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“A lot of our narrative as non-white people is rendered invisible”

Interview with Usayd Younis, co-director of a new film about Satpal Ram


16/01/2026

Hi Usayd, great to meet you. Can you start just by introducing yourself? Who are you and what do you do?

I’m a British documentary director. I mainly make films about the global majority and improving the representation of People of Colour on screen. I’m currently based in Berlin.

What brought you here?

Nothing glamorous, really. My partner is studying here.

You have a film coming up in the British Shorts Festival. What’s that about? 

After Eight – The Story of Satpal Ram is about a British Asian man who went to jail in 1986 for defending himself against a racist attack. It’s set against the backdrop of Britain’s post-pub curry culture. From the 1970s to the 2000s you had this thing where a lot of British people would ‘go for a curry’. It was a cheap meal, but many people arrived inebriated and primed for confrontation.

Sometimes that transpired into violent racism, which is what happened here: Satpal was having a meal with some friends, and there followed an altercation where these guys were racially abusing the waiters and saying they didn’t want this “Paki” music on. Satpal objected, and he was cut in the face by this white diner. Satpal defended himself with a pocket knife.

Both of them ended up in hospital, and the assailant ended up dying of his injuries. Due to a series of failures by the judicial system, Satpal was not able to plead self-defence and got convicted of murder by an all-white jury.

Why was Satpal not able to plead self-defence?

A lot of the evidence was not taken into account. There was a presumption of guilt. It is important for the wider context of this project that still today there’s this assumption of guilt when certain types of people are arrested.

In Satpal’s case, this man had sustained multiple injuries. Satpal’s state-provided barrister had not really done his homework, and saw an autopsy saying that the man had sustained multiple injuries. He thought that no-one would believe that it was self-defence.

But most of the injuries were likely from falling on glass. Only two of them were sustained by Satpal’s knife. This completely changes the trajectory of what happened next, because once you change your plea from self-defense to provocation, you’re immediately admitting some degree of guilt. 

Other miscarriages took place in the trial itself. The Bangladeshi waiters who witnessed the event were not provided with interpreters. So the jury only got one side of the picture, with no mention of any provocation or violence. The testimony of the people who work in this restaurant and witnessed this racism was completely dismissed. In the film you’ll see how the jury were laughing when the judge said  he was going to translate himself.

So Satpal served 24 years in prison?

Exactly. This happened when he was 19 years old. He came out a much older man. We get to see him in the film grappling with the consequences today. It charts this incident, but also what actually happened in prison. The racism and injustices didn’t stop at the trial. 

In a world of ever increasing incarceration, it is important to reckon with what is actually going on behind these high walls and metal bars. In Satpal’s case, there was a lot of violence and racism. He experienced many beatings at the hands of the prison guards.

As a result, he was left with the condition of Parkinson’s disease, which is something that you might associate often with boxers, who’ve been beaten around the head a lot. 

Like Mohammed Ali…

Exactly. Satpal had a doctor’s note to prove that his condition was clearly brought on by contusions to the head, which would have been the result of violence by prison guards. 

He became known for standing up for the rights of other people. He wasn’t just trying to get himself free from the injustice he’s experienced, but also witnessing what was happening to his comrades in prison. He was very vocal about that, and the guards really didn’t like it, and tried to make an example of him. He resisted throughout, and as a result, his sentence was elongated. His appeals were rejected. 

But there is an upbeat side to this narrative. His friends and family led a campaign on the outside. This grew into something  much bigger. One of the campaigners, Helen McDonald, is a jazz musician. She said ‘we need to do something bigger here, and get some musicians involved’. 

She got a number of groups, including Asian Dub Foundation, who were up and coming at the time. Their song Free Satpal Ram reverberated around the globe. Suddenly, people all over the world were singing his name, and he was on the news. He gained a degree of fame that could no longer be ignored by the powers that be in parliament. 

Bringing it into today’s context, where we’ve got so many political prisoners, so many people who are in prison explicitly for standing up against injustice. I think that there is a real strength in showing the story of a man who was freed from prison because of extreme pressure from the outside.

The fact that there was so much solidarity: people would visit him in prison and send him letters from all over the world. He said it himself – it kept him alive. One of the things I’d really like people to take away from this is what can we do to support our comrades who are currently experiencing something similar, perhaps even more pernicious.

It’s now become legalized. It’s less miscarriages of justice, and more that this is what justice looks like – with arrests and convictions for people standing against a genocide or against climate catastrophe.

