Anti-racism protest in London. Flickr/Garry Knight. Some rights reservedWhen I heard the news that the 17-year-old unaccompanied Kurdish Iranian asylum seeker, Reker Ahmed, who had only arrived in Britain seeking sanctuary a few months ago, was brutally attacked in Croydon last month, the first image that came into mind was that of the horrific murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. The Lawrence murder, the silence in the community, and the institutional cover-up opened my eyes to Britain's deep-seated racism.
In the following two decades, as a newcomer to British society, I have seen numerous deaths, murders and attacks on anyone who is perceived as an “outsider” – be they Chinese migrant workers, members of BME communities, Muslims, asylum seekers or refugees. In 2005, a Chinese man, Mi Gao Huang Chen, who ran a takeaway shop in Wigan with his girlfriend, was brutally beaten to death by a gang of 20 white youths who had been harassing the couple for months. The police did not respond to their cries for help until the day before Chen’s murder. The racially-motivated nature of their crime was largely ignored during the trial, with the police saying there might be a “suspected racial element”.
Given the serious injuries to his head and spine, Reker Ahmed is lucky to have survived. The media descended on Shrublands, in Shirley, Croydon, where the attack occurred. The centre of the attention was focused on an estate pub called ‘The Goat’, where some of those involved in the attack might have been drinking. One of the white bar staff nervously told me that the manager could not speak to me. She also said I was not allowed to talk to their customers inside the pub. “This is not a racist pub,” she said, probably guessing my assumptions. Outside in the beer garden, another white staff member said to me: “You are not allowed to ask our customers questions”.
