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Birmingham Respect election campaign launched with 300-strong meeting |
Birmingham Respect’s local election campaign has got
off to a flying start. Around 300 people attended a
launch rally with guest speaker George Galloway MP.
Many people commented this was Respect’s best ever
meeting in the city.
The candidates were particularly
impressive. Salma Iqbal, a local women's advise
worker, spoke insightfully about the reality of
poverty in Springfield ward, highlighting the gap in
educational attainment and the lack of affordable
housing.
Nahim Ullah Khan, the Sparkbrook candidate,
emphasised unemployment, drugs, guns and gangs. Nahim
is a youth worker with rich experience.
He has worked
for the United Nations in continental Europe,
Pakistan, Bosnia and Palestine on projects with
communities and youth on issues such as health,
identity, peace, xenophobia, Islamophobia.
Kings Heath
and Moseley candidate Ray Gaston was very warmly
received. Ray is a Christian priest who for 8 years
served at All Hallows Church, a radical Christian
community involved in interfaith dialogue, grassroots community
action, asylum seeker support in Leeds and resistance to the 'war on
terror'.
He is now a
full time postgraduate student at the University of Birmingham studying Christian-Muslim
relations. Ray
emphasised the need for a politics of solidarity.
Cllr Mohammed
Ishtiaq outlined the difference Respect had made
locally in Sparkbrook and local resident and
neighbourhood forum activist Mary Mockbill, spoke how
she had campaigned against Respect in the last local
elections but was so impressed by the work of our
councilors that she was going to campaign for us this
May.
Mushtaq Hussain, who is becoming legendary in
Respect for his campaigning skills and who came second
last years election in Nechells ward, spoke in Urdu
about his pride of being in a party with Salma Yaqoob
and George Galloway.
Both of these were the final
speakers and spoke with customary passion and
eloquence, leaving the audience inspired for the
electoral challenges ahead. Over £1,000 was raised in donations.
Click here for video of the event |
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