Windrush Day, celebrated since 2018, honours the contributions of Caribbean migrants to the UK. The day commemorates the arrival of the Windrush in 1948, which brought hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to help rebuild post WW2 Britain. These migrants, known as the Windrush generation, became key workers in Britain, including in the newly formed NHS.
Windrush day was not, in any capacity, co-authored by the organisers of the Notting Hill Carnival event; yet, both parties seem to celebrate the same value: cultural diversity.
The 75th anniversary (2023) celebrations, which recognised the contributions of the Windrush generation, were marked with nationwide events, including King Charles himself recognising the Windrush generation’s lasting impact on British society.
All this leads to a pretty simple conclusion.
Contrary to what certain individuals would have you believe about minorities, the Windrush generation plays a big role in both British politics and British culture alike.
In 2018, many Windrush families were revealed as having been wrongly mistreated due to poor government record-keeping and bureaucratic incompetence. Former prime minister, Theresa May herself had to admit responsibility and apologise to the victims of the Windrush scandal, with later legislation offering a compensation scheme to the affected families.
But what does Windrush day have to do with the Notting Hill event?
It's clear that the Notting Hill Carnival is poorly coordinated and planned with a disregard for law and order. The event has been home to sexual assault, public indecency, stabbing (this year 8 stabbings leaving two dead, no surprise there), amongst a litany of other crimes and misconduct that besmirched the reputation of the event and its purported values.
Recently, 16 witnesses were brought in for questioning regarding the killing of Gordon Ramsay's chef, Mussie Imnetu, aged 41, who was found unconscious with a severe head injury outside the Dr Power restaurant in West London. Detectives are still investigating this disgusting crime. As of writing, one (Omar Wilson) has already been charged with intentional grievous bodily harm to the victim and has been remanded in custody.
Another peace-loving woman, Cher Maximen, 32, who was the mother of a three-year-old daughter, was also stabbed in the groin at the exact same event. These crimes and actions not only depict the Notting Hill Carnival in a bad light, but also signify a much deeper crisis in British society: knife crime. As our leaders seem unable to crackdown on knife crime, it is ordinary people that continue to pay the price.
The carnival, albeit with perfectly genuine intentions, now has to pay an emotional moral price for becoming a safe haven for abhorrent criminal gangs to infiltrate and carry out attacks on innocent members of the British public.
To be clear, it would be premature to generalise the carnival as inherently violent and destructive. Most attendees had nothing to do with the crimes that were committed.
The far right, in typical fashion, ridiculed the chaos that took place by euphemistically mocking cultural “enrichment” to insinuate that only people of colour would intentionally commit heinous crimes. This seems the height of irony given the race baiting fascist riots that took place following the stabbing in Southport just one month ago.
The intention behind the Notting Hill Carnival was and remains sincere and well thought out, but its execution couldn't have been worse. The police were absent and ineffective at preventing a lot of these crimes, while it was innocent bystanders and small businesses that paid the price.
Image: Wikimedia Commons/David Sedlecký
No image changes made.
Comments