WAF Demo in support of Salman Rushdie 1989 | Iconic Moments

WAF Demo in support of Salman Rushdie 1989 – Women Against Fundamentalism Demonstration [WAF] in support of Salman Rushdie, at Parliament Square in 1989. Women Against Fundamentalism picket religious Muslim demonstration demanding an extension of blasphemy laws. Demands include a secularisation of British state, no state funding of religious education and abolition of the blasphemy law. Slogans “Our Tradition: struggle not submission”, “Religious leaders don’t speak for us”, “Blasphemy laws police dissent”, “Fear is your weapon/Courage is ours”.

To celebrate Southall Black Sisters’ 40th anniversary, we have printed a pack of six greeting cards depicting key moments in our long and radical history of campaigning on a range of issues of particular concern to BAME women. Taking his inspiration from photographs of these ‘Iconic Moments’, Jagdeep Raina, used his artistic sensibility to recast these scenes with mixed media on paper. He kindly donated these drawings to SBS.

Jagdeep Raina, a young Canadian visual artist, visited Southall in 2016 to explore his Punjabi heritage through archived material and meetings with migrants, activists and organisations. His work has appeared in a number of group and solo exhibitions internationally, including the UK, China, the US and Canada.

Raina says that ‘My artistic practice has always been heavily research-based, mobilising the archive as a medium and subject. … Connecting with the archives of Southall Black Sisters has allowed me to embrace a shift that had been steadily building  in my artistic practice; a shift that had led to uncomfortable truths about how marginalised diasporic communities—in particular, the Kashmiri and Punjabi Sikh Community—can perpetuate further marginalisation against their own people including those of different castes, of nationalities, economic status, sexuality or gender, and more widely against people of other races and religions.’