Welcome to Tower Hamlets

by Esmerelda Weatherwax (September 2011)


Why I am going to Tower Hamlets on Saturday.

I am of an old East End family. We define the East End as the three old boroughs of Bethnal Green, Stepney and Poplar which since 1965 make up the current London Borough of Tower Hamlets, plus that area of Shoreditch around Shoreditch Church which since 1965 is part of the London Borough of Hackney.

Although my mother was born in Hoxton (which is adjacent to, but not part of, the East End) where my grandfather had a market stall, her parents were born in Bethnal Green as were all of my father’s family. My cousins and I have traced many lines of our families back to the 18^thcentury. We span 4 centuries and 10 generations in the area, at least. Welcome to my ancestoral homeland.

The East End encompassed London docks which meant that people have always arrived from all over the world and many settled nearby. Just in the relatively small circle of my own family history, through blood, marriage, kinship or family friendship I know of Irish, Welsh, Italian, Scottish, Jewish, Polish and Russian, French Huguenot, Indian, West Indian and Yorkshire. Every group that came to the East End brought their own customs. The Huguenot influence can be seen in our love of bright colours of clothing and the flowers of our little gardens, even if the only garden available was a yard or a veranda. The Jewish influence is famous and goes far beyond the food and the delicatessens (and bread). Limehouse was Chinatown for many years although it is now in Gerrard Street W1. They integrated while giving us the best of their culture. Until recent years. 

Sylheti speaking seamen from the nation now called Bangladesh came through the docks even before the Second World War. During the war a mosque opened along Whitechapel Road for their use and that of other Muslims. From the late 1960s onwards more came and brought their families. But they didn’t integrate. The East London Mosque now covers the whole block between Plumbers Row and the Whitechapel Bell Foundry to the east, New Street to the west, Whitechapel Road to the north and Fieldgate Street to the south, other than the small and valiant Great Fieldgate Street Synagogue which the mosque covets but cannot have.

It isn’t the size of the Mosque complex (they are now building upwards, nine floors and counting) which is cause for concern, however, but the nature of their speakers and preachers, the malign influence of the Islamic Forum of Europe, the corruption of local politics and the imposition of Sharia law. The Telegraph Journalist Andrew Gilligan chronicles this regularly.

The following are a few the reasons why the English Defence League will be rallying in Tower Hamlets next week. The Home Secretary Theresa May, at the request of the Metropolitan Police, acting under the orders of the notorious Lutfur Rahman, the Mayor (for elected mayor, read Islamic dictator) has banned any march for a month through 5 London boroughs, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest, Hackney and Islington. So the demonstration will be a static one, which is our democratic right from which we cannot be banned.

Imposition of a Sharia controlled Zone.

 

I photographed these in Ford Square and nearby Sidney Street. Read the rest on: The Iconoclast