‘I feel fear’: Muslims in the UK question sense of belonging after riots

Liverpool, United Kingdom – On Friday, a holy day for Muslims, fewer women are attending prayers at their local mosques across the United Kingdom. Those who dare out are exchanging safety tips. Move in groups, avoid crowds, keep your car windows closed.

Here in Liverpool, the sun is bright and the school summer holidays are in full swing. But it is one of the English cities where far-right race riots exploded this week. There is an eerie mood. There are hardly any children on the streets. The gates of a historic church are locked.

“I’m quite a strong person, and yet I feel fear, you know? I feel scared,” said Saba Ahmed, a resident who works for a multicultural hub that serves local communities.

“It just doesn’t feel right.”

Fears spread over the city as Islamophobic and racist riots took place in the wake of the killing of three young girls in Southport, less than one hour’s drive from here.

Rumours on social media falsely claimed that the suspect was a Muslim and an asylum seeker. The disinformation, since neither is true, fuelled the worst bout of violence to hit the nation in years.

The riots, which took place in dozens of areas, have been extinguished thanks to the thousands of antiracism protesters who outnumbered them in a show of solidarity with those affected. Police have handed heavy sentences to rioters, which has also dissuaded others from joining in.

But several Liverpudlians, and many other Britons, are now questioning years of integration.

Observers have blamed politicians and some sections of the media for railing against immigration while demonising Muslims and asylum seekers.

“After the ‘War on Terror’, the political conversation and legislation around counterterrorism was about targeting Muslim communities as a threat to national security,” said Shabna Begum, head of Runnymede Trust, a race equality and civil rights think tank.

“And now they have been identified as a cultural threat to British democracy based on ages-old tropes on the Muslim civilisation being barbaric.”

Over the years, mainstream politics and some media soaked up that narrative which paved the way for the “normalisation of an Islamophobic rhetoric” in the UK and therefore the dehumanisation of Muslims, she explained.

As political attention shifted towards a rise in undocumented migrants crossing the Channel, many say brown and Black asylum seekers have been thrown into the same category.

Muslims, refugees and non-white people were attacked at random in the riots.

According to Chris Allen, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Leicester, both Labour and the Conservatives have contributed to the vilification of Muslims, clearing the way for the general populace to slur minority groups.

“This is partly the legacy of the Brexit Leave campaign’s toxic rhetoric on popular views about immigration that continued right up to the recent general election,” Allen said, adding that politicians have failed to call out Islamophobia when they see it.

The sneering contempt of ‘journalists’ will never stop me from calling out racism and Islamophobic hate. pic.twitter.com/cQoNKDzJ78

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) August 5, 2024

On a recent popular morning television show, Labour politician Zahra Sultana was asked why identifying Islamophobia and the racialised nature of many attacks was important in tackling racism. As she tried to answer, she was interrupted by the panel, which many on social media said exemplified an attempt to silence discussions on racism.

“We need to call this racism, and we need to call this Islamophobic, because if we don’t, we fail to address what is going on. Language is really important,” Sultana said on the programme.

TellMAMA, which monitors anti-Muslim hate crimes, said Islamophobic incidents have more than doubled in the past decade.

During Israel’s continuing war on Gaza, anti-Muslim hate crimes have increased – according to TellMAMA, such incidents tripled in the first four months of the conflict. Research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue also shows a sharp rise in anti-Muslim content across online platforms during the same period. Similarly, UK groups that monitor anti-Jewish hate crimes have reported a rise during the war.

According to Imam Adam Kelwick, the missing element is dialogue.

Standing outside Liverpool’s Abdullah Quilliam mosque, he has just returned from an unusual meeting over coffee.

He had sat across the table from a far-right protester who was among the dozens who rallied outside the mosque recently.

At the time, Kelwick confronted the situation by crossing police lines and offering burgers and chips to the angry crowd. He hugged protesters and promised more dialogue.

“What happens when you come together is that you start talking and listening. You start to find out that many of the concerns that the other side has are also your concerns,” said Adam. “All it takes is a human interaction.”

He plans to open the mosque’s gates on Saturday to engage in more discussions with members of the far right.

But as he attempts to talk, others need time to heal.

“There was a feeling that we were so embedded in the community – all the progress of the past years seemed to have dashed in the course of one evening,” said Tawhid Islam, a member and trustee of the Liverpool Region Mosque Network. “A seed of doubt has now been planted and people ask themselves, ‘Am I part of this community if I am not white?’”