BELFAST: A week of racial unrest in Northern Ireland, fueled by unrest in English towns and cities, is being compounded by fears that the region's sectarian divisions could fuel violence.
“They burned everything, there's nothing left inside, just ashes,” said Bashir, whose supermarket in Belfast was set on fire during attacks on foreign shops and businesses.
A mosque in a town near Belfast was also attacked late Friday.
“We are afraid of what might happen in the future, there is a lot of hostility against the Muslim community,” said the 28-year-old from Dubai, who did not want to give his full name for safety reasons.
Northern Ireland has seen overnight unrest, mainly in pro-British neighborhoods, since anti-immigration protests erupted in Belfast on August 3.
The violence reflects unrest across England, fueled by misinformation spread on social media about the suspect in a knife attack in Southport on July 29 that killed three children.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said on Saturday that 31 people had been arrested during the unrest.
Peter McLaughlin, a politics lecturer at Queen's University Belfast, said: “At a fundamental level, the Belfast attacks are similar in dynamics to anti-immigration protests in white working-class areas of England, the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere in Europe.
“It's driven by racism and fear of the other, but in Northern Ireland it's also linked to sectarian political dynamics,” he told AFP.
Three decades of violent sectarian conflict known as the “Troubles” largely ended in 1998, but bitterness and friction between pro-British Protestant loyalists and pro-unification Catholic Irish nationalists remains.
Outside Bashir's smoke-scarred shopfront in the staunchly loyalist inner-city area of Sandy Row, British Union Jack flags fly from lampposts and painted murals proclaim fierce loyalty to Britain.
“In Loyalty, there was a sense in the Northern Ireland peace process that their community was being pushed back, that their British community and identity was under attack,” McLaughlin explained.
He added that many loyalists feel “they have to oppose the entry of outsiders into those areas, people who seem to be occupying ostensibly Protestant homes and businesses and encroaching on a once-dominant community.”
After last Saturday's anti-immigration protests, rioters took to the streets looking for foreign businesses to attack.
“What happened last week was crazy,” Yilmaz Batu, a 64-year-old Turkish chef who has lived in Northern Ireland for two years, told AFP.
“Before, there was no problem,” he said at Sahara Shisha Cafe, one of several Middle Eastern and Turkish-owned businesses near the damaged Sandy Row.
The Muslim Council of Northern Ireland said in a statement that “the vast majority of violence was fueled by deliberate misinformation and disinformation on social media”.
The report added that “false and dangerous narratives” about Muslims, who make up “a small minority in Northern Ireland”, led to the attacks.
Northern Ireland has a low immigration rate compared to the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
The 2021 census showed that around six per cent of the population were born outside the UK or Ireland, and around 97 per cent described their ethnicity as white.
Fiona Doran, head of the group United Against Racism, which organized a solidarity march in Belfast on Saturday, said: “This disruption was very shocking to the wider community.
The demonstration, which attracted several thousand people, gave people “an opportunity to take to the streets to show that Belfast is a welcoming city, a city that says no to racism and fascism,” he told AFP.
At an anti-immigration demonstration in Belfast yesterday, around a hundred protesters carried British flags and placards reading “Respect our country or leave!”
Some raised the name of Tommy Robinson, a notorious anti-Muslim agitator who has been accused of helping to fuel the unrest in England through persistent social media posts about the events.
Nearby, behind a line of armored police vehicles, more than 1,000 counter-protesters chanted “Put out the racists!”
Bashir told AFP on Saturday that he was not sure if he would reopen his supermarket.
My question is: are we able to do it? “If we do, it's because of all the people who came out to support us.” He said during the solidarity demonstration.
