Bury Teahouse Discussion

From Refuge To Freedom, Thursday 28th August 2008

This session involved a group of refugees and people seeking asylum, mainly women and from a variety of backgrounds, who meet at the Mosses Community Centre, and took place at The Met performing arts venue in the centre of Bury.

I felt this was a really interesting and strong discussion though it was difficult for various reasons. For example, the topics were emotionally difficult for the participants, travel to the venue created logistical problems (I wonder if the session would have been better at the Mosses community centre where the group normally meet?) and the sense of creating something from complex, personal and tough subject matter in such a tiny amount of time was ambitious.

From an initial stimulus from me, the group of about ten participants began by discussing the length of time they have to wait for a decision from the Home Office and the conditions of their lives and how thay can deal with it during that time. There were a range of very moving accounts along with some participants who found it too emotionally difficult to recount their feelings and experiences.

The question arose as to whether they could feel able to raise their concerns and issues, which felt impossible for fear of being penalised. Outside Manchester as a centre there are no public expressions of support, and the tone of the localities in the outer boroughs defaults to an assumed anti-refugee mentality. The possibilities of a collective voice in combination with local supporters seemed to be worthwhile, such as a well-attended demonstration or dedicated public festival (this theme was also previously mentioned by Ray Collett at the Bolton Teahouse discussion). A smaller and simpler possibility would be to create some imagery which could be displayed or distributed, and a brief workshop exercise involving photographer Miselo Kunda was squeezed in at the end (after most participants had left) to try and explore this.

The final discussion which created the theme for this was to do with dignity. The participants felt that the bigger issues were out of reach, yet there were state practices that they felt simply unnecessary and designed to undermine them as human beings, removing any sense of dignity they may have. For example, shopping vouchers restrict their shopping to just one supermarket, and mean they can not make use of good prices between different shops which should be a basic facility for people on such low incomes. To give them cash would make no difference to the Home Office (in fact may be cheaper) and would make a big difference to them. The effect is to make them feel second class or lower, and this affects their own self image and sense of worth. Another example was regular signing at a police station, making them feel criminalised. They felt raising such things could be useful beginnings to try to effect some influence, and the theme of dignity became the basis for the workshop exercise.

Despite the various difficulties, I felt that to try and develop an expression from a combination of the personal and collective experiences of the group informed by wider contexts is a valuable process and would lead to worthwhile outputs for the participants as well. Unfortunately, I have a concern that as a one-off session it may have come across to the participants as the same discussions they have had before and with no worthwhile benefit from it. Sue Arnall may well clarify this for us. When some initial images are shared with the group, they may give some ideas as to how such discussions could develop into worthwhile statements and expressions that can have some valuable influence, but of course this ideally would need further development. KC

Trafford Teahouse Discussion

Waterside Art Centre, 27th August 2008

"Is Black History also White History?"





A poem form the comments book:

KEEP HOPE ALIVE
WE MUST LEARN AND STRIVE
TRUE, HUNGRY FOR PEACE
ALL HISTORIES MUST BE RELEASED
TO HAVE PRIDE AND STAND STRONG
WE MUST KNOW WHERE WE BELONG
IT'S IMPORTANT TO BE OPEN, TALK
WITH LOVE AND PEACE WE MUST WALK
HAIL TO THE FUTURE, LEARN FROM THE PAST
LET'S TOGETHER CREATE A PRAYER THAT WILL LAST.

Anthony Downer


A comment from Dominique:

Thank you for inviting me to join the TEA-HOUSE discussion. Although late, I really enjoyed the various conversations held with newly-met people and would like to share with you + the rest of the group the following:

When Lilli mentioned the fact she came from Austria, I told her of the Austrian community and of Sigmund Freud. And I wondered Lilli if you would like to share your thoughts with the group on hearing that in the 19th century there was an Austrian community in Manchester + Sigmund Freud lived in Manchester. A key shaper of our culture, Sigmund Freud had family residing in Manchester + visited the city on several occasions. In 1875 he spent a couple of months at 12 Green St, Ardwick (Manchester). I think that his family wanted him to abandon his dreams of a scientific career + join the family business.The connection is quite interesting, as Sigmund Freud has such an impact on the way we define ourselves and his focus on memories + totems. Also interesting was the fact that he was a collector of African Art.

