Sasha Simic has seen and experienced enough to not be afraid to express exactly how he feels about the situation that faces protesters today.
Speaking to The Hackney Post ahead of Saturday’s march for anti-racism, Simic explains that he has been interested in anti-racist protests for so long that he vividly remembers the Soweto Riots of 1976. Incidentally, the riots are the reason UN Anti-Racism Day falls on March 21st every year as this was the date the riots started 46 years ago.
Simic has lived in Haggerston for over 25 years and, until 2019, worked as a Magazine and Book Distributor in Hackney Wick for more than 40 years. He has also been an active member of Hackney Stand Up to Racism (HSUTR) and has been involved in anti-racism since he was 16. He is the son of immigrants, his father a refugee from Serbia.
“I’m a veteran of protests against the Poll Tax. I remember the apartheid, where reform came through protest. It is not right on any level for the state to seek more control over whether we can protest or not.
“It gives me encouragement that people do still come out to protest.”
On Saturday, HSUTR will join a coalition of protesters to march from Portland Place to Parliament Square. Marches will be taking place in numerous major cities: London, Glasgow, Paris, Berlin, New York. With a smile spreading across his face, Simic also explains that, for a mixture of logistical and rugby-related reasons, the march in Cardiff is scheduled for Sunday instead.
“Of course, for the last two years we have not been able to do it because of the lockdown. The march is going to be led by a contingent of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community. They’re leading everyone off with horses and traps as part of a protest against the anti-Roma legislation in Priti Patel’s Police, Crime, and Sentencing Bill that specifically targets that community.
“There will be lots of different groups marching, religious groups; there’ll be people marching who are interested in climate justice, it’s an issue that affects people in the third world. People marching against the attacks on [Ukrainian] refugees by Priti Patel.”
Perhaps the thing Simic is most keen to put across during our conversation is his belief that the current government is hindering the process of anti-racism, rather than helping.
“I have always argued that racism is coming from the top, especially in the last two or three years. It’s significant that Boris Johnson has the reputation for using racist language.
“Priti Patel put Clause 9 in [to the Nationality and Borders Bill], which allows the government to remove the nationality status of any persons who had a parent who was born outside the country, which applies to me by the way. They could take that away.”
HSUTR does have some support from local politicians. MPs Diane Abbott and Apsana Begum gave speeches at an event on March 4 at the North London Muslim Community Centre.
“Protesting local issues strengthens the movement from below which is what I think is the key to changing this stuff,” says Simic. “It’s not with the mainstream media, who have spent 20 years or more attacking immigrants, asylum seekers, and the Muslim community after 9/11.
“When that three-year-old boy drowned seven years ago, trying to cross from Turkey into Europe, that horrible photo of that poor little boy, washed up on the beach, created a massive wave of sympathy that cut right through the propaganda. People realise that these were just ordinary human beings who are trying to escape from war or persecution or oppression.”
Simic also hopes that all those involved in protesting will take confidence from the anti-war campaigns in Russia. “There is an anti-war movement going on in Russia at the minute…some of those 14,000 people who’ve been arrested just for holding up empty placards. Johnson can’t declare that stuff abhorrent and then at the same time, prepare legislation that means it’s up to the police whether we protest or not.”
Simic expresses obvious pleasure at the news that 89,000 people have signed up for the Homes for Ukraine scheme. “Most people want to receive Ukrainian refugees fleeing Putin’s invasion in the same kind of openness and generosity that we have seen the Polish government have, that the Albanian government have.
“The important thing is that we get people out and that they are safe. And all that we have seen from this government is the maintenance of a hostile environment, the same inhumanity being shown to them as they showed to people fleeing Afghanistan, fleeing Syria, Iraq, and Eritrea.
“It’s appalling.”
Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, announced yesterday that the Ukraine refugee scheme has been set up to “support the most vulnerable during their darkest hours”.
Simic concludes: “Nobody’s pretending that racism disappears because of one march on one day, no matter how big and how many countries, but it is a day where we can say actually anti-racism is the majority position for people. It’s all part of building as wide a net as possible and getting people out on Saturday to show support.”
UN Anti-Racism Day is held on March 21 every year and Saturday’s march is starting at Portland Place at midday on Saturday March 19.
