When we as an administration speak of pride in our borough, we refer of course to our facilities, our services, the unique character of our towns and villages and most importantly of all, of course, our people.
However on Monday, in the company of the Leader of the Council Peter Thompson who also leads for the borough on Community Cohesion, I took part in a presentation which left me immensely proud of our officer team of specialists in Equalities, Community Cohesion and Community Safety which is quite possibly second to none in the entire country.
The occasion was a presentation to the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) in support of Hounslow's application as a borough for Beacon status in Community Cohesion.
So often these events become exercises in box-ticking, with wearisome speeches about performance indicators and targets which leave one with an impression of subject matter that has been thoroughly digested but not quite really understood.
When it comes to our Community Cohesion work there is not a question of any lack of understanding, nor of clarity of vision as to where we want to be headed. For us it is not about getting a financial reward or a star in our merit book, but about eradicating genuine disadvantage and disengagement and building a complete sense of unity and togetherness in a borough where Everybody Matters.
As well as the Liberal Democrat Leader Andrew Dakers, who has always been supportive, I was grateful to Labour councillor Nisar Malik, who led for his party in the absence of his Group Leader Jagdish Sharma and who very graciously paid tribute to the work of the new administration in building Community Cohesion, as well as to the previous administration of course for the work that it too did in the field. Newly elected in 2006, Councillor Malik has sometimes had a rough time of it in the Council Chamber as a result of one or two comments made which could perhaps have been better worded, but I've long believed him to be one of the stars amongst the current crop of Labour councillors as well as himself being a very likable and decent guy.
Obviously one of the factors that will determine the success or otherwise of our Beacon status application will be the calibre of the opposition, and that is something over which we clearly have no control. Nonetheless I am happy that, even if in the event we are not successful, we have assembled a team in Hounslow that really is going to do the business in building cohesion in our borough in the coming months and years.
Showing posts with label Everybody Matters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Everybody Matters. Show all posts
Saturday, 8 November 2008
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Seeing the Bigger Picture
By mutual agreement Sunday for me is "family day", and the two most recent members of my family like nothing more than to spend it sprawled on the settee watching the television, or doing something similarly unadventurous. So when I travelled to Gunnersbury Park for the London Mela I did so alone, and on the understanding that my visitation would be a short one.
Organisers of the London Mela describe the event as "the biggest festival of South Asian music and culture to take place outside of the Indian sub-continent". The London Evening Standard takes the view that it is "a secret to be shared with the wider community". However it is described, each summer 75,000 people converge on Brentford for an afternoon of festivity, food and fun.
The Hospitality Tent is always a mixed blessing. It is very rude to turn down free food, however having consumed an appropriately sociable quantity of it one is invariably less disposed to sample the various dishes on sale around the field, notwithstanding the lure of the aggressively aromatic spices which make them rather difficult not to notice.
Some of my (non-ICG) colleagues on the council are a little cooler about the Mela than I am. The naked cynicism of the old council administration which lauded the Mela yet refused to recognise St. George's Day on the grounds that it was "racist" - a stance which, insultingly, it believed would impress the Asian community and thereby lock in its votes - has left scars which will take time to heal. There are some people, people whose commitment to cohesion and integration is no less than mine, who see the Mela in that context and with that memory in mind, as an expression of cultural triumphalism.
Speaking personally I take a much more optimistic view. For the Mela, in fact, places South Asian culture within the context of a Western environment. The layout of the stalls, which purveyed a welcome mixture of ethnic and indigenous wares, was more akin to that of a London market than an Eastern bazaar. Even the music which blared out rather too loudly from the huge stage under the direction of the DJ "Crash" (last year's Master of Ceremonies, the hilariously named "Abdul Cool", obviously had a prior engagement) came across as a curious blend of traditional bhangra and that repetitive rapping stuff that the kids seem to go for today.
On the bus going home it struck me, from a Community Cohesion perspective, what an opportunity we had missed a couple of years back with all that pernicious St. George's Day nonsense. Imagine 75,000 people attending a St. George's Day festival, bedecked with English flags and populated by British people of all cultural and ethnic backgrounds, with food, music and dance from South Asia, China, the Caribbean, as well as from the UK. A festival which would flaunt the proud Englishness of the diverse society which we enjoy today. What better way could there possibly be of putting across the message that we are an integrated community, contemptuous of prejudice and disharmony, diverse yet cohesive, brought together by the common values that unite us in a society in which Everybody Matters?
It isn't rocket science, but sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness railing unheard against the powerful but ultimately false dichotomy of diversity and integration.
A St. George's Day festival to celebrate multi-cultural Englishness in the 21st century. I wonder whether anybody will have the courage to suggest it?
Organisers of the London Mela describe the event as "the biggest festival of South Asian music and culture to take place outside of the Indian sub-continent". The London Evening Standard takes the view that it is "a secret to be shared with the wider community". However it is described, each summer 75,000 people converge on Brentford for an afternoon of festivity, food and fun.
The Hospitality Tent is always a mixed blessing. It is very rude to turn down free food, however having consumed an appropriately sociable quantity of it one is invariably less disposed to sample the various dishes on sale around the field, notwithstanding the lure of the aggressively aromatic spices which make them rather difficult not to notice.
Some of my (non-ICG) colleagues on the council are a little cooler about the Mela than I am. The naked cynicism of the old council administration which lauded the Mela yet refused to recognise St. George's Day on the grounds that it was "racist" - a stance which, insultingly, it believed would impress the Asian community and thereby lock in its votes - has left scars which will take time to heal. There are some people, people whose commitment to cohesion and integration is no less than mine, who see the Mela in that context and with that memory in mind, as an expression of cultural triumphalism.
Speaking personally I take a much more optimistic view. For the Mela, in fact, places South Asian culture within the context of a Western environment. The layout of the stalls, which purveyed a welcome mixture of ethnic and indigenous wares, was more akin to that of a London market than an Eastern bazaar. Even the music which blared out rather too loudly from the huge stage under the direction of the DJ "Crash" (last year's Master of Ceremonies, the hilariously named "Abdul Cool", obviously had a prior engagement) came across as a curious blend of traditional bhangra and that repetitive rapping stuff that the kids seem to go for today.
On the bus going home it struck me, from a Community Cohesion perspective, what an opportunity we had missed a couple of years back with all that pernicious St. George's Day nonsense. Imagine 75,000 people attending a St. George's Day festival, bedecked with English flags and populated by British people of all cultural and ethnic backgrounds, with food, music and dance from South Asia, China, the Caribbean, as well as from the UK. A festival which would flaunt the proud Englishness of the diverse society which we enjoy today. What better way could there possibly be of putting across the message that we are an integrated community, contemptuous of prejudice and disharmony, diverse yet cohesive, brought together by the common values that unite us in a society in which Everybody Matters?
It isn't rocket science, but sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness railing unheard against the powerful but ultimately false dichotomy of diversity and integration.
A St. George's Day festival to celebrate multi-cultural Englishness in the 21st century. I wonder whether anybody will have the courage to suggest it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)