Abjol Miah

Respect Backs Strike Action

2011-03-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

The Respect Party this morning gave its full support to the strike action being taken by Tower Hamlets Unison members and members of the National Union of Teachers on 30th March.

“This government is implementing savage cuts in Tower Hamlets and at the same time redistributing resources from this deprived borough, with the highest rate of child poverty in the country, to the leafy suburbs where the majority of Tory and Lib Dem voters live,” said Councillor Fozol Miah, the leader of the Respect group on Tower Hamlets council. “These cuts will plunge the economy back into recession, with unemployment already at a 17 year high and inflation at a 20 year high. What a disaster.

“Teachers and council workers have clearly concluded they have no alternative but to strike in defence of jobs and services in this borough. No-one takes strike action lightly, especially such a dedicated workforce as we have in the council and the schools. But this government is not listening.

"I hope everyone will also be on the TUC march on 26th March to show this government that it has no mandate for these draconian cuts.”

Shadwell residents Fight 'Super' sewer

2011-03-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

Shadwell residents are furious that the King Edward Memorial park will be ruined if Thames Water has its way.

Thames Water, the privatised supplier of water and sewerage services to London, has proposed the construction of a “super” sewer across the park culminating in two enormous towers which are to allow the noxious gases to escape.

The proposals mean digging up the park and laying a huge pipe through it which will then be concreted over. The towers will not only emit gases, they will block the view down to the river.

Tower Hamlets already has far less green space than many other boroughs. The proposals from Thames Water would clearly have a very detrimental effect on the use of the park and its aesthetic qualities.

However residents are not going to allow Thames Water to ride roughshod over their park without a big fight. Already over 4,000 signatures have been collected on a petition opposing the plans and residents aim to have up to 10,000 signatures by the end of the month. A letter signed by residents opposing the plans was also handed in to Boris Johnson's office at City Hall by a delegation earlier this month.

The campaign is being led by Karl and Emma, two local residents, but Respect members have thrown themselves into the campaign wholeheartedly and there has been a terrific response from the mosques in the area.

Local resident and Respect candidate Mamun Alom said: “My kids play in this park as do many others. It’s a beautiful park and an essential asset in this overcrowded area where there is also such a high incidence of child poverty. The response from the local community has been tremendous.

Mamun continued: “Thames Water does not need to put the so-called “super” sewer in the park at all. There are alternative plans which would meet the need just as well and save the park from destruction. This has been confirmed by engineers who have worked on the project.”

Former Respect group leader and councillor Abjol Miah said: “We should remember what happened when Crossrail tried to put an enormous hole behind Brick Lane in the heart of Banglatown. The community campaign forced them to abandon this and suddenly discover a completely different way of constructing the tunnel which avoided the potentially disastrous disruption and despoliation of the area. The same kind of high profile campaign involving the community and embarrassing Thames Water and the politicians who have control over planning permission will be just as effective.”

WHY WE SHOULD VOTE NO IN THE REFERENDUM ON 5th MAY!

2011-03-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

The electoral system for the election of the British parliament is grossly unfair. No party has received an absolute majority of the votes since the Second World War and yet parties have almost invariably received an absolute majority of seats and sometimes a huge majority. As time has gone on the difference between the votes received by parties and their seats has become more and more grossly disproportionate.

Now as part of a deal between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, we are to have a referendum nationwide on the electoral system on 5th May. However we are not being asked to vote to make the electoral system fairer. The proposal is that we either stick with the present system or change to a system which will benefit the Liberal Democrats without making the votes any more proportional than they are now.

In fact it has been estimated by experts that the new system that some are urging us to adopt would have made no difference to the results of the elections held in the last 30 years. In other words we would still have had Thatcher, Major and Blair with large majorities enabling them to do exactly what they wanted to do and messing the country up as a result.

The changes being proposed by the government are the product of a cynical attempt to benefit the government parties and nothing else. The Tories are reducing the number of seats in the Commons abolishing a lot of inner city seats held by Labour. The only reason for them to do this is to make it harder for Labour to win elections. And the Alternative Vote system is designed to boost the representation of the Liberal Democrats who are facing electoral oblivion at the next election because of the lies they told during the election and the promises they have broken in order to get their ministerial cars.

