2003, against weapons of mass destruction including Trident, for LGBT rights, for Pinochet to be put on trial, for the rights of Palestinian people, opening a dialogue with Sinn Fein, campaigns against racism and fascism, opposed tuition fees, opposed PFI, campaigned against UK selling arms to Iraq and against mass killing of Iraqi Kurds in 70s/ 80s, campaigned for public ownership of railways, argues against austerity etc etc etc, time and again he has been on the right side of history.…
ice a few times as spilled out of green lanes, and I was worried, they were going to smash my windows in. Had a police mobile parked on greenlanes for months at one point, to try to calm down the area after someone was shot just outside about near Baldwin’s area, I think
Also dirtier etc. But even then it had its own charm, just in a different way, whereas now it’s become so gentrified…
onsiderable interest. There are a preponderance of Turks in Haringey but of Bengalis say in Tower Hamlets. It's a fact and it can be interesting to look for the reasons. It's not racist to just talk about races for heaven's sake. Racism is to act or speak prejudicially against particular races which Philip certainly does not. I have good Turkish friends who would laugh at some of the responses here. Btw as Philip also implies it's interesting, and rather welcome I would say, that Turks and Kurds choose to live in the same area. So let's relax a bit about this, and not look for problems where none exist.…
restrictions are as follows:
Between the hours of 12noon and 8:30pm on Sunday, parking in marked bays will only be permitted for vehicles displaying a valid Green Lanes CPZ permit or a correctly scratched and displayed Green Lanes visitor permit in the below roads:
ALROY ROAD
CONINGSBY ROAD
ENDYMION ROAD
GREEN LANES, between the Hackney boundary and Endymion Road
LOTHAIR ROAD NORTH
LOTHAIR ROAD SOUTH
TANCRED ROAD
VENETIA ROAD
"no-waiting" cones will be set out on all single yellow lines to stop vehicles from parking on these routes.
Hope this information is helpful. Any questions let me know.
If you're interested you can read more about Newroz here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newroz_as_celebrated_by_Kurds
Asha Kaur
Harringay Liberal Democrat Campaigner…
le to do so in our streets so long as peaceful
So much better than the big gang fights on green lanes and across into the garden roads that used to go on between the gangs, mostly amongst younger kurds and turks. That was until someone got killed during one, around top of mattison road( cant remember exactly) around 15years ago-Then a police mobile van moved into green lanes with police 24/7 for few months, until they had "dealt with the situation", made arrests. And so far, all quiet on that front since
Good job done …
was the last time you heard of a major disruption?
“Whatever you think of the game it DOES, and did last night, produce a deal of violence” – welcome to society, it happens all over not just at football matches, it’s just that you have such a bee in your bowler hat about football for whatever reason.
The problems are between the Turks and Kurds not football fans per se. It does happen amongst other sections of society. Football is the excuse given to people who can’t think beyond the stereotype.
There are youth gangs in Harringay, pub brawls, criminal gangs, immature youths who cannot control themselves, this is not a football related issue and you need to leave your personal Janet Street-Porter-esq dislikes for the sport and any one who follows in the dark ages.…
us, wanting our alibies
We new it was gang and drug war but non of he locals would talk, but supposedly big mafia payments having to be paid out by local businesses to keep people happy- in the end police moved in permanently around where the ladder was - stayed about 3-6m before they got to the root and charged this guy- Seem bit too coincidentally now he is free that he got murdered. He certainly isnt the first or the last turk/kurd to be killed over such disputes
I remember the lovely guy who worked in my local newsagent was stabbed to death in 1999- that was mistaken identity though
Whoops, probably more info than I should have…
hat start in the pub and filter out into the alleyways?
The issue isn't Rakkas.
The issue is isn't intolerable because of the identity of the business.
These issues been filtering out of two pubs on Green lanes for years....
Why not admit you want the Turks, Kurds out.
You want to gentrify Green Lanes - turn Rakkas into a yoga joint run by a white woman named India?
Ohhh but of course you want to keep our restaurants?
I loath what the community I grew up in and my Father and Grandfather built has become.
A spot of tourism for people who want Crouch End but can't afford it. …
our own local situation; and working out policies which will benefit the whole community dismissing this completely, relying instead on anecdotes from a friend. And using these to stereotype the whole of "that community" (i.e. Turks and perhaps Kurds) for whom "the U.K. is seen as such a soft touch" with "most . . . fraudently claiming as many benefits as they can while working for cash-in-hand jobs."
And while we're sneering at misleading independent charities and "official statistics on unemployment, housing benefit, etc" we might as well make the same sweeping slur on a "large percentage of Haringey's population". Because Mr Mitchum knows the real truth. These people are only "seemingly poor". But hey, folks, you know what? They are "actually doing quite nicely".
