Discussed with N. about an artist who is working at the big local gallery, doing a project in Altab Ali Park. The park is named after a person who was the victim of a racially-based murder which became a huge public case similar to Stephen Lawrence, but in the 1970s. N. said that there was no information about him and that the only thing she could get was that he's a 'martyr'. There is a monument in the park, called the 'Martyr's Monument', but that has nothing to do with the Altab Ali incident.
I was v annoyed. Firstly, I was haunted by a previous conversation with B, who had thrown out, in one of her diatribes once, "and who is this Altab Ali anyway? Why do the Bengalis get everything?, etc." When I pointed out, trying to soften B., that Altab Ali was like Stephen Lawrence, all she could say was that we never got anything like that. Stephen Lawrence doesn't have a park named after him...
So my response was tempered by this old argument with B. I snapped back that this person hadn't looked in the right places for information and gave N. some leads as to where to ask.
But now I wonder, why do we build monuments when no one remembers what they're for? If there is no understanding of what they commemorate? What is the point?