It's the beginning of August 2024- and a pogrom against Britain's Muslim and refugee community is underway. Unlike Nazi Germany's Kristallnacht against its Jewish citizens, the violence against Muslims and refugees in Britain over the last few days is not sanctioned by the British government. Although the entire political and news media class have much to answer for as to the reasons this early Bank Holiday of blood lust against Muslims and refugees was unleashed.
Racism in England is a long-standing chronic societal cancer. It was only partially mitigated by the post-war Welfare State. When neoliberalism tore apart the social safety net of nations like Britain, for privatisation by the 1%-it was done as if were ship wreckers breaking apart an obsolete tanker for salvageable parts. Nothing remained afterwards except the skeleton of a compassionate society. The tolerance of a fed stomach was replaced with rabid xenophobia from those hungry for a decent life. It wasn't an unintended consequence of neoliberalism but deliberate because if you hate those beneath you for allegedly stealing your chance for the good life, then you won't be looking for the real thieves of your right to a prosperous and purposeful existence, the entitled.
England is seriously fucked up, and not because of refugees or Muslims. But by a news media class who earns their bread by telling the public their hard-knock life is because of the vulnerable, the refugees and Muslims and not the wealthy.
The participants of these riots by fascist mobs across England and in Belfast are the most heinous, knuckle-dragging lowlifes. Yet on many occasions, I have encountered people like them at parties, weddings and even family gatherings, over my lifetime. I remember a distant relative from Halifax who lamented the ancient guillotine on Gibbet Street couldn't be brought back to life to chop the heads off of the fucking (insert racist epithet). The rage of the broken, the stupid and the poor is so easily harnessed to do evil.
Extreme violence against refugees and migrants might be a minority position in Britain. But antipathy, bigotry and dehumanising of them is an accepted mainstream position.
The news media and political class have created environments for Islamophobia to grow along with intolerance for refugees to make society fearful, less equal and ultimately an authoritarian state that increases the wealth of the few at the expense of the many.
Over these last few days, Muslim women have been attacked in the streets because of the accoutrements of their faith. Muslim shops have been trashed and burned. There are reports of an acid attack against a Muslim woman while an Asian man was stabbed and another dragged from his car to be beaten up. A library was ransacked and a hotel that houses refugees was set on fire.
Mainstream Britain grew feral, and some of it was years in the making. Other reasons- are more recent and also more heinous because the press and politics dehumanising Palestinians to enable genocide against them in Gaza is also the reason for intolerance to run amok on the streets of England.
Over the next few years, refugees across the world will be murdered in their millions by Western nations. It will be a Holocaust that will rival Hitler's against the Jewish community of Europe.
I have little optimism for how this ends. I can see the lights dimming everywhere around me for civilisation. But maybe if we work earnestly, we can preserve some shards of human decency.
My father, now long dead, offers me hope that sparks of empathy can remain eternal.
One example is the video attached. My dad made it a few short months before his death to highlight the refugee crisis. It was a plea for reason, compassion and humanity.
No one will remember us or are deeds for long when we are gone. Yet, while we live, we must do our best to defend the vulnerable because not doing so makes our time on earth such a waste of potential.
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