Kenan Malik - I know all about being bullied by racists. That’s the Britain I grew up in
I cannot recall ever
being “waterboarded”. But nor can I recall many days when, as a schoolboy, I
did not return home without a bruised lip or a bloodied nose. Sometimes, I got
a hiding at home too. “You should know better than to get into a fight.” Not getting into a
fight was not, however, a choice in 70s Britain. Not if you were Asian in an
age in which “Paki-bashing” was almost a national sport. You either stood up
for yourself, and got into fights, or you got picked on even more.
So when I saw the
viral video of a 15-year old Syrian refugee, Jamal, being assaulted by a fellow schoolboy in a Huddersfield
school, I felt more than shock and outrage. I’ve been where Jamal is and
understand what he must be going through. Such incidents are not characteristic
of British society today in the way they would have been a generation ago. The incident raises
questions about attitudes to refugees. It raises questions, too, about the role
of social media. It is just the latest in a series of racist confrontations
caught on camera and exposed online. From a bigoted
rant on a Croydon tram to racial abuse on a Ryanair flight, social media has helped bring attention
to unacceptable behaviour. It can also distort perceptions. It is easy to
regard such incidents as expressive of everyday life in Britain. One of the
reasons they are so shocking, though, is that Britain has changed so much from
the nation of my childhood.
There was no such
thing then as social media through which to expose racist bullying. But even if
there had been, such incidents were so embedded in the social fabric that it’s
doubtful they would have caused outrage or even been seen as newsworthy. Racism remains a
problem and hostility to refugees is an issue that needs tackling. Jamal’s
sister was apparently also abused at the same school, her hijab forcibly
removed. It’s not just in Huddersfield that
asylum seekers have faced brutal attacks. Nevertheless, such incidents are not
characteristic of British society today in the way they would have been a
generation ago.
Social media exposure
can also lead to people piling on to individuals, including children. The
alleged racist has received death threats and his family forced to leave their
house. It’s easy to say: “He’s a racist, he deserves what he gets.” But however
nasty the assault, do we really want to encourage the corrosive effects upon
public space and civic life of social-media-driven mobs? Whether online or
offline, it’s not just racists who are targets of such fury.
We are witnessing,
too, the emergence of a culture in which it is acceptable passively to record
deplorable acts to share online rather than actively to intervene to aid the
victims. One reason for this is the ubiquity of phone cameras. But social
changes are important, too. A more atomised society and a safety-first culture
have both helped blunt our sense of moral obligation to others. When a senior
policeman thinks it acceptable to lock himself in a car rather than intervene in a terrorist attack on parliament, is
it surprising to see the rise of what the defence minister, Tobias Ellwood,
called the “walk-on-by society” in a Newsnight interview following
the Huddersfield attack?.. read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/01/i-know-all-about-being-bullied-by-rascists
