We Anchor Ourselves in History’: Counter-Schooling, Resistance, and Revolt in the Metropole

• In Event: If Black Women Were Free: The Politics and Pedagogy of Black Power from the U.S. to the U.K.

Abstract

Throughout the 1970s, in the cities of Southall, Sheffield, Manchester, and Bradford, Asian Youth formed a movement that they defined as a reckoning–a profound challenge to colonial violence taking place in schools, factories, and the streets of England. The youth were amongst the first generation from the subcontinent to grow up in the UK. They were the first to experience the UK bussing programs. They were the first to identify their communities as Asian, as opposed to Indian, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, the first to profess a secular South Asian politics, which did not hold complete allegiance or accountability to temples, churches, mosques, or vihars. The youth of the AYM were amongst the first to articulate that the “post” in postcolonial certainly did not mean “past.”
In the streets, the youth faced police brutality, anti-immigrant legislation and deportations, and white nationalist terrorism. They challenged these forms of violence, and would become famous for their resistance to National Front rallies, the deportation of South Asian women and the separation of mothers and children. In the city of Bradford, the AYM would become infamous for the arrest of the Bradford 12, a group of youth accused of terrorism after they built petrol bombs and molotov cockails–which they never used—in preparation for a white supremacist rally which never happened. This history, and the case of the Bradford twelve and their acquittal, while significant, often overshadows other sites of violence that the youth faced.
The AYM youth faced physical violence on the buses that took them to and from school, via the segregated language programs that took place in basement annexes, and through the racist colonial history curriculum they were taught. As a result of the failings of colonial schooling, the youth became autodidacts. Inspired by the Black Panthers of the United States, the youth formed their own version of Liberation schooling. Drawn from conversations with their family members, books recommended to them by librarians and other AYM members, the youth crafted a campaign of political education. In the words of Bradford AYM member Tariq Mehmood, “The first point, I think I learnt then, was to anchor yourself in the history of those who have struggled before you.”
In anchoring themselves in history, the youth developed their own interpretation of political blackness, which they defined as a project of solidarity with all the black people of not just the UK, but the world. As Sheffield youth wrote in the first issue of their magazine, Kala Mazdoor, “Being only a minority in this country, we look to our brothers and sisters in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere (the vast majority of humanity) for support in our struggle. In turn, we support their struggles and all other struggles which bring forward the day when we will be rid of poverty and oppression.” The youth believed that through their vision of solidarity and an organized response, the empire would fall. They perceived their identities: as Asians, Black, and Youth, and as a colony within the metropole, to be central to their role in challenging systematic oppression.

Author

• Shreya Sunderram, Graduate Center - CUNY