Why we launched The Samosa

By Anwar Akhtar

Like many good ideas, ours was born at a party, earlier this year in a bar in East London, the birthday bash of a friend from Stop the War Coalition. I was with John Pandit from Asian Dub Foundation, and both of us were moaning about the sectarianism creeping into British culture: the depressing, historically selective, conflict seeking narrative of a clash of civilisations, increasingly being embraced by a motley crew of right wing commentators and think tanks, alongside obituaries written on multi-cultaralism by people that hated it in the first place.

It was at that point in the discussion that we both looked at the buffet, piled with Samosas enticingly laid out in front of us and a eureka moment occurred. Let’s launch an alternative media, news and culture website and call it The Samosa. We could link progressive and non-sectarian voices across Britain, India, Pakistan, in fact everywhere. We could turn it into a mainstream media platform and grow from there. That’s how to reply to the sectarian voices of doom and gloom.: create a cross-cultural, populist, serious and accessible media platform called the Samosa. That’s how you respond to the multi culturalism’s-not-working, barbarians-are-at-the-gates, too-many-brown babies-being-born: have an honest debate about immigration.

Since that party, our project has grown. I spent August visiting writers, journalists, universities, human rights activists and NGOS in Pakistan. Many of the people I met are now contributing to the site, as are bloggers from India. A team of talented young journalists from across the UK have joined the project: Rene Levanchy and Chaminda Jayanetti took up the reigns as Commissioning Editors; Alex Holland joined after working in India for the Hindustan times; Laurie Penny signed up, bringing her brilliant blend of polemic and wit with her, as did Jane Barnwell and Qalandar Bux Memon of Naked Punch, our man in Lahore.

A collective decision was made that giving a platform to progressive writers and bloggers linking the UK and Asia was our priority. At at all costs, we would resist the gutter activity of sectarian political websites in the UK. Rather, we’d link traditional media and comment-driven group blogs. The Samosa would have comment, hard factual reporting and opinion from all over the world, especially from new voices.

In the couple of weeks since we launched, Laurie Penny pegged her nose and wrote a piece on the culture of sectarianism on some UK political blogs. Priyal Sanghavi has written on the rise of right-wing extremism in parts of India. Masood Hasan has worked on the need to support the artists and protect the diverse cultural heritages of Pakistan. And we’ve featured lots of reviews and commentary on arts, culture, politics, and life in general.

In the coming days and weeks, we will have a great deal more such discussion, on topics from foreigners’ views of Pakistan (and how often removed from reality they are); reports of fear and prejudice in Barking and Dagenham; reports from Manchester on the architecture and design practice working in economically deprived and segregated communities; an article on the 30th anniversaries of the siege of Mecca and the commencement of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979; reviews of plays; and much, much more.

The Samosa, part online magazine and part campaigning blog – based in London but that could be in India, Hong Kong, Manchester or Karachi – is determined to avoid being tagged with curse of ‘ethnic media project’. Please do visit the site, sign up with us or even contribute a piece. It has to be better than just moaning about things at parties.

Anwar Akhtar is Director of The Samosa.