Irish in Britain should show solidarity with Muslims

My friend is in his mid-20s and works in a coffee shop in London, having moved over from Northern Ireland earlier this year. He has, in the past few months, been told to go "home" twice, and that he does not speak "real" English.

It is shocking that in 2017, people are being told what my grandfather from Co Donegal was told when working on a construction site in the south of England, in the 1960s. The English builders, one day, went around saying "Irish out". Luckily for my grandfather, he was a unionist of planter descent, born when Ireland was still part of the Empire, and declared that he was not only Irish, but also British. After listening to his explanation of his family history, he was permitted to stay.

Knowledge gap

Irish people are no longer denied jobs, verbally and physically assaulted on mass levels for being Irish, or racially profiled and mistreated by the police and justice systems. Yet, this level of hostility is now focused on the Muslim populations within the UK.

As with Irish communities during the Troubles, Muslim communities of today are being mass associated and vilified by the British media and the government. In the wake of the most recent attacks in Manchester and London, some in the national press called for internment of Muslims. It was a strategy used in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and which the British military later admitted did not work and increased terrorist activity.

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A headline from the Sun recently did the rounds on social media, from several decades ago when the paper advocated for the mass deportation of Irish homeless people back to Ireland. In 2017, the likes of Katie Hopkins are given column inches to advocate for deporting Muslims.

Racially profiled

At government level, Muslims are racially profiled in a way Irish people used to be. The Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven are the most well-known instances of innocent Irish people being wrongly accused. To simply have an Irish accent or surname was enough to risk arrest in the wake of an attack.

The PREVENT programme set up by Labour in 2006, designed to counter Muslim extremism and terrorism, has been criticised by the UN, for being likely to cause increased marginalisation and alienation of people within Muslim communities.

Teachers are required to report students to the police for anything they deem as possibly indicating extremism leanings. Examples have included a student of conflict being reported for reading books on terrorism. Of course, like with interment and racial policing of Irish people, some of those caught will be guilty, but many will not. Beyond the immorality of susceptibility based on race or faith alone, the innocent citizens wrongly profiled are at risk of becoming more hostile to the state, thus increasing the likelihood of attraction to terrorist activity.

Attacks on Muslims are increasing, and are not getting the attention they deserve. Acid attacks are becoming ever more prevalent. In East London alone on June 29th and 30th, four acid attacks were made on Muslim people, according to reports by Harry Shotton, a student who is gathering evidence on Twitter of increasing hostility towards Muslims.

Acid attacks

The attack on Resham Khan and Jameel Muklthar, two Muslim cousins who were celebrating Khan's 21st birthday when they were doused with acid, has received widespread media coverage, but these kinds of attacks and attitudes are not isolated incidents. In Ireland, a mosque in Galway was recently attacked; it seems some people don't know their own history, or simply don't care for a grouping being held mass accountable, if it is not one they are part of.

The British prime minister and the government need to work to counter terrorism, but they should also be working to make communities feel safe. As Irish people, our history is one of discrimination, hostility and injustice within Britain; during the conflict and for generations before it.

We should call out, in Ireland and in Britain, those who wish to blame a whole community for the horrific actions of some within it. This can happen in our one-on-one interactions with family and friends, and in other ways such as protesting at anti-racist rallies, volunteering at refugee aid centres, attending mosque open days, and learning more about the faith.

Most Irish people during conflict were law-abiding citizens, and this is also true of the Muslim community today.

Kylie Noble is a freelance writer from Co Fermanagh, living in Belfast. She is a graduate of the University of Sheffield and Queen’s, Belfast.