After the feature mini-series “Small Axe”, in which he thematized the life of the black Caribbean community in London from the sixties to the eighties of the last century, the famous British filmmaker Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave) also shot a documentary about the same topic. The interest in this topic is not surprising since McQueen himself was born in London in 1969 to parents who immigrated to England from the Caribbean, and he belongs to the first generation of blacks from the “West Indies”, as they were then called, born in Great Britain. And it is a generation of obviously confused identities, because even though they were born in England and feel British, the society of that time did not accept them, and “Uprising” brings a great representation of that time and space.
Rebellion is the language of those who are not otherwise heard, said Martin Luther King, so the British marginalized blacks in the early eighties had no choice but to rebel. And show that they are here, that they don’t intend to go anywhere, that Great Britain is their country and that they want to be looked at and treated the same as people of other skin colors. McQueen brilliantly contextualizes the story, which focuses on a building fire in the southeast London district of New Cross when 13 young black men aged 14 to 22 perished. They gathered for a birthday party, but soon a fire spread through the building, and besides the fact that so many people died, many were seriously injured.
That event in January 1981 is considered crucial for everything that followed and for a series of uprisings, rebellions of the black population in London and all other English cities. This film, which McQueen divided into a three-part mini-series, along with countless archival footage from that time, also brings numerous interviews with witnesses of the time. Many of the interlocutors in the film survived the fire in New Cross, and we also have people who were policemen, investigators, activists, but also family members of those who died in the fire. “Uprising” is also a perfect historical document about a part of recent history that is not very well known and is not usually mentioned when the subject of Margaret Thatcher’s rule is touched upon.
Although systemic racism against immigrants from the colonies, who were invited by the British government during the fifties to come to Great Britain due to the lack of labor force, was also present earlier, during the seventies and at the turn of the eighties it escalated. The popularity of the fascist National Front grew, which openly called for the expulsion of all those who were not white from England, the skinhead movement grew stronger, and we also see Prime Minister Thatcher’s statements that even the official policy at that time was quite racist. The black population, which mostly lived in the southern parts of London like Brixton, was distrustful of the police for a reason, and the situation there simmered for years. Until there was open rebellion, riots and street clashes between the Afro-Caribbean population first in London and then in other cities with the police.
When riots and riots became so serious that no one could pretend that it was something minor and harmless, something that would stop by itself, only then did many people start to wonder if it was possible that something really bad was happening there. We have countless testimonies of people who describe what it was like to grow up at that time and be a young black man in the country where you were born, and where many people do not hide that they do not want you. We understand with “Uprising” that the social climate in Great Britain was openly racist, so the newspapers scream headlines about young black men robbing old white women, and the Prime Minister talks about how people are afraid that the country is flooded with people of a completely different culture and that the British culture in danger. What makes “Uprising” stand out is the fact that it is both a historically important and valuable mini-series, and yet it is such an intimate story in which people talk about the biggest traumas in their lives. Many of the interviewees lost someone close to them in the disastrous fire in New Cross and it is a series that brings an exceptional insight into the life of the whole community.