What is multiculturalism?

It’s what we have here in South Shields

We had the first settled muslim community in the country, we had Iraqi bargemen protecting our Roman fort Arbeia (the place of the arab), and we have had Yemenis and other nationals settled and living in South Shields since 1894. As far as we know there have only ever been two racially motivated large scale incidents in South Shields and they were in 1919 and 1930.

Since the arrival of Ali Said who opened the first Arab Seaman’s Boarding House in August 1909 in the Holborn riverside district of South Shields, we have welcomed Chinese, Vietnamese, Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Moroccans, Albanians and countless others, yet we all seem to get along just fine with many second and third generations talking with our familiar Geordie accent.

So how do we do it?

We are hospitable first, open hearted and generous people, fair, with a sense of what is right and what is wrong, for years our households operated an “open door” policy with our neighbours, we converse easily and profusely, and our community spirit was strong, rich, and welcoming despite never being being amongst the most affluent areas of the UK. We just get along with each other, simple as!

We share the same schools, we share the same foods where we can, we respect each other’s religions and learn to understand differences in cultures without allowing those differences to hinder personal relationships, I guess that makes us more tolerant. We appear to accept and welcome diversity and the richness it brings.

If you are to visit us from other areas of the country between now and the 5th. May, then why not take a little time to drop into the Baltic Centre at Gateshead to see Last of the Dictionary Men . It’s an exhibition by photographer Youssef Nabil and film maker Tina Gharavi, the driving force behind the exhibition. It will feature photographs of the 13 remaining first generation settlers, taken in black and white and then hand-coloured using old-fashioned techniques popular in Nabil’s birthplace, Cairo. The men also talk about their experiences in video portraits.

The exhibition is completed with a film of the visit that Muhammad Ali made to South Shields in 1977 when he had his marriage blessed at the Al Azhar mosque. Here’s a Tyne Tees Television video clip of the event.