You say the campaign was huge. I’m from Bradford, one of the UK cities with the most people with a South East Asia background. Asian Dub Foundation played Free Satpal Ram at the Bradford Mela – a multi-cultural festival – and the place was buzzing. Then yesterday, I spoke to a friend, a politically aware British Asian, and she hadn’t heard of Satpal Ram. How could such a massive campaign disappear from our consciousness?

This is exactly why we’ve done this project. As a documentary filmmaker, my goal is to bring to light stories that haven’t been kept alive or have been silenced. Ultimately, I think a lot of our narrative as non-white people is rendered invisible. A lot of the time we are presented from a very particular lens. 

What really stood out to me about this story is that he didn’t take this thing lying down. He did not say: “Yeah, it’s fine, just be racist and attack me”. He stood up against it, and it cost him in many ways. That’s so important for us now. We’re seeing so much violence towards our communities. So much is reminiscent of a time that people had thought was behind us. 

But the race riots in the UK last year, where asylum hotels were attacked, are exactly the same kind of things that happened then. You’ve got Asian restaurants being set alight by arson attacks today. This is all happening now. It’s even more important that people are aware that it has a history. It has a context.

You’ve mentioned two reasons why the film is relevant today. On the one hand, there are the ongoing cases like Palestine Action, on the other active racism on the streets. How can a film change this?

A film is just a cultural piece that aims to galvanize people. It’s part of the wider movement of coming together and being able to draw solidarity from each other. 

When we’ve done screenings we’ve had the opportunity to have conversations with people who were involved in the campaign – to gain inspiration and feel recharged. Educating people so that these things are not forgotten is important, but it doesn’t end there. 

The film is part of a wider campaign to draw attention to what’s happening now and how you can utilize some of the techniques that people used back then that were actually really innovative at the time. The Internet was barely a thing, but people were flooding the Home Office fax machines. How can we translate that to today’s context? It’s so important to learn from our history, especially a history that may be otherwise completely forgotten.

How much chance will you have at the British Shorts Festival to discuss issues raised by the film?

One of the challenges with making a 30 minute film like this is that it stands alone, so having to program it alongside other films has been a challenge. We’re available to do a Q&A and hopefully there is a chance to have a conversation. I’m going to be there with  my co–director, so there will be at least the opportunity to talk to us. 

We do have the tools now to be able to take something that you see in a physical environment and carry that conversation on. Some showings will be accompanied with a Q&A, but in some instances, like the Shorts Festival, just being part of the festival makes a lot more sense. It’s quite hard to get programmed as a single short film.

But as you’re based in Berlin, the possibilities of organizing further screenings will still be there?

Of course. This is not just a British experience, though there are some uniquely British elements to this film. The UK has a much bigger South Asian population, for example. But I think Germany has some serious reckoning to do when it comes to racism and the right.

Germany has a lot to gain from learning from experiences of other parts of Europe, and thinking about how you treat your own non-white people who live here. I saw a staggering study recently saying that one in four people who come and live in Germany consider leaving. As someone who has been living here for 2 years I can fully understand that.

The racism here is even more blatant and direct. In the UK, they learned the language of shrouding some of that racism. And maybe it’s not always as blatant, but  here It’s really transparent, Germany will gain from learning from these stories as well.

Do you think things are getting worse in Germany at the moment?

Absolutely. You can’t ignore the fact that for more than two years, there’s been a genocide that Germany has taken an active role in. We have had to reckon with the fact that many of our compatriots here are not willing to advocate for the rights of people who don’t look like them, and are actually happy to allow their country to fuel extreme violence towards the Palestinian population. 

Germany has many facades about reckoning with the past, but justice is not the agenda here. A lot of people have just been trying to make themselves feel better about their history.

Do you think there’s a direct link between the demonization of Palestinians and racist attacks?

Yes. It would be a lie to say that this isn’t something that’s been here all along. When you constantly and consistently claim that one particular community are the villains, that is the pretence that can be used to recreate many of the conditions that already existed here in another context,

Let’s get back to your film. When and where can people see it? 

After Eight is screening on 24th January at 5pm in Sputnik Kino next to Hasenheide as part of British Shorts. If you can’t make that, then look at our website and Instagram page where we’ll have future screenings listed. We are also planning to get the film available online. We’re in talks with some fairly big online platforms, but that will be later in the year. Keep an eye out.

If someone sees the film and is appalled by what they see, what can they do?

Firstly they should spread the word about the film itself. It’s important that people know this story. But ultimately, it is about questioning in your context, how does this narrative apply? 

