“As we grew up, our instinct was that the enemy was the system and the police. That’s what we were fighting against.”
Attendees at SEP public meeting discuss Grenfell Tower fire
By
our reporters
26 August 2017
Attendees at the Socialist Equality Party August 19 public meeting in London on the Grenfell Tower fire spoke to reporters.
Rabia said, “I came here because one of the survivors who spoke earlier is married to my cousin. She’s been struggling to find a place and is still in a hotel. They have a little child as well. And with them all—her cousin, her cousin’s husband and their child–being in one room, it’s very frustrating.”
Asked what she thought about the reports presented at the meeting she said, “This thing is happening world-wide, not just in London. For example in Sri Lanka, where that rubbish dump collapsed on all those people.
“In other countries, it seems that some areas are only for the poor so the governments think that they can do whatever they like there. In Kensington and Chelsea though, social inequality is visible because the rich and the poor live together. Here you have Holland Park [a wealthy neighbourhood in Kensington and Chelsea] and then you turn around the corner and you see a council flat. Here you can see the actual slums, and then you walk just a bit further and you see the houses of those people who are really upper class. But that makes it worse. Yes, Kensington and Chelsea is a rich borough, but the working class are also living here as well as the rich.
“In this area we’re getting the rich from places like Dubai coming in and buying up the properties, but also the land. It’s just money for the government. So who cares about the working class people? They just want to push them out and make this area…