Clash over Birmingham Bangladesh memorial plan
Mar 11 2009 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Post
Plans for a Birmingham memorial to martyrs killed in Bangladesh 57 years ago have sparked an early exchange of blows in advance of the next General Election campaign.
Prospective Liberal Democrat candidate for Ladywood, Ayoub Khan, is supporting a proposal to site a £150,000 statue in Aston to mark the deaths of intellectuals who lost their lives fighting to have Bengali recognised as a national language.
The massacre occurred in 1952, soon after the then East Pakistan became an independent country, and is remembered each year in Bangladesh with a national day of commemoration.
But Labour Party members in Aston fear the memorial will cause resentment among the Pakistani community and could stir up “racial hatred”.
Zulfigar Khan, a prominent Labour activist and board member of Aston Pride, said: “If a young lad from any community paints something on the statue they will blame the Pakistani community and there will be fighting, which we don’t need.
“My fear is that this will be completely divisive and it is only being proposed in order to win votes at the election.
“A lot of Bangladeshis don’t want this either because they fear it will lead to problems.”
He promised to vote against any attempt to secure public funding for the memorial from Aston Pride.
Ayoub Khan, who is a Birmingham city councillor of Kashmiri-Pakistani descent, admitted that his backing for the statue was intended to build up support for his Parliamentary aspirations among some 6,000 Bangladeshi voters in Ladywood.
But he rejected warnings of racial tension, pointing out that similar memorials already exist in this country in Oldham and Tower Hamlets and have not been a focus for unrest.
Coun Khan (Lib Dem, Aston) said: “The Bangladeshi community says that so much is being done in Birmingham for the Pakistani community that they want something.
“I know that Labour are going around trying to make trouble here, but it is quite wrong to suggest that a memorial will provoke racial hatred.”
A planning application to site the memorial in Mansfield Green, off Witton Road, in Aston, will be lodged next week.
Coun Khan said the cost of building the memorial, estimated at £150,000, would be covered by fundraising among the Bangladeshi community.
Ladywood, for years a safe Labour seat, is looking increasingly vulnerable following the decision of Clare Short to step down as MP.
At the last General Election, Miss Short’s majority was cut to 6,801 with Ayoub Khan enjoying a 23.3 per cent increase in Liberal Democrat support.
Since then, Labour has suffered internal party problems after members protested when Shabana Mahmood was selected as prospective parliamentary candidate in preference to city councillor Yvonne Mosquito.