What is the Alternative Vote system. Instead of just placing a cross against the party or candidate you most prefer, under AV you will place candidate in order of preference. If no candidate has an absolute majority of votes in a constituency, the least popular candidate is eliminated and their votes redistributed according to second preference. That process continues until a candidate does have an absolute majority.

That makes it sound as though it is fairer but it isn’t, first of all it gives the opportunity for voters for the British National Party, for example, to decide who the MP will be. BNP candidates are likely to be eliminated at an early stage and all those BNP votes will then be transferred to other candidates, probably ensuring the election of that candidate. This will give a strong incentive for Conservative candidates in particular to make even more extreme anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim statements than they already are prone to do.

Anyway why should those who vote for fringe parties decide who are MP should be? The Liberal Democrats like this system of course because they think that Labour or Conservative voters will transfer to them to keep out, respectively the Conservative or Labour candidate. So they are hoping this will enable them to hold on to seats they would otherwise certainly lose at the next General Election.

The overall effect of the AV system is that there will still be a huge difference between the proportion of votes won by a party and the seats they win. So this system is just as unfair and in some circumstances more unfair than the present system. That is why we in the Respect Party unequivocally oppose its introduction and call on everyone to vote No in the referendum.

What we need in Britain is not AV but a properly proportional system of election. And we need changes electoral law to eliminate the fraud and malpractice that have undermined the integrity of the electoral system in Britain in recent years.

A properly proportional system will ensure that there is a much closer link between the votes won by a party and their representation in parliament. There are a variety of systems that will do this but Alternative Vote is not one of them. Perhaps the best is Single Transferable Vote which will give us multi-member constituencies and therefore enable voters to go to MPs who are properly sympathetic to their problems. At the moment if you face problems of racism or with the immigration authorities and you have a right wing Tory MP, you will not be properly represented. But if we had STV, there will almost certainly be a Respect or Labour MP who will take up your problems and fight for you to get justice.

A properly proportional system would have meant Thatcher would never have been Prime Minister smashing up the public sector, privatising everything in sight and making sure the rich got richer as the poor got poorer. And we would never have had Blair taking us into the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. Such a system is worth fighting for and we should reject AV because it does not go anywhere near producing proportionality and will almost certainly make it more difficult to get the change we really need.

We also need to get rid of the system of postal votes on demand which have seen the big parties signing up those most vulnerable to coercion and manipulation in order for them to hang on to their seats and power. Postal votes on demand are impossible properly to police and they are the greatest source of the fraud and abuse which has undermined our democracy.

Remember if we defeat the AV system in the referendum, the Condem coalition will almost certainly fall apart and we will then see the back of this appalling government which is cutting our services and throwing our young people, and many others on the dole.

VOTE NO IN THE REFERENDUM ON THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM.

Respect Gathering 'Spring into Spring'

2011-02-27T16:59:00.000-08:00

Sunday 06 March · 13:30 - 17:30
Venue: Caxton Hall, "Malmesbury Estate .Caxton Grove London, E3 2AX

You and your family are invited to another Respect Gathering 'Spring into Spring' with food, Fun and Refreshments and good company for all. George Galloway and many other guests are invited

ALL WELCOME

Please bring a dish along to share or some refreshments . Please can you email carole.swords@googlemail.com or ring to confirm your attendance as we are limited with space

Also can you inform me of what food dish or refreshment you would like to bring along.
Thank you

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=201699639840369

Why does David Cameron encourage the EDL?

2011-02-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, the English Defence League held a demonstration in Luton, an area with a large Muslim minority including many families of Bangladeshi origin. The EDL is an organisation led by racists and attracting racist thugs, many from the football terraces. It has filled a gap left by the decision of the British National Party to pursue its racist objectives through the electoral road. This has led the BNP to eschew street mobilisations for fear that the inevitable violence that follows will put off their potential voters.

The primary focus of the EDL’s hatred is the Muslim community. Their storm troopers yell anti-Muslim insults and carry placards with anti-Muslim slogans on their marches. It has been responsible for a lot of violence wherever they have mobilised. Racist attacks have increased, mosques attacked and they have even fought with the police when they have been kettled or moved on.

Last year they threatened to come to Tower Hamlets, ostensibly to protest against a conference being held by a Muslim organisation in the Troxy. The council, then led by Councillor Helal Abbas, unfortunately pressurised the Troxy to cancel the event, thereby capitulating to the prejudices of the EDL. Nonetheless there was an excellent and completely counter-demonstration which saw some 5,000 people from the local community march to the East London mosque and Altab Ali Park.

