Hartlepool, Southport, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, London, Bristol, even the leafy streets of Aldershot are all, as I write, being cleared of the mess after the outbreak of “protests” orchestrated by far-right organisations on social media. We’d like to think it couldn’t happen here, but in July 2018 we had the English Defence League invading Worcester to protest against the building of a mosque by our local Muslim community.
August’s events were fuelled not only by people’s (possibly) understandable anxieties about social change, but also by deliberate, inflammatory lies. The assertion, for example, that the suspect in the Southport stabbings was a failed Muslim asylum seeker whose name was “Ali Al Shakati”, when in fact he is a British born citizen whose family has been heavily involved in their local church.
What starts as a lie “out there” on social media turns into real bricks being thrown, real fire bombing, real places of worship being attacked, real people being intimidated and persecuted. It turns into huge numbers of local police being sucked out of community duties as they deal with mobs bent on violence. And it is everyone’s business and responsibility to confront those lies.
It is everyone’s business to be concerned when animosity is deliberately provoked against groups of people (Muslims and Asylum seekers in this case) who are portrayed as “other” or “lesser” than another group-(in this case “Christian”, White, British citizens). Needless to say, the protectors of our “Christian heritage” don’t seem to have read the parts of Jesus’ teaching which relate to loving one’s neighbours regardless of their faith or ethnic background…..
The Bible says “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; there is one God and Father of all people, who is Lord of all, works through all, and is in all”.
In other words, if you are throwing a brick at someone, that person is my brother or my sister- and yours too. When we hear lies about some people being more human, more worthy of care, more entitled to the basics of dignity, security and freedom than others, we should do more than shake our heads and carry on sorting the laundry or weeding the garden.
Those of us who are Christians should be praying for change; and all of us should be using our voices to challenge the lies we hear, whether that’s at the pub, or the supermarket, or at work. We should be pressing our elected representatives to seek tougher penalties for those who incite racial and religious hatred, and we should be actively welcoming those people we meet who are not quite like us. They probably need to see a few friendly faces and, after all, they’re family.
Every Blessing
Revd Kalantha
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