Far-right riots, my beanie hat, transphobic Islamophobia and more massacres

The past two weeks have been been awful

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I’ve spent the past two weeks feeling like I can’t breathe.

What was meant to be a time of grief and mourning for the UK in the aftermath of the horrific and senseless murder of three young girls in Southport and the stabbing of dozens of others, just weeks after the British government finally realised that violence against girls and women is a national emergency, was then hijacked by racists, misogynists and thugs, who went around the country targeting anyone who looked Muslim, Black or brown.

Chainsaws were wielded at us, hotels where refugees live set on fire, our shops smashed and destroyed. I spoke to a 15-year-old Muslim girl in Bristol who was physically attacked by a group of far right white men and had her hijab pulled off by them. Every Muslim or person of colour I have spoken to in the past two weeks has said how unsafe and unwelcome these far right riots have made them feel in Britain.

You can read my full report for The New Arab on this attack and how other women of colour have been affected by the far-right riots here.

My husband asked me to stay at home and not use public transport at all; I think he was more worried than I was. I think about how lucky I am to live in a house with a garden I can go into to get some fresh air and where my son can go to play. So many Muslim, Black and ethnic minority mothers live in flats and it’s currently the summer holidays, and they will be cooped up in small homes with nowhere safe for their children to play.

I wrote more about my thoughts on the racist far-right riots for TRT World last week, which you can read in full here.

I think it’s important to note that the rioters’ belief of refugees and asylum seekers as a threat to the UK stems from privileged, middle class politicians and tabloid newspapers, who have been churning out Islamophobic and anti-refugee rhetoric for the past decade. Working class white people read tabloid newspapers which kick up hysteria about Muslims and immigrants. They are as much to blame for these riots as the thugs are.

You may not have seen racist middle class white people out on the streets, but they sit behind their laptop and mobile phone screens and spread their hate online. Just look at the screenshot of a reply to one of my tweets below, which I reported and X thankfully took action on.

Since the riots began, I’ve received comments and replies on social media on a daily basis. And middle class journalists show their racism through their condescending behaviour and talking down to us. You only needed to have seen the way Zarah Sultana was talked over and sniggered at last week on Good Morning Britain. White middle class racism is just more subtle than out-right thuggery on the streets. Yet some white English people online continue to tell me there is no such thing as Islamophobia.

For the past two weeks I have felt as scared as I was when I was thirteen years old in the weeks following 9/11. For the first time in 13 years, my wool beanie hat came out again. I took my daily walk in my local area and wore my wool beanie; I passed the working men’s club on the outskirts of my residential block and saw some white people take a double take at me - after all, who wears a wool beanie in the summer? Perhaps I was already hyper-aware of myself, or perhaps my beanie made it conspicuous - that I am a Muslim trying to not look Muslim.

The outpouring of support, love, solidarity and allyship shown by anti-racist protestors last Wednesday and Saturday has been extremely heartening. When dear white friends have asked me how they can help, I have been saying it’s about not staying silent. Of course you must consider your own safety, but if you see a Muslim person, Black person or person of colour being attacked, just standing beside them, or calling the police, or staying with us to make sure we are okay until the police come, or ensuring we can get home safely, that is an act of allyship and support.

The hardest thing is being verbally or physically attacked in public while everybody just watches or films it on their phones without saying something or trying to help us.

In other news, Algerian gold-medallist Olympian boxer Imane Khelif has said she will be taking legal action against the misinformation spread about her gender identity at the Paris Olympics which resulted in a vicious smear campaign online. The transphobes and Islamophobes have really come out on social media, proving what I have always felt - transphobia and Islamophobia go hand-in-hand. It isn’t enough for them that Khelif says she is a woman, that female was the gender assigned to her at birth, that her father spoke out to say she is a woman, or that photos from her childhood were shared with the media to show her as a girl. Everyone on social media seems to think they are a gender expert.

And it didn’t stop there - when Khelif won her gold medal and was paraded on top of her male coach’s shoulders in celebration, the same transphobes and Islamophobes took to social media again to comment that she is not a proper Muslim and would be killed in her country for that.

Why can’t Muslim and/or Arab women just be allowed to be? Why must everybody weigh in on our existence? If we ascribe to patriarchal gender norms we are called oppressed by our religion and our culture. If we don’t ascribe to patriarchal gender norms we are called men who would be killed in our countries. If we wear the hijab and choose to not interact with men we are called oppressed and backwards. If we don’t wear the hijab and choose to interact with men we are called secular and told we would be killed in our countries. Just read this tweet and the replies beneath it to see what I’m talking about.

This BBC article breaks down why sex testing is an ethically and scientifically complex issue and there is still not enough scientific data to support the idea that those who have DSDs (differences in sex development) - have an athletic advantage - which by the way, we do not know if that is even Khelif’s case, people online are just going off what The Daily Mail claimed, which was that her trainer “spilled” that she has XY chromosomes.

Last, but not least the far-right racist riots have not made us forget about what is still happening in Gaza. On Saturday morning, 100 displaced Palestinians taking shelter in Al-Tabin School in Gaza City were praying the dawn prayer of Fajr when they were hit directly by a missile in one of the most horrific massacres yet. Survivors said that those killed were ripped to shreds; people spent hours sorting through body parts and flesh to identify and bag up their family members and loved ones.

Bags were being weighed up and eyewitnesses said that a 70kg bag of body parts and flesh was being classified as one adult. This is what continues to happen under the watchful eye of the world’s leaders who either financially fund or send over the bombs and weapons, or who remain silent.

Artwork by Gazan artist Malak Abedalall

The world is on fire and as a Muslim and Arab woman, I feel like I can’t breathe.