On Saturday in Luton, the EDL managed to bring together some 1,500 people from across Britain and other parts of Europe. That is 1,500 too many but it is important to note that this was a European wide mobilisation which had been built for months, with the EDL linking up with similar Muslim-hating organisations in Germany, Denmark, Holland and elsewhere. As such its organisers must be disappointed at the turnout.

Nonetheless it caused considerable disruption in Luton town centre with shops forced to close and lose business. There was also a very significant counter-demonstration, organised by Unite Against Fascism and local groups around some of the mosques. I took a number of activists who had been central to the counter-demonstration in Tower Hamlets down to Luton to support the community there and we were made very welcome. The counter-mobilisation was very disciplined, making it clear the EDL thugs and their message of hatred and division were not welcome in Luton or anywhere else.

In many ways more significant than the EDL march however was the speech last Saturday morning by Prime Minister David Cameron declaring “multiculturalism” to be dead. If the EDL was disappointed by the turnout for their march, they would have been very encouraged that Cameron seems to have accepted some of their ignorant, bigoted and prejudiced arguments.

The premises of Cameron’s argument seem to be that the “multiculturalism” is responsible for a separation between different communities which fosters suspicion and hatred and that it has created the circumstances in which extremism goes unchallenged and is even encouraged to grow. Both aspects of this argument are complete nonsense. Sadly the real motivation is to pander to the prejudices of the Conservative right wing and racist voters the Tories would like to woo back from the BNP.

Firstly “multiculturalism” does not encourage separation between communities. On the contrary, multiculturalism is about generating respect and mutual understanding between different cultures. That is why it is much more accurate to describe this process as One Society, Many Cultures.

Multiculturalism comes out of a challenge to the viewpoint associated originally with the philosophy of imperial conquest and colonialism. That view was that the West had a superior civilisation which the rest of the world, enveloped in ignorance and prejudice, need to be brought to it and imposed on it in order to bring progress. This was the justification for the slaughter of indigenous populations and their subjection to brutal colonial rule.

Now we witness something very similar with Western values being paraded as universal values which must be imposed through the bombing of civilians and through military invasion. Just how hypocritical this philosophy is can be seen from a swift glance at what has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan on the one hand and the propping up of the brutal Egyptian police state under the dictator Hosni Mubarak on the other.

This is not to deny that there are universal values on the basis of our common humanity which transcend cultural differences. But it is to say that Western leaders like David Cameron parading their own interests and prejudices as those universal values is cynical and hypocritical.

Take for example his claim that equality and democracy are core values of the British tradition. It is true that many British people, both Muslim and non-Muslim share these values. But they have not been shared for most of the long history of the British Isles by Britain’s rulers and frankly that remains the case today.

fter all, study after study has established that the spending cuts being carried out by this government will impact much more severely on the less well off, the disadvantaged and the vulnerable. The cuts will increase inequality which has anyway been increasing in this new era of globalisation over the last 30 years. Nor does this government have a mandate for these cuts. The Liberal Democrats went into the election and attracted votes on the basis of a commitment to oppose drastic and rapid spending cuts. Once elected though they have broken their promises, something I trust the voters will remember and punish them for the next time we get to vote, which sadly is some way off yet.

David Cameron leads a party which has always sought to limit democracy in this country and which represents the interests of the wealthiest in this this country. Caron himself was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, went to the most prestigious and expensive public schools and then the relatively exclusive Oxford University. So we in the Muslim community will take no lectures from this heir to the imperialist tradition on the issue of either democracy or equality.

Nor has multiculturalism in any way encouraged support for the politics of Al Qaeda and violent extremism. The fact is that the vast majority of Muslims in this country want nothing to do with the politics and philosophy of Al Qaeda. Those Muslim organisations that receive public money all counsel against this extremism.

Insofar as a tiny minority of British Muslims are duped into extremism, it is fuelled by the policies of successive governments, which have seen hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed in illegal and immoral wars and pro-Western Muslim dictators like Hosni Mubarak propped up by the West. But that is an issue which Cameron cannot address as he continues to support the British military involvement in Afghanistan.

