Why we need a more equal society,

Living in East London, Towerhamlets, you wouldn't believe that the sky scrappers at Canary Wharf could possibly be just 15 minutes away on the tube. On one end you have the famous triangular based building and the on other theres the heart of London, the city. Towerhamlets being bang in the middle is one of the most deprived boroughs of London. The picture signifies the extent to which this is a reality with tall estate buildings shadowing the borough and in the background you can just see the buildings surrounding Canary Wharf. Buildings such as those council houses show why we need a more equal society because behind the closed doors some families are living under relative poverty of  some sort with many living in houses that are too crowded or too small to fit there needs. This does not just affect Towerhamlets but many boroughs around the area, where poverty has become a real issue which unfortunately gets ignored. The low employment levels in these areas also show the unequalness of society as just around the corner lies areas such as Canary Wharf where there are bankers and rich businesses who profit from taking money off real hard workers. A more equal society would mean that getting a job would become a much easier task and would be given to those who have actually worked hard for it which would suggest the idea of a more meritocratic society. Although Towerhamlets and other boroughs are on the rise with new houses being built and rejuvenating the area the underlining issue of poverty and low employment with people living here will always stick around.

Our Journey So Far....

Through starting this blog and exploring London, we have come across so many amazing places and discovered so many new things which have helped to shape our own perspectives on the political world.

Amreen now has a newfound love for Anarchism and feels she is developing her knowledge greatly and slowly transforming into an Anarchist.

We have met many people on this journey, who come from different walks of life and have contributed to our experiences in many different ways. Seeing Sadiq Khan and attending the Eid Festival has made us have a completely different outlook on the work or the Mayor and MPs, as well as our community as we didn't realise the extent of multiculturalism that is embedded into our lives and our city. We found that the UK has progressed a lot from the times of racism and oppression and that there has been a great amount of action for such great causes such as the Women's Suffrage and the feminist movement. We are always seeking change which is a great thing to do as we can always develop and strive for greatness as a society, but sometimes we overlook how well we are doing and how much we have overcome despite the limitations and flaws of our society.

Tamana is astonished with the impact small groups can have on our society and how they can grow to be significant and make changes to our world as we know it. 

 This blog has also helped us individually, with our writing skills and helped us understand more about ideologies and the significance of many places around London.

Nairat has felt more creative and is proud of herself for the articles she was able to write.

Overall we feel the blog has been very successful so far and we have learnt a lot during the process and we look forward to continuing the hard work and discovering more about the political world and the different ideologies surrounding it.


Finally, I, Mohima am most excited about everything we have experienced as we have discovered new favourite places to visit in London and visited events and places that we never would have before. I'm happy that this journey was so informative as well as fun and look forward to living with this brand new perspective where I can now understand so many different beliefs and ideologies.


Here are some pictures, bloopers and extras from our journey..

Eid Festival



Amreen and Mohima trying to fit into London's narrowest alley.

Photo-booth fun

The struggle of trying to keep Nairat involved during her surgery.

The National Gallery

Mary Richardson was a Canadian Suffragette known for her friendship with Emily Davidson as well as her famous actions at the National Gallery. Enraged with the lack of government action for the women's suffrage, Richardson took to the famous Velasquez painting with an axe that she used to slash the artwork seven times. She was very dedicated to the cause and was willing to go to jail for her actions. Richardson particularly despised the 'Rokeby Venus' masterpiece by Velasquez with its very nude depiction of feminine beauty. 

This painting now holds a new significance as it represents the struggles and lengths many women were willing to go through for the feminist movement. Without these many dedicated individuals, there may not have been such great coverage and attention brought to the cause and perhaps the movement would not have been as great or significant.

During our visit to the National Gallery we found many pictures depicting different stories and a couple of painting stood out to us as we believed such paintings would surely be loved by feminists to destroy.

The History Behind Downing Street

Sir George Downing

George Downing was the creator behind Downing Street. He gained a royal pardon in March 1660 and in May 1660 rewarded with a knighthood. George was more interested in the property on Downing Street that belonged to Knyvet’s inheritors. Knyet was one of Queen Elizabeth 1 favourite MP and was also knighted in 1604.The property had stayed in their family, until 1682 when George Downing had gained the lease to the property.

During 1682 to 1684, approximately 20 bad looking terraced houses were built along the new street, Downing Street. Also, the houses along Downing Street were usually identified by the name. The numbering of the houses had changed drastically since 1700s.  For example, house number 10 was previously five.

