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22

Feb

The Birth of A Concept PDF Print E-mail
Written by Satish Sekar   
The Mean Streets of Thamesmead
I didn't know it then, but twenty years ago today a tragedy occurred that changed the course of my life. It was the second pivotal event for me that month. The first is no secret – well actually it is as for legal reasons I can't talk about the case that established my reputation and helped convince me of the need for the Fitted-In Project, even if I didn't know that it would become that.

But while that case benefited from an in depth investigation that changed the course of British legal history, the second event is claimed as a triumph for British justice. It really shouldn't be seen that way. It should be seen as an indictment of a society that piled an outrage upon a tragedy. That a 15 year-old boy could lose his life waiting for a bus in Thamesmead, South-East London, because he was black is shameful. His 14 year-old brother was also attacked, but left with the trauma of seeing his brother murdered. Enraged by this senseless crime, he reacted, confronting the murderers of his brother. That our society allows a vulnerable boy, who should have been moving through adolescence to adulthood, to be treated in this manner dehumanises and disgraces us all.

Unsupported Victims

There was no effective Victim Support then. This was in the days before the term institutional racism was accepted by the police and other agencies of law enforcement. It happened when few disputed that the British National Party was anything but a bunch of vicious racist thugs. They had established a so-called bookshop in nearby Welling previously.

It resulted in a marked increase in racist attacks, carefully monitored and opposed by the sadly defunct Greenwich Action Committee Against Racist Attacks (GACARA). Its Co-ordinator, Dev Barrah had made a chilling prediction. If something wasn't done and fast a racist murder would happen. The following day a group of cowardly racist thugs attacked Rolan and Nathan Adams. Hurling N-bombs like there was no tomorrow the ignorant thugs attacked a law-abiding young man and thrust his reluctant father into the limelight.

Richard Adams never courted fame or publicity. The one thing he wanted most in the world he could never have – his son back. The vultures circled, keen to pick the carcass of political opportunity clean and having gorged themselves on the grief of a courageous family, they moved on to the next cause célèbre. Few emerge from this tawdry story with credit, but a worthy few do. Twenty years on middle aged adults who cut their political teeth resisting racist hate-crimes on the mean streets of Thamesmead returned to pay their respects to a young man who was never allowed the chance to grow into the man he should have been – an example to us all. Twenty years ago today Rolan Adams was murdered by cowardly racist thugs, but he will never be forgotten.


Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 February 2011 12:00
 

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