Brexit is no easy ride but inclusive campaigns can help

Racially motivated assaults in the UK are at record highs following Britain’s shock Brexit vote in June, statistics say. 

Record numbers of incidents were reported everywhere across the capital, except in the City (the core of London), new analysis has revealed. 

An annual survey by the anti-Muslim hate monitoring group Tell MAMA found a 326 per cent rise in incidents last year. 

British Muslim writer, activist and contributor to The Good Immigrant Chimene Suleyman says, “The xenophobic narrative of the Leave vote […] solidifies that homelessness that young Muslims were already feeling.” 

Suleyman adds that, in response to the Leave vote and the perceived xenophobic sentiment, the Muslim community has become more politicised and, in many cases, more visually Muslim.

“It is a beautiful thing, really: the relentless certainty of who you are. To be unashamed of your appearance and faith, but there is undeniably a fear that accompanies this.”

British television journalist and stand-up comedian Shaista Aziz says that she has personally experienced racist attacks since the Brexit vote. She tells My Salaam that she founded the Facebook-based “Everyday Bigotry Project” to monitor incidents and give Muslims a platform to documents experiences of Islamophobia and bigotry.

“I felt that that Muslims had started to internalise the Islamophobia. So we wanted to bring the feelings outside instead of inside and document it. How does it materialise [from] day to day? What does it look like, and what does it feel like?”

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Aziz believes that the confidence of the far-right contingent has been boosted since the Brexit vote and “the UK government needs to understand that this is very real and they must condemn it from the top.”

“We have to be clear from the Prime Minister downwards that it is not acceptable to abuse people based on their identities, and this should also include language used.”

Aziz says that a range of educational initiatives could be implemented to encourage inclusiveness of all nationalities in the UK. She points out that British police need to be trained in hate crimes, which will give victims greater confidence and trust to report incidents. She adds that the government could introduce citizenship lessons, starting in schools. “This would the cover the role of identity and what it means to be a good citizen.”

Akeela Ahmed, equality campaigner and former CEO of the Muslim Youth helpline, suggests that that a national campaign to promote diversity could help to reverse the UK’s racial tensions post-Brexit.

She says, “Campaigns like these help Muslim women to see that there is support from the state. It also helps to humanise immigrants and Muslim women so that the general public may see them in a different light.”

She adds that positive stories about Muslims such as those of The Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain or British Muslim Olympics winners “can help to humanise the image of Muslims and highlight the contribution that Muslims make. We feel British, and we are British.”