In Germany so many have been arrested with spurious charges just for daring to speak out. It’s important to think about what we can do to help. Can you offer material or emotional support for these people? What did you take from this film in terms of the strategies, the organizing and the collectivizing?

I think the individualization of struggle makes you feel small. But one of the things that stands out is that this really was a campaign. The way we found Satpal is a good example. We found him through somebody in Canada, even though we were in the same country as him. It ‘s all about the strength in numbers. 

So it’s not just a film for British Asians? 

No, definitely not. 

Is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to say?

One thing. As a documentary filmmaker here, I think it has been a challenge for me to figure out how to do this kind of work here, which is really directly challenging the status quo in Germany and in Berlin. It doesn’t seem like there is an environment which encourages independent work.

I think that is why organizations like The Left Berlin are so important, because it seems like most cultural production is tied to institutions. This became very apparent post October 7, where funding was being cut left and right. Why are so many people dependent on the state, when the state itself is what should be challenged? 

The work I’m trying to do is to be directly challenging and to reset the narrative. And to be able to do that, you have to be independent.

You can see the trailer for After Eight – The Story of Satpal Ram here. You can buy tickets for the screening in Sputnik Kino on 24th January here.

Red Flag: Greenland doesn’t belong to Denmark either

In his weekly column, Nathaniel Flakin takes aim at European hypocrisy in the face of Trump’s imperialism.


14/01/2026

Nuuk

As soon as Donald Trump had finished kidnapping the president of Venezuela, he once again set his sights on Greenland. Trump advisor and fascist ghoul Stephen Miller said on TV that the island should “obviously … be part of the United States.” Channeling Hitler, Miller continued: “We live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Bourgeois Europe was shocked by Trump’s “unbridled imperialism,” in the words of Spiegel magazine. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the UK, and Denmark put out a joint statement: “Greenland belongs to its people,” they recited. “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide.”

But why is it for Denmark to decide, even before Greenland? Miller has a point when he asks: “By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?”

Imperialism

Imperialist powers want Greenland as climate change opens up the Arctic to shipping and mining. They don’t even feign interest in the well-being of the indigenous people of Kalaallit Nunaat. Danish colonialism has been particularly brutal, ripping hundreds of babies away from their mothers, while sterilizing thousands of women without their consent. U.S colonialism would be no less devastating, turning the island into a staging ground for World War III. 

A supposed leftist like Chris Cutrone, the founder of the odious Platypus Society, claims that the imperialist conquest of Greenland would be a continuation of the American revolution. But the peoples of Puerto Rico or Guam can say whether the U.S. today represents a democratic alternative to European colonialism.

If the U.S. army were to invade Greenland to seize its resources, that would be pure barbarism—but the Danish “claim” is based on violent conquest several centuries earlier. No one has any democratic mandate. Miller stated very openly that Greenland has just 30,000 inhabitants (in reality, 57,000) and he doesn’t care what they think. But EU policy has just as little interest in self-determination.

While EU leaders say Greenland belongs to its people—and to Denmark, apparently—France still denies self-determination to the Kanak people of New Caledonia. Spanish imperialism clings on to Ceuta and Melilla. The UK keeps a navy base on the Malvinas Islands. etc.

The European statement talks about “sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders”—but these principles didn’t stop NATO from attacking Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. Denmark’s imperialist military participated in all these crimes.

“Territorial integrity” didn’t apply when the EU backed independence for Kosovo or South Sudan. Many European governments recognize Palestine—but have done nothing at all to defend that state’s sovereignty.

Fellow Imperialists 

Trying to appease Trump, Danish politicians are emphasizing they are fellow imperialists. “We’re Already on Your Side,” one social democrat screamed in the direction of the White House. They also want to use Greenland for military buildup, to control the Arctic, and to extract rare earths. 

The European Union likes to present itself as a bastion of liberal values and international law. Yet as they continue to support the genocide in Gaza, they are showing the whole world that the “rules-based international order” is, at most, window dressing to cover up their own imperialist interests. Despite all the propaganda about the dangers of Russia and China, NATO remains one of the deadliest organization in the history of humanity.

The only people who should decide on Greenland’s fate are its indigenous population. In the age of growing inner-imperialist tensions, only socialists are defending such an elementary democratic right. Anyone serious about democracy and self-determination needs to call for the break up of NATO and the end of imperialism.   

Red Flag is a weekly opinion column on Berlin politics that Nathaniel has been writing since 2020. After moving through different homes, it now appears at The Left Berlin.

