On Friday, I hugged a man who came to protest outside my mosque.
This image received a lot of coverage, because it gave the overwhelming majority of us those – Muslim and non-Muslim alike – who have been horrified by these riots some hope.
Those of us who work and volunteer at the mosque, had felt real anxiety on Friday evening, as we had heard reports of a large anti-Islam protest heading our way. We had assumed it might turn violent.
We wanted to keep our doors open to invite the protestors in to engage with us and listen to them, however the police advised it was not safe to do so.
So, supported by hundreds of people from all faiths and none who were there to defend the mosque, we waited for three hours until the initially febrile tensions simmered down to a point where we felt it was safe to engage.
We approached the protestors offering food. Some ignored us at first, some politely said no, but eventually some accepted.
From there we began to exchange smiles, had discussions and those who had initially rejected us saw the warm atmosphere that was being created and realised that there was an opportunity for something more constructive than anger and hate.
My sincere wish is that if we listen to each other and learn from each other, we can overcome our differences.
We are all human, and if we don’t talk, we don’t learn anything about each other.
But I’m aware that the image was, to many, so alien.
To see a Muslim and a non-Muslim talking and listening and finding common ground is rare.
One of the people we embraced and spoke with said he wanted to come back to the mosque and discuss things further
Frankly it doesn’t happen enough. And that, in my eyes, is the real problem.
The reality is, in my experience, 99% of people who turn up on such marches have never actually sat down and spoke to a Muslim in their life.
The only Muslims they know of are the demonised stereotypes they see on the TV and on the social media posts shared in their echo chambers.
But the Muslims shown on the news, and the extremists who twist the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), are nothing like real Muslims, who live up and down the UK, making a positive contribution to society.
So we did not tell the protesters to go away, we invited them in.
They had issues, concerns and fears they wanted to talk about. And we listened.
One man came up to me and said he knew the alleged Southport attacker wasn’t a Muslim, he was just fed up with the police.
When I gently asked why he was protesting at a mosque, he seemed to finally see the flaw in his logic.
Another of the people we embraced and spoke with said he wanted to come back to the mosque and discuss things further.
Very few things stop people feeling angry like listening to their concerns.
Discussions like this should be the norm – and until it becomes the norm, riots and unrest will keep happening.
I guarantee you that almost every single person who vandalised the mosque in Southport, looted shops in Sunderland or intimidated asylum seekers in Rotherham and Tamworth has never meaningfully spoken to a Muslim in their life.
Yet, as my experience on Friday proved, when they meet us, they realise we are all humans like they are.
We are parents, just as worried about our children, citizens, just as worried about crime, and individuals who just want what is best for ourselves, our families and our neighbourhoods.
However, without conversations between Muslims and non-Muslims, it is difficult to communicate this. Unless we break down the echo chambers that many of us live in, unless we reach across divides, unless we understand each other – Islamophobia will continue to run rife.
Muslims, every day of the week, every week of the year, make huge contributions across the UK – donating millions upon millions to charities, volunteering in our communities, working in our NHS and other public services – but this, unlike me hugging someone, is not deemed newsworthy.
This goes unnoticed.
And instead, those impressionable, disenfranchised and marginalised men – and it is predominantly men – have their flames of misconceptions stoked into infernos of hatred against Muslims, asylum seekers and anyone who is different.
Anyone they don’t understand. Anyone they’ve never met and talked to.
And those adding kindle to the fire are the far-right, bad-faith actors on social media and beyond, who prey on the divisions for their own personal gain.
Putting their own fame and fortune above any responsibility to throw water, not petrol, on the flames.
Those who protest mosques in the name of opposing extremism are often surprised to learn that Muslims oppose it too.
I cheered louder than anyone, last week, when Anjem Choudhary was given a life sentence, after radicalising minds through lies to inspire terrorism
I hope similar punishment is meted out to those who this week, sparked their own form of terrorism, through the destruction of property and the desire to harm in the name of their own radical political beliefs.
The enemies of British society are not Muslims, but they are people like Choudhary, and far-right agitators
Their lies create hatred in the minds of those taken in by ignorance and misconceptions.
When we at England’s first ever mosque, the Abdullah Quilliam mosque, decided to open our doors, instead of closing our minds, to those protesting against our very existence, it was because we knew meeting anger with anger would only make things worse.
The only people who would benefit would be the likes of Choudhary and far right leaders who want us to be afraid of each other.
Instead we realised, as Dr Rev Martin Luther King said ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.’
There’s a lot that needs to be done to ensure these riots stop and never happen again, but we first need to acknowledge not what is different about those inside my mosque and those protesting it, but what is the same.
That starts with listening, something as small as a conversation, a handshake.
Or a hug.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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