Islamophobia and Other Dubious Pastimes

Shameless: A Britain First post on Facebook

The other day, whilst scrolling through the vast foliage of confused statuses and duck faces that is Facebook, I came across an advertisement for a page that I had not seen before. A scary page. A page born out of the darker recesses of social media. A page full of prejudiced, fascist, narrow-minded people who feel that it is appropriate behaviour to demean those from another culture, religion or country to supposedly promote the image of our nation. No, I know what you’re thinking, it wasn’t the British National Party or Nick ‘racism’s-great-but-it doesn’t-pay-very-well’ Griffin. This was the political party (in the most abstract use of the term) ‘Britain First’. From the title alone I can already hear many of you clenching your teeth in abject cringe and face-palming in sheer embarrassment at the low level of imagination applied in conjuring up such a name; and I have yet to even describe the posts made on the page itself.

As we all know, for a party to successfully encourage potential voters and supporters to join them, they have to present them with a sophisticated and powerful image and a statement that shows political punters that the party is the right one to vote for. A nuanced argument within such promotions is crucial in showing the public how the party wants to be viewed – that allows them to take it seriously, to understand the party and to pay close attention to their policies and priorities. A picture of a woman in braces with the words “Islam No Thanks!” doesn’t fulfil those essential criteria. It’s actually pretty damned intolerant – but it doesn’t stop there. Look closer at the page (if you’re brave or drunk enough) and you will find posts with a similar tone. There are some posts telling the citizens of Britain to “Reclaim Your Country!” with others stating that “In invasions in the past, we didn’t give them a council house and benefits…we fought them…” On top of this there is a very confident claim that “THE BRITISH PEOPLE WILL BE A MINORITY IN OUR OWN COUNTRY WITHIN 25 YEARS, FACT!” without actually providing any facts, figures, statistics, graphs, professional insight, charts or anything else that even vaguely resembles evidence or proof.

I’m not going to outright say that all members of Britain First are this prejudiced and intolerant, as I am aware of the concerns people have within this country about border control. Many supporters may just be a part of the party because they want to see a bit less leniency on immigration policy, what with the current economic dive-bomb going hand-in-hand with mass unemployment. In fact, the page isn’t completely dedicated to not letting Muslims into the country. It has several posts showing respect for our soldiers in Afghanistan and the occasional post of a dog taking a selfie (it seemed out of place, but hey, I welcomed the change). However, full-blown Islamophobia? Any page or political party that concedes to these frankly primitive and narrow-minded views, whether in abundance or on occasion, should seriously reconsider their moral standpoint. Judging people’s behaviour on their religion and acting on that prejudice is unquestionably wrong and deeply backwards. I cannot believe this debate has to be had  in 2014.

What is curious about ‘Britain First’, though, is the fact that they are directing these discriminatory attitudes solely at Muslims. For example, a picture they posted of a woman wearing a burka had the caption “Who’s under there? Man? Woman? Terrorist? The burka is a security risk, we must abolish it!” Really? If you’re going by the notion that wearing a burka makes you a potential terrorist, why not abolish balaclavas as well? Or onesies? Or big hats? They too have the potential space to hide an AK47 and make an identity unclear, so why stop with the burka? They seem to have only considered one item of clothing from one particular culture, highlighting a specific anti-Muslim attitude. Now, there is no denying the fact that there are fundamentalist Muslims who practice terrorist activities in the world, but that does not mean that every single Muslim is one. They seem obsessed with protecting our country from ‘invaders’, yet there is no reference to those from other countries or from any other belief system than Islam. Unsurprisingly, most of the page’s posts encourage people to “Share if you think this is [shameful/disgusting/horrible/wrong etc.]” – creating a pervasive online force that multiples and multiplies.

All of which begs two simple questions. Firstly, and most obviously, why are these people posting such intolerant and discriminatory comments? And secondly, why is it specifically aimed at Muslims? The people who post on ‘Britain First’ do seem to be genuinely concerned for the welfare of Britain, but why are they so specific in who they don’t want in the country?

In answer to the first question, it is quite apparent that a lot of the people posting such comments don’t quite seem to have a complete (or, indeed, accurate) comprehension of what discrimination is. Simply, it is to single out a person or group and treat it differently. Since the people on ‘Britain First’ are frequently called prejudiced and discriminatory, they have to come up with a defence for themselves that illustrates why they’re not, and this is where the clarity of their comprehension begins to fade. This is probably best illustrated by one comment saying, in claiming that they aren’t prejudiced and discriminatory, that “There are black and white Muslims!” (I’m paraphrasing, of course; the original text had a lot fewer vowels and next to no punctuation, but the point was clear.) This really accentuates the fatuity of some of these people: that discrimination strictly refers to white people and black people. So this helps explain why they feel free and comfortable in posting such intolerant comments; they don’t consider them intolerant, due to both a poor understanding of what discrimination is and the mistaken idea that it isn’t intolerant if it’s not directed specifically at black or white people.

Regarding the second question, it can only be concluded that the people on ‘Britain First’ possess such patriotism for their poor country that they feel it is their duty to ‘protect’ it with their misguided world view. Now, considering both the war in Afghanistan and the 7/7 bombings in 2006, it would appear that fundamentalist Muslims are the main adversary of Great Britain today. However, such Muslims are not terribly common in the UK, so it only makes sense (for the virtual uncultured morons) to attack Muslims generally for their religion, rather than the actions they undertake as individuals.

It would therefore seem that many people who are part of ‘Britain First’ want to feel that they are the protectors of Britain and will go to some pretty extreme lengths to ensure that they appear that way. Yet, what they fail to see is the fact that these discriminatory attitudes go against everything that Britain stands for as a liberal democracy, and denigrate Britain in the eyes of other countries and cultures. If these people are so desperate to protect Britain and allow its citizens the rights they deserve, then they need to start acknowledging the civil liberties and rights of all people, and attack the racists, sexists and those perpetrators of actual crimes, rather than  just a group of people who follow the Islamic faith.

This level of intolerance must be extinguished. So many people of ‘Britain First’ feel threatened by those of another culture and go to  extreme online lengths to perch on an ideological pedestal, all supposedly in ‘protection’ of their own culture. Ironically, a bit like fundamentalist Muslims.

If you want a really powerful image of what these prejudiced attitudes do to the image and people of Britain, I would strongly recommend watching Shane Meadows’ film ‘This Is England’.