By Manthan Pathak.
The first time I saw them I was a wide-eyed little boy looking up, not quite knowing how to feel, but also knowing: these people were not my friends. Now, decades later, I saw them again with the dimmed, narrow eyes of a middle-aged man. The blurred image in my mind immediately enhanced, as if edited to become clearer, shapes brought forcefully into focus. How I wish I could unsee it all.
They were there, on the street, engaged in “peaceful protest”, as the Daily Echo would later blithely report, but none of it felt peaceful. Standing across the street from them, you feel a visceral sense of menace. They seemed animated only by a furious anger, some fuelled by alcohol, driven to spitting insults and seeming threats of violence towards our group of counter-protesters.
They are the unchosen few: self-titled ‘patriots’, representatives of the far right, to publicly decry the shame of housing asylum seekers in the hotel behind them; to pronounce that the community wasn’t safe because of it; that we need to protect our women and children.
But they are not the guardians of our community – and they never will be.
There is video footage of them making gestures – often considered threatening – to young women in our group. So much for their protection.
We’ve seen how this scene inevitably plays out. In Southport and Rotherham last summer, almost exactly a year ago, hotels were damaged, police vans turned over as anti-immigration protests spiralled into outright violence. The explicit intent was to physically remove the residents. Here in Southampton, it’s their repeated refrain of “send them home” that betrays the very same intent. It is their end game, make no mistake.
On behalf of Southampton Stand Up to Racism I wrote to both our local Labour MPs, Satvir Kaur and Darren Paffey, twice, in March and June earlier this expressing our deep concern at the inflammatory language on immigration used by the Prime Minister on social media and in his ‘island of strangers’ speech. We explicitly warned them that the danger of a repeat of last year’s riots was very real as a result of the government parroting the language of the far right. We saw this coming.
Attempting to engage in dialogue with this group has proven an exercise in futility, and I should have known better than to try. I’m a foolish idealist though, so I did try to find common ground. We agreed that asylum seekers should be allowed to work, to contribute while their applications are being processed, and that ideally they shouldn’t be housed in hotels at great expense to the taxpayer.
Any sense of compassion or understanding is seemingly lost on this group draped in Union Jacks and St George’s flags though.
They are convinced that anyone opposing them is a paid employee of the government, and worryingly, claim to know that one of the residents has committed sexual assault on a child. When pressed on how they come to know this, it becomes clear it isn’t from a credible source of news, but who is to say what’s credible or not in the post-truth era?
It’s a depressingly circular argument. When such explosive lies can spread so virulently we should all be concerned.
I was struck by their desperation to believe the very worst in people they have never met, and besides, their anger is woefully misplaced. Not one of the residents of the hotel choose to be housed there; that is the fault of a government system that isn’t functioning, fails to process claims for asylum within a reasonable timeframe, which can leave those claiming asylum languishing for years with no outcome in sight. For them, fleeing persecution and torture, without the ability to contribute, with barely any money or possessions and having risked their lives for a place of sanctuary, it’s simply another form of imprisonment.
The great black feminist writer Audre Lorde wrote that racism is a distraction, and those words feel as prescient as ever. These far right groups direct rage towards asylum seekers because they can’t identify who to blame for their problems. Guided by the right-wing media, they fail to see they are caused by government policies that protect billionaires to the cost of the working class. I dream of a community assembly on the subject of immigration, where so many harmful myths could be debunked, where meaningful conversation could take place, and where different sides could have a voice.
For now though, there are more urgent matters at hand.
For the past three weeks many of them have beered up to expel their vitriol on the streets of our city, and they promise to continue every Friday evening. For a City of Sanctuary, a place that has welcomed refugees since the 1500s, we must continue to resist them. And now, that sense of menace shimmers not only from the other side of the road, but towards the end of the week.
This Sunday, the 17th, the far right will send their agitators from throughout Hampshire, and maybe beyond, terrorising the local community – as they plan to march through Portswood High Street to the Highfield House Hotel. On previous Fridays, their group has been mainly locals, but on Sunday we can expect a larger number. If you’ve seen reports of the protests in Portsmouth, Waterlooville and Bournemouth recently, you’ll recognise the threat this poses. If you haven’t, there are a lot of them.
Defiance comes in many forms. In the face of such explicit hatred, one is surely a mass demonstration of joy. That joy stems from a celebration of our most precious values, those of compassion and tolerance. That’s what Sunday can be, and so we ask you to join us to celebrate who we are. All you have to do is be there.
*Southampton Stand Up to Racism, Southampton Trades Union Council and others are organising the counter-demonstration. We’re meeting at Highfield Church, Highfield Lane, SO17 1SY at 16:00 on Sunday 17th.
Please see https://www.facebook.com/SouthamptonSUTR or visit https://www.instagram.com/southampton_sutr/ for more details.
Photos by Megan Parker.
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