I was dismayed to receive the message below from Brent Friends of Palestine who support the charity Palestine Trauma Centre UK in raising funds for the clinician led Trauma Centre in Gaza.
It is shocking that in the middle of a conflict when so many children have died or been wounded, left traumatised by constant bombing and upheaval, that their work has been defined as too 'political' for the sensiblities of the good folk of Queen's Park.
Where is QPARA's humanity and empathy?
At a time when food and medical aid is being denied to Gaza QPARA is, in its own small way, doing the same thing. Shame!
Brent Friends of Palestine stall panels about the work of the Trauma Centre
Dear Friends
I would normally write to you in early September to ask you to come to Queens Park Day and to visit the Brent Friends of Palestine stall. After running a stall at the event for the past two years, BFoP has been refused permission to have a stall this year. Queens Park Area Residents Association (QPARA), which runs Queens Park Day, has refused a stall this year because they say the BFoP group is ‘political’. BFoP acknowledges that without doubt there are political aspects to the Palestine/Israel conflict, but the purpose of the stall has always been humanitarian, to raise funds for a charity that does vital work supporting children and their families in Gaza, helping them to minimise the trauma so many experience from the Israeli occupation since 1967 and from past and present conflicts.
This includes the loss of parents, brothers, sisters, close family members, and friends, together with the destruction of homes and other buildings. This charity, as all of you will know, is the Palestine Trauma Centre UK, which was based in the Al Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza until its building was destroyed quite near the beginning of the Gaza war in November 2023. This charity we have been supporting since 2015 and some of the members of the team in Gaza are still supporting children in the camps if and when they can.
QPARA organises Queens Park Day every year as a non-political event in line with the requirements of the City of London Corporation. BFoP has pointed out that there are other charities and organisations running stalls that have a political aspect as well as humanitarian concerns, environmental issues, or trade. Despite appealing to the Queens Park Day organising committee, they did not change their decision regarding the BFOP stall.
The BFoP committee wanted its members and supporters, particularly those who live in the NW6 and NW2 area, to know of this decision. If you wish to comment on this to the Queens Park Day Committee, you can email the QPARA committee at qparainfo@gmail.com
For more information about the Trauma Centre and the opportunity to donate go to:
https://www.palestinetraumacentre.uk/
26 comments:
Always politics involved in some way when genocide is being committed and 10s of 1000s of children murdered. So yes I can understand why highlighting a genocide (even indirectly it appears in this case) may be something to which the good people of Queens Park should not be exposed. It's supposed to be a fun event. And we wouldn't want to make Israel look bad.
It's too political to expose an Apartheid state busy bending backwards to murder and maim as many children as possible. We can't have that in leafy Queen's Park. Can we?
Shame on QPARA .
stop the killing of innocent people including babies free the people of Gaza stop 🛑 the bloodshed stop
Exactly right. What an abject abandonment of principle and surrender to the Israel lobby. You couldn't make it up!
This is not a suprise knowing who the MP and councillors are.
Of course you would not - You' would rather make those Palestinians who slaughtered 1200 innocent people - Jews & non Jews look good.
Hopefully Martin - a long standing supporter of Palestinians - does not censor this comment.
This is all too much. All this bitterness helps no-one.
Why not publish a fund raising link for people to please donate money to the cause?
The bitterness is caused by HMG, as in the current Labour Party (you know, the party run by big business and the super rich)
You are all better than this - please think before you comment.
This really appalls me: what are they thinking? Is it political to ask the people of Queens Park to donate money for the starving, cornered and petrified population of Gaza? Is it even political to call out a Genocide, which is slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and which our government won’t condemn in any meaningful way? To me it’s just moral.
Well said. QPRA should be ashamed.
Appalling news. Won’t take a long to organise a protest
Having partaken in Queen’s Park Day for many years , I am appalled by this news. How disgusting. I can feel a protest coming on.
Queen's Park day is a celebration day beyond politics. I agree 💯 with this decision.
What a shocker. Another event being held ransom by friends of Israel.
Growing of inequalities and difference.....
I see that QPARA want and will get a new 'splash pool' for kids in Queens Park. The price is paid by South Kilburn Park Junior Football pitch (14 mature trees cut down) but no pitch and goalposts as yet, a 20 year wait for Junior League football to happen here in South Kilburn so far.
'Forward Together' Brent is a distant memory, as inequalities are political grown, a C21 Brent of neighbourhoods adjacent to not- neighbourhoods of permanent development population grow, grow, grow zones. The permanent development being the cutting down 14 mature trees (to make space) in this particular strategy.
A pathetic decision. Smug and cruel
Received by email: "What a shabby, weak knee'd, limp-wristed decision. Let's hope QPARA recover a bit of backbone and reverse this."
This is an utter disgrace, how a resident association is being brainwashed into beliefs that the issues are political. They are in no way political, this is a clearcut mass extermination of people for occupation. People wish to support it and it is not illegal end of give them a stall. The stall reflects the values of the people of Brent to support people in need.
Shame on you QPARA! A cowardly stance! Raising funds for kids traumatised by war (if it can be called that!) too political?
I actually think QPARA made the right decision. The choice not to host a stall about Palestine, or more precisely about Judea and Samaria, is not a denial of care or compassion. It is about protecting the purpose of Queens Park Day as a community event for families and neighbours of every background.
As a parent I feel deeply for children who are suffering anywhere in the world. No mother or father can look at images from conflict zones without feeling moved. But to single out one conflict, and to present it as though it is simply humanitarian when it is clearly political too, risks creating division where we should be building connection.
I respect that QPARA want Queens Park Day to be a space free from that kind of pressure. The event should be about children playing, parents catching up, and neighbours celebrating our community together. That spirit is lost if residents are asked to navigate the painful politics of Judea and Samaria while buying cakes or enjoying a fairground ride.
There are many other opportunities to donate or raise awareness. Keeping this particular event free of political messaging is not coldness, it is wisdom. It shows that QPARA take seriously the responsibility of creating a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. That is what real empathy looks like.
As a former resident who still comes to Queen’s Park Day most years, I think the letter is a bit unfair. The day has always been about community and keeping things non-political so everyone can enjoy it together. I don’t think the decision reflects a lack of empathy for what’s happening in Gaza — it’s just about sticking to the principle that QPD isn’t the place for political causes, however important they may be.
Supporting the starved children of Gaza is not political. Calling out a genocide is not taking sides. What is wrong with us?
The whole conservation area policy of ration the welfare states infrastructure/ resilience funds into them (see their priority on national, regional and local planning data maps). This highly political consensus policy practice generates zones like Queens Park of indifference, another country, a segregation being kept safe, worthy and insulated with council and government love and care from othered Brent and from brutal global realities.
The more stalls the better for next year then?
Simply walked past a lot of stalls.
I didn't attend QPD this year, partly feeling alientated by QPARA's decision to refuse the BFoP stall. In previous years I've noticed stalls about campaigns for better housing, environmental issues and the climate crisis - do these stalls also risk disturbing visitors fun at QPD?
Post a Comment