The racial violence that erupted on the streets of the UK in early August was tragic. Ordinary British folks of all colours and creeds who have coexisted peacefully for so long suddenly feel threatened and exposed.

The false information that was spread on social media following the horrific mass stabbing of children in Southport at the end of July was reportedly the main factor contributing to the ongoing riots. The British people were left incensed by the violence, and horror engulfed the whole country.

In order to incite anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments, bad-faith actors disseminated a flood of lies about the Southport incident on social media, including the false assertion that the suspected assailant was an immigrant with a Muslim background.

In recent years, toxicity has spread like wildfire online, so it is unsurprising that some have pointed to social media as the cause of the violent scenes witnessed by Britain in August. But there is another reason why the far right was able to take advantage of the situation so easily: mainstream liberal silence on issues of immigration and integration.

With Western liberals making excuses for Muslim zealots and the authorities allowing fringe Islamist elements to dominate Muslim communities, it was inevitable that controversial and contentious figures like Tommy Robinson would fill the vacuum. Over-sensitive political correctness gives the likes of Robinson room in which to stir up hatred. Robinson’s long history of capitalising on people’s worries and insecurities related to legitimate issues around immigration and integration is enough evidence of that—and now we have seen what mainstream silence leads to.

But even if the ineptitude of the authorities and the negligence of the liberals are at least part of the explanation for these riots, they are no excuse for them. Unfortunately, the far right extremists who have set fire to hotels hosting asylum seekers, destroyed public buildings, thrown items at law enforcement personnel, and smashed up police vehicles are now being pampered by another brand of apologists, their actions explained away as the result of legitimate grievances. Sound familiar?

People like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has long criticised the Western left for infantilising fundamentalist Muslims and validating their grievances, seem to dismiss the racial hate that has been encouraged on X and which contributed to the riots. As Hirsi Ali has put it, ‘Elon [Musk, owner of X] has given all those voiceless victims a voice and a platform to draw the attention of the negligent politicians and their sprawling bureaucracies.’

Has she not learnt how Islamists were and are empowered by the left’s inability to denounce religious fundamentalism? Is it prudent to adopt the same lame excuses in order to wave away the violent, racist, and hostile mob attacks which occurred all around the UK? Is it really so difficult to be consistent in one’s opposition to fanaticism and violence?

Another lamentable aspect of our current predicament is the failure of the torchbearers of inclusivity and justice themselves, who, whether unwittingly or deliberately, push people into toxic forms of politics. Many people who have long been supportive of liberal values feel compelled to abandon them due to the extreme ‘woke’ beliefs that have been embedded in much of the left. The unrelenting demands for conformity and draconian cancel culture of the ‘woke’ left have pushed people towards even more divisive ideologies.

Conspicuously, Tommy Robinson and his ilk are not capable of providing a balanced critique of immigration and the Islamist menace, which continues to be the UK’s greatest security risk. They are part of the polarising grievance industry and behave like cheap provocateurs. They propagate anxieties and insecurities with the intention of causing animosity and rifts. They have no intention of providing fair and just solutions to our many problems.

Far-right extremists who committed violence should be brought to justice without any delay. But it does need to be said that not all of the people at the protests were violent ‘far-right thugs’ (Keir Starmer’s words). Many of them turned up with their families and desired only to be heard. They did not necessarily share Robinson’s repulsive ideology. Dismissing all concerns about immigration and painting everyone who took part in protests as thugs is not the way forward. In fact, it will only make things worse. If people are treated with disregard and contempt for their legitimate concerns about immigration, there is every possibility that eventually they will become far-right thugs. As MI5 puts it:

[T]he extreme right-wing terrorism landscape has evolved away from structured groups towards a more diffuse threat where individuals form loose networks, often online. The ideologies and grievance narratives are varied, wide-ranging, and often overlapping.

The former government’s social cohesion adviser, Sara Khan, has stated that previous administrations ‘have astonishingly failed to address these trends, and they’ve taken instead, in my view, approaches that have actually been counterproductive’.

In short: the wave of violence and bigotry in August was all too predictable. Sadly, Starmer seems set on continuing to turn a blind eye to people’s legitimate concerns, which will only give more opportunities to the far right to manipulate people and pursue their own, horrific ends.

