SINGAPORE – As anti-racist demonstrators swarmed the streets of Britain and planned far-right rallies were abandoned, Singaporean Ayuni Hassan stepped tentatively out of her London flat on Aug 10.
It was her first foray outside in a week. “We ran out of groceries,” the 30-year-old podiatrist said.
Ms Ayuni, who wears the hijab, had been “sheltering in place” at home since far-right riots erupted in parts of Britain in early August, alarmed by talk of thugs spitting at and ripping off the headscarves of Muslim women.
But the mobs, fires and nativist slogans that flared across dozens of English towns and cities in the first week of the month had been overtaken by anti-racism protests by the second week.
At times verging on carnival-like, with singing and dancing, the counter-protests drew thousands all over England – from Newcastle, to London, to Bristol – even as the director of public prosecutions warned of 10-year prison sentences for rioters.
For Ms Ayuni, the episode has ended on a note of hope.
“It’s proof that the good people outnumber the bad,” said Ms Ayuni, who has since reclaimed full freedom of movement.
Sheffield resident Natalie Chan is a little more uncertain about the climate.
“I thought it was more of a vocal minority at first, but after the violence in Rotherham, I think there’s a lot of hate brewing,” she said.
The 27-year-old doctor lives 20 minutes away from the town of Rotherham. which, on Aug 4, saw 700 rioters torch an asylum seeker hotel and clash with police.
“To be honest, I’ve never had a problem with people in Rotherham. I’ve worked in the general hospital there,” she said, but the violence exposed an undertow of nastiness.
That day, Ms Chan wondered for the first time if she would be safe in the city she had lived in for eight years.
“The nature of my work tends to protect me from being the target of such outbursts, but when you’re out on the streets, people aren’t going to care whether you’re a healthcare worker,” she said.
London-based theatre practitioner Faizal Abdullah had been away on holiday at the time but recalled the sobering moment his neighbourhood mosque in Harrow appeared on a far-right “hit list” of a country-wide campaign on Aug 7.
“In that sense, it was very real,” said the 40-year-old writer of the lecture-performance Siapa Yang Bawa Melayu Aku Pergi? (Who Took My Malay Away?).