KHOODEELAAR! leading the action as the first comprehensive comment on the NUJ's entry into the "fray" over Tower Hamlets' Council's "town hall" "pravda" dubbed "East End Lies" -1

KHOODEELAAR! Leads the way again in voicing the truth about East End Lies and much more... Image may not appear here [due to Internet factors] of Eric with the overblown Pickles [his ego, for a start] as published by the UK PRESS Gazette, now known only as press gazette.co.uk. Muhammad Haque is a historian of the UK Press Gazette, having been an avid original writer and contributor to its column where he helped launch the campaign in the 1970s and 1980s against racism in the British Media 0610 Hrs GMT London Friday 19 July 2013: The Most Original Journalism for the East End of London is being brought here by the KHOODEELAAR! Campaign - The Campaign in the mainstream Media and in the UK Parliament over Tower Hamlets Council: The Muhammad Haque Commentary straight from the front line in the Community in the East End of London,m exposing the East End Lies and also putting Eric and his over-blown Pickles in the context where the Community must have the say on what our local Council owes to us and how we hold this Council to account and why the East End Lies must stop lying to us and begin to tell us the truth about our whole community.... The © Muhammad Haque Evidential Commentary on the dire state of the East End Lies, also known as the "town hall Pravda" The Commentary below has been posted online on the PRESS GAZETTE web site. http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/government-plans-curb-them-nuj-comes-out-defence-council-newspapers London Friday 19 July 2013. Helen Watson, from Tower Hamlets NUJ Branch which is involved in the “East End Life” writes: “Most of us came here because it represented a better offer than the publications we were working on. Our wages and conditions were much improved, it allowed us to provide a better standard of living for our families and helped us achieve a decent work/life balance.” Has it occurred to Ms Watson that the people who ordinarily live or try to live in Tower Hamlets may be also entitled to a “work/life balance”? In relation to the Council which is obliged to deliver services that directly affect work, life and the balance that is deserved? Where in the current edition of the “East End Life” would she say is an accurate reflection of the Life of the people of the borough of Tower Hamlets? I would suggest that the title is a false one. It should be called “East End Lies” which is what I have been calling it on the records for the past at least 14 years. I know most current councillors, the majority of whom have been in the Borough for years before getting into the Council. But I do not see them being reflected on the East End Lies as people. I see some of them who are featured only because they are in “the Cabinet”. They come across as caricatures, not as real life people with real links connections or concerns about the community which has been experiencing one of the most depressing economic and social, communal times, as even the Guardian has had to admit [against its own record of mysteriously “approving” of the L B Tower Hamlets Council controlling bureaucracy] only this week when comparing the glaring disparity that exists between Canary Wharf, HSBC and the ordinary Tower Hamlets. It is not Eric Pickles who is leading the call for a truthful “in-house” title. It is ordinary people like me who are and have been doing so. I even know when the first issue of the East End Life was published and who edited it and where that person is now. A can confirm that from that issue on, all the promises made then have been broken and the ordinary people depicted with nothing short of contempt by whoever has been setting the toxic, dishonest editorial tone of the “East End Lies”. Deny, divert and dissemble are three words that combine to make up the attitude of the East End Lies: Distort! Sure, Eric Pickles will gain a few points as a Conservative Politician. But the real losses, damages and misinformation have been caused to the ordinary people in the Borough for as long as the editorial contents of the East End Lies” have been geared to please the controlling “political faction, group or entity”. As the organiser of the first openly political and democratic mobilisation on Sunday 7 May 1978 following the racist murder of Altab Ali on Thursday 4 May 1978, I spoke of the moral legacy that our peaceful but ethically determined and restraining Campaign for a tolerant Society has had. I spoke on 4 May 2013 at the Altab Ali Park. There were a number of others who had later become involved in that year and helped mobilise many people in the peaceful Actions of all races against racism. Did the “East End Life” report that anniversary event? Not really. It carried an offensive, misleading, tokenistic piece of anonymity that had neither any mention of those who had taken part in that socially and in the universal