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How should churches respond to far-Right violence?

07 August 2024

As racism returns to the streets of the UK, Christians are called to love their neighbours boldly in practical ways, says Arun Arora

Alamy

Sunderland residents clean the streets after riots, last Friday

A MAN was on a journey from one end of a street in Rotherham to the other. As he made his journey, he was stopped by an individual who punched him in the face. Those who witnessed the incident laughed. Others filmed the incident and shared it on social media. No one stopped to help the man. The man who was attacked appeared, ethnically at least, to have the same-coloured skin as a Samaritan.

This visual story, shared on social media, is one example among many of the criminality let loose on our streets over recent days. Fewer people will be making such journeys on their streets, for fear of the consequences.

Racism has rediscovered its voice on the streets of Britain and Northern Ireland. It is an ugly and brutal sound, accompanied by the drumbeat of bricks hitting police riot shields, the shrill of windows of mosques being smashed, and recitals of long- forgotten chants from decades past such as “Ain’t no black in the Union Jack.”

Those chants are familiar to those of us who grew up in Britain in the 1970s and ’80s, when gutter racism hid beneath the veneer of respectability offered by politicians and celebrities. In the sweltering heat of August 1976, Eric Clapton, the guitarist and pop star, told a Birmingham audience: “Enoch’s our man. I think Enoch’s right, I think we should send them all back. . . Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. . . Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. . . England is for white people. . . We don’t want any black wogs and coons living here.”

Almost 50 years on, the chorus of condemnation at the violence on our streets has again been diluted by those politicians and commentators whose utterances have provided the mood music for the explosion of violence that we are witnessing.


SOME defenders suggest that the intentional destruction of physical and social bonds is no more than an expression of legitimate concerns over immigration. Others suggest that it is the start of civil war, and urge a continuation of disruption until the Government bends its knee to mob rule. The inchoate call to “take our country back” echoes the Brexit rallying cry of “taking back control”. Others still, some wearing a clerical collar, have taken to social media, talking of an “invasion by hostile people who hate us and our way of life” and declaring that Islam is the enemy.

There is little doubt that the rampant Islamophobia accompanying the current violence and disorder is different from what we have seen before.

The first riot took place on Tuesday 30 July, when hundreds of people gathered outside a mosque in Southport. As part of the accompanying violence, bricks were thrown at both the mosque and police officers who were on site to deal with the disorder. A police van was set alight.

Chants expressing Islamophobic and anti-immigrant sentiment accompanied the violence. As the Financial Times put it, “The killings in Southport prompted a torrent of disinformation blaming both immigrants in general, and Muslims in particular, for crime.” The irony of mobs indulging in mass public criminality, and attacking the police in protest against perceived crime by “the other”, is as bitter as it is hollow.

In the following days, rioting spread to other towns, including Manchester, Sunderland, Bolton, and Rotherham. Hate came to town, accompanied by unashamedly Islamophobic and racist vitriol, with the specific targeting of mosques, asylum-seekers, and people of colour by thugs and racists masquerading as patriots draped in flags that belong to us all.


HOW is the Church to respond to this continuing and unfolding situation? Any response begins with the gospel and its imperative to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself.” The parable of the Good Samaritan is told by Jesus in answer to the lawyer’s question: Who is my neighbour? In the current climate, the answer is clear. Just as in the parable, our neighbours are those who are the target of the violence.

Loving our neighbour requires more than a passive response. There are three things that churches can do actively and immediately in the short term to show both their love of God and neighbour.

First, as has already happened in Sunderland and elsewhere, churches can seek to lead repair efforts and make common cause with those in their parishes who have come together to rebuild their communities, both physically and socially, when the rioters have left.

We have a history of doing this, whether after the riots in the 1980s which gave birth to Faith in the City, or after the riots that took place over five days exactly 13 years ago. Those who came with brushes and bin bags to repair their cities far outnumbered the rioters and looters who destroyed them.

Second is to join in actively with opponents of violence. This might include participating in peaceful counter-protests to defend mosques or hostels, or joining with civil-society organisations, such as Citizens UK and others, in organising peace vigils or events that bring people together in prayer and discussion in pursuit of the common good.

Third is to visit and check in on those neighbours who are in fear. After attending the counter-demonstration last weekend in Leeds, I spent part of the afternoon at Harehills mosque with the imam and community worker before prayers. Others attended mosques in Armely and Beeston to let our neighbours know that we were praying for peace and were aware of their fear.


IN THE parable of the Good Samaritan, there was no voice to be found speaking up for the criminals who attacked the man on his journey. But now those voices will come. We must be wary of those voices that point to easy blame — of foreigners, Muslims, multiculturalism, or immigration — and which ignore complex problems of poverty, inequality, and under-investment in favour of scapegoating.

Instead, it needs to be our voice, proclaiming, with confidence and boldness, once again the message of the gospel afresh — a demanding message that avoids easy answers and insists on a radical love of neighbour, which is foundational to our teaching as disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Rt Revd Arun Arora is the Area Bishop of Kirkstall, in the diocese of Leeds.

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