As for resentment arising out of separation of communities, we need to understand two things. Firstly, the Muslim and other ethnic minority communities continue to suffer, sadly, from much everyday racism which leads the majority community to move away from areas where significant numbers of ethnic minority people move into and which deny members of ethnic minorities educational and career opportunities.

The Muslim community welcomes the possibility of people learning English but this government's spending cuts will reduce the possibility of English being learnt by older members of Britain's ethnic minorities. But these cuts have a far greater impact even than that. As support for the least well off is reduced, as employment and housing opportunitiesdecline, people become easily prone to those voices that say these problems are all a result of too many immigrants and so on.

Economic decline always sees a rise in racism for this reason. It has nothing to do with multiculturalism but everything to do with the cynical exploitation of ignorance in the face of inevitable difference.

The government now claims it will only fund those organisations which preach British values and a British identity. The fact is that no Muslim organisation in receipt of public funds encourages extremism and they all counsel against the politics of Al Qaeda. What the government really intends is that it will penalise any organisation which both celebrates difference on the basis of our common humanity and dares to tell a different history from that acceptable to right wing bigots.

We must expose and resist Cameron’s assault of the Muslim community and our desire to be a respected part of British society. If anyone needed confirmation of the moral bankruptcy of this awful government Cameron's speech is proof positive.

Abjol Miah: "The time is up for the modern Pharoahs!"

2011-02-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

For 30 years Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt with an iron grip. His dictatorship, backed by the United States, Britain and the West in general, has concluded a “peace” agreement with Israel which has meant that the Palestinian people of Gaza have suffered the most terrible siege for years. Mubarak had 1.2 million police ruthlessly suppressing dissent with members of the political opposition arrested, tortured and sometimes murdered.

Now it is over. Mubarak is, in the words of Mohammed ElBaradei, a dead man walking. The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Mubarak to go. The foreign minister of Sweden has declared the era of Mubarak is over. Support for his regime in the West is melting away.

Why has this seemingly impregnable cornerstone of United States imperialism in the Middle East crumbled so quickly? The answer lies in events in Tunisia along the North African coast. On December 28, just before the new year, Mohamed Bouazizi burned himself to death in protest against police harassment which was preventing him from earning the minimum he needed to stay alive.

Tunisia has long been a tourist destination for the Europeans but the regime was a horribly corrupt dictatorship under the venal Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. His rule was also enforced by a brutal police force. But within days of the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, massive protests showed the emperor no longer had any clothes. Ben Ali fled the country, taking as much of his pilfered wealth as possible.

The wonders of modern communication, and particularly the brave journalists of Al Jazeera, showed the Tunisian revolution around the world and the message came over loud and clear to the Egyptian people - you can get rid of your dictator too. And so it was that just ten days ago, mass protests erupted across Egypt against the despotic thief and murderer Hosni Mubarak.

The police responded with terrible brutality with the death toll from the protests now some 350 and rising. But the police were fought to a standstill such were the numbers beginning to rise against Mubarak and they retreated to their barracks. Then on Tuesday more than a million people gathered in Tahrir (Liberation) square in the heart of Cairo and hundreds of thousands more in Alexandria, Suez, Mansoura and other cities across Egypt. The message was one - Mubarak must go and he must go now.

Mubarak declared on Tuesday evening he would not stand in the Presidential elections in September which Mubarak was intending to rig, just as he has rigged previous elections which have given him and almost 100% vote from the Egyptian people.
But this announcement was denounced as a trick by the protestors and they have been proved right. For on Wednesday, pro-Mubarak thugs, many of them plain clothes policemen and paid for by the super-rich who have done so well out of the Mubarak regime, attacked protestors over many hours. More than a thousand protestors have been injured and some martyrs have lost their lives at the hands of these fascist thugs.

Some say Mubarak is trying to foment anarchy in order to persuade many that life will be worse without him. We have to be clear that the massive demonstrations for him to go have been completely peaceful until Mubarak’s paid thugs attacked. So far the pro-democracy protestors have stood their ground. It may be that the mobilisation of these thugs shows his weakness as he cannot deploy the police and the army has said will not shoot the pro-democracy protestors.

