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Gibson Nyikadzino-Herald Reporter
The West loves to talk about inclusivity. It loves to preach humanity, tolerance and raise the multicultural banner but does not want that to be a reality. Western multiculturalists want to claim that “all cultures are equal” yet like characters out of George Orwell’s Animal Farm say “but some are more equal than others.”
One word that has triggered racism and stimulating racial inequality is “immigrant”. In the West, the word “immigrant” has become a synonym for all sorts of social ills: unemployment, crime, diseases and even the failure by Western governments to offer adequate services to their citizens.
But these riots, emanating from the murders of three young girls, are unsurprising given the long lineage of anti-immigrant and Islamophobic demonisation in British mainstream politics and media for years now. This also intensified since October 7th with Gaza and what has been happening there.
The riots broke out in all corners of the Britain; from Belfast in Northern Ireland, Liverpool in Merseyside, Sunderland in North East England, Bristol in the South West. This means that anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rioters are everywhere. They lurk in every corner of Britain, waiting for an excuse to burn a mosque or commit violence against immigrants and at hotels housing refugees. They even showed Nazi salutes in the streets.
These discourses have therefore been normalised, not just from the far right, but from those at the heart of the mainstream within Conservative and Labour parties as well.
In their anti-immigrant narratives, top tier UK politicians have for years been using the slogan “stop the boats” and talking about “invasions going on at the border” to enrage people. Migration has been a leading topic in politics and media in Britain for several decades, with some newspapers and politicians carving out a hardline stance.
So the world is witnessing a real activation and an escalation of some of those narratives that legitimised the demonisation of migrants. It is also key to note that this violence is not only located in the anti-immigrant drive. It has been directed towards settled Muslim communities whose mosques have been targeted, including people of colour.
Of importance is to remember that the new Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, after taking office on July 5 following the Labour victory said that the security of Britain’s borders was her top priority.
It should not be underestimated that people in government have the power to shape narratives around these issues because they are the ones who have the immediate access to statistics and want to push anti-immigration politics to satisfy populist sentiments.
It is in this context that the world has witnessed a continuation of this violent rhetoric from the mainstream political and media arenas, and that played a key role in emboldening politicians, racists and far-right actors in creating the atmosphere unfolding today.
The anti-immigrant narrative has also been racialised. The 17-year-old boy who was arrested by British police for the murders that triggered the riots was born in Britain. But social media users falsely claimed he was a Muslim asylum seeker.
Othering of non-Europeans
The BBC referred the 17-year-old perpetrator of the attack as born in Wales to Rwandan parents. The purpose of referring the boy’s lineage strongly fed into the “othering” narrative, turning it into a racial issue.
A judge even made the minor suspect’s identity public. The attacker is Axel Rudakubana. He, however, has no links to Islam, yet rioters pushed that narrative.
By creating misinformation and labels of immigrants that have particularly been accepted in mainstream media and politics, Britain created naturally and organically, a new view on how its citizens view migrants in its social milieu.
And it is also unsurprising that such a hostile environment was created by British politicians whose anger, resentment and umbrage spilled to the streets. Prime Minister Keir Starmer blamed far right activists for causing criminal disorder and thuggery. What the prime minister is not highlighting is that this is racism and racist riots.
Potemkin online sites
From the beginning, Potemkin news sites (those that put out unverified information), spread a fake person of a perpetrator to drive anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant propaganda, focusing people’s fury on that.
Many social media accounts and news sites behind the riots, spreading misinformation, have played a role. They offered space for the spreading of disinformation at higher levels and used online platforms as organising spaces for far-rights groups.
While the role of social media cannot be diminished, in a more rounded fashion, traditional mainstream media also need to take responsibility for the riots, based on publishing content that has been populist.
British traditional media and mainstream politicians are actively responsible for crafting and mediating the messaging on the riots because how they have talked about immigration and Muslims created a fertile ecosystem for violence to occur.
Thus, when politicians turn around and start acting surprised and shocked at the violence, and not being able to call it out for being racist, they are culpable for creating that environment.
Blame the politicians
The levels of violence that are being experienced have not been seen in British streets in decades. The violence cannot just be put down to misinformation in online spaces.
It is about the dangerous and corrosive politics coming out of the UK Parliament and which is being reinforced in traditional and established media. From the UK Parliament people have seen politicians peddling the same kinds of anti-Muslim, anti-immigration and racist narratives as far-right groups.
Ugly politics developed over the years, and this type of politics has not been dealing with real issues that are confronting people in their day-to-day lives.
There is need for a real shift in British politics, and there is need for alternative-progressive narratives.
As far as the far-right is concerned, the protests are coordinated and deliberate. These are not protests that have gone out of hand, but carefully orchestrated violence by xenophobic and Islamophobic groups.
It also signals the beginning of the end of Britain’s multiculturalism. It can also be doubted that it is a multicultural society. Just as the British Empire used violence to create a ‘multicultural’ society through integration of colonies, it is also using the same violence to go back to a monoculture state.
Online Reporter