Today marks one year since the shocking and devastating attack in Southport, and the murders of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine. We pause here and ask you to remember them with us, and the anguish and unimaginable grief their families will forever live.
This is where this post should end, but unfortunately we must also remember what came after, and the rot in our society which was once again exposed, ignited, and hasn’t gone out since.
Today also marks one year since far-right, racist, Islamophobic, anti-Black and anti-migrant rioting swept across England and Northern Ireland. A year since we, and many Black and Brown people across the country, felt sick with fear and anxiety for ourselves and our loved ones. A year since fascists marched the streets, dragging Black and Brown people from their cars, targeting buildings housing people seeking asylum, setting them on fire, and throwing bricks through the windows on streets where they knew Black and Brown people were living.
So where are we now? A year on.
Honestly? Not much has changed.
Do Black and Brown people born, living, working here, migrants, refugees and Muslim people feel safe? No.
Are we confident that similar riots and racist attacks won’t sweep across the country again? No.
The strategy from the government has been law and order. Yes a few people have faced prison time, yes there is a bigger police presence when protests and riots happen. But the government is actively feeding into the dehumanising views of those engaging in violence against Black and Brown people. Talking about ‘illegal immigrants’ ‘smashing the gangs’ and even how we are becoming an ‘island of strangers’. Dog whistles. They are not preventing further racist attacks, and they are doing nothing at all to tackle the normalised racism in our society which makes people susceptible to the far-right call.
So it’s no surprise to us that there is a growing body of people in our communities that are increasingly aligning with the views of the far-right and are willing to join in on the violence when there is a so called ‘valid’ trigger.
The terrifying truth is that we are one high profile case or rumour away from the same scenes we saw last year – perhaps even worse.
Let’s just recap the last few weeks…
In June, thousands of people took to the streets in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, to ‘protest’. Immigrant owned shops and businesses were targeted, and houses were set alight – some with families inside. In one video a woman could be heard saying, “If they’re local, they need out. If they’re not local, let them stay there.”
Fast forward to this month, and we’ve seen two weeks of ‘protests’, and at times rioting, outside a hotel rumoured to be housing people seeking asylum in Essex. Individuals from fascist groups such as Homeland, Patriotic Alternative and the neo-Nazi White Vanguard movement were present.
Last week, similar scenes unfolded outside a hotel in Canary Wharf in response to government plans to house people seeking asylum there. Over the weekend, the new leader of UKIP Nick Teconi (fresh from harassing people seeking asylum in Calais with his followers in literal blackshirts), staged one of his ‘mass deportation’ rallies in Glasgow. Luckily he was outnumbered by 500 anti-racist counter protestors, but his “tour” is due to carry on in other major cities.
Closer to home, we continue to see the protesters mobilising around the construction of the Islamic Community Centre in Dalton. (Those attending have commented on our posts saying that it’s just about parking and pavement, not racism, but Counter-protestors, social media comment sections, and photographic evidence suggest otherwise).
Repeatedly, sexual violence against white women or abuse of white children is the trigger of these ‘protests’. In some cases, there have been arrests or convictions. But let’s look at the facts. This year, the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse reported that in cases where ethnicity was recorded, 90% of offenders were white.
Yet, we don’t see protests when a white British person is charged with sexual assault. It’s almost as if it isn’t really about protecting women and girls…
We shouldn’t need to use statistics to convince people that labelling ALL people seeking asylum as sexual predators is ridiculous, and racist. And we shouldn’t need to point out that these ‘concerned protesters’ are rarely the same people who can be found supporting groups fighting for the safety of women and girls with the same passion that they bring when the man charged is Black or Brown.
These are tumultuous times. We know you’re tired, so are we. But we must loudly, deliberately and actively challenge racism and misinformation everywhere we find it. Turn up to counter protests. Keep writing to MP’s, Councillors and your children’s schools to ask them how they’re tackling the rise of racism and the far right. Face those difficult conversations head on. Support us as we continue to challenge locally. Fund us. Sign petitions that make it clear this cannot happen in your name. We must all fight against fascism because that’s what this is – history tells us time and again that it’s only by continually standing up for what’s right will we make a difference.
