Behind the scenes

I was intending to come on here to write about how sad it was that the BNP were going to be appearing on BBC’s Question Time within Black History Month, when we’re supposed to be celebrating the postive contributions of Black people to British History as well as uncovering hidden stories within our own local and personal histories. However, after watching the programme last night, I have since changed my views….I now am extremely pleased that Nick Griffin was allowed to go on and air his views which were shown as false, bigoted and at points deeply upsetting that someone in today’s society can still hold (and preach) these views. Here at East Lothian Museums, we’ve been holding a series of events over the past month to celebrate diversity, many of which I’ve detailed in earlier blogs. Watching the programme last night, it made me even more determined that we should continue to hold events such as East Lothian’s Multi-Cultural Day in order to prevent segregation within our local society and to encourage people to see Britain, Scotland and East Lothian as places where a variety of different people can live together, with mutual understanding and respect for each other’s differences.

Multi-Cultural Day included a variety of performances, people and events. The highlight for many were the wonderful Indian Dancers dressed in fabulous costumes - in particular they had a performance using a mixture of Indian and Celtic music which was very clever. Tawona and Ernest, originally from Zimbabwae, performed a variety of poems, stories and music using their hand-crafted instruments. They represented the Seeds of Thought Urban Poetry Group. The noise of the instruments is difficult to describe but it sounded a bit like the chiming of a nursery rhyme in a wind-up toy, but alot faster and more musical. The Grants Braes Burns Club provided a traditional Scottish element to the day, performing some of Burns’ works along the themes of identity and told the well-known story that Burns almost went to the West Indies to become part of the Slave Trade. Coreen Scott was accompanied by Hamish on the Pipes and Scott on the guitar and produced a wonderful sound. We also had local Belly Dancers who performed an Egyptian stick dance. Their movements were amazing! The highlight of the day onstage for children was a French Puppet Show by Tania, who told the story of Lapin, who was very concerned with where his maracas were!

As well as all this we also had stalls by groups such as ELREC and the Dunbar Arts Hub, while local artist Ettie Spencer held a drop-in art workshop for all ages. Sheila Asante offered an object handling session within the Slave Trade exhibition, allowing people to get a close up view of objects such as cotton and tobacco. All in all, a wonderful day, which attracted people from many different cultures, including French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, English, Scottish, Zimbabwean, Ghanian, Brazilian, Indian, and many more. Some of the photographs are on our Flickr site. So many people said to us during the event that they were so glad we were doing an event like this in East Lothian. Draw your own conclusions from that!

But where would all these people who came and celebrated East Lothian’s diversity fit into Nick Griffin’s Britain? Yes, they probably wouldn’t and that’s why we need to continue celebrating the true diversity of our local area. Plans for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month in February 2010 are already underway, as are details of how we’re going to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day in January. So, where am I going with this blog? Well, your challenge is to come along and join us at some of these events, or to go and find out something about another culture this weekend, or watch Question Time and then share your views. It’s up to us…

   For those of you who are regular blog readers, you’ll know that Arun Gandhi was coming to East Lothian. I heard him talk on Monday and it was wonderful. He held a session for local school children in the afternoon and then the general public in the evening. He had lots of stories about how his grandfather (Mohandas Gandhi) had influenced his life and told them in such a reserved and calm manner. One story was about when he was a boy he threw away a pencil because he thought it was “too short” and was just going to ask his grandfather for a new one. However, Gandhi made him go back out and look for the pencil in the dark to teach him the lesson that man was over-using the world’s natural resources and that people consume things just because they can, but ultimately this means that others cannot access the same resources. Gandhi said Arun’s act was ”violence against nature”. It was interestingly a similar view to our own John Muir about the importance of protecting the environment, but before such issues had really reached the wider public conscience.

 We also went on a march on Saturday 10th October to commemorate the Suffragettes who campaigned for “Votes for Women!”. We had our own East Lothian banner, created by attendees at a Suffragette Coffee Morning back in September. A group of pupils from Preston Lodge High joined our group and managed to get themselves interviewed and in lots of photos throughout the walk! It ended on Calton Hill where speeches and singing took place. Sheila and I also walked to the very edge of the hill to get a few photos. It was a tad windy as you may be able to see from the photos!

 And as for the bellydancing reference in the title? Multi-Cultural Day at Prestongrange of course. We’ve got a variety of cultures represented including a French Puppet Show, Polish tour of the museum, an Indian Dancer, Zimbabwean Poets and the local Sangstream Choir and Grants Braes Burns Club. There will be a huge marquee outside the Visitor Centre and I’ll be heading there on Saturday to get it all set up and ready to go for first thing on Sunday. We have no idea what our visitor numbers will be for the day…hopefully the 144 chairs will be an alright guestimate!

If you’ve attended an event as part of Black History Month this year, do let us know what you thought!