A week after the deaths of those three children in their dance class in Southport, protests and riots have hit Southport, then Sunderland and now Belfast. The protests are against Muslims in our community. The 17 year old, accused of murdering the young girls was Muslim they say, therefore all Muslims were bad and needed ejected from our society.
However, the young man was not Muslim and Islamophobia is no answer to the migration crisis happening across the world in the 21st century.
In Belfast the riots got so close to home this weekend that there were attacks on two hotels just beside Fitzroy (my church). I have heard of rioters taking selfies with the damaged windows that they had broken.
Other friends are in disbelief that this can be happening to us. Some telling me that they are in tears just thinking about it. Others have real fears for their Muslim friends. My family are in constant touch with our own friends who fear attack.
If any community in the British Isles should know of such illogical racism it is our very selves. Let me tell you when I and my family were treated as dangerous Northern Irish people back in the 1970s when the IRA were bombing across the islands.
It was a moment that frightened and deeply affected me. I was eleven years old. We were on holidays in the south of England looking for a Bed & Breakfast for the night. We had noticed someone walking past our car with a rather cautious look.
While my dad enquired about vacancies in the B & B the police had arrived. Our car had been reported. It had Northern Ireland number plates and therefore we might be bombers. Even at 11 I realised that on mainland Britain I was thoughtlessly labelled Irish and the logical conclusion was that I was a terrorist and dangerous.
When I first heard Paul Brady’s Nothing But The Same Old Story it rang true.
“Living under suspicion
Putting up with the hatred and fear in their eyes
You can see that you’re nothing but a murderer
In their eyes, we’re nothing but a bunch of murderers”
After 9/11 I found myself lumping races and religions all together and looking suspiciously at every middle eastern person on any flight that I happened to be on. Suddenly in my eyes… “they were nothing but a bunch of murderers.” Thankfully my own story shook me back to reality.
Beyond belief call to protest in Belfast today included the words on social media – ‘well intentioned Christians’. WHAT!? Whatever this is, it has nothing to do with Jesus or his intentions as to how we love our neighbour. The Parable of the Good Samaritan itself is a prophetic blast of Christ’s teaching against this kind of racism.
From the Old Testament laws through the prophets to the New Testament teaching of Jesus, the people of God are intentionally called to welcome and look after the stranger. In Leviticus (39:34) we read, “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” The people of God knew what it was to live in another country and were to treat people with love, remembering that they were not when they were in Egpyt.
In his Parable about the Sheep and the Goats Jesus said that you would know his followers by how they treated the marginalised – For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ (Matthew 25:35-36)
The stranger? “Invited in”. That is Jesus’ intention, following through from the law and the prophets. At times of heightened tension and anger we need to be careful what we say to the other. I would not want to dehumanise the protestors. We need to be attempting to connect with those who seem to have such strong feelings. However, it seems to me that the closest you can come to being furthest away from our humanity under God is to wish harm or inflict harm on your fellow human.
It is so good that so many church leaders have spoken out. It is vital to the betterment of our society that we stand against these kind of attacks. We need to assure those being targeted that we are for them and welcome them among us.
Shalom.