It is time to reflect and reaffirm that it is possible to criticise Islam without endorsing prejudice against Muslims and that it is reasonable to discuss the issues around immigration and integration without being bigoted. It is also necessary to defend secular democratic values by opposing the absolutism of the liberal fringe and the xenophobia of the far right. If the peaceful coexistence that has characterised British cultural diversity at its best is to survive, we urgently need to stop apologising for the far right and Islamism. If we fail to heed the lessons of August 2024, we may end up with a country where unabating violence and hatred become, quite simply, the way of life.

Related reading

The far right and ex-Muslims: ‘The enemy of my enemy is not my friend’, by Sara Al-Ruqaishi

The post Reflections on the far right riots: a predictable wave of violence appeared first on The Freethinker.

Islam’s hostility to human values ​​has long been the main reason why many of its followers have left it to become atheists. But, amid the far-right riots carried out in Britain earlier this month, it seems that some ex-Muslims have forgotten the motivation that drove them to become apostates in the first place. Do we oppose Islam out of sheer, mindless hatred, or do we hate it because it is hostile to humanity?

Some ex-Muslim atheists have shown their support for far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson and have encouraged anti-Muslim bigotry. In addition to that, they have promoted the violence perpetrated by the far right across the UK. This support is often based on the argument that the ‘demonstrations’ only target Muslims.

This position is based on misinformation. As we have seen, the riots went beyond targeting Muslims to include refugees and people of colour more generally, those who work in refugee support centres, and the police. But even if this position was accurate, it would still be bigoted and inhumane in itself.

‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which many if not most ex-Muslim atheists support as an alternative to Sharia law, begins thus: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ The word ‘dignity’ is placed before the word ‘rights’ for a logical reason: human dignity serves as the basis for human rights. The concept of dignity recognises that all human beings have a special value that is inherent in themselves—not acquired—and therefore deserving of respect, without exception, simply because they are human beings.  In other words, you cannot talk about human rights if these rights are limited to certain people and denied to others.

To support bigotry against Muslims is to strip Muslims of their human dignity, which means that Muslims will not enjoy the same rights as everyone else. And this is exactly what you support when you talk about the right of white English people to ‘security of person’ while supporting riots that are trying to take away the right of Muslims to the same. In supporting the far right, these ex-Muslims show themselves to be non-secular, non-humanist atheists.

The far right and Islamism: two sides of the same coin

The far right bases its hatred of others on a sense of superiority that has no scientific basis. They believe that being white and/or Christian makes them inherently better than everyone else. Isn’t this exactly the same justification Islamists use for persecuting ex-Muslims and others who don’t fit into their narrow view of the world? Islamists see themselves and their worldview as superior and unchallengeable, and this is the basis on which they persecute women, gays, atheists, non-Muslims, and secular Muslims. The far right does exactly the same: they target those who are not white and/or Christian because they believe that they alone are worthy of respect.

Far-right ideology is not a cure for Islamism. Rather, it feeds it. When a far-right extremist calls for bigotry against Muslims, he/she encourages Islamists to respond with their own bigotry—as we witnessed in Birmingham on the night of 5 August. Supporting the far right to oppose Islamism feeds an endless cycle of bigotry and terrorism. It is unfortunate that some of us ex-Muslims contribute to this cycle, which only strengthens the very people, whether Islamist or far-right, who seek to destroy us.

A better approach: secular alliance against extremism

The cure for reactionary Islamism is not through an alliance with the reactionary far right built on a shared fanatical bigotry against ‘Muslims’, but through an alliance between secular atheists and secular Muslims. This would be a useful and humane alliance built on the values ​​advocated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: dignity, freedom, and rejection of extremism.

As ex-Muslim atheists seeking to build more humane societies, we must work to build bridges of understanding and coexistence between all religious and ethnic groups. We must unequivocally reject any form of fanaticism and violence, whether it comes from Islamists, far-right extremists, or anyone else. Taking a stand against far-right extremism and being a voice for justice and equality reflects our principle of rejecting extremism. Those who stood with the rioters showed that their problem is not with extremism as such but with Muslim extremism only.

For a better world free from hatred

Given that a large proportion of us ex-Muslims are refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, it is shameful that some of us are complicit in the attempted destruction of the democracies in which persecuted people like us seek refuge. Promoting far-right ideology threatens refugees like us. Moreover, far-right ideas are categorically opposed to the fundamental democratic ideals ​​of freedom, equality, and justice—the very values ​​that we as ex-Muslims felt the lack of in our countries of origin, leading us to flee by air or sea to places which stood up for those values. In other words, allying ourselves with extremists, some of whom call for the return of a ‘white and Christian’ England, undermines our own rights and interests as atheists in the UK.

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