West London's Southall is filled with the South Asian diaspora. It's a community where the death of the queen has reopened the old wounds of a complicated history. The district ’s experiences mirror those in other London diaspora with colonial pasts.
Then there are the ambivalent — families hit hard by COVID-19, Britain’s energy crisis and inflation following Brexit. They express respect for the late queen but struggle to see the relevance of royalty in their daily toil.
Grand Sikh temples stand meters from mosques and Hindu mandirs. Gurmukhi, the Sikh script, is paired alongside English on storefronts. The main drag, The Broadway, is reminiscent of India’s busy markets with dazzling textiles and sizzling street food. English is seldom heard on the street, and some merchants cannot speak the language at all.Yet Southall has a couple of distinct royal connections — about which most here are unaware.
Not everyone feels the same way. That’s what the Rev. Mark Poulson told his congregation during Sunday’s sermon at his Southall church, St. John’s. “It’s important that we recognize that,” he told the largely immigrant following. The flag was Janpal Basran’s doing. The head of the Southall Community Alliance noticed more than two days after Elizabeth’s death that the flag had not been lowered. He made urgent calls, concerned that the community would be perceived as disrespectful.
Racial tensions rose in the 1970s, with violent riots and incidents of maiming and killing of South Asians and African Caribbeans. Anti-immigration sentiments also fueled the inflammatory rhetoric of the National Front Party, a fascist political party. In 1970, race riots engulfed the area.This turbulent history, paired with the recent advent of social movements like Black Lives Matter, has led to an awakening among younger people seeking to dissect colonial legacies.
“I am neither celebrating nor commiserating,” he said of the queen’s death. “It’s just one of those things, the forces of change.”
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