Growing Islamophobia and racism in UK

By Chenido Yahaya

The UK was recently gripped by violent riots for two weeks in the aftermath of the fatal stabbing of three young girls at a dance class in the Seaside English town of Southport after social media posts spread disinformation that the killer was a Muslim migrant. Hell was let loose as anti-immigrant violence saw shops looted, hotels housing asylum seekers targeted, mosques and ethnic minority communities, especially Muslims and their businesses were attacked, and petrol bombs thrown at law enforcers.
United Nations Human Rights Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said in a statement at the end of an official visit to the UK that ‘the British politicians and public figures are provoking a new wave of crimes motivated by xenophobia and racial discrimination, and that ’’institutional racism’’ against national minorities and the ‘colored’ population is flourishing in law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system.’’
Although the newly-elected Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, managed to quell the violence, the world can not ignore the destructive role of the British political elite and the media in fueling the anti-Muslim sentiments in the country. In 2018 the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s derogatory characterization of Muslim women wearing burka as ‘’letter box’’ and ‘’bank robbers’’ intensified hate crimes against Muslims, stocking Islamophobia in Britain.
In 2019 Johnson was accused of pushing racial stereotypes in an unearthed column written during his time as editor and columnist of the Spectator in which he said young people had ‘’an almost Nigerian interest in money and gadgets.’’ The former Prime Minister in one of his writings referred to black people as ‘’piccaninnies’’ with ‘’watermelon smiles,’’ and arguing Islam has caused the Muslim world to be ‘’literally centuries behind ‘’ the West.
The Muslim Council of Britain same year accused the Conservative party of ‘’denial, dismissal and deceit’’ over the issue of Islamophobia. The UK’s first female cabinet minister, Syeda Warsi, a year before had complained that Islamophobia had become ‘’very widespread’’ in the country after several Conservatives were found to have shared offensive remarks about Muslims. In 2019, she again warned that the Tories were becoming ‘’institutionally Islamophobic’
The Conservative party this time reportedly suspended 14 members for anti-Islam posts, but didn’t take measures to tackle the dangerous phenomenon, allowing extremism and radicalization to grow. Even Dame Sara Khan, former adviser to three Prime Ministers recently singled out her own Conservative governments for triggering the recent unprecedented violence because they didn’t allocate enough resources to the areas struggling with extremism.
Academics too have been warning the Conservatives about growing far-right activism in Britain and their ambivalence to control such far-right racist groups. The British media’s role has been controversial in this recent racist violence as they reportedly continue to impose Islamophobic narratives on the world community.
Assertions like the rioters were ‘’justified in their anger’’ by British far-right activist, Tommy Robinson, or putting forward a political justification for anti-immigration riots by the Conservative, Lord Davies, though he later apologized, speaks of a strong build up of Islamophobia in the UK. Such instances according to observers, align these media outlets and campaigners with those who once abysmally described Islamophobia as ‘’an entirely rational response to an illiberal, vindictive and frankly fascistic creed.’’
The downplaying of the threat by representing the violence as ‘’deep-rooted anger’’ and ‘’festering resentment’’ do not augur well for the UK and the British society, as these attempts would fertilize the ground for racial hatred and pit communities against each other, intensifying the country’s challenges.
It is on these grounds that many believe that the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, is being used by the British government as its instrument of its neocolonial policies. And to checkmate this , Analysts call on African governments to control and restrict the extensive freedom of activities of the British media on the continent. The BBC allegedly influenced the UK government to add Nigeria to its travel ‘’Red List in December 2021, meaning arrivals from Nigeria will be banned except for British and Irish residents amid fears about the new omicron coronavirus variant. The Nigerian government the British travel ban as ‘’puritanical, indefensible, discriminatory, unjust, and not backed by science.’’
Now that the violence has subsided, the Labor government must also assess the circumstances such as ‘’unmet primary needs’’ that have propelled the youth into conducting extreme racist acts, challenging social cohesion and forcing foreigners to live in fear.
The world is in shock that for more than a decade that the Conservatives ruled Britain, rather than promote inter-faith harmony and addressing Britons economic concerns namely stalled productivity, fall in government spending, real wage stagnation, sharp 22% rise in poverty , and high cost of living fueled austerity measures, the Conservatives exploited the societal rifts to cling to power.
Consequently Starmer would now has to contest a two-pronged challenge: rein in Islamophobia and racial prejudice to help the Muslims and other communities guard themselves against grinding hatred, and bring back the UK from the cusp of extremism . Nigeria, in the light of the recent racial riots and Islammphobia in Britain that forced her to warn Nigerians living in Britain to be vigilant and cautious was forced to voice its concern at the current state of the world today when President Tinubu in his national statement delivered at the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly recently protested to world leaders by decrying global priorities that perpetuate racial discrimination, irregular migration, poverty, and other vexations.

Yahaya writes from Kano.