I left Sale wondering when we will be ready to drop the colourlabels but present History in a way relevant (+attractive) to us all? Black or White, History is ours. History is the records of our migrations + holds the clue to our respective journeys. Questions such as: Where do I come from? or words such as: origins, genealogy, emotions carry the idea of movement from one point to another. Speaking of movement, the history of the Manchester Ship Canal is absolutely amazing as it links Manchester to the rest of the world. For example, thanks to the Manchester Ship Canal, Manchester became UK's banana capital. Anyway, I will end this email by talking about green tea which was exported from Manchester to Morocco. Tea is an interesting commodity as it plays a prominent role not only in Black, White or local histories; embedded in its history are other histories. I guess my point is that in order to attract the young + the new audiences and encourage them to engage with history, we should consider using a non-racialised approach. This could be an efficient political tool. So far when it comes to diversity, the focus has been on differences, it is probably high time we ask ourselves whether we shouldn't develop alternative strategies.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Very best wishes: Dominique

Oldham Teahouse Discussion, 19 July: 'Towards Tomorrow', a play by Peshkar Theatre, followed by 'Journeys and Fiction'

Towards Tomorrow, a play by Peshkar Theatre

followed by

Oldham Teahouse Discussion -
Journeys and Fiction: Ways of exploring diaspora experience

With Tajinder Singh Hayer, in partnership with Peshkar Theatre
Coldhurst Community Centre
Rochdale Rd
Oldham
OL1 2HR

The Oldham Teahouse was set up in partnership with Peshkar Theatre and was held in continuation of a performance of Towards Tomorrow, a play based on stories told by first generation migrants from Asia.

The discussion looked at artistic ways of exploring the experience of diaspora, leaving a country and belonging. The actors and writers of the play explained the creative process of writing a fictional play about Asian people coming to live in the UK in the 1970ies based on stories of immigrants. They interviewed a number of people, often family members or family friends, and recorded these interviews. They then came together once a week to listen to the recordings and collaboratively write the play, using improvisation as one of the methods for collective writing. They’ve also archived all the recordings and are hoping to expand this archive in the future.

During this process, they paid attention to creating a good play based on dramatic methods and connecting their artistic ambitions to the stories they had been told without exploiting them.

The discussion evolved around the experience of interviewing and the process of collaborative writing.

Even though the interviews and play were about Asian people coming to live the UK, a lot of experiences and stories have strong similarities with stories from migrants from other than Asian countries to other countries than the UK.

Stockport Art Gallery, 12 July 2008

Is 'Britishness' getting stronger or weaker? What do idealised portrayals of Britishness in fiction, and the establishment of multicultural communities in Britain, mean for Britishness now?

This teahouse took place in the context of the exhibition, Life on Mars, at Stockport Art Gallery. The exhibition looks at the way that Sam, the 2006 television series’ protagonist, ‘experiences a total culture-shock as he grapples with his new reality – a different time and a different place where the values that define who he is are continually challenged’. With this in mind, and with the help of guest speaker Louis Kushnick of The University of Manchester’s Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resourse Centre.

Lou offered a contextualisation of ‘Britishness’ through historical and personal reference. He introduced himself and the Ahmed Iqubal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre by describing how he came to live in Manchester from America in 1963, and telling us why he now considers himself as British rather than American. Lou explained how, shortly after he had moved to Britain in 1967, a document was produced by the British government which argued that Britain did not have institutional racism. It reasoning included: that we had not had slavery in Britain itself; that there were insufficient black people in Britain for institutional racism to be possible; and that ‘the British’ are law-abiding people. Clearly, there was good reason to doubt these claims and Lou offered the example that there were specific barriers of access to council properties for black people.

