Channel 4 research project

[Guest Channel4dean]

I am currently researching a film for Film 4 centred around the life of the Sikh population in Smethwick in 1964. I am looking to interview local people who lived through that time, so they would be in their late 70's or 80's.  If anyone out there could offer any help with this it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Dean O'Loughlin 07703 319 516.

[Guest jigsaw_puzzled_singh]

Hey Dean, 

To be honest, although I'm often here this forum isn't really the best place to get the information you want.

It's pretty clear what you really want is information around the visit of Malcom X to Smethwick a few days before his assassination. A few years ago I did make a thread here on the subject but it didn't garner much interest. My advice to you is to try and contact the local branch of the IWA (Indian Workers Association) as it was them who were most actively involved in fighting racists and standing up for Sikh workers in Smethwich back in the late 1950s early 60s. Try and contact the family of Avtar Singh Johal as it was him who accompanied Malcolm X on his tour of Smethwick and also try contacting the family of Kashmira Kaur as she was in some way used as a tool by both left and right after the right wing Conservative racist candidate, Peter Griffiths was pictured being nice to her and her kids and the news media also focusing on her during and after Malcolm X's visit. Interestingly, a little while ago, I was up in Smethwick and was talking a yoot dem who lives on Marshall Street. I was trying to explain to him how historically significant his little street was in terms of being the epicentre of the genesis of race relations / civil rights in the UK and how his little street had, at one point, been a news story on both sides of the Atlantic. Sadly, like 99.9% of his fellow young UK born Sikhs....he neither knew nor cared to know.

 

[MisterrSingh]

Sounds like a potentially cool project.

I have a request: don't dilute the uniquely Sikh moments, experiences, and occurrences in your script in order to encompass a catch-all minority experience, particularly by crafting a parable for contemporary Islamic issues or any other non-descript, non-Sikh, South-East Asian minority, because Sikhs aren't Muslims or any other Asian group. We are our own people, with our own history and our experiences. We don't need or want our identity and our history to be utilised as subtext for other groups.

I wouldn't expect a documentary, but when dramatising real people and relative contemporary history, it does have the potential of going awry in certain respects, especially if the people financing the project have certain preconceived notions, demands, and expectations of the type of story they require. 

Your objectives might be noble, but it's clear from similar projects in the past that Sikhs are dealt a somewhat lax hand when it comes to faithfully representing us and our experiences for mainstream consumption by the likes of the BBC, etc.

Something to consider before you begin penning your script. You can't say you weren't made aware of these issues, because I've done so just now.