The Bengali Anti-Racist Movement: Mobilisation, institutionalisation and legacies of 1978

孟加拉反种族主义运动：1978 年的动员、制度化和遗产

• 批准号: 2247658
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Queen Mary University of London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2247658
• 关键词: Bengali; Anti; Racist; Movement; Mobilisation

During the evening of the 4 May 1978, a day of political tension amid local elections, Altab Ali, a 25-year-old Bengali leather garments worker, was brutally stabbed and murdered by three youths in a racially-motivated attack on Adler Street, close to Whitechapel Road in London's East End. According to Ali (1994, 24) Altab Ali's murder 'marked a turning point in the political awakening of the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets'. It was followed on May 15th by a march of over 7,000 Bengalis who followed Ali's coffin from Brick Lane to Downing Street to protest against the racist attacks that had become an all too common occurrence in East London. Further violent attacks on local Bengali people, including killing of another Bengali man Ishaque Ali in neighbouring Hackney, took place in June, prompting a summer of protest and political mobilisation where local Bengali organisations formed alliances with other political factions as part of an anti-fascist and anti-racist struggle (Eade 1989, Leech 1994). The scale of the movement was unprecedented, mobilising and forging alliances with anti-racist struggles across and beyond London, and was crucial in its subsequent mainstream political recognition (Eade 1989, Tatari 2015). Yet the movement struggles to sustain itself and by the early 1980s was turning both inwards and towards a slow institutionalisation of its key leaders. How to explain such a rapid process of mobilisation and institutionalisation of a movement that laid the basis for Bengali activism in London?

1978 年 5 月 4 日晚，地方选举期间政治局势紧张，25 岁​​的孟加拉皮革服装工人阿尔塔布·阿里 (Altab Ali) 在阿德勒街 (Adler Street) 一次出于种族动机的袭击中被三名年轻人残酷刺伤并杀害。靠近伦敦东区的白教堂路。根据 Ali (1994, 24) 的说法，阿尔塔布·阿里的谋杀“标志着塔尔哈姆莱茨孟加拉国社区政治觉醒的转折点”。随后，5 月 15 日，7000 多名孟加拉人举行游行，跟随阿里的灵柩从布里克巷前往唐宁街，抗议东伦敦司空见惯的种族主义袭击事件。 6 月，针对当地孟加拉人的进一步暴力袭击，包括另一名孟加拉男子伊沙克·阿里在邻近的哈克尼被杀，引发了整个夏天的抗议和政治动员，孟加拉当地组织与其他政治派别结成联盟，作为反法西斯运动的一部分。和反种族主义斗争（Eade 1989，Leech 1994）。该运动的规模是前所未有的，动员了伦敦内外的反种族主义斗争并与之结成联盟，这对于其随后的主流政治认可至关重要（Eade 1989，Tatari 2015）。然而，该运动难以维持下去，到 20 世纪 80 年代初开始转向内部，并使其主要领导人缓慢制度化。如何解释一场为伦敦孟加拉激进主义奠定基础的运动如此迅速的动员和制度化过程？