Prem Goyal: If you were to describe a path for the ethnic minority political and economic development, what would your prescription be?
African Voice: Each person should think about becoming a leader in their community. They don’t need to become politicians. Back home we all connected to different parts of the community. They should also do this here so that they can become school governors; participate in London marathon, volunteer with police or ambulance. The second thing they can do is to include in their community meetings a 15 minute or so slot where they learn about the British political system. They talk about a lot but don’t talk about these things in their meetings. And unless they start talking about this they will continue to be exploited. We have Indian associations, Caribbean associations, African association, etc and that has to be inculcated at the meeting points.
They need to learn about the British political system so that they can master the system and know how to gain power from the system. The thing is a lot of the ethnic minorities and politicians get alienated from the system because they are not aware of these small routes that access them to recognition. This is because as they haven’t mastered those routes, they think it is like they are back home where they can simply campaign for say 10 years and be nice to senior politicians they will become recognised as politicians. But they are surprised when they present themselves to find that they are shown some defect in say their applications and therefore are out. We have lots of associations, Indian, African etc. They talk about everything but they don’t talk about these things – how to get political power in England. So that means that unless they start talking about these things they will always be manipulated by people who are born and brought in England.
African Voice: How do you think the ethnic minority can attempt to be pro-active in the face of socio-economic limitations like wage pegs, long hours of toil, etc?
Prem Goyal: That is what we have to remember to fire us up. We have made a journey of 7,000 kilometres that was not easy. When we came to this country, we came with £10, £100, £1000 but now that we are making £10k, £20k and £40k per year, it is better that we work hard another 5 or 10 years and move to the right level because there is no point for us to settle at the bottom or struggle at the bottom and then start our kids at the most disadvantageous positions. Somebody has to do the hard work, either we do it or the next generation will do it. Look at the older people working at small jobs and if they produce 3 or 4 children, yes you need to have some family but they need to look at who will take care of them and they need money. That has to be understood. To bring up kids successfully in this country cost £20k per year and about £200K all together for 15 years. So after coming into this country, you need to bring yourself to the right level before acquiring other liabilities, it will bring them down. So they need to observe this but it is difficult. They have to remember that they have not come to settle at the bottom. Even if they start a family, they need to tell these children to also work after the age of 15 years whether in the city or in America or South Kensington. So it is up to us to work hard.
African Voice: When you say ‘work hard’, what does work hard mean?
Prem Goyal: Just like what Tayo Shittu did. At the age of 40, he went through his skills set. Whatever you are doing in your businesses or in your day to day life and especially with your next generation. For example a lot of immigrants watch TV 5 hours a day. But they didn’t come here to watch TV. But they watch it and watching football. They are fans of each football team. And when they watch football, who makes money? The footballers; and not the ethnic minority groups. Most ethnic minority have got a favourite football team and footballer and favourite programmes. And that is why they are forgetting their destination. It is not easy, I am not saying it easy. So there is a challenge to evaluate how their watching football for 6 hours daily impacts on their goals in England.
African Voice: Don’t you think that the home or host country to migrants has laws which protect its own and can become restrictive in the political sphere that become barriers?
Prem Goyal: They have. But the thing is they are winning at the expense of our weaknesses. They have put those barriers there to help their people more so it is up to us to accept less or work hard and go over those barriers.
African Voice: Do you not see a disconnect or gap between say your generation and the next generation (who should be fired up) that affects the goal for the socio-economic emancipation of the ethnic minorities?
Prem Goyal: There is a gap. But people like me and others; we are fired up. We have come here, we have passion, we are hungry, we are driven because we don’t like where we are. But we know e can achieve more. Whereas the next generation haven’t seen any of these hardships, the challenge for them is when we produce the next generation in Brixton or Peckham, they need to move just 10 km into the city of London but we have moved 7000km and this needs to be told to them every day for them to remember that they can only be successful if they move only 10km from Peckham or Brixton to the city of London. I don’t see many ethnic minority people working in the city of London, in fact almost none. That means they are stuck at the wrong place and parents have to sort this out. Somebody has to take the responsibility but they are putting it on the government or the political leaders who are saying we’ll take care of you when we have time. So who has the responsibility? Political leader or the community or the parents.
African Voice: Can you reconcile the status of migrants to the realities of expectations minding the fact that they come in as engineers or qualified professionals and end as security guards, care workers, park attendants, etc. and the more they transit so also their expectations become unrealisable?
Prem Goyal: If people come in and they find that they are struggling and also finding it difficult to sharpen the skills set; what they should think is to acknowledge what, may be they want to go to the moon but can go anymore, their situation is, be proud of their accomplishment and be happy. They enjoy the country and tell the next generation that they can push forward. But there are like-minded successful people who are good and now capable should take it on themselves to go to places like Southwark and say that I am going to be your representative in the House of Commons and I understand that you came in as an engineer and you have become a care-worker not by choice but circumstances have forced you and I want to give you the opportunity to become what you want. People like Mike, when they become politicians will make the right policies at the top and celebrate this journey as well guide the people. That way the expectation will be made clear that people know what they will be doing before they come into the country. People like Mike can then deliberate over creating the right opportunities for them. They can then inspire others to determine to be trail blazers like Tayo Situ who unfortunately died while in office as the Mayor of Southwark .
African Voice: How can the ethnic minorities find the ability to advantage those things that they want to do? Is it by building a political, social and/or economic platform to bring this to reality?
Prem Goyal: I think all are applicable and necessary. First is the need to celebrate the different cultures so that ethnic groups can have their presence established and the influences felt. For example, a country like Nigeria that has almost 50% of its London population in Southwark is not able to celebrate its independence with such fanfare as necessary. No one is supporting such a venture. I have attended several functions in Southwark were cultural menus are non-existent yet a large number of the people gathered do not reflect the true demography of Southwark. At such functions, it is not likely to find politicians and Council officials yet they have quite a number of Nigerians as friends of Facebook. All this become no one either has the confidence or thinks it is important as if the people are there.
African Voice: But could this not be because they say there are limited funds?
Prem Goyal: No, I don’t think so. Let me give you an example. For the armed forces day, there two community events then; Southwark Council catered for 2000 guests and less than 5% minority for which the council paid £50,000to organise that and food was abundant. Another event that had 5000 people with 99% ethnic minority and Southwark Council gave no penny and no political leader attended that function. For the armed forces there were at least 25 politicians and leaders. That means they take our votes but don’t recognise our culture and our people. So if we are able to get political power at the top, then that can gives us social power and when those things start happening then it will turn into economic power which we don’t have at the moment. Our political leaders do not support our businesses. Our leaders don’t go to our functions and that is why I don’t see any African restaurant in the heart of London.
African Voice: You may want to disabuse the notion that you need to vote for a big party only in order not to ‘waste’ your vote believing that smaller parties can’t win election.
Prem Goyal: I think that is true. That was true in Southwark up to 10 years ago because then the ethnic minority population was about 20% so they were not in a position to get their candidates selected so it was better to stay with the big parties and get whatever they can negotiate. Now in Southwark two things make that different; one, we are just about 50%. That is we have the ability to select and elect our own candidates, and secondly, more importantly, for the first time we have this party called the All Peoples Party. Meaning that people have an alternative to Tory, Labour, and Lib Dem to say why we want our own party so that we can look after our own interests.
