“Messy Solidarities”: Reflections on the Politics of the Present

Abstract

This essay reflects on the history of anti-racist politics and activism in Britain following the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US. Examining the history of the literary magazine Wasafiri, it offers insights into how the different nomenclatures for 'black' and 'Asian' emerged at different moments in time. It provides a series of autobiographical pathways into this material, arguing that we should not forget the past to move forward in the present.

Keywords:

• Activism
• anti-racism
• Wasafiri
• political blackness
• Black and Asian British histories
• resistance
• Black Lives Matter

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In 1976 Gurdip Singh Chaggar, an 18-year-old, was stabbed in Southall, West London; in 1978, three more teenagers were murdered.

2 Other strikes included: Imperial Typewriters (1974) and Chix Bubble gum (1979).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susheila Nasta

Susheila Nasta is Founding Editor of Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing she launched in 1984 and led till 2019. A literary activist, writer and presenter, she is Professor of Contemporary and Modern Literatures at Queen Mary and Professor Emerita at the OU. Judge of a number of literary prizes, she is currently on the panel for the 2021 David Cohen Prize. She has published widely, especially in the field of Caribbean, South Asian and black British writing and has led a number of major public engagement projects. Her publications include: Asian Britain: A Photographic History (2013), Brave New Words: The Power of Writing Now (2019) and the co-editorship with Mark Stein of The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing (2020). She is currently writing a personal memoir and completing a group biography, The Bloomsbury Indians. In 2019, she received the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature for a lifetime’s achievement. A year later, she was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the English Association recognizing her contribution to English Studies. https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sed/staff/nastas.htmlwww.wasafiri.org.