Notting Hill Carnival 2012: Fifty Years After a Radical Genesis

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – AUGUST 27: Notting Hill Carnival livens up west London with the beats of steel drums and boisterous jubilation. It is Europe’s largest street festival, attended annually by more than 1,000,000 people.
© 2012 K Alexander

I came to Notting Hill Carnival with my camera in my hand. The plan was to take enough pictures to document the event, in hopes that I could bring my readers to where they couldn’t be, to create a kind of false witnessing. I should have known that this isn’t really possible.

My camera died after a mere twenty minutes in the area. But Notting Hill Carnival is not about witnessing: it is an experience that requires one to be truly present to understand.

Notting Hill Carnival is widely considered the largest street party in Europe. It takes place annually in the Notting Hill neighborhood of London during the late-August bank holiday, and has been for over fifty years.

However, the carnival is more than just a party to which everyone is invited; it is a celebration of the many Caribbean cultures and communities which have persisted in London for generations, but not without the presence of harsh inequalities and unrest.

According to Time Out London reporter, Chris Parkin, the first Carnival parade was hosted by an equal rights activist named Claudia Jones. The Trinidad-born, America-raised Jones hosted a party in 1959, which, as Parkin Points out, was “in response to the riots of the previous year.”

The riots in question are now known as the 1958 Notting Hill race riots and occurred as a result of white youths violently attacking the homes of Caribbean immigrants.

Activists like Jones believed that the unrest between immigrant communities and white youth and conservative groups in the UK made artistic expression incredibly important in the struggle. This is apparent in the carnival’s original slogan: “A people’s art is the genesis of their freedom.”

Nowadays, the Carnival is a celebration of both Caribbean culture and, indeed, human life. During the two days that the Carnival takes place, over a million people flock to the tiny Notting Hill area, mostly in order to dance to roots, reggae, and dub, while drinking rum and eating jerk chicken, roti (flatbread) and channa (spiced chickpeas).

But in the depths of this merriment, shadows of violence and unrest still linger. In 2012, as it did in 1959, the festivities take place just one year after a series of socioeconomic and racial unrest-fueled riots in London. Authorities in the city are not blind to this fact, preemptively arresting over 100 suspected criminals before the carnival’s start date.

London24 describes “Operation Razorback” as “a bid to ensure this…world famous event is not tarnished by scenes of disorder like the London riots.” These arrests, often made before a crime is actually committed, illustrate the tension between the police and civilian population of London. Clearly, unrest is far from gone.

Despite the looming tension and injustice, Notting Hill Carnival is a shining example of a marginalized community releasing themselves from pain in celebration. Looking at the streets filled with people of all colors, from all walks of life, laughing and dancing together, hopes of a stronger brotherhood among the people of London refuse to quiet.