Morissey/Nathan Parsons/Legion-Media
Qalam strives to explore the interpenetration of different cultures. To this end, we have decided to launch a series of playlists in which music mediates between different geographical and ideological spaces. Our first playlist is called ‘West to East: One Hundred Best Songs’. It will be updated several times a week, and its curation will focus on how Western pop culture has reflected the realities of the East, whether they are musical, geographical, religious, or political. (The terms ‘West’ and ‘East’ should be taken as broadly and arbitrarily as possible.)
The mass migration of Bengalis from Bangladesh to London in search of a better life, away from cyclones and war, began in the 1970s. On their arrival in the city, they primarily settled in the East End, where they were often terrorized by white supremacists. In May 1978, while he was on his way home, twenty-four-year-old Altab Ali was killed at the corner of Whitechapel Road by three young Nazis, triggering a protest demonstration of 7,000 people from Bangladesh. In fact, the atmosphere of skinhead conflicts in the early 1980s is well depicted in Sam Mendes's recent film Empire of Light (2022).
The song ‘Bengali in Platforms’ by Morrissey, the former frontman of The Smiths, was released in 1988, and it contains no tragedy, only irony, which, however, might seem objectionable by today's standards (though, since Morrissey is half-Irish, the song can be seen as a work of satire on British society and its policy of assimilating outsiders). With his characteristic melancholic coolness, Morrissey paints a portrait of a young Bengali man trying to fit into British society, adopting its habits and attire (the band Kolibri had a similarly themed song, ‘Black Guy on the Bus’). However, let’s leave these decolonial nuances to the experts and pay attention to the musical subtleties, in particular, how the incomparable Vini Reilly of another important band from the eighties, The Durutti Column, plays the guitar here, a topic we will discuss in upcoming issues.