Chairperson Kooj Chuhan asked, “So, what myths about Britain were in progress at the time?” Lou referred to Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech, to which Lou was the first to publicly respond. What this amounted to, Lou suggested, was race-based identity politics. Enoch Powell’s speech referred to ‘them’ and ‘us’, but considered their attitude liberal because they offered to support people who didn’t like national policy by saying that if they wanted to go ‘home’ they would give them money from social security to go. However, as Lou pointed out, people had been invited to Britain following the Second World War when the price of labour had been pushed up for a number of economic factors (including the loss of men in battle).

The subsequent economic situation, where two groups offering labour existed side by side looking for the same jobs, meant that one group could be played off against the other. A similar ‘divide and rule’ methodology was played out outside of Britain. Ex-slaves, now reliant on the land of the plantations to make a living, became the ‘other’ to the existing white labour population. Having said that black people were suitable for enslavement, the implied message was that the poor white working class could define themselves as ‘better than that’, believing themselves to be superior to at least one other social group. It was no coincidence that as the price of cotton fell (placing heightened economic burden on the white labour force) the number of lynches went up. So it could be said that external forces had come into play in the forming of identities.

Kooj asked, “When was this idea of ‘race’ concretised/institutionalised?” Kooj raised the idea that during the 19th century, the British Raj sent out the message of two kinds of Britishness: one for white people and one for slaves.

A member of the public attending the discussion asked, “But what does this have to do with Britishness?” Lou responded that if Gordon Brown says that we should be proud to be British today then we should first address our history of being British.

Lou went on to talk about the notion of Christianity and Britishness, referring back to a point he’d made earlier that it was illegal for a slave to raise their hand to ‘any Christian, white person’. Olaudah Equiano (also know as Gustavus Vassa and the most prominent person of African heritage involved in the British debate for the abolition of the slave trade) asked of slavery, “How can we believe that god would let one race of people have power over another?” The only way that white Christian people could respond to this was to say that black people were not human, and therefore that what applied to them did not apply to black people.

The speaker from the audience asked, again, “But what does it mean to be British today? Is it our shared language, for example? What about people that speak English in America or Pakistan? What about people who live in the UK but do not speak English? Does it matter when we are all part of humanity?” Perhaps, it was suggested, there are a number of different versions of Britishness. Perhaps the definition of Britishness is that it is a concept containing many interpretations.

We went on to discuss, “Is it even important to have a concept of Britishness and who has the right to define what Britishness is?” The point was raised that one person cannot speak for a group of people, even if they feel they are representative of ‘their’ group. This further strengthened the argument that Britishness can perhaps only be defined on an individual or personal basis.

Wigan Teahouse Discussion, 1 July 2008. Rafiki Youth Group and Amnesty International

Wigan Teahouse Discussion, Tuesday 1 July 2008

The Wigan Teahouse Discussion was an event for a group of young people from Rafiki. Rafiki are a group of young people who have come with their parents from different countries to live in the UK. Nine young men aged 13 to 16 and four volunteers attended the session.

The guest speakers for this event were three representatives from Amnesty International Wigan. The discussion was around the theme of ‘Children in Conflict’. This is the title of an exhibition recently on show at the Drumcroon Gallery in Wigan. A group of young people from Rafiki had gone to see the show. The event also aimed to introduce the work of Amnesty International and the Human Rights to the young people.

The three people from Amnesty International set the young people two tasks. The first one was an introduction to the Human Rights. The young people worked in small groups, identifying people in a drawing who were either doing something that was a positive expression of one of the Human Rights, or others who where constricted in exerting a human right. The second task was a role-play exercise in conflict management.

The young men got particularly involved in the role-play discussion. Each small group reported the arguments each of the opponent sides had come up with to defend their point of view, and they also explained the interventions made by the mediator and the solution of the conflict they had come up with.

