By Southampton resident (details supplied).
I first became aware that there were weekly protests outside an asylum seekers’ hotel in Portswood when I saw people gathering outside Highfield House Hotel, protesting against people seeking refuge here. Other people were turning up to counter-protest.
I have lived in the area for more than 20 years, but until the protests began I had not even realised that the hotel had been converted in 2020 to accommodate people seeking asylum. There had been very little discussion about it locally. Suddenly, people who had come to this country seeking refuge had become the focus of demonstrations outside the place where they were living.
I kept thinking about what that must feel like.
Imagine travelling a long way from home, perhaps because you are escaping danger, persecution or circumstances you can no longer live with, and finally arriving somewhere you hope will be safe — only to find people outside your accommodation shouting abuse and accusing you of things they know nothing about.
And I kept asking myself: What if I had been born somewhere else? What if my circumstances had been different? What if I had been the one who needed to flee?
One Friday after work, I found myself feeling uncomfortable sitting at home while, just around the corner, people who were already far from their families and everything they knew were facing a group of people shouting abuse and waving flags outside their accommodation.
I could have stayed at home. But it didn’t feel right.
I wanted those inside the hotel to know that not everyone in Southampton wanted them to feel unwelcome. So I went along to the counter-protest.
That was when I first came across Southampton Stand Up To Racism.
I remember hearing people say, “They’re illegal immigrants.”
I had never had a particularly strong view on immigration, but I started looking into what I was actually hearing. I learned that people have the right to seek asylum and that arriving by boat does not, by itself, make someone an “illegal immigrant”. Their asylum claims have to be assessed.
Then I heard other things: “They’re rapists.” “They’re fighting-age men.” “They’re dangerous.” I found myself asking: how can we know that about people we have never met?
Of course, if an individual commits a crime, they should be held accountable for their actions. That should apply to everyone. But that is very different from treating an entire group of people as though they are dangerous because of where they come from or because they are seeking asylum.
The more I listened, the more uncomfortable I became with the way a group of people I had never met were being spoken about as though they were all the same.
The “Patriots” say they are not racist. But standing there and listening to what was being shouted, I found it difficult to separate the arguments from the prejudice behind them. When I stripped away the different claims and slogans, what I heard was increasingly about people being targeted because they were different, foreign and vulnerable.
For me, that is what racism can look and sound like: prejudice dressed up as arguments, and fear turned into hostility towards people who have little power to defend themselves.
That was the point at which this stopped being an abstract argument about immigration for me. These were real people, living just around the corner. I had seen them become the focus of anger simply because they were seeking refuge here.
That is why I joined Southampton Stand Up To Racism.
And it is why I will be at the Bargate on Saturday 3 October.
I will be there because I know what it felt like the first time I stood outside that hotel. I remember looking across the road and thinking that, whatever else people might disagree about, those inside deserved to know that not everyone in Southampton wanted them to feel unwelcome.
On 3 October, I want to stand with people from across our city and send that same message again.
I’m not going because I want confrontation. I’m going because I don’t want silence to be mistaken for consent.
I want the people being targeted to know that they are not alone, and I want to show that the Southampton I know is a city where people can stand together despite their differences.
I want the same human rights for a stranger as I want for my own children.
That is why I stand up:
Peace over violence.
Solidarity over division.
Empathy over hate.
Community over fear.
If not me, then who? If not now, then when?
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