On 29th July, a 17-year-old male (Axel Rudakubana) stabbed to death three girls, aged between six and nine, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event for children in the seaside town of Southport, in northern England. The offender also injured eight other children and two adults. The assault was followed by the worst unrest seen in more than a decade in the United Kingdom (UK).
Before the police could intervene, someone spread the news on social media that the suspect was a Muslim migrant. The news, which was fake, circulated widely and triggered violent anti-Muslim protests, initially in Southport and then across the rest of the UK. The opportunity was seized upon by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim activists such as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, who promoted the protests online and incited violence. No one bothered to verify the authenticity of the news. Soon the police apprehended the culprit, who turned out to be a young male, a British citizen with no known links to Islam, born to a Rwandan family who moved to the Southport area in 2013. He was charged with murder and attempted murder.
The wave of protests and attendant violence did not subside. Riots were staged in more than 20 cities across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, while Scotland remained quiescent. The police also bore the brunt, witnessing protestors setting police vehicles alight and bombarding the police and mosques with bricks, bottles, and other missiles. The protestors also vandalised and looted shops, especially those owned or run by Asians. The UK’s Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, described the violence as the result of “far-right thuggery.”
Investigations conducted so far reveal that the protestors were mainly far-right local agitators. The youth harbouring grievances against Asian Muslims jumped into the fray to settle scores. Ironically, most protestors described themselves as patriots who were out to condemn immigration, whether legal or illegal, for undermining British society. They opined that immigration had fuelled violence and promoted crime in British society.
Against this background, a question arises: how has social media become so powerful as to numb the intellect of British society to the point of compelling it to act before confirming the veracity of news? The answer is simple: no news or rumour disseminated through social media is powerful enough to instigate people into taking the law into their own hands unless they were already looking for an opportunity – even a slim one – to do so. To elaborate, if a given society already festers with certain antagonistic sentiments, it can capitalise on any chance that arises. This point also addresses the question: when the police had captured the offender immediately after the incident and revealed his identity, why did the riots refuse to die down? Certainly, blaming social media for the riots is a weak excuse that ignores the deep-seated lies within British society.
The cities initially engulfed by riots included Liverpool, London, Belfast, Bristol, Durham, Manchester, and Sunderland. Interestingly, these cities are home to renowned universities, mostly established at the beginning of the 19th century. For example, the University of Durham was founded in 1832 and claims to be the third-oldest university in England. The University of London was founded in 1836 and pioneered distance learning across the globe. Now, the question is this: how could British universities fail to instil a sense of civic responsibility in British society through local students enrolled in them? The answer is simple: what is being preached is not being practised. This point also addresses an associated question: why have British universities failed to enlighten the citizens of their own country while raising the flag of spreading enlightenment through providing education to overseas students? To elaborate further, British universities have become hubs for earning foreign exchange (even by running dubious courses) to feed the UK’s economy by emptying the pockets of overseas students.
Interestingly, Scotland avoided far-right activation and unrest. Reasons are attributed to the difference between Englishness and Scottishness – often boasted as Scottish exceptionalism, personifying a sense of moral superiority, liberalism, and forward-looking attitudes. This is another fallacy. The Scots are more racist than the English. Glasgow, a major city in Scotland, is fed by Great Western Road, which passes near the University of Glasgow. On this arterial road, in broad daylight, the Scots do not even spare overseas Asian students from throwing garbage at them (as happened to this writer) from their moving vehicles, assuming them to be Asian immigrants walking along the boundary wall of the Botanic Garden.
If this were not enough, the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq taught the Scots to unleash dogs on Asian Muslim overseas students (including this writer) and enjoy the helplessness of the victims. It is impossible that Scottish students hailing from areas notorious for racism (and these localities are numerous in Glasgow) would shun racism and hate crime when they enrol in a Scottish university and find Asian students as their classmates. Similarly, when these Scottish students grow up to become teachers and professors, they cannot hide their racist feelings against Asian Muslims. Education has failed to tame the Scots. Right-wing conservatism has dwarfed the constructive effects of education on Scottish minds and manners. Nevertheless, the reason which rendered the Scots slow to respond this time was not Scottish exceptionalism but the Scot-Asian bonhomie fostered in the recent past to materialise the dream of Scottish independence from the UK through a referendum. Scotland’s former First Minister, Alex Salmond, was instrumental in doing so to achieve political objectives, but he lost the referendum in September 2014, which sealed his political career. The current calm is the corollary of Scot-Asian affability.
Generally speaking, when the far-right groups are not protesting against Muslims, they are remonstrating against economic deprivation, raising placards displaying the slogan: “We need jobs.” Hence, riots are the expression of the underlying sentiment that immigrants have snatched bread from the locals.
Dr Qaisar Rashid
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com