The Arab Boy and Tapestry Pubs in West London + the Iron Wall of Immigration
English Pubs seem to revel in their diversity — or their colonialism. But when it comes to cultural exchange is the best place a pub?
The Arab Boy + The Tapestry Pubs in West London
One of the oldest pubs in Putney, The Arab Boy is named after Yussef Sirrie, the Middle Eastern servant of local solicitor and property developer Henry Scarth. Scarth built two pubs on Upper Richmond Road in 1849, the former Quill pub and the Arab Boy, although it’s unclear if Scarth named the pub or Sirrie christened it after he inherited it. Watney and the Magic pub company, owned the Arab Boy, until the Greene King chain took it over in 1996. As of 2021, the Arab Boy remains “independently owned,” and doesn’t seem to be attracting any untoward attention for its name, even in the context of today’s international conflicts.
Once called the Jolly Milkman, The Tapestry Pub on Lower Richmond Road was rechristened in 2001 to commemorate the tapestry works that once stood in 17th-century Mortlake, nearby. The Mortlake Tapestry Works sat alongside the River Thames and produced lighter, if vastly more expensive, decoration for rooms than the previously favoured Elizabethan wood panelling. The English Civil War disrupted all luxury goods businesses, and even though royals tried to revive the business, it closed in 1704. The Tapestry pub has since designed its menu to reflct that various tastes and cultures brought to West London since.
Now that we have our drinks, on to the topic at hand:
The Iron Wall of Immigration
Early last week, while the U.S. continued to debate slamming the door more permanently in the faces of people fleeing South and Central America, the UK Home Office had a bit of an embarassing dust up of its own. Although it did not make international news, it was the kind of misstep that was truly embarassing for a country that once prided itself on being “big tent,” especially regarding culture.
The Afghan Youth Orchestra — a group of teenagers who heartily jam on rubabs and play sitars better than the Beatles — had been invited to perform a four-city tour beginning at Southbank’s Queen Elizabeth Centre. But they almost didn’t make it after the Home Office denied the visas of all 47 young musicians, more than half of them female, on 4 March, a day before their flights from their asylum base of Portugal.
The Home Office turned down the Afghans’ nine-day visitor visa request on three grounds: the amount of money in each musician’s bank account; their student statuses in Portugal; and assurances they would return to Portugal at the end of the four-day tour. “We couldn’t believe it,” Shogofa Safi, 19, a percussionist, told the Times of London. “…We know the Taliban are scared of the power of music but didn’t think the British government was too.”
It is not the first time the British government denied the musicians. After the Taliban seized power in August 2021, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) sought refuge in the UK — backed by 100 top British musicians, including Peter Gabriel. The UK said “no.” Portugal ultimately intervened and the ANIM, which had previously toured the world and played at New York’s prestigious Carnegie Hall, eventually landed in Braga and Guimaraes in North Portugal. Yet on this occurence — a guest trip, rather than a permanent home — such discord rang out that the Home Office reversed its decision. With visas in hand, the orchestra flew last-minute from Lisbon on Thursday morning for the concert that night — no time to rehearse. “What message does that send to the world?” asked Baroness Helen Kennedy, one of the leading human rights barristers in London.
Ministries of Foreign Affairs practice “hard diplomacy” and “soft diplomacy” — a stick and a carrot approach — to persuade governments, expecially hostile ones, to embrace outside agendas. In the case of Afghanistan, once the Taliban fell in 2002, Western governments pumped money into the country to revive some of the institutions that barely survived, including the ANIM, the war-torn nation’s first and only music school, which gave Afghan boys and girls the rare opportunity to learn side by side, and to study both Western and Afghan music.
But no more, apparently. If the entire premise behind cultural diplomacy is to influence public opinion at home and abroad, build relationships through shared experience and, in an increasingly globalised world, learn aspects of other people’s lives that make ours richer — or at least more rhythmic — then the civil servants under Home Secretary James Cleverly and Foreign Secretary David Cameron are failing us all miserably.
The Afghan Youth Orchestra plays a version of Mera Joota Hai Japani, a Hindi song with music by Shankar Jaikishan, written for the 1955 Bollywood film Shree 420 during its performance at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on 7 March.
When I first came to England and entertained the notion of living here, I was told over and over, “We may speak the same language, but England is nothing like America.” Agreed, but Americans and the English don’t really even speak the same version of English. That said, my light skin, blue eyes and American passport allow me an easier time than most people entering the country for business or pleasure.
It’s definitely not the same for any of my dozens of friends who are browner than me, speak a version of an ancient language and want to come to the West for a couple of weeks, attend a school, learn a skill, play before an audience or even buy some goods or equipment and return where they came from. The thing about leaving home that most people don’t understand, however, is that few do it permanently — even if they are a part of a persecuted minority or their freedoms are curtailed — and most eventually return once political and social matters improve.
Another clip from the Afghan Youth Orchestra playing reginal music during its performance at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on 7 March.
So why do we now collectively treat those coming to the West for any reason like trespassers? Blame Theresa May, that stiff-upper-lipped, Hobbs-wearing former prime minister who did not display any trans-cultural bona-fides while dancing abroad. When May became Home Secretary in 2010 and committed to reduce immigration, she advocated for a “really hostile environment for illegal migration.” Although May didn’t put it all down in a White paper, according to a 2021 study from the University of Birmingham, in her May 2012 newspaper interview announcing the policy, she claimed that foreign nationals believed “they can come here and overstay because they’re able to access everything they need.” She continued to dissuade immigration in the UK by preventing migrants from accessing basic services, as well as requiring them to prove frequently their right to reside through the enforcement of “biometric borders,” including databases and algorithms. Since that time, local government officials, public servants, police officers, private companies and even “ordinary people” have also been de-facto deputised into into controlling migration, seeing it as their national duty.
That leaves the rest of us, either well-travlled and open minded UK citizens, BIPOC people or transplants from other countries to foster the cultural diplomacy we so desperately need to deter this kind of xenophobia from sweeping the country. In the case of the Afghan musicians, statistics show that they are possibly the least likely group to take up permanent residence in England. In the year ending June 2021, India, Poland and Pakistan had the largest numbers of foreign-born residents of the UK, according to Oxford University’s Migration Observatory. and that voluntary returns in 2023 were 15 percent lower compared with 2019 (12,574), showing a long-term downward trend since 2015.
In this particular instance, UK citizens didn’t turn their backs on an egregious dsiplay of “othering.” They choose culture over an overzealous government agency and even showed up to support it. But can we take this instance and apply it to our everyday lives, to the African drummers we see scraping by doing street performances, or the Middle-Eastern refugee football team needing money for a practice pitch? Indeed, we all need to realise one day that “welcome” — مرحباً (marhaba), ښه راغلاست (kha raghlast), خوش آمدید (khosh amadid) or سلام (salâm) — is the most powerful word to achieve true global harmony.
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