Education4Gaza

Providing schools for kids in Gaza


13/01/2026

The Education4Gaza initiative was started by a group of Palestinians from Khan Younès who have been known since the 2000s to activists, especially in France, who traveled to Gaza on civilian solidarity missions.

Faced with the deliberate and systematic destruction of all educational facilities in Gaza, our friends have been running makeshift schools in tents amid the ruins since last fall, because for them education is as vital as bread and water. Starting with around 50 students, this initiative now brings together, thanks to the support of donors, more than a thousand children aged 5 to 15, with around 30 teachers who teach the Palestinian school curriculum every day from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., to groups of 20 or 30 children.

As the situation worsens and displaced people arrive from all over, many other children are waiting to join them. The day begins with a meal so that the children can satisfy their hunger and concentrate on their studies. The students and children also receive psychological support to help them cope with the trauma they experience on a daily basis.

The group has just been forcibly displaced for the umpteenth time from Khan Younès to be crammed into a camp in Mawassi by the sea, many of them without even a tent, while bombs continue to rain down, claiming more and more lives every day.

But come what may, our friends are continuing to hold classes, as this is a way for them to keep going!

There will be a Benefit Event for Education4Gaza in Berlin on Saturday, January 17th 2026

15 January 1919: Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are murdered

This week in working class history


On the evening of January 15, 1919, revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered. The trigger was pulled by members of the Freikorps, which later evolved into Hitler’s Nazi party, under the tacit order of the SPD’s Gustav Noske, the Minister of Defence and civilian commander-in-chief following Kaiser Wilhelm II’s abdication. Both Luxemburg and Liebknecht had recently been members of the SPD, with Liebknecht serving as an SPD MP.

Germany’s defeat in the First World War in 1918 sparked an uprising among disillusioned workers and soldiers, inspired by the Russian Revolution. On November 9, Liebknecht declared a free socialist republic, calling for “All power to the Soviets!” at the same time SPD leader Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a bourgeois republic. This led to a period of dual power between the SPD-led parliament and workers’ councils, with Liebknecht and Luxemburg’s Spartakusbund playing an active role.

On Christmas Eve, sailors occupying the Kaiser’s palace were attacked by troops loyal to the parliament, followed by the dismissal of Emil Eichhorn, who served both as Chief of Police and a revolutionary. The Spartakus Uprising took place on January 5, the day after Eichhorn’s sacking, in a premature seizure of power made before the country was ready for revolution. The state seized this opportunity for revenge, allowing the Freikorps to run rampant.

Luxemburg and Liebknecht were captured by the Freikorps‘ GKSD cavalry guard division. Both were smashed in the head with rifle butts, Liebknecht was then driven to the Tiergarten. The car stopped and he was ordered to continue on foot. A soldier shot him in the back, claiming that he was trying to escape. Luxemburg was shot in her car by GKSD officer Hermann Souchon, a GKSD officer, who jumped onto the running board. Her body was tossed into the Landwehr Canal and not discovered for several months.

The German revolution was ultimately crushed, paving the way for the Nazis’ rise to power; even SPD leaders who had aided in suppressing the revolution later perished in concentration camps. Yet, the uprising and its two inspirational leaders continue to resonate. Luxemburg’s last words proclaimed: “Your ‘order’ is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will ‘rise up again, clashing its weapons,’ and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!”

How could nobody care? 

An Iranian exile calls for support for the revolution


That’s the question I have been asking myself for my entire life, but these days it’s louder than ever. I was born in Iran, which means I was born into a fight for the most basic things you can even imagine. I grew up surrounded by violence, bloodshed, cruelty, and monstrosity. And yet the worst part has never been the inhumanity itself, but the loneliness of witnessing it all. The silence. The feeling of losing hope in the world and its so-called “humanity,” day by day, because nobody seemed to care.

After decades of oppression, decades of protests and bodies and funerals, we are finally in the last stages of this fight. We are in a revolution. But we are also in a war, lonelier than ever, while the Islamic Republic becomes more savage than ever before. They are not just oppressing anymore. They are committing mass murder and war crimes against their own people. 

So tell me: why does nobody care? Why don’t you care? How many times should Iranians go to the streets and get killed for the world to hear them? How many children should be shot and never come home? How many protesters should be executed? How many times must the regime turn off the lights, cut the internet, shut down all communication, and kill thousands in silence for you to pay attention?