The young people then asked the Amnesty representatives questions about Amnesty International. They discussed examples of AI activities in China and Burma.

Mehmood, the youth worker who runs Rafiki, said that they would have a follow up session to further discuss human rights.

Most of the young people had never had green tea before, but they were all up to giving it a try. We’d very much like to hear what the young people thought of the discussion. Please contribute to the blog!

Salford Museum and Art Gallery, 18 June 2008

Migration, Integration and Regeneration in Salford: Who is it for?

Innocent Empi from the Congo Support Project, Ameen Hadi a Community Development Worker for Salford City Council, and Joan Williams from the Broughton Trust, were guest speakers at this teahouse. The teahouse included an invitation to visit an exhibition, Curate and Create at the Chapman Gallery, which has themes of migration and refuge. This exhibition was curated and created by students from Hope High School with volunteers from the Salford Museum and Art Gallery’s Embrace project.

Early in the discussion the question was asked, ‘is regeneration about new buildings or is it about investing in people?’ and this question was revisited throughout the discussion. Someone posed the idea that if funds were given directly to the people who need them – instead of directing them through regeneration organisations – would this lead to a more effective regeneration? It was suggested that councils feel obliged to bid for regeneration money [implying that money spent on regeneration is not always regarded as a good thing] because if they don’t they could be missing out on something that could be positive for the community.

Ameen introduced the situation in Broughton and how it has gradually become a popular destination for migrants from various places. He said, at one time it was difficult to find people who wanted to settle in Broughton but now there aren’t enough affordable properties to keep up with the demand from people wanting to live there. However, move expensive new properties are proving difficult to sell.

Joan raised the idea of how physical regeneration of cities does not necessarily work for its communities. The Broughton Trust came about from an informal group of people who thought that single fixed amounts of regeneration funding would not be sustainable and wanted to be able to drive the direction of regeneration from within the community. So this informal group became the Broughton Trust.

It was asked, ‘who decides what happens with regeneration? Who is accountable? Who can you go to if it goes wrong? If people are not going to be consulted properly, how will it work? Can it be successful if it is only about buildings? It was generally agreed that it is usually developers who decide where and how regeneration happens.

So what are the alternatives to this? How can we go forward with something that is sustainable? How can we help people to move forward with their own lives? How can we move things forward from the bottom up? If we don’t address these things we may end up in the situation again where buildings created for regeneration at one time are later pulled down to make way for new regeneration projects. There are families who were moved from their homes for redevelopment thirty years ago who are being moved again now and despite over three decades of regeneration in Salford people are still living with insufficient money or skills for work.

The point was raised that we shouldn’t presume that everyone has the same viewpoint about where certain people do and don’t fit in. Someone else said that if you want to help people there are simple things you can do such as providing entertainment for them, football and anything that can help to make people’s lives better, but its hard to find funding that simply supports people’s lives. Also, things to help people communicate with each other, like English language lesson, also helps. In response to this, someone asked, ‘isn’t sport and music just about keeping people quiet, though, or is it about creating genuine cohesion?’

Someone else recounted a story of how, when they first came to England, they were told by another immigrant that ‘England is boring’. This anecdote seemed to catch people’s imaginations and was returned to as a point of reference throughout the following discussions. The reason given for England being boring was, apparently, that all you see here is adults spending money in pubs all weekend, whereas, he believed, young people need to see adults continuing to learn; ‘We need to build the foundations to create a more positive space for people to live in – a better Britain, a better Manchester, a better Salford’. Someone added that England is not boring because there are great sports facilities, a superb education system and social networking websites, but that social cohesion is missing.

Ameen said that he organises sports projects, such as a football competition for refugees, and cooking evenings. He wants to create the opportunity for people to meet socially, to talk, to have fun – all without needing to spend money. It was agreed that it is important for local communities to get to know asylum seekers as individuals.

