Fight racism & Islamophobia: end the hostile environment – #IAM2020

Stand up to Racism Glasgow marked IAM by holding a discussion on tackling Islamophobia, the far right and ending the hostile environment.

Speakers at the event include:
Asif Mohammad, SUTR activist and Afghan Human Rights Foundation
Pauline McNeill MSP
Linsay Taylor MEND
Nahella Ashraf, Stand Up To Racism

The discussion looked at lived experience of Islamophobia, with one speaker highlighting a horrific event that happened to a pregnant Muslim woman in the streets of Glasgow, where she was pushed down some stairs, causing her to miscarry the baby. An attack that was carried out by the absolute dregs of society.

They discussed the normalisation of racism that has occurred over the recent decades, normalisation that is perpetuated by media and politicians with, for example, comments from our own Prime Minister Boris Johnston referring to Muslim women as letter boxes. Such comments from the highest power in our society does nothing but fan the flames of hate and allow for such horrendous attacks as the one highlighted above where an innocent woman loses her beautiful baby for no other reason than the hate that is being allowed to run rampant in the streets of the UK at this time.

But we do not hear these stories, we do not hear of the pain and suffering that thousands of Muslims face on a day to day basis in Scotland and around the UK. Instead what we hear is hate toward Muslims on so many levels.

So, what can we do about this, we can work together? In the discussion it was highlighted that in tackling one form of hate, we are tackling all forms of hate. That we need to work together to tackle all forms of hate.

We spoke about the many different ways to do this, including working together with partner organisations and on an individual level, volunteering with organisations such as SUTR and MEND.  For more information please see https://www.mend.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/