It wouldn’t hurt this much if you genuinely didn’t know. But you do know. We tell you. We beg you. We spread every piece of information we can. We scream into the void hoping someone will listen. And the silence that follows is fucking unbearable. It wouldn’t hurt this much if you didn’t pretend to care about “human rights.” If you didn’t brag about your liberal ideas, your solidarity, your activism. If you didn’t give constant lectures on fascism and racism. But you do. You claim you care about human rights, so why do you ignore Iran? Why does your solidarity suddenly stop when it comes to us?

We in the diaspora are trapped. We sit in darkness, cut off from our loved ones, just as Iran is cut off from the world. We search for our families’ faces in the few videos that manage to escape the blackout. We read reports of mass casualties so overwhelming that health care professionals don’t even have time to perform CPR. Do you understand what that means? Do you understand the horror of families having to steal the corpses of their loved ones before the government gets to them? Do you understand what it means to be asked to pay “bullet money” for your murdered child? Do you understand that even our dead are not safe from these monsters?

You don’t get to claim “human rights” and ignore Iran. You don’t get to call yourselves activists when your activism stops the moment it becomes uncomfortable or “complex”. Your selective empathy, your performative solidarity, none of it saves lives. None of it means anything, when you stay silent when it matters the most. 

If you really care about human beings, then start acting like it. Every Iranian in the diaspora I know is dying of guilt. It burns through our entire existence. We feel guilty for being alive. Guilty for not being there. Guilty for not fighting in the streets and dying next to our brothers and sisters. Guilty for not even daring to hope. And I still wonder: how can you not feel any of this?

How can you see us suffering, see us being killed, see our blood spilled in the streets, and not even talk about it? How can you watch us break, lose our homes, lose our people, lose our sanity, and not even ask if we are okay? How can you live with yourselves, knowing there are people just like you, full of life, dreams, and kindness, being killed right now for fighting for the same values you claim to believe in? How can you live with yourself? Because I can’t. I’m doing everything in my power to be the voice of the silenced, and yet I’m about to lose my mind out of rage and guilt any moment now, while you don’t even ask your Iranian friends how they are doing, let alone take action to save innocent lives.

Many of us are completely alone here. Can you imagine how much it would mean to receive just one message? A check-in during a crisis. A simple: Are you okay? Anyone can congratulate us on our birthdays, but we need friends who can message us when our homes are on fire.

What you read in books, hear in podcasts, watch in documentaries, or skip because of “content warnings”, that is our reality. It is our daily life. And we never get to take a break from it, not even from another continent.

If you truly care, make these abstract ideas part of your reality too. Live them. Act on them. Solidarity means nothing if it exists only when it’s easy. Stick all your “Fuck AfD” stickers everywhere you want, shout your slogans in the streets, but when you go home to your safe, privileged lives, don’t leave your solidarity behind. Carry it with you. Get used to it. Let it become part of you. I promise you, it’s not heavier than the trauma and grief we carry every single day.

That’s all I ask: keep shouting if you must, but start talking too. Say something. To your friends. To your students. To your coworkers. Open your eyes and see what is happening, even if it makes you uncomfortable, especially if it makes you uncomfortable. If you don’t know how to help, ask. Learn. Try. Anything is better than this soul-crushing silence.

Please talk about us. Talk about the Iranian people making history. Talk about their fight, their courage, their decades of resistance. Talk about the complete internet shutdown cutting off 90 million people from their loved ones and from the world so that no one will know they are being murdered. Talk about this deliberate attempt to isolate a nation, to silence voices, to hide crimes. And don’t just talk. This is not “a local issue” or “internal politics.” This is a humanitarian crisis. This is a regime committing war crimes in real time against unarmed civilians whose only weapons are their courage and their hope for a free Iran.

If you call yourselves activists, then act now, when it matters most. As Europeans, as citizens of democratic countries, you have privileges we don’t. Use them. Contact your MPs, journalists, politicians, representatives. Ask them to hold the Islamic Republic accountable. Demand consequences. Demand that the regime’s diplomats be expelled. Demand that the world stops legitimizing murderers.

People in Iran are being killed right now. Every minute. They have already had every chance for a normal life stolen from them. They were born into a totalitarian regime that destroyed their lives before they even began. The least you can do is talk about them, honor them, refuse to let their deaths disappear in silence. Not because it is noble, not because it makes you a better person, but because none of us are free until all of us are free. Stop your selective activism. Stop looking away. Be our voice. Be the activists you claim to be.

And don’t forget: this is no longer a protest.
This is a revolution.

Sayan Kouhzad

12.01.2026