The point was also raised that there are many different kinds of England that people are not necessarily being introduced to. England can mean different things for different people.

Someone said they had noticed that there appears to be some sort of attempt to destroy working class culture and, perhaps, to turn it into a middle class interpretation of how people should live [by developers]. Therefore, it was suggested, people don’t know what they are being integrated into or out of. Later in the conversation this was readdressed, with examples such as the attention given to ‘knife crime’, and the culture of ‘naming and shaming’, which has the effect of eroding working class communities rather than re-building them. Little positive coverage is given to working class communities.

Innocent works with developing refugee communities in Salford and responded to the ‘boring England’ quote by commenting that asylum seekers and refugees in Britain do not have the same opportunities as British people particularly financially. The priority of the refugee or asylum seeker is usually to spend the small amount of money they have on food rather than leisure. Innocent mentioned that often in the UK asylum seekers could not find adequate work to match their levels of experience or education and are often pressurised to take lesser jobs which means they are underpaid, thus sustaining the inequality between local communities and immigrants. Destitution in Britain is also a possibility for asylum seekers who have been turned down for refugee status. These people [as also described at the Bolton Teahouse] have no right to food or accommodation. Innocent said that he knows of people who have chosen to die here in England rather than go back to face persecution and violent death in the Congo.

Innocent went on to describe why asylum seekers come to Britain. He talked about how people from the Congo are fleeing persecution, how their rights may have been abused by their government, and how they may have suffered physical and/or political abuse. He talked about how conflict has been incited between the Congo and neighbouring countries by European and American governments in order that they may take advantage of this situation to can gain access to local minerals (essential for the manufacture of laptops and mobile phones) for export. A percentage of the money made by these international corporations goes to governments but does not reach people who need it because of government corruption. Families in these areas of Africa no longer have reasonable access to school, food or water, and Innocent described how often family members have to take it in turns to eat. In addition to this, if people act or speak out against this situation they are persecuted, tortured or locked up for uncertain amounts of time. The UK is a place of safety for these people. Later in the discussion, Innocent added that there are refugees coming from Iraq and Afghanistan and that the UK government has a role and responsibility in this, that we are aware of what the UK government has to gain from this conflict but that people are losing their lives over it.

Someone else later added to this line of conversation that responsibility for situations of conflict must also be taken by the countries in which they are happening (and cannot wholly be blamed on America and Europe). The leaders in those countries are often already corrupt.

The discussion continued with thoughts about how provisions, such as ESOL courses, could be made for immigrants; how perhaps the large corporations involved in the situation in the Congo are likely to be linked to those involved in regeneration in the UK; about how our emphasis shouldn’t be on our differences but on our similarities; and, alternatively, how by understanding the differences in where we have all come from, we can understand one another.

The question was raised, ‘is regeneration of Salford just a way to expand the city centre (combined with a prettifying-exercise)’, and it was confirmed that expanding the city centre was, in fact, a stated aim in the Salford regeneration plan. So it was suggested that this pushes community facilitation further down the list of priorities for regeneration. Joan said that she was uncomfortable with looking at regeneration in terms of class [as is sometimes the case] and that we should put the individual person in the middle of discussions around regeneration. She added that what we need to do is to find out what it is that people need to create a successful community where people feel safe and valued, and to look at why some areas of the city are successful, and why other areas are not.

Drawing a close to the discussion, Innocent made the point that most refugees do not intend to stay in Britain. They come here to seek security with the intention of going back to their homes once the situation there has been resolved. Like anyone, they miss things about their homes, such as the weather, the food and their friends and families. Innocent went on to ask, ‘how can we stop the West paving the way for poverty? How can the West obtain resources from Africa and Asia in a democratic and equal way?’

The discussion was closed with the reflection that by opening such a can of worms, and by looking at them in this kind of environment, hopefully we have come some way to making our thoughts clearer and to help us express them in the future. KD

Wheatsheaf Library, Rochdale, 16 June 2008

Rochdale - Scrounge capital of the UK?

