Angels of the High Rise, they lived in Grenfell Tower.
The decision to demolish Grenfell before the inquiry is even finished is an act of violence against public memory, dressed up as pragmatism.
Grenfell Tower will be demolished over two years starting after its eighth anniversary, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner announced on Friday after informing bereaved families and survivors.
Demolishing Grenfell Tower before justice has been fully served is a violent act and betrayal of public memory. To remove it from the skyline while bereaved families still await true justice is to prioritise the aesthetics of forgetting over the duty of remembrance, proving once again that for those in power, the politics of memory is one of convenience rather than conscience.
To dismantle Grenfell without the full support of those left behind, grieving still, is to make invisible the classist neglect that put flammable cladding on homes of the largely migrant and diasporic community that inhabited it. It is to make nameless, faceless, the victims of a system that has always known how to calculate profit margins but not how to value human life.
Living in a high-rise council run estate you are often aware of the anti-poetry that the surrounding neighbourhoods internalise and also project onto your block. In my 15 minute walk to school, I would walk past the more affluent area called Poets Corner. All the roads under this corner were named after famous poets in Englands history - Shakespeare Road, Milton Road, Chaucer road. Once you turned down the road leading to my estate, the roads stopped being named after poets. The melody became silent. But for many of us, this is where home began.
The Grenfell fire raged for 60 hours. By the 24th, I found myself at lunch discussing it with someone whose mother, also present, lamented the tragedy but framed it as an unfortunate inevitability. I argued that it was not merely a tragedy but a consequence of systemic poverty, racial inequity, and institutional neglect. She disagreed. Their home, which they owned, was in West Hampstead. Our perspectives diverged sharply from that point onward.
For me, the Grenfell fire laid bare stark differences in how we perceive systemic poverty, racial injustice, and institutional failure. Some saw it as mere misfortune, others as the inevitable consequence of neglect.
The government recklessly ignored safety warnings and pursued a dangerous deregulation agenda, while construction teams and cladding manufacturers deliberately concealed risks. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, as landlord, showed gross negligence with its careless approach to safety and refurbishments, concerns repeatedly raised by residents who exposed the deep inadequacies in their protocols. They placed their trust in those responsible for their safety, only to be betrayed.
All of this contributed to the preventable disaster. As a visual skeleton of their failures, this demolition reveals the intent to erase the weight of their actions, burying the consequences beneath rubble.
The Grenfell fire did not happen in a vacuum. It was the inevitable consequence of a city built on wealth stratification, where poor families are stacked in high-rises, wrapped in aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding, the very material that turned Grenfell into an inferno.
Grenfell United, which represents some bereaved people and survivors, earlier this week said it appeared “no one supported” the government’s decision to demolish the block, with some backing a proposal to keep it as a memorial. “Ignoring the voices of bereaved on the future of our loved ones’ grave site is disgraceful and unforgivable.”
In May 2024, prosecutors and police said investigators would need until the end of 2025 to complete their inquiry into the Grenfell disaster, with final decisions on potential criminal charges by the end of 2026.
We are told that removing Grenfell from the skyline is part of a healing process. But healing for whom? For the corporations that would rather we stop talking about it? For the government officials and councils who ignored warnings about fire safety for years? For the investors eyeing up the land beneath it, seeing prime real estate rather than a grave site? The sheer sterility of these exploitative companies can be seen even in Arconic Architectural Products (AAP) official statement.
“AAP sold sheets of aluminium composite material as specified in the design process. This product was safe to use as a building material, and legal to sell in the UK as well as the more than thirty other countries in which AAP customers purchased the product. We reject any claim that AAP sold an unsafe product.”
The government says Grenfell must come down because it is “structurally unsafe.” This would of course be extremely valid if it weren’t for all the remaining unsafe structures still standing. Data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government reveals that 2,300 buildings remain endangered, with no remediation work started, sheathed with flammable cladding.
They are fanning the flames of a system that allows American Industrial giants like Arconic —the manufacturer of the cladding—to keep operating, despite knowingly selling a product that burned faster than petrol.
Angela Raynor has reassured the community that a specialist contractor would develop a detailed plan for taking down the tower. There is a great deal of emphasis on the fact that this will be a careful demolition. We will delicately dismantle this building storey by storey, level by level, with grace. You won’t have to look at Grenfell anymore. You won’t have to remember their names anymore. In this country, on this skyline, we only face forward. If you’re rich enough, you’ll be able to meet us there.
They watch entire life histories set ablaze if it means they can save a bit of money, betting on the fact that we might lack the political power to hold them accountable.
Beyond this, our commitment to remembering those who died cannot fade. I think of them all, each one. This month, I’ve thought a lot of Mohammad al-Haj Ali, the civil engineering student and former refugee, who moved into Grenfell Tower with his brother Omar after fleeing the war in Syria. I think of his dreams to go home and rebuild. To think of how many times he was betrayed by the places he called home breaks my heart over, and over.
Mohammad Al-Haj Ali, Ya-Haddy Sisi Saye, also known as Khadija Saye, Anthony Disson, Khadija Khalloufi, Mary Mendy, Isaac Paulos, Sheila, Gloria Trevisan, Marco Gottardi, Berkti Haftom, Ali Yarwar Jafari, Majorie Vital, Yahya Hashim, Hamid Kani, Jessica Urbano Ramirez, Zainab Deen, Nura Jemal, Jeremiah Deen, Yasin El-Wahabi, Firdaws Hashim, Hashim Kedir, Debbie Lamprell, Ernie Vital, Sakina Afrasehabi, Denis Mur-phy, Raymond "Moses" Bernard, Biruk Haftom, Yaqub Hashim, Mehdi El-Wahabi, Ligaya Moore, Nur Huda El-Wahabi, Victoria King, Mo-hammed Amied Neda, Maria del Pilar Burton, Hesham Rahman, Gary Maunders, Alexandra Atala, Vincent Chiejina, Steve Power, Rania Ibrahim, Fethia Hassan, Hania Hassan, Fathia Ahmed Elsanousi, Abufras Ibrahim, Isra Ibrahim, Mariem Elgwahry, Eslah Elgwahry, Mohamednur Tuccu, Amal Ahmedin, Amaya Tuccu-Ahmedin, Amna Mahmud Idris, Abdeslam Sebbar, Joseph Daniels, Logan Gomes, Omar Belkadi, Farah Hamdan, Malak Belkadi, Leena Belkadi, Abdulaziz El-Wahabi, Faouzia El-Wahabi, Fatemeh Afrasiabi, Kamru Miah, Rabeya Begum, Mohammed Hamid, Mohammed Hanif, Husna Begum, Bassem Choukair, Nadia Choucair, Mierna Choucair, Fatima Choucair, Zainab Choucair and Sirria Choucair.
I wish you were still here. From the top of this council block, you were closer to paradise than anyone could imagine—angels of the high-rise, messengers of a London that must, before the flames take over, awaken to a new way.
This was such an amazingly powerful read. Justice for Grenfell, may they fly high.