Carnival: party or protest

Submitted by cathy n on 13 August, 2014 - 1:56 Author: By Elizabeth Butterworth

This year Notting Hill Carnival will be held on 24-25 August.

In between the photographs of smiling policemen and the swathes of tourists, it’s important to remember Carnival’s history of anti-racism.

In August 1958, there were riots in London and Nottingham after racist murders such as that of Antiguan carpenter Kelso Cochrane. Young white men, numbering in the hundreds, attacked the houses of Caribbean residents on Bramley Road, West London. Oswald Mosley and other fascists were also spreading hatred.

Claudia Jones was a journalist from Trinidad, a Marxist-feminist who had been jailed in the United States for her political views. She set up an indoor carnival (during the winter) to celebrate Caribbean culture, and the ticket sales went towards the legal fees of those black people who had been arrested for defending themselves.

There was also a small outdoor procession in Ladbroke Grove.

Carnival went outside and was held on the streets of West London. Black Caribbean people took over space that was normally not theirs.

In 1976, ten times the normal number of police were sent, and there was a riot. Sixty people were hospitalised and sixty-six were arrested. 17 young black people went to court, collectively facing 79 charges, but only two were convicted.

Between 1986 and 88, the police clashed with carnival organisers as they tried to restrict the space taken up by Carnival. They brought charges, which were not proven in court.

In 1989, the Carnival was run by a businesswoman at the head of the new Carnival Enterprise Committee. They were happy to work with the police and policing got heavier and more restrictive. There was a backlash in the form of the Association for a People’s Carnival (APC) and others calling for a democratic Carnival.

At the 2014 Carnival, there will be a phone app to guide visitors around the carnival. There are hugely lucrative sponsorship deals and large numbers of police. The commercialisation of Carnival is almost wholesale.

Carnival’s radical history of resisting the police and violent racism is being erased and replaced by a liberal narrative of multiculturalism, friendly cops and “positive race relations”.

Carnival is political as much as it is a celebration, and it’s worth remembering that.

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