Passive Resistance Dub
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Asian Dub Foundation is back with another Dub. This time, their song, TH9, reflects the attacks on immigrant communities in the UK. Most prominently, they focus on the experience of Quddus Ali, who was 17 years old at the time when a group of gang members assaulted him. While at the surface, this may seem like any other event of gang violence, there was a pattern at the time across the UK of violence that was more racially charged, and this incident brought light to a lot of the other ones. Before anything else, I will preface by talking about the "passive resistance" that is a common theme for first-generation immigrants who are not trying to ruffle any of the feathers of the countries they're arriving in. So they sit silently while both they and the people around them who are like them are berated and endure racial tension. Asian Dub Foundation highlights this with lines such as "our parents had to sit tight, weren't allowed to fight back physically, just a mental strain."
Events like that of Quddus Ali are pivotal and allow us to remember moments where there is a standing up among second-generation immigrants who choose to confront rather than avoid and don't have the same pressure to assimilate. The passive resistance, while it may have been necessary, naturally made it more difficult to escape the societal norms that stem from oppression. Second-generation immigrants and those who came after them opposed what Hutnyck described as neo-Orientalism and showed a refusal to remain passive. A recent example of this was seen all across North America and even in Europe, where university students held protests on campus in the face of genocide in the Middle East. The response to many of these protests by politicians and the general public shows that suppression is an ongoing issue; contrastingly, the resilience of these protesters and students indicates a prominent demand to be heard.
ADF's song leads into Fun^Da^Mental's Dog-Tribe and more of Hutnyck's analysis as ADF's line "we're too black too strong," continues to exemplify the resilience and solidarity between Asians and black communities in their fight against racial oppression in the West. The common theme that we've come across many times in class is the lack of discrimination when it comes to who the West wants to discriminate. Typically, it's anyone who is unlike them. Hutnyck shows the importance of this inter-racial solidarity by saying, "strategies that cut across white–black divisions and which seek to organise the working classes against the racist provocations of the fascists and systematic exploitation in terms of lack of housing and employment and so on. This sort of engagement combines the best aspects of carnivalism and hard-edged community self-organisation."
One final theme that we've discussed in class is the existence of systemic racism and how it's perpetuated through different legal policies and regulations. Acts such as the Criminal Justice Act, which was touched on, show the oppression brought about by policy and continues to show itself many years later. This act increased the amount of police authority and limited public gatherings, which was a blatant push against protest, which was one of the only ways that minority groups could express their feelings of injustice. This included the banning of demonstrations of more than 20 people, attaching the title"aggravated" to any trespass, the ability for police to stop and search, as well as arrest on "reasonable suspicion" for terrorism. All of this shows that despite public sentiment, there are always ways for the government to get involved in an oppressive way, even if it's not the popular opinion.