Is the media's recent portrayal of Rochdale the true picture?

Rochdale – Scrounge Capital of the UK? Is the media’s recent portrayal of Rochdale the true picture?

Richard Catlow, Editorial Director of MEN Weekly Newspapers, including the Rochdale Observer, was the guest speaker at the Rochdale Teahouse Discussion at Wheatsheaf Library, Rochdale. 15 people attended the discussion, including representatives from the council, social and youth workers, library employees and the former Arts Development Officer in Rochdale.

The title of the teahouse quotes the heading of a newspaper article that was one of a series of reports highlighting negative aspects of Rochdale: unemployment, people living on benefits, litter on the streets, crime. Many people in Rochdale feel that this puts their town into a very negative light. Though nobody denies that there are problems in the town, people feel that the positive sides of life in Rochdale, the potential and the hard work that people put into challenging these problems are not mentioned in the press.

The event started with the screening of a GMTV clip entitled Forgotten Britain. It shows interviews with members of a family who live on the Failinge estate in Rochdale who are all unemployed. A number of the ‘negative’ newspaper articles were also displayed.

A community worker from Failinge said that she’d feel safe walking through Failinge at midnight. She also pointed out the need of education and opportunities for the people who live there. She said that there is a lot of positive action, for example a job and training fare, training programmes and community cohesion events. Somebody said that the Rochdale Observer is actually very good at reporting positive action.

An employee of Rochdale Council said that the spotlight’s on Rochdale now. The statistics from February that place Rochdale on top of unemployment in the country are right, and this is one story, but there’s a whole other story, too.

One of the librarians thought that the media manipulated the way the estate was portrayed. She said that it was a neighbourhood with a very strong community and that the people she knows are all professionals and in work. She said that the GMTV clip upset her because it did not reflect her experience of the Failinge estate, that she sees the beautiful cherry blossoms and no litter.

One of the council representatives said that the council had started scientific research into what the negative image was in order to readdress it. It would include consultation of the population of Rochdale. The aim of this consultation and research would be to turn the negative into positive.

Kooj Chuhan, chair of the Teahouse Discussion Series, added an historical context to the discussion. He talked about the sharp decline of the manufacturing industries in the northern area of Greater Manchester over the last 50 years. Many people who had been in work for twenty or thirty years had lost their jobs.

One participant said that in Rochdale 4500 jobs had been lost and 3000 new jobs had been gained. The new jobs are in finances, ICT and the scientific industries. There are programmes in schools to address this situation. The loss of jobs and change of industries is a huge challenge, but there’s also another Rochdale that’s fantastic: multicultural, with fantastic people, set in a beautiful countryside.

Someone mentioned a programme that aims to move up people who are in work.

During the discussion participants repeatedly expressed their anger about the negative image of Rochdale and their believe that Rochdale’s better than this and that Rochdale can succeed for its people.

There was another contribution about Failinge to the discussion. Failinge was described as a place with a good community and no racism. Everybody was said to so friendly, and that there was different music, different smells of food and that everybody got on really well. There was also a photo project with young people documenting life in Failinge.

Someone said that the council should take more care when allocating housing to people and should not place families with children into flats.

Another participants said that once you were on benefits it was very difficult to get off. She said that where she lived there were drug dealers and that many people thought that it’s not worth getting a job because you’d never get as much money working as you get on benefits.

Another contributor made the observation that people in Rochdale liked to ‘talk the town down’. As an example he quoted an entry into the comment book at Touchstones when it first opened: “It’s really good. I can’t believe we’ve done it here.”

He talked about the decline of Rochdale from a grand mill town to now. People in Rochdale used to be very proud of their town, now they feel that it’s another grotty place. He said that Rochdale needed investment to bring it back to what it used to be.

Rochdale Football Club is something that people in Rochdale are really proud of and it makes an important contribution to a positive image of Rochdale.