Shout

I think we've all heard of Britain First. I myself cannot claim to be particularly knowledgeable about politics or current affairs, but I'm acquainted enough with the subject to know that their members aren't always the nicest of people. For anyone who hasn't got that odd family friend or twisted old school acquaintance on Facebook who shares the xenophobic content that the group try to get trending, then to quickly fill you in with the basics, Britain First are a right wing fascist party that claim to be a 'patriotic political party and street defence organisation' (britainfirst.org). They have a reputation for being particularly aggressive with their views, which are predominantly incredibly racist and discriminative, and they can be found fear mongering in busy city centres.

Up until today I have been fortunate enough to never experience the displeasure of meeting a Britain First member, at least not to my knowledge. If I have, they have been discrete and pleasant. Unfortunately this did not happen today. I was walking home from church, and as I crossed the road that lies between my accommodation and main campus, I saw that outside the mosque, which is on the corner to the path I needed to walk down, there were four or five people blocking the path with a huge Britain First banner. At first I thought it was a parody and they were standing in solidarity with the mosque as a sign of peace and tolerance after all the global tensions surrounding Islam over the last year. As I  crossed the road towards them, I was reading the sign over and over trying to find a difference in spelling to prove this was a parody group. But alas, this wasn't a parody, this was the real deal. I kept my head down and walked past. But then something kicked inside me and I turned back around and asked the man who appeared to be the leader of the group 'is this legitimate? Are you from Britain First?', he confirmed they were. I can't remember the exact words and chronology of my 1 against 5 discussion, but I told them I thought they were incredibly disrespectful to stand outside a place of worship to intimidate people who simply want to pursue their own way of life. Their response interested me and took a path I haven't heard before. The man who I recognised as the leader dived immediately into feminism, saying 'you're a woman, so don't you think it's wrong what the Qur'an teaches about women?'. A lady in the group then piped up and started gruesomely describing to me the act of female genital mutilation. I didn't have the heart to tell her I already knew what it was. She tried to convince me that every muslim believes that women should be treated like this, and that this gave plenty of reason for all mosques in the country to be shut down. I argued that just like in any faith, there are differing opinions and practices within Islam, and I'm sure that FGM covers very little ground. And either way, my beliefs on gender equality lie wholly in the subject of choice and freedom, and this includes freely choosing to belong to Islam. I recognise that the culture of Islam frowns upon those who leave the faith, but standing outside a mosque with a poster saying 'BRITAIN FIRST - BAN THE MOSQUES' is not doing anything to help the women they claim to be helping. It could not be more transparent that they were using the argument of women's rights merely as a way of relating to passers by, and that at the heart of their aggression was a fear of change and people who are different to their hateful selves. Naturally, it goes without saying that I was bombarded with cliché phrases such as 'it's called freedom of speech, darling' and 'Oh, are we not allowed to stand here?'. I tried to politely explain that my biggest issue with their protesting lay not in the fact that they were expressing taboo opinions, but their method of expressing these opinions. The woman who previously described FGM in all it's clitoral gore laughed at me, asking 'shall we just stay silent then?' to which I responded 'of course not, but why can't you have a civilised discussion? Why not host a debate? Right now all you're doing is stirring up hostility and hatred and reflecting all that you claim you're fighting.' At which point an elderly couple came around the corner, read the poster and exclaimed 'not in my name' and 'childish, intolerant scum', which I took as my cue to leave as my post as outside resistance had been replaced. I took a few steps forward onto the path and with my back firmly turned away from the ignorance, I burst into tears. I am privileged to be able to say that passionate whole-hearted hatred has never been too close to me. Views such as those expressed outside Canterbury Mosque this afternoon have always seemed a world away, posted online by groups that were once nothing more than silly names to me. Today I learnt how real, raw and close to home hatred is, and it was surprisingly hard to swallow.

I'm not sure how to end this post as there isn't really an ending to the story; it's the same age-old tale of tolerance and loving thy neighbour that mankind seem to forget with every generation. So for goodness sake guys, lets start loving each other.

Peace.

Ro is listening to: Shout - Lulu
(Shout about love not hate!)