Thousands of anti-racists took to the streets across the north and south of England on Wednesday evening, reclaiming our towns and cities back from the far-right rioters who have been terrorising British Muslims, people of colour, refugees and migrants over the past eight devastating days.
In doing so, anti-racists have also reclaimed the narrative back from the politicians and media operatives who have emboldened these violent racists with their inflammatory rhetoric on migration, making it clear that the majority in Britain does not buy into their hatemongering and that our multiracial neighbourhoods and communities are “no go zones” for the far-right.
This unprecedented show of force from the decent people of Britain came on the back of a warning from police that more than 100 far-right gatherings were planned across the country on Wednesday. It was said that the far right, who have already been causing havoc across the country in so-called “anti-immigration” demos for days, were planning to attack the offices of immigration lawyers and refugee and migration charities as well as mosques and community buildings.
People who have been horrified by such attacks earlier, as well as the widespread looting and violence against police officers that accompanied them, said enough is enough. Combined with a determined response from the police (more than 400 rioters have been arrested and some 140 have already been charged) the presence of anti-racists and anti-fascists on the streets in large numbers proved enough to intimidate the far-right thugs. In the end, in many localities where such violent gatherings were planned, only a handful of far-right rioters showed up.
It seems the race riots are now over, and those who participated in them or even encouraged them from afar are starting to feel the “full force of the law”, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised.
While this victory against racists and fascists, this reclamation of Britain’s identity, should undoubtedly be celebrated, there is also an urgent need to ask: How did we end up with far-right riots on our streets, and what can we do to prevent the repeat of this atrocity?
Many in Britain have pointed to online disinformation as the source of the far-right riots. Indeed, misleading, inflammatory social media content scapegoating Muslims and refugees for all that is wrong with the country, from the rising cost of living to lack of housing and even heinous crimes against children, has played an important role in emboldening the worst in our society to take over our streets.
Nonetheless, British Muslims and those belonging to other ethnic minorities in this country know for a fact that the hate that led to the events of this past week is much older than social media.
These riots triggered old traumas in our communities that go back at least half a century.
Indeed, those of us who are the children of working-class migrants invited to Britain to rebuild the country after World War II feel like we experienced first hand in this past week the discrimination, hate and intimidation our parents faced in this country in the 1970s and 1980s.
Our parents had told us how elders, youths and women from our communities were told to stay home when far-right thugs were out in the streets, looking for targets, victims. Last week, that sad history repeated itself. There have been warnings for Muslim women and elders, and everyone else who happens to look as if they may be Muslim or a “migrant”, to stay at home, to avoid certain streets and neighbourhoods. We feared we might be harassed, beaten up, or even face acid attacks as we tried to go about our daily business.
This past week has also reminded us that the especially potent anti-Muslim hate and bigotry that was unleashed in the aftermath of 9/11 did not go anywhere despite years of anti-racist efforts to curtail it.
After al-Qaeda’s attack on New York’s twin towers 25 years ago, the United States and its allies, including the United Kingdom, embarked on a so-called “war on terror”, unleashing unimaginable terror and suffering on Muslim communities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and across the Middle East. Simultaneously, Muslims also began to be demonised in political and popular culture, which fully normalised and mainstreamed anti-Muslim bigotry. This two-pronged campaign of destruction and dehumanisation inevitably also had a profound impact on Muslims living across the West, including the UK.
Post-9/11, in most of Europe, Islamophobia became state policy. States started banning the niqab, the hijab, the building of mosques and the call to prayer. There were several attempts to ban halal meat across different countries. For years, most mainstream media in Europe proudly disseminated Islamophobia, publishing without consequence false stories and hysterical headlines to fuel bigotry against Muslim communities.
In the UK, anti-Muslim, anti-immigration and anti-refugee voices in media and politics have been as loud as those on the continent, but there has always also been a widespread effort to defend multiculturalism and all the communities, including Muslims, that make Britain great.
In the past few years, however, there has been a concerted effort to undo the anti-racist gains made in our country since 9/11. The politicians and the media tried their best to demonise Muslims and baselessly present our communities as a threat to the future of our nation.
Especially since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, we have seen a return to the dark days in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The anti-genocide marches calling for peace and a ceasefire were branded as “hate” and British Muslims demanding an end to the killing were branded as “hatemongers” by those in political power as well as in mainstream national media.
All this led to the horrific explosion of hate we have seen on our streets in the past week. Indeed, the race riots were an inevitable consequence of all this – thanks to the efforts of anti-racists they lasted only a week, but they were decades in the making.
Now that the far-right threat on our streets appears to have been quelled, affected communities are trying to catch their breath and process what they have experienced.
So how can we prevent the repeat of this horrific explosion of hate against Muslim and other minority communities?
The only way to ensure the UK never sees such racist riots again, the only way that our communities can feel fully safe and secure in this country, is for the government to embark on a war against dangerous far-right ideologies.
The government must take the far right and its Islamophobic bigotry head on, defend and uphold the internationally recognised rights of asylum seekers and migrants. It must create a new asylum and immigration system that is aligned with international law and respectful of the dignity and humanity of all people.
Further, it must make its stance on Islamophobia clear.
Unless the leaders of this country recognise that hatred of Muslims, migrant and refugees is a source of domestic terror, that it is threatening the very fabric of British society, I am certain that there will be other weeks of shame in this country’s future when minorities are told to stay home for their safety.
The government must now thank the British people who stopped the far right in its tracks, and take immediate action to ensure their efforts were not in vain.
Starmer and his cabinet must defend multiculturalism and simultaneously take action to address the deep-seated inequalities and injustices affecting the UK’s multiracial working classes that allow for far-right ideologies to take hold in our country. Anything else would be capitulating to far-right extremists and handing power to them over all our lives.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
