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Ben Judah: Immigration has changed the very soul of London

Journalist Ben Judah on the harsh but surprising reality of immigrants seeking utopia in London

London glows in the villages of Africa, eastern Europe and Asia, stirring up dreams. This Is London, my book, tells the story of life and death in a new, little-known city. The new London is an immigrant mega-city where nearly 40 per cent were born abroad. A humming city migrants glimpse as a Utopia from afar.

This is no longer the city of Dickens. London now is a city of African nightcleaners, Filipina maids and Romanian building bosses. A city where immigration has so utterly transformed the fabric, it has changed London’s very soul.

One after another, my stories follow the arc of life: arrival, struggle, children, triumph, madness, age, failure, wisdom and death. I wanted the new London to speak for itself. For every chapter, I found a life. My question was always the same: tell me what’s really on your mind. No censorship. No nerves.

London now is a city of African nightcleaners, Filipina maids and Romanian building bosses

To my surprise, a hidden spirituality burst out. I never expected my quest for the city to reveal to me the immigrant mega-city’s prayers. Nigerian Peckham took me to a sacred seer, Russian Mayfair took me to its kabbalist, Pakistani Leyton told me of the love and secrets with which the faithful wash the dead.

At night London murmurs, a city of prayer. It is no longer haunted by Jack the Ripper but by the curses of Roma beggars and the amulets worn by Ghanaian witchdoctors. I found faith everywhere. The London of Karl Marx and empty pews is gone. Instead, a city of countless Nigerian street-preachers, Somali basement mosques and overflowing Polish churches. But the chapels of the other London are not like ours. London’s gods now live in converted bingo-halls and backrooms.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

Listening changes the way you see. My ears are no longer the same. Listening turned their dial away from fossilised myths, onto London’s new frequency. It’s beautiful: I no longer feel lost, unable to imagine who surrounds me on the Tube. And I will never be able to walk into a London hospital again without feeling the longing for Islamic angels or the Polish Mary all around me.

I found a London where politics felt very, very distant

Sometimes, I wonder why the hidden city prays so intently. Unlike George Orwell – who found hidden Londoners not only exploited but hungry for a socialist Utopia – I found a London where politics felt very, very distant. Answers, change, seemed laughable to the cleaners, carers, builders and drivers who shared their stories with me.

Sometimes, on the Tube home, I ask myself why the London I saw living in a Romanian doss house or touting with Baltic labourers on the kerb is a place where people clung onto prayer, not politics. Perhaps it’s because, in one way, it is still a Dickensian city: a city of the powerless – where the only Utopia migrants find at the end of their journey is prayer.

Ben Judah is Contributing Writer at Politico Europe. His book This is London is out now

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