“They do mean me.” As anti-Muslim rhetoric grows louder on Britain’s streets, I can’t help but reflect on fear, belonging, identity and the unsettling feeling that the country I once called home is turning against people like me.
The slogans and shouts from the so-called Unite the Kingdom rally this weekend have left me feeling very uneasy.
If it were about injustice, widening inequality, governmental incompetency, or the anger of ordinary people constantly being misled by a self-serving elite taking the public for a ride, then I’d be right there alongside you comrades.
But despite repeated insistence that it was not a racist right-wing rally, and while I have no doubt that many in attendance genuinely believe that to be true, much of the messaging emanating from it has been overtly and brazenly bigoted, prejudiced and openly hostile towards minorities.
Most of all, it felt not merely tinged with Islamophobia, but like a wholesale battle cry against Muslims. And in that, it felt deeply personal. I have South Asian heritage, I am Muslim and, most visibly of all, I am brown.
Yet I am also British by birth. If your first language is the one you speak to yourself in your head, then mine is English. I have always, at least until now, felt pride and patriotism towards the place I thought was home.
However, when people speak of incompatibility with “British values”, when crowds chant “no more mosques”, “stop Islam”, “go back to your country”, and when calls for “remigration” are no longer whispered but shouted openly, then I can no longer glance left and right and reassure myself that, “Yeah, but they don’t mean me.”
Because they do mean me. And my family. My friends. Those who pray like me. Even those who look like me.
The rhetoric speaks constantly of returning to the “good old days”. Of restoring Britain to “how it was”. Because rose-tints always reminisce better than reality.
Besides, how far back exactly do you wish to go? Would you erase the contributions of South Asian soldiers who fought in the World Wars on behalf of an Empire that simultaneously starved millions of our people?
Would you delete key components of science, mathematics and technology, from algorithms to algebra to alchemy, because they came from the Islamic world?
What frustrates me most is the lack of understanding as to how interwoven, interconnected and interdependent our histories, our cultures and our very existence are.
I find it exasperating and exhausting that in the 21st Century we still fail to comprehend what binds us in similarity, and instead choose to focus on what separates us via amplified platforms of hate, fear and divisiveness. That our despondency, deprivation and distress are so easily weaponised into hatred of “the other”, while the architects of anarchy divert and distract us from common sense, compassion and intelligent analysis.
It disheartens me to realise the human race still struggles to transcend decrying colour and creed. That despite all our progress, knowledge and advancement, we still seem incapable of embracing the simple commonality that binds us together.
Because if we truly wish to unite the kingdom, then we must first learn not to fear one another within it.
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