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Altab Ali: A LBERT TOT H
The murder that changed the face of Whitechapel In the year that the Bengali community celebrates fifty years of independence, we remember Altab Ali, whose murder proved a turning point in Whitechapel’s campaign against racism and fascism.
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hitechapel is one of the most diverse communities in Britain; this has been true since the time of William of Orange. The area’s multicultural history began with the influx of French Huguenots in the 1700s, through to Jewish refugees in the late 1800s and then Bangladeshis from the 1950s onwards. Now in 2021, approximately 25 per cent of the UK’s Bangladeshi diaspora live here. Those coming from less diverse parts of the country may be struck
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by the cosmopolitan cityscape of Whitechapel. The daily markets are filled with the cries of traders of all ethnicities as they sell their wares shoulder to shoulder. The East London Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe, is just a short walk away from the grand St George-in-the-East church, built in 1729. Huguenot houses grace the streets of Spitalfields and Jewish shop signs still adorn long-forgotten buildings. But for the locals of Whitechapel, this is the norm. On a day-to-day basis, it is a place of strong multi-ethnic cohesion. People from all backgrounds
live, work and socialise together, their similarities a cause for unity; their differences for celebration. This is Whitechapel as we have come to know and love it. But it hasn’t always been so. While the Huguenots, who fled France when Protestantism was outlawed in 1681, were largely warmly welcomed, Jewish and Bengali migrants were met with racism and discrimination. For the Jewish community, this reached its peak with the infamous Battle of Cable Street in 1936, a series of clashes that took place in the East End between the fascist Blackshirts, led by Oswald
