo and behold, you know, they lived then in large, you know, families and stuff. And I just, I went to the graveyard just a few days ago in Bradford. Sadly, I lost one of my young nephews recently. And it's full. And when you start looking at the graves, the period of COVID, this was the Muslim part of the graveyard. There's hundreds and hundreds of young people that have died in COVID. And I remember saying to, there was a calling for funding for academics.

and Professor Anandhi Ramam Moufti, she's the partner of Tariq Mahmoud as well. Anandhi's been an activist herself and she said, what can we do, Shana's because she, around the NHS and because I know the NHS and she's cultural and media studies professor. So we came up with a project called Nursing Narratives, and that's worth looking at.

that was all about documenting the experiences or BAME nurses. We couldn't look at the whole workforce because it would be too big. But again, how they were threatened, how they were put on rotors and forced to work without equipment, without anything, you know, really terrifying situations. And it all, so again, it was, it's already there. So it's all systemic in the system that something like COVID comes and it's so easy. than to most of the people that dropped dead in, were BAME in the NHS.

If the first few headlines, I don't know if you have watched them, you know, you kept seeing these consultants, but our consultants who were dropping dead and nurses and stuff. So for me, I think going back to what... I'll just, just want to point for non-UK listeners, BAME is black, Asian and minority ethnic, so yes. I still struggle using those of brown and black or maim because for me

I grew up with the word black which was uniting us it was a political you know it wasn't a descriptive it was political and I feel well because people used to often ask me

how can you say you're a black woman I said I'm black I'm Asian I'm Pakistani I'm Bradfordian I'm all those things right but you know so sometimes I use BAME uncomfortably and sometimes I was like black uncomfortably so in terms of what can what was your question again about how we can yeah take something positive from this history to use for ourselves

in our struggles I use the history daily you know it's part of me who I am and how I perceive things how I see things all the time and collaboration I think is really really really key it's not We can't afford to. I think I said this. When I first moved, I was living and working in London, and then I met my partner, Javid, and he did move to Sheffield. He's an academic. And then I ended up kind of moving to Sheffield.

But one of the first things that I realized, politically, when I started to, there was different groups. We had the Black Justice Project and various other projects, and people were sort of talking about who could be on these projects. Who, you know, and the definition was so small. And I used to say, you know, we can't even find, you know, it's a bit struggle to find five activists in the same, you know, town or whatever. So we can't be.

We need to collaborate. We need to get other people involved. And sometimes you've got to think out of the box about who might collaborate with you as well. And it is selling your vision, your narrative, in a way. that people and especially young people now, and I think us old activists have to think of how we engage the young activists who are out there. We've seen it now, you know,

with Black Lives Matters, with the Palestinian movement that's going on around the world. And I think it is about collaboration and thinking out of the box and, you know, coming up with a more common sort of common goals that unite us all rather than very specific and I think sometimes

you know I think my daughter went to London a few months ago and she said they got in a taxi and it was a black taxi driver I think African Caribbean and they started to talk about the Palestine thing and he was sort of saying well why would I want to be involved in the Palestine movement because he sees himself the black African

and what's it got to do with me. So again, it's how we have these conversations. I often get in taxes, since my younger days and have these conversations and get people start thinking differently. And whether it's through groups, I mean, now I'm not so savvy with all the social media and everything else and all of that.

But now there's so many forums, how you can engage with people and connect. Certainly, maybe not engage, but connect with different people. I still think the inspiration you get from a real public meeting that's happening

that is not the same as, you know. You can't replace the experience of marching and struggling together, you know, yeah, that's right. I just kind of brought that out and I hope more people watch it

because those marches it brought out the same, you know, that atmosphere that was on the march on that time. which people are feeling with the Palestine marches at the moment and Black Lives Matters back in the day but it's again is how do we continue how do we sustain this

to me is always an issue whether it's you know organisational you know sustainability or individual sustainability and resilient how do we keep it on the agenda and related to what's happening now. And I think like I was saying, you know, Rotherham 12 happened like 30 plus

years after the Bradford 12, but the parallels were so there right in front of our faces. And as they are now with the Palestinian marches and demos and everything that resilience happening up and down the country internationally. So I think collaboration, listening. And also, I think around the racism part of it, I think our friends and colleagues, white friends and colleagues, you know, on all of us who are more privileged

to recognise that there's a privilege and that's why there's a system going on, you know, for hundreds and hundreds of years. And I feel a bit sad sometimes when we're still having those discussions. I've got privilege. I just think,

But you get it yet. It's there. It's there in black and white. So, yeah, I think listening and collaborating and connecting is the big, and stories connect people big time. Absolutely. And I mean, I think people listening to your story are going to benefit greatly and connect to it with these experiences and the insights that you shared with us today. we're very grateful. I feel like we've, of course, only just scratched the surface and one could continue to really think about and talk about all of these amazing events

and why they're useful for us today. But I'm wondering if maybe you can tell people, you said you're not really much on social media, but however, people may be able to connect with you. Yeah, I'm not that active on social media. But, you know, people don't get in touch with me. LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, my Instagram, yeah, so people do... Maybe you can tell us what we can forward to in terms of the other film that you're involved with that should be coming out in the future.

It should be coming out sometime in the autumn. I haven't spoken to Ken recently. I'm going to go try to view it. I'm really excited about that because everybody kind of talks about Bradford 12, but it's never really being told. from the Bradford 12 perspective, of who's around. Sadly, we've lost some of those comrades as well, very young. But I also, I think when we were, when, you know, when people talk about Bradford, they always just focus on the Bradford 12, but there's so much more to Bradford and the history and leading up to the Bradford 12. But post-Bradford-12, we've had the 1995 riots,

we've had the 2001 riots you know so much that happened after the Bradford 12 which was obviously linked to it there was a you know a timeline but it'd be good to speak about some of that and

the collaborations with IWL and everybody else I think they were a fantastic group and they're still going and I keep reminding everybody in most of the cities as well I mean yeah there's so hopeful

Hopefully the film will be able to address some of those things. And I hope that everybody watches it. And I hope we can have these sorts of discussions post the film. Well, I look forward to seeing that film and encourage listeners to look out for it. And hopefully we can have you back on to talk about it at that time. That would be wonderful. Yeah. Well, listeners, my co-host, Henry, wasn't able to join us today,

but you can follow him at Huck, H-U-C-K-1-9-5 on Twitter. You can follow me at Adnan H-Husain, and be sure to also subscribe to Guerrilla History and my other podcast, The M-Gh-L-I-S, about the Middle East Islamic World, Muslim diasporic culture, wherever you get your podcast, you can help support guerrilla history

by joining on patreon. com slash guerrilla history 2Rs, 2Ls, and follow the show on Twitter at Corrilla underscore pot. Also 2Rs, 2Ls. And again, just one big thank you to Shahnaz Ali and Rajesh Tind, talking about defiance, fighting the far right, a three-part documentary series that's available on Channel 4 in the UK and on their YouTube channel. And again, we look forward to learning much more. about the Bradford 12, so we'll look out for that film coming in the future. Indeed. Until next

time, listeners, solidarity. Thank you.