The summer of 2024 saw a disturbing rise in far-right riots across the UK, marked by Islamophobic chants, violent attacks on mosques, and escalating online hate. As British Muslims grapple with fear and past trauma, we need to address the political and media forces that have fueled this resurgence of racism and division.
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Images and videos from the July and August 2024 riots in the UK circulated the globe, shocking the world and calling upon people to re-examine the state of racism and Islamophobia. Despite the aggressors being comprised of small numbers of people compared to the number of anti-racist counter-protestors who had turned up at short notice to support and protect minority communities, we witnessed violent disturbances, Nazi salutes, Islamophobic and racist chants, attacks on mosques, the stabbing of a Muslim man, and the setting alight of a hotel that houses asylum seekers, not to mention a terrifying surge of online Islamophobia. I spoke to my sister-in-law, Lamiyā Radwān, who runs the social media accounts for Willowbrook Farm, an environmentally-friendly, ḥalāl (religiously permissible) farm in Oxfordshire, and she told me that Willowbrook had received online hate in Facebook posts with comments that incited extreme violence. Muslims and members of the BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) community were traumatized and consequently increasingly scared to go out, shop, or travel. For example, on her way to London, my cousin opted to wear a hoodie to cover her hair rather than her usual hijab (head covering), for fear of it getting ripped off, or worse, an acid attack. In addition to this, the fear of being murdered by a far-right mob which I and many other Muslims have had since childhood and is portrayed in Riz Ahmed's 2020 film, The Long Goodbye, feels uncomfortably close.