So cuts? No problem at all. One simply writes to one's trustees.
(Labour councillor Tottenham Hale ward)…
es
The 29 bus route tells the story of Turkish London. From Trafalgar Square, it rolls up past grimy Camden, where the first Turkish Cypriots opened small businesses in the 1950s. On through Islington to the Seven Sisters Road, clipping Stoke Newington, where the prosperous Turkish families were quick to set up shop.
Then into Haringey, swinging hard left on to the middle section of Green Lanes. Few parts of the city have been so absolutely colonised as Green Lanes, one of the longest roads in London. At its centre is the confusingly named Harringay district, where the Grand Parade section of the street has been revivified by its settlers. Officially, out of 200,000-250,000 in London, there are 30,000-40,000 Turkish-speaking people in Haringey. All but a few shops are conspicuously Turkish, and all bar none are doing brisk business on a wet Saturday afternoon.
This street is often mentioned as a symbol of how warring communities - originally Turkish and Greek Cypriots - can forget their grievances and relearn to be neighbours. The symbol remains, but since most of the Greeks moved up the road to Palmers Green, the antagonists have been recast as Turks and Kurds. There are now about 30,000 Kurds in London, and most businesses on this stretch are in fact Kurdish-owned. Today, despite the rain, the mood is cheerful; everyone says that relations are good between the communities. But then they lower their eyes to admit that, "two years ago", things weren't so good.
Shortly after 4pm on November 9 2002, something like a war broke out on this stretch of road. After an altercation in a social club, more than 40 Turkish and Kurdish men fought a running battle with sticks, knives and guns. Alisan Dogan, an innocent 43-year-old cleaner, was killed. It was not the first horror to be perpetrated by Harringay's heroin gangs - part of a vast international business reputedly connected to Kurdish separatists in southeastern Turkey - but it shook the community. A friendly and thriving neighbourhood became infamous in an afternoon.
"Everyone was scared," says Nilgun Canver, a local councillor and chair of the Green Lanes Strategy Group. She sips at her coffee in a gleaming cafe just yards from where Dogan was killed. "They did not know what was going on. They didn't know what these people were about, and because it involved one or two shop-owners as well, people began to think, 'Oh, are we surrounded by criminals here?'"
Canver is Turkish - neither Cypriot nor Kurdish. She arrived as a student in the 1970s, and has the unmistakable bustle of a woman who gets things done. Her first response, two years ago, was to keep Turks and Kurds talking to each other, "so they could understand they were not all criminals". The effect, ironically, seems to have been positive. "Two years on, we are at a different point, definitely. Two years ago, we were more isolated." This morning, Canver hosted the first combined event for Haringey's three Turkish-speaking groups. It seemed to go well.
A little north of our cafe, on the other side of the road, is a Green Lanes institution, Yasar Halim - a Turkish grocers and bakers known all over the city. It was opened in 1981 by Mr Halim, a Turkish Cypriot, who felt that no one was selling decent food like he used to get back home. It is very busy, and all the staff - Turks and Greeks - seem to be having a great time.
The manager is a Turkish woman, Birsen Tuna. Within a minute of sitting down in her office, she is talking about "that day". Her tone is one of relief. "Now they have cleared it up," she says, producing an invitation to one of Canver's meetings. "It really affected our business, last year especially. But everything's safe now." The proof is clamouring for pide (Turkish pizza) and baklava outside.
Tuna is toying with the idea of going to live in Cyprus one day, but this is not Mr Halim's plan. "I've never said I'll go back to live in Cyprus in my life. I never think about that," he says, passionately. Why did he come to London? "One day my father was upset, we fought and I left," he says. It sounds like a very bare synopsis. And does he like it here? "Yes." His voice softens in an instant. "I like it here."
Last stop on the No 29 is Wood Green - a shopping centre where nothing is green or wooden. But it is home to the Kurdishowned Wood Green Kebab Centre. Idyllic rural scenes cover the walls, evidence of an idealistic streak among the stateless Kurds. The boss, Bayram Al, says he gave up politics when he left Turkey, although he still marches in London for Kurdish rights. A waiter, Irfan Tek, is more laid-back about his people's cause. He has other problems.
Tek arrived in London alone, and a week later his daughter, Ozlem, was born. She is now 12 and lives with his parents in Turkey, but Tek has never met her. He works up to 11 hours a day, six days a week, and sends most of his money home. He phones Ozlem every week. For now, he has to make do with pictures. "People tell me, 'Your daughter is so gorgeous, so beautiful.' She has my picture, she'll recognise me. I'll hug her, I'll kiss her - how many times, I don't know. I'm going to feel like Superman."…