When I work from home on a Friday, I’ve learned I need to make the trip to the newsagent at the end of my road for my daily can of Diet Coke before a certain point in the afternoon. After that, the Muslim owners pull down their metal shutters before walking a few meters down the road to one of Walthamstow’s neighborhood mosques. Elsewhere on the street, fabric shops, barber shops, and takeaway restaurants shut their doors, and a stream of men make their way together to worship. Cars fill our road as grandfathers, fathers, and sons make their way to the area, and a reverential quiet begins to fill the afternoon air.
I haven’t got a religious or spiritual bone in my body, but over the past two years, I’ve frequently found myself moved by the Muslim community I share a neighborhood with. One where, in recent months, Palestinian flags have appeared on lampposts and in shop windows, and a feeling of quiet unity has prevailed. One where, when I locked myself out of my house barefoot one night, a kind man in the Algerian coffee shop loaned me his phone so I could call my husband. Where concerned neighbors emerged from their homes in the small hours of the morning when a bike thief was spotted jumping over our garden gates.
According to the most recent census, around 64% of the population in Waltham Forest, a London suburb, is from ethnic groups other than white British or Irish, and the local high street is largely populated by Polish supermarkets, Pakistani newsagents, Turkish restaurants, and eateries geared towards those who do not drink alcohol, serving chai tea and desserts. Walthamstow is diverse and vibrant, convenient and (according to any number of newspaper surveys of hipster neighborhoods) cool.
It never crossed my mind that the racist, far-right activity we’ve witnessed in recent days from Southport to Stoke-on-Trent, Belfast to Blackpool—would reach my postcode. Naively, I imagined this sort of thing would bypass proudly multi-cultural London completely. So, when it was reported that as many as 160 riots were being planned across the UK last night—including at immigration services and refugee centres in Walthamstow, Harrow, Hounslow, and North Finchley—I was stunned.
Earlier in the day, as I passed Waltham Forest Immigration Bureau—reportedly the meeting point for racist extremists being circulated on Telegram—it was heartbreaking to see local businesses had been boarded up due to fears of vandalization and violence. Nurseries, doctors’ offices, shops, and restaurants had all closed early, and even at 3 p.m.—five hours before the so-called “demonstration” was planned—police vans were circulating. The unease in the air was palpable: the community poised for potential attacks or abuse, of the sort innocent people of color have been subjected to in Manchester, Hull, and Liverpool in recent days.
Crowds did fill the streets in Walthamstow last night, but the scenes that played out were quite different to those the community was dreading. When I returned to Hoe Street, there was barely a far-right extremist to be seen amongst the police vans and officers. Instead, there were up to 10,000 local residents, of all ethnicities and ages, standing shoulder to shoulder with local business owners as they protected the livelihoods they have worked to create. Crowded together in a display of solidarity and peaceful protest, they held signs with slogans like “Refugees Welcome,” “Immigrants Welcome and Loved,” and (my favorite) “Far Right Can Fucking Do One.”
Amidst the UK riots back in 2011, 1,000 local people gathered in Walthamstow in response to threats from the English Defence League. It was a resoundingly successful anti-racist demonstration which prefigured last night’s moving anti-fascist protest. In the wake of such an appalling maelstrom of violence—which has seen a mosque attacked in Southport and a hotel housing asylum seekers become the target of arson in Tamworth—it felt utterly unifying to be part of such an enormous peace protest on own my doorstep, one that was mirrored elsewhere across the country, from my hometown of Birmingham to Bristol, Brighton, and beyond.
Despite the threat of nationwide violence, last night was defined largely by peaceful protest. This is not to diminish the shocking scenes the country has witnessed over the last fortnight, or what we may yet have to fear from groups who should be labeled as domestic terrorists, not “anti-immigration protestors” or “demonstrators.” None of which should really come as a surprise, after years of migrants being demonized by the Tory government and the right-wing media.
Still, as I walked home at the end of the night, I felt uplifted by what I had witnessed in my neighborhood. As I reached the road next to my house, I saw that a group of men of all ages had gathered at the mosque, which remained untouched by the sort of abhorrent hatred that has marred other towns. I know that the past fortnight will have shaken them to their core. But it’s comforting to know that tomorrow they will be able to walk to worship in peace.