House number 10 had many different residents such as Countess of Yarmouth (1688-1689), Lord Lansdown (1692-1696), Earl of Grantham and Mr Chicken (1730s).

Sir Robert Walpole

Later on, the house on Downing Street and the house that overseas horse guards were given to Sir Robert Walpole, First Lord of Treasury or Prime Minister and Prime Minister, by King George 2.  Walpole made the Downing Street house become residence for him and future First Lords of Treasury. This is seen on the letterbox on the front door, which is still engraved with the title. Later on, Walpole had hired an architect, William Kent to refurbish the two houses.

Downing Street had an intense journey where many times it was at crisis. For example, by 1950s 10 Downing Street had worsened by bomb damages. There were mainly structural problems such as sloping walls. In 1991 a terrorist’s bomb exploded in the garden of number 10, which was only a few metres away from the Prime Minister at the time, John Major. 

Downing Street went through a lot of damage and was very unstable throughout years. However, the significant change was done by Tony Blair in 2006 who put forward a new programme to improve the buildings on Downing street.  by starting this programme they had discovered 11 downing street was actually dangerous because of its instability and to secure it, it needed 225 stainless steel pins.

At this moment, there is still programmes which are carried out to make sure downing street is stable, secure and modernised. for example, there has been a great improvement in the disability facilities,  to allow downing street to be accessible for anyone with disabilities.  However, their main aim now, is to modernise their facilities but keep its history.

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square is the largest square in London and has historical value.

Trafalgar used to be a courtyard of rows of houses that were converted from stables. the typical design would be rooms above, built round a yard or alley.  This used to serve the Whitehall palace. It used to be called Charing but later was changed to Charing Cross which is still seen today as an underground tube is named after this. During the 1800s, it has had undergone many changes and by 1830 it was officially named Trafalgar Square.

Furthermore an architect, Sir Charles Barry designed Trafalgar Square to link with the National Gallery  between 1840 to 1845.  The National Gallery was linked by staircases which included statues and two fountains. by 1867 everything was built including the bronze lions which is placed at the base of Nelson's columns.

The site of Trafalgar square had become a place where demonstration and rallies were held on political,religious or general issues. It is also a great public space which allows multicultural events to take place.

 Significant Moments in Trafalgar Square 

• May 2007, there was a campaign by London locals to promote 'green space', so the square was grassed over with 2,000 square metres for two days
• July 200,7 a parade was held to celebrate the 60th independence anniversary of Pakistan from Britain. 
• Eid Festival on July 2016.
• The fountains being died red in protest against cuts made to domestic violence services, by the feminist group Sisters Uncut in November 2015. Read the article here.

Martha Mosse on the Labelling and the Importance of Feminism

An interesting insight into labelling and feminism by Martha Mosse at TED Talks.

Visiting Churchill's Statue and Plaque

Born on 30th November 1874, Winston Churchill grew up to become on of the most significant political figures who led the country through WW2. Despite being brought up in an aristocratic family Churchill never found his feet within the education system- he despised it. Instead he joined many different organisations, one being the Freemasons.

( From top to bottom) Churchill's Plaque and Freemasons Hall- visited on June 14th.

After deciding that continuing with his at Harrow wasn't suited for him he decided to join the Harrow Riffle Corps, which in fact led to his career into the military. After a couple of years in the army where he was honoured to serve in the Indian northwest frontier and in Sudan, Churchill decided to quit leading to the start of his blossoming career in politics. He became a member of the Conservative Party in Oldham in 1900 but quickly became an advocate for social justice and often went against many Conservative views. This ultimately led to his choice to move parties to the Liberals in 1904.

'To think you can make a man richer by putting on a tax is like a man thinking he can stand in a bucket and lift himself up by the handle'

For the next years Churchill would embrace his new position as a member of the cabinet and even became the President of Board of Trade and worked with David Lloyd George, the chancellor at the time and soon to be PM (1919-1922). However the years from 1922-1929 where tough ones for Churchill as he re-joined the Conservative party after the Liberals were defeated suggesting that he had 're-ratted' back to the party. Subsequently this led to many viewing him as a traitor and right wing extremist. Despite all of this Churchill was seen to redeem himself throughout one of the toughest years Britain had to face as a country, 1939-1945. He was critical of the PM at the time; Neville Chamberlain who was following a policy known as appeasement (essentially giving Germany what they wanted to stop Hitler from going to war)

3rd September 1939 one of the most symbolic dates in history, Britain declared war on Germany. Churchill was delegated a seat in the War Cabinet and became the first lord of Admiralty. He'd attempt to advise Chamberlain on how to deal with German threats but they were ignored which left the country loosing confidience with there PM. Churchill was appointed Prime minister on May 10th 1940. The next five years Churchill would put in 'blood..toil..tears and sweat..' into ensuring that Britain would triumph and win the war. And on May 7th 1945 Germany surrendered.

