Dia de folguedo em Londres. Hoje, Notting Hill apinhou-se de gente para dar largas à imaginação e à tradição. Muitas centenas de milhar de pessoas puderam ver e aplaudir o habitual desfile multicultural nas ruas do bairro The Notting Hill
Carnival is an annual event which takes place in
Notting Hill,
London,
England each August, over three days (a weekend and a
bank holiday). It is led by members of the Caribbean population, many of whom have lived in the area since the
1950s.
The Carnival began in January
1959 in St Pancras Town Hall as a response to the depressing state of
race relations at the time; the UK's first widespread racial attacks had occurred the previous year. It was a huge success, despite being held indoors.
It first moved outside and shifted into August in
1965. The prime mover was
Rhaune Laslett, who wasn't even aware of the indoor events when she first raised the idea. At this point, it was more a Notting Hill event than an Afro-Caribbean event, and only around a thousand people turned out.
By
1976 the event had become definitely Caribbean in flavour, with around 150,000 people attending. However, in that year and several subsequent years the carnival was marred by riots, in which predominantly Caribbean youths fought with police — a target due to the continuous harassment the population felt they were under (see article on the 1976 riots in External links, below). During this period, there was considerable coverage of the disorder in the press, which some felt took an unfairly negative and one-sided view of the Carnival. For a while it looked as if the carnival would be banned.
Prince Charles was one of the few establishment figures who supported the event.
In recent years, the event has been much freer from serious trouble and is generally viewed very positively as a dynamic celebration of London's multi-cultural diversity, though dominated by the Caribbean culture in the best traditions of
Rio. However, there has been controversy over the public safety aspects of holding such a well-attended event in narrow streets in a small area of London. The capital's authorities have sought to spread the load by making use of nearby
Hyde Park.
(fonte Wikipedia)