The extraordinary story of Glasgow’s Kenmure Street uprising in 2021 is retold in this absorbing documentary from film-maker Felipe Bustos Sierra. Kenmure Street is now a location to resonate with London’s Cable Street. An immigration detention van had been sent in to this diverse community on 13 May, the morning of the Muslim festival of Eid, to arrest two men of Indian Sikh background. Maybe that date was pure chance, which protesters could exploit to rally their own side, or maybe it was chosen because the Home Office calculated that the community would be largely at home on this holiday and more vulnerable.
Either way, it was a crucial strategic error, consolidating the community view that this was heavy-handed policing against a proud, close-knit Scottish community by the Westminster authorities. Moreover, as the day progressed, the fact that the men would have no legal representation underscored the impression of unfair play.
The news of these bully tactics spread like wildfire through WhatsApp groups and social media. Crowds rushed to Kenmure Street, gathering round the van containing the men. The vehicle couldn’t move because a single, committed activist, nicknamed “Van Man” – and now as legendary in his anonymity as Banksy – slid under the van, grabbed the axle and refused to move, to the utter consternation of Police Scotland, who were now immobilised. Alongside the documentary footage, Emma Thompson plays the Van Man in cameo, using his words, and Kate Dickie plays a local nurse who tried to get water to him. None of it could have happened without Van Man.
And everyone was videoing and livestreaming everything on their phones, filming from the high windows thereabouts, and providing a treasure trove of material for this film. It brought in more people by the hour and the flashmob certainly put the brakes on everything the police wanted to do. As one witness points out here, this was not like a protest in Trafalgar Square, where the protesters come in from outside and can be kettled by the police. The police were now the outsiders and, in a circle-the-wagons formation, they stood forlornly round their static van in their yellow hi-vis tabards and Covid masks. They lost the initiative and allowed themselves to be kettled by the community, while their own potential reinforcements were excluded by the crowds.
What happened next was akin to a political miracle. With no violence, but with persistence, the people stood their ground. Mainstream media interest grew and grew. Leadership and direction seemed to happen collectively and non-coercively. There was even some measure of good humour. A community leader here recounts that the crowds were allowed to use the mosque toilets; protesters and police officers both did, resuming their positions on different sides of the line when they returned. And finally, the two men were allowed out of the van and were once again free.
The story is adroitly told, moment-by-moment, with a well-judged interlude to sketch in Glasgow’s history of socialism, trade unionism and community activism – like the magnificent “Glasgow Girls”, who in 2005 stopped dawn raids against asylum seekers – and the grim history of plantation wealth in Glasgow’s economy. In the age of ICE and Maga, and the Trump-inspired nationalist movements in the UK, it’s an amazing story of a community triumph, showing how the nasty little habits of domineering policing can be countered by stubbornly British – and in this case, specifically Scottish – insistence on justice. It’s a morale-boosting film.
• Everybody to Kenmure Street screens at the Glasgow film festival today and is in UK and Irish cinemas from 13 March.
