Altab Ali station -call to name Aldgate East after martyr

The naming of the Aldgate East tube station after the martyr Altab Ali is the aim of a campaign in the East End of London which is gaining support from people from all waks of life

Altab Ali, a Bangladeshi factory worker in his mid 20s, [from Sylhet] in the East End of London, was murdered on 4 May 1978 in a racist attack against him as he walked home after work. His murder took place on a spot near the corner of Adler Street and Whitechapel Road by the St Mary's Churchyard. The churchyard has been called Altab Ali Park by ordinary people in memory of the victim of racism.

The name Altab Ali has become a widely known symbol of resistance against racism generally and is associated with the struggle for human rights specifically in defence of the Bangladeshis in the UK after the community mobilised in May 1978 to defend itself against racist attacks that were represented in the murder of Altab Ali.

The very future of the Bangladeshi community in the UK was at stake when widespread fear gripped people following Altab Ali’s murder. Within a few weeks, another Bangladeshi in the East End of London was also murdered.

Ishaque Ali died in a racist attack in Hackney, the inner city borough next to Tower Hamlets where Altab Ali had been murdered. Just under a decade earlier, in Tower Hamlets, a Bangladeshi called Tosir Ali had become the first known and recorded Bangladeshi victim of racism in the last half of the 20th century.

It was the murder of Altab Ali that was the trigger for the first significant political organisation against racism. That organisation soon became a movement against racism around the East End of London.

That was the first such movement since the 1930s when the Jewish people had been targeted by the fascists in Britain. Because of the 1978-79 political movement, historic consequences followed and a number of institutional changes took place to weaken the racist hold on certain parts of public and community life in Britain..

Today’s phenomenal identification and association of the collective social and community image of the UK Bangladeshis with Tower Hamlets the East End of London Borough has everything to do with the campaign against racism that took place after Altab Ali’s murder.

It is a universal message of human rights and tolerance that that movement gave out and it will be a fitting recognition of that to rename the Aldgate East station the Altab Ali station.

Along side the campaign to rename Aldgate East after Altab Ali, there are community actions to have a prominent and distinctive memorial after Altab Aki established in the Altab Ali Park. Other memorial and educational symbols and activities to remember Blair Peach and Ishaque Ali and Tosir Ali are also afoot.

Altab Ali station
e-mail: altabalistation@yahoo.co.uk

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

nope

19.09.2007 14:52

i'm all for memorials being built a churchyards being renamed but renaming the station is silly. Its aldgate east station, in aldgate east. Far more momentous things have happened all over london yet funnily enough the logic of keeping the names of the stations relevant to the area remains.

Elsewhere plans to rename the City of Sheffield 'miners strike' and Liverpool to 'dockers' have floundered...

Mornington Crescent

A good idea - but wouldn't an alternative location be better?

19.09.2007 15:16

It sounds like a memorial would be a very good idea, and I hope Tower Hamlets supports one.

But the choice of memorial - renaming Aldgate East tube station - seems doomed to fail. It is also likely to provoke a hostile response.

Aldgate East tube station remains more vividly connected in most Londoners minds with the 2005 bombings. It was on a tube train heading toward that station that seven people died: Lee Baisden; Benedetta Ciaccia; Richard Ellery; Richard Gray; Anne Moffat; Fiona Stevenson; and Carrie Taylor.

I'm not suggesting for a moment it should named after any of them - I don't think it should be renamed at all.

Please think of an altenative memorial - perhaps making the renaming of the park official? I think your campaign is well intentioned, and you would win backing for another type of memorial, but choosing Aldgate East tube station seems to be, very obviously, an extremely bad idea and one which will end up being a total waste of time if you pursue it.

Good luck with an alternative

Norville B

There is a memorial

19.09.2007 18:14

Altab Ali park already exists

http://www.sublimephotography.co.uk/eastendphotos/whitechapel/pages/altabali.htm

Why name Aldgate East as well?

There are no other Tube stations named after other martyrs or heros, so why rename this one?

If people really cared about Altab they would clean up his memorial park, stop the smackheads, drunks and gangs using it as a public toilet, for selling drugs and for training their fighting dogs or the Jihadist holding their rallys and 'morality patrols' that sees them spitting on women considered inappropriately dressed. Go down after dark and check it out if you don't believe me.

Rather than worrying about someone who died nearly 30 years ago, perhaps we should rename Aldgate Tube after the first person (irrespective of their ethnicity) who is 'martyred' by the gangs who are currently regularly attacking people in Brick Lane aka 'muggers lane'. Thirty years ago gangs of white racists attacked the asian community in Brick Lane now gangs of asian youth are attacking the non-muslim community on a regular basis - i know four people including a male nurse (stabbed in the back), an ex-member of militant (repeatedly kicked in the head), a woman (cuts to arms and face) and a non-muslim asian (assaulted from behind with iron bar) attacked so far this year. It is only a matter of time before someone is killed like Altab.

The original proposal sounds like a wind-up by the BNP or the Jihadists and will only increase local tension - but then again may be that is the objective.

Eastender