By Manthan Pathak.
This summer, the country endured a series of racist attacks that were perhaps the most vivid expression of hatred we’ve witnessed in decades. Now, we face the threat of that hatred spilling onto our streets again.
As an anti-racist campaigner for 30 years, I write these words not to evoke panic or to sensationalise but as a call to action for everyone.
Days before the riots, some 15,000 protestors took to the streets in support of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson.
Now Tommy Robinson is calling another demonstration on October 26th. He claims that the demonstration will be “a peaceful show of resistance against tyranny”. We fear this is unlikely to be how it unfolds.
The demonstration threatens to embolden far right groups throughout the country to perpetrate further terror in our towns and cities.
No one is exempt from suffering: in Southampton we saw areas of the city closed entirely, businesses shutting early and a palpable fear on the streets as rumours of attacks were shared on social media. Stricken with fear, many people felt imprisoned in their homes.
It isn’t difficult to identify links between the pro-Robinson protest in London on the 27th of July and the far right hijacking of the vigil in Southport on the 30th, one where rioters were heard shouting Robinson’s name.
That night, fuelled by disinformation about the identity of the person accused of the murder of young girls attending a dance class in the area and, in what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to demonise Muslims, a collection of far right thugs proceeded to demonstrate outside a local mosque, throwing objects at the mosque and police, and setting a police van alight.
In the days that followed, violent mayhem ensued throughout the country.
In Rotherham a hotel housing asylum seekers had its windows smashed as rioters attempted to set the buildings on fire with a bin full of flammable material. In Tamworth another hotel being used as asylum seeker accommodation was damaged, and rioters succeeded in setting fire to part of the building. In Middlesbrough, rioters targeted houses and cars in a residential area, setting vehicles alight. Muslim graves were desecrated at Burnley cemetery.
The list of violent incidents is endless. I can only provide a snapshot here of the carnage caused by people, many of them whose intent was not to make a political statement, but to terrorise communities.
These attacks were not limited to the north of the country. Close to home, in Aldershot on August 1st, a group of 200 anti-immigration protesters gathered outside a hotel used by the government to house asylum seekers, hurling racial abuse and throwing objects.
Later that week in Portsmouth, the largest anti-immigration protest in the country that day blocked Mile End Road, while in Bournemouth a similar number gathered. In the months that have followed right wing protesters have continued to gather in these places. Hatred and unrest have been brought to our doorstep.
For the uninitiated, this is precisely how fascist groups gain a foothold in communities; unchallenged and unopposed, their rhetoric of xenophobia and outright racism become normalised. Extreme far right views proliferate in everyday conversation – such as the ‘great replacement theory’, which warns that white Europeans are actively being replaced by non-white immigrants – and those views become entrenched.
All of this is to say that when the far right gathers violence often follows, and that violence is closer than we may like to think.
Inexplicably, Robinson has 1 million followers on X (formerly known as Twitter) and his latest book tops the bestseller charts as I write. His influence on a swathe of predominantly disaffected men is a grave concern for us all.
We should see this, alongside recent events, as a stark warning that this country, scarred by austerity politics and inflammatory racist rhetoric, remains fertile terrain for those who pursue an extreme right wing agenda.
Ultimately the threat from the far right was curtailed by ordinary people, as counter-demonstrations by anti-racists across the land subsumed their efforts. We stood up against fascism,racism and hatred in our thousands, defeating the clarion call of hate that was sent out. As the months pass, that threat may not be visible to many of us now, but was it then?
Did any of us predict that we would be engulfed by such an intense wave of violence in our towns and cities?
We must surely learn from history, and with even more clarity given how recent that history is. If we remain passive, if we allow the far right to gather in their thousands and extol messages of hatred and intolerance unopposed, then we have learned nothing. We’ve seen how that goes.
Opposing them, in the most visual way possible, by outnumbering them, is the clearest way we can let them know they do not speak for us, their views are not ours, and that they are not welcome.
We must sing in one voice, united by a fundamental rejection of the politics of fear and an embrace of love and compassion. There is a joyfulness when hatred is defeated; I’ve felt it, stood side by side with people young and old from all backgrounds, brought together by a determination for peace and unity.
We at Southampton Stand Up to Racism are organising a coach to a peaceful counter-demonstration in central London on Saturday 26th October, as we join thousands from across in standing up to the far right, to racism, to Islamophobia to anti-Semitism, and to Tommy Robinson and what he stands for.
Please join us if you share these values – this is a fight we can win – but only if we stand up together and make our voices heard.
For more information, visit the Southampton Stand Up To Racism Facebook page.
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