context a significant even a pioneering consciousness-raising, universal movement in May 1978 nor ddi it have any in-depth ethical lessons or social far less international humanitarian or political lessons recounted. Yet our movement in may 1978 had all those elements and they transformed the environment not only in the East End but seriously impacted for the good on the rest of what happened, and has been happening, in British politics, as a whole. As at least one of the speakers said exactly that at the rally this year at the Altab Ali park on 4 May 2013. But the “East End Life” was busy faking up its own set of lies to insert in place of the real life on the streets of Tower Hamlets. Not only that, the Council has been caught as being callous on the memorial on the victims of racist violence. Altab Ali again in context: I have published, twice now in the past two years, criticism that the “mural” inscription on the side of the Altab Ali Park, written in Bangla, gives the wrong year as being that of Altab Ali’s murder and martyrdom! In the English language text, the year is correct, 1978. But the Bangla language version has the year 1977 as the year when Altab Ali was murdered and martyred. But even that is not a consistent text! Tower Hamlets Council, which commissioned that work, has ignored the error and the fact that it has been pointed out, more than once. I last spoke about it on a satellite TV programme on 29 May 2013. Whatever Ms Helen Watson and her “NUJ” branch colleagues may say in support of their work and wages in Tower Hamlets Borough Council, one thing is clear, they cannot say that the “East End Lies” is telling the basic truth about the life of the community outside the Council! All self-respecting NUJ members must pay a little attention to the constituency in whose name they take part in the editorial decision-making and in the publication of something like the “East End Life”. How can Ms Watson’s branch be so careless and inattentive to what we the ordinary people out in the Borough of Tower Hamlets have been saying for years, many years before anyone had ever heard of Eric or had any idea of his own Pickles? As the NUJ has been my only trade union, I would not refer to it carelessly. But I believe that one of the aims that the NUJ has aways claimed to encourage its members to support is to tell the truth about ordinary Society! That aim is being weekly trampled on by the editorial practices of the East End Lies. And there cannot be any basis for claiming that it is a right practice. Finally, I am and have been very active in this community for a very long time. In 1981, I was involved in an effort to create an alternative to the “East London Advertiser”. That was called EAST END NEWS. So, I cannot be and must not be in any associated with any agenda that the East London Advertiser or their owners ARCHANT would have for liaising with Eric Pickles or anyone of that ilk. What I am saying here is a fraction of what I have always said and I have done so both on the EVENING STANDARD website, on the Guardian and also on broadcast programmes where I have evidentially dealt with the dishonesty that dominates the “editorial” line which is based on pretending that in Tower Hamlets there is no life in the ordinary community except in the diversionary, the dubious, the distorted, the twisted fabricated contents of the fantasy title they call “East End Life”! On most of the photos they publish, the supposed human characters are seen mostly beaming! Whatever for, especially in a borough where most of the ordinary people are undergoing experiences that do not constitute grounds for putting on cheesy, cheeky or cheery appearances! Written and posted this online at 0455 Hrs GMT London Friday 19 July 2013 Eric Pickles picture [below] as used by the PRESS GAZETTE where the Muhammad Haque commentary [above] appears about the dire role of the town hall pravda the "East End Lies". Muhammad Haque dismisses Eric and his Pickles when it comes to claiming what the ordinary people of Tower Hamlets have to say about the Council’s “town hall” “pravda” the “East End Life” which Haque has been calling “East End Lies” for longer than Eric or his Pickles have been heard of far less have had any recognition about real Life of the people in the the East End of London at all. Muhammad Haque's trade union, the National Union of Journalists had an attempt in the early 1980s in Bethnal Green to establish an alternative to the East London Advertiser. That is one of the historic foundations Muhammad Haque uses above to dispel any even suggestion that criticism of the diabolically “edited” "East End Lies" is linked with the East London Advertiser or with the Conservative Party. Muhammad Haque's Political Party is the Labour Party, the only Political Party he has ever been prepared to join and remain a paying member of! http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/government-plans-curb-them-nuj-comes-out-defence-council-newspapers