The Kurdish Community Centre in Harringay. (Image courtesy of the KCC)Harringay Green Lanes is home to London’s largest Kurdish community. The Victorian Grand Parade advertises this identity, with shops named after Gaziantep and Diyarbakir, the two most populous cities in Turkish Kurdistan. The pavements were recently widened to accommodate the crowds that flock for food at one of the many enticing restaurants, or buy the legendary pastry gözleme, rolled by women sitting at a kiln in the front windows of the cafes, one of which is named after Taksim Square.
(All panel photos by the author, 2016)The Kurdish part of Green Lanes is a hive of political activity. Last June, after the moderate Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) gained over 50 seats in Turkey’s election, weakening the power of President Erdoğan with a hung parliament, the area was filled with celebratory chanting and car honking. (A re-run of the election in November resulted in gains for Erdoğan’s AKP and losses for the HDP). The party spoke strongly in favour of the Gezi Park protests of 2013, when Kurds in the area congregated around Finsbury Park and marched down Harringay with banners. Less mainstream organizations are also represented: in 2012, graffiti appeared on phone boxes and under the railway bridge in support of the youth wing of the MLKP (Marxist-Leninist Communist Party), a small underground Hoxhaist group, some of whose members have travelled to Rojava in Syrian Kurdistan to fight against the Islamic State.
Graffiti in Green Lanes in support of the youth wing of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party. (Photo by the author, 2012)Of the half dozen baklava shops, each advertising stacks of honeyed treats, Niyazi Usta is one of the best. Inside I meet Elif Seren, who parcels out the dessert with delicacy, and who speaks with great passion about the cause of Kurdish independence. “In the weekend after the coup, it was all we talked about. But nobody is surprised by the state of emergency”. Elif is skeptical about the coup (“it was Erdoğan’s game”) and is not a fan of Turkey’s president, or his supporters: “He likes people who are stupid, like Trump – he’s popular with them”. Elif suspects that Erdoğan has not been honest about his relationship with the Islamic State, repeating the rumour that his daughter runs a hospital treating ISIL fighters. She fears the situation will deteriorate in the south-east of the country: “the Kurds will be blamed, as ever – everything is going to get much worse”.
