Join us on 11 April at 3pm for a play-and-tell session with Hajera Begum, Dr. Fatima Rajina, and other members of Nijjor Manush, a local Bengali/Bangladeshi-led independent campaigning and solidarity organisation. Fatima and Hajera will share songs and sounds that have been important to their organising, their friendships, and their movement both historically and in the present.

This event is the second in a public programme series curated by researcher, writer and sound practitioner Syma Tariq. Full programme listings can be found on our website.

Nijjor Manush (“our own people” in Bangla) launched in the East End in 2018 through the fearless and ongoing campaign against plans to redevelop Brick Lane. Celebrating the rich histories and political self-organisation of the Bengali and Bangladeshi diaspora, they actively engage in issues faced by women, working-class communities and people of colour today. Their organising is aimed at two key areas – radical histories and critical intervention – to action change that is political, educative and supportive.

Hajera Begum is an activist who has campaigned around issues of anti-racism, state repression and Palestine. She is a co-founder of Nijjor Manush and also organises with Abolitionist Futures, a network of community organisers and activists in Britain and Ireland who are working together to build a future without prisons, police and punishment. She has written articles on policing and co-developed educational programmes on the history of anti-racism organising, South Asian Internationalism and Prevent.

Dr. Fatima Rajina is a Senior Legacy in Action Research Fellow at the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre at De Montfort University. She is trained as a sociologist and social anthropologist. After completing her MA in Islamic Societies and Cultures at SOAS, she went on to do a PhD after successfully securing a Nohoudh Scholarship with the Centre of Islamic Studies, SOAS, University of London. Completing her PhD at SOAS, the monograph that resulted from her PhD, entitled British Bangladeshi Muslims in the East End: The Changing Landscape of Dress and Language was published with Manchester University Press, 2024. Her work pays particular attention to the ways socio-political moments impacting Muslims globally shape how Muslims at a micro level negotiate belonging. She has worked at SOAS, University of Surrey, University of Cambridge, Kingston University London, UCL and joined the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre at DMU in 2020.