Israel is clearly quaking and its mouthpiece Tony Blair, the so-called Middle East peace envoy, has repeated ad nauseam that there needs to be an “orderly” transition. This transition, he demands, must ensure the Muslim Brotherhood, the best organised and most popular of the opposition groups whose members have faced continuous harassment and imprisonment by the Mubarak regime, is marginalised and kept out of power. Blair, the butcher of Iraq, now seeks to impose on the people of Egypt his and Israel’s choice of government. What a disgrace. This "peace" envoy should be arraigned at the International Court of Justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel, Blair, the United States and others, are seeking to dictate to the Egyptian people whom they should choose in elections, something they have done ever since the death of Gamel Abdal Nasser. Fortunately the more they seek to do this, the more the people of Egypt will ignore them if at last they secure free and fair elections. For the Egyptian masses know that Egypt has been the greatest recipient of US aid after Israel, almost all of it going to the army, whilst half the Egyptian population struggles to survive on less than a dollar a day.

The priority now is that the old regime is swept away and the Egyptian people themselves, and without any outside interference, establish a real democracy in which they can elect a government that will truly represent them, redistribute wealth to the less well off and support the Palestinian people.

The fall of Mubarak will change the entire situation in the Arab world. Egypt is the beating heart of the Arab world. If the Egyptian people bring down Mubarak, which is inevitable now, and the Mubarak regime, the lesson will be drawn by all of the Arab people that they too can bring down the tyrant kings and presidents who act as the puppets of Israel and United States imperialism.

And this in turn will dramatically change the situation for the Palestinian people, suffering as they continue to do, from brutal oppression by the state of Israel. If a government of the people comes to power in Egypt, the gates of Rafah will come tumbling down and the siege of Gaza will be over. American imperialism will have suffered a huge defeat, parallel to the defeat in the Vietnam war. Israel will be massively weakened.

The Egyptian revolution is now under threat. It must either go forward and remove not only Mubarak but the whole regime he constructed round his dictatorship or it will be drowned in blood by the counter-revolution. The next couple of days are crucial. On Friday after prayers there will, I hope, be a huge march which will go to the seat of power, the Presidential Palace and finally force Mubarak to leave office.

Egypt has many educated people as well as appalling poverty. Now is the time for bold leadership to bring down the dictatorship and bring in a new era of democracy in which the humiliation of the Arab and Muslim peoples by Western imperialism, Israel and their puppets begins to be reversed.

Abjol Miah
National Respect Chair

Donate online

2010-02-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

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Biography

2010-02-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

Abjol Miah is a community activist for in Tower Hamlets over the last 25 years, he is currently the National Chair of the Respect Party.

Abjol Miah was a Councillor for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and was the leader of Respect Opposition Group since 2006 and sat on the Tower Hamlets Overview Scrutiny Committee and made contribution on the Strategic Development and Development Committee.

In 2010 general election Abjol was the Member of Parliament candidate for Respect in Bethnal Green and Bow.

Abjol Miah read BA Social Anthropology and Sociology at Goldsmiths University of London. He has a wealth of experience in youth and community work. Abjol has had over 15 years of Youth and Community work experience with local authority, 5 years experience working with voluntary and community organisations, 2 years as a Drug Prevention Education Officer for Healthy Schools and 3 years working at the Drug Action Team.

Abjol Miah was the founding chair of Tower Hamlets Muslim Advisory Group to the Metropolitan Police Borough Commander, as well as serving in other community organisations board.

In his spare time Abjol Miah is involved in various voluntary organisation in the borough as well as being a presenter of the locally acclaimed radio show. His passion for charity work led him to drive from Brick lane to Sylhet, Bangladesh in order to raise funds for cyclone victims. With his feloow humanitarian he entered Gaza with Viva Palestine to deliver aid to its people.

Being a man with a sense of justice, equality and community, He has led on many campaigns including

1) Defend council housing/Over Crowding
2) Opposing drug, alcohol misuse
3) Issues of Poverty, unemployment and Cuts
4) Justice for the people of Palestine
5) Invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan with Stop the War Coalition
3) Racism of all forms recently with United Against Fascism

A family man, he is happily married with 4 children (2 daughters and 2 sons) and enjoys fishing, cycling and sports.

Abjol Miah is a Martial art instructor, who has won Silver and bronze at the UK Stick Fighting tournaments, representing Britain in 1994 World Stick Fighting Championship in the Philippines. He currently teaches Martial Art to children and young people.