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Anti-Muslim attacks in Edinburgh: We must mobilise to protect ourselves

Anti-Muslim attacks in Edinburgh: We must mobilise to protect ourselves

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Last week, a Scottish man went on an anti-Muslim rampage in Edinburgh, injuring five people as he ranted about “protecting our country from these fucking Muslim bastards”. We cannot trust politicians or the police to protect our communities from racist violence.

A Scottish man went on an anti-Muslim rampage in Edinburgh on 19 June, leaving five people injured.

Brandishing a knife, the man attacked two people leaving Friday prayers at Broomhouse Mosque, in the west of Edinburgh.

He continued to wreak havoc across the city, targeting a taxi and an Uber driver, attacking three people on Leith Walk, and smashing the window of a local pizzeria, all the way in the north-east of the city.

While he was eventually restrained and detained by the police, the man swore and shouted that he was “protecting the country from these fucking Muslim bastards raping our young daughters raping our kids.”

Four of the injured required medical assistance, and all of them had in common their clear Muslim faith, or that they were people of colour. A worker at the smashed pizzeria told The Guardian that it’s scary seeing “the level of comfortability that these people have expressing rightwing and horrendous racist views.”

Not random

This attack is not random. There is a general rise in Islamophobic abuse and violence – although you wouldn’t think so if you only read the establishment press.

Just this year, there has been a firebombing of an imam’s house in Bolton (see below), a firebombing of a Muslim prayer room in Blackburn, an attempted arson attack at a mosque in Worcester, and an attempted terror attack at a Manchester mosque,

Decades of Tory and Labour ‘hostile-environment’ policies – of rhetoric about ‘stopping the boats’ and ramping up deportations – have stirred up racism in society.

On top of this, we’ve seen the migrant-bashing of Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson, which helped whip up violent pogroms in Belfast.

These most recent events have emboldened loyalist gangs in Glasgow and other areas in the west of Scotland, who on Tuesday 9 June ran riot through the streets while masked up. They attacked people based on the colour of their skin, and forced local Muslims to lock themselves inside of a mosque in fear for their safety.

Far-right activists and demagogic politicians are literally whipping up barbarism on the streets. Minorities are rightly scared to be the next victims of this encouraged murderous frenzy.

No solutions offered

Scottish politicians and left leaders are offering no way forward for those communities and the wider working class who are horrified by these attacks. John Swinney simply said: “There is no place for race-based or faith-based violence in Scotland,” which is clearly not true, as we have just seen.

The Scottish trade unionist, Claire Robertson correctly said “we need more than warm words of agreement.” However, her solution is to “choose unity over hatred” and asking the politicians “to rise to the occasion and unequivocally stamp out those who spread the poison of racism.”

But what use is it to address the same politicians that are ramping up their racist rhetoric, and are scapegoating immigrants to distract from their failures?

On the Sunday after the attack, about 100 local people, including several MSPs and councillors from the SNP and the Scottish Greens, came together on Leith Walk to show solidarity. But there was no mention of the root of this violence, or how to fight it – just the same affirmations that there’s “no room for hate”, and abstract calls for love and togetherness.

We don’t need love and unity. We need class hatred and anger – directed at the racist, warmongering billionaires and their system, that has allowed for such vile acts to find echo in society.

We can’t trust the politicians or the police to enact any serious change, or to protect us. We need to physically confront any far-right elements, by setting up community defence and mobilising massive rallies that show the real balance of forces in society.

Bolton firebombing: Who lit the match?

On 10 June, a masked attacker set fire to the Bolton home of Imam Hassan Patel, while his wife, four children and nephew were inside. All seven survived. But for Bolton’s Muslim community, the meaning of that night was impossible to miss.

This was a message, wreathed in smoke and flame, to every Muslim who has been told to keep their head down and be grateful for ‘tolerance’: even home is no refuge from hatred.

A press capable of manufacturing a national crisis out of a protest placard has found little ink for Bolton. Keir Starmer, so often poised at the lectern to defend ‘British values’, apparently found silence the safer option.

The hypocrisy is as ugly as it is revealing. When Palestine Action activists take action against the arms trade, the state wastes no time reaching for terrorism laws, mass arrests and the full machinery of repression. The British state is certainly capable of moving quickly. It simply chooses when to act, and when to turn a blind eye.

Kala, Fulham

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