Churchill at his victory parade- showing the
Peace sign to signify triumph.

Visiting the statue of Churchill which is situated in Parliament Square resembles the significance of the political figure. Not only is it the biggest statue there, placed at the entrance to the square it is in a spot that Churchill described himself as 'where my statue will go'. The statue overlooks Parliament which show his political importance towards the building. 

The statue resembles the ideology of Nationalism well as it illustrates the belief that the nation is the most important aspect in society. This is because during the war the welfare of the nation and keeping Britain standing was the only thing on Churchill's mind. Churchill has become a powerful symbol for what Britain stands for therefore in itself Churchill represents the idea of Nationalism pretty well.

Picture with Churchill in Parliament Square.

'Success is the ability from going from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm'

Freedom Bookstore!

Anarchism, you either love or you hate it...

Today we visited the Freedom Bookstore, Whitechapel where we were on a hunt to find a book that would clearly illustrate what anarchism is and answered all the question which some were less eager to ask. For instance, the question on what would society look like if it was based on anarchy, would there be more murders and rapes?

The Hidden Bookstore

‘Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Anarchism But Were Too Afraid To Ask’ (Unknown) was the book that had the answers to all our questions. The answer to the one mentioned above is that anarchism would create a much safer society because psychology has proven that murders, rapists and paedophiles often form that behaviour as a result of a bad upbringing which can be an overall result of a poor society. Thus, anarchism would make sure all people in society are satisfied and violence is decreased. So if something bad has been done to one, they cannot do it on another because they wouldn’t have learnt that behaviour.

The Golden Book

“Our present society, with its values of oppression and violence, creates its own criminals”

The book covers nearly all possible questions that could be asked about anarchism like: what about education? Will we need police? Why is it so bad we have a leader?

For the question on education, anarchists see the education system as ‘keeping up with the Germans’ where England only created an education system after they realised how powerful the Prussian army really was with its educated and technically proficient soldiers. Our ‘National Curriculum’ promotes marriage, political participation as well as equality through the rule of law – thus education is used as a tool to keep people engaged.

Anarchists see the education system factory like where they teach children the same things; obedience, respect to authority and silence. Those who reject these rules will fall behind by being sent to the bottom or be kicked out of school entirely. Ultimately, schools mirror the society we live in – thus anarchists do not encourage education because it keeps the cycle going.

But why do we need police they say? The book explains how in this world people know what they want to do, therefore, murders know exactly who they want to target and that makes it hard for the police to prevent such crimes. Like nearly all things, crime is a product of power and money where businesses would kill off their competition to get rid of them, allowing themselves to win the bid.

Our justice and legal system is said to be a crime in itself, as explained in the book. The book tells us that we spend over £3 billion on the police force – and that’s just in London, but the police are unable to prevent crime from occurring or the legal system are unable to prevail justice. Yet they cost us ten times the total amount of goods stolen. That’s why the book justifies it as a crime.

Lastly, why is it so bad that we have a leader?

Well behind every authoritative figure there is some hollowness – they choose to tell us what to do because their arguments and reasons have failed them e.g. pay a £50 fine. These individuals or groups of people claim they ‘know best’ and will back up their orders with a system of punishment. So just ordering people about creates its own dynamic rebellion. Thus the reason why anarchists choose not to have a leader and rule by their own means.  

 Our Review: 

This book was an amazing text to read and as I’ve mentioned to my group members, I feel as though I’ve been converted into the idea. The book is fantastic at explaining point’s clearly and justifying the thoughts and beliefs of this particular ideology. Many people see anarchism as chaos, but this book really broke down what anarchism is about and answers many key questions. This book questions other philosophies and thinking such as Marxism and Capitalism which also helped justify their points better.

I’d recommend anyone to read this book whether you’re interested in anarchism or not because the book covers possible questions that most may not even know about.

 

Deciding here on what book to pick