Following the recent racist and Islamophobic riots across the UK and Ireland, Chris McDonagh, who works as Campaigns Officer at FFT and runs Traveller-rights account Travellers Against Racism, writes about the importance of solidarity in the face of reports of community members being involved in online hate.
As Traveller people who have grown up or live in the UK, we know first-hand how the hate and discrimination affect our daily lives.
We often look around and wonder why society hates us so much and why nobody is willing to stand with us and challenge these issues. Why nobody will say something to help defend us against the often-unchecked hate and racism.
We go online and we see the amount of racist abuse aimed at us just for being born into our cultures and being part of communities which are over 1,000 years old.
All too often, way too often, people are influenced by what they see or hear, especially online, and they jump on the band wagon of hate. This has happened to us as Traveller people so many times that now when it happens, we just get on with our day because it is the same thing, just a different day. We carry this burden with us, but still carry on with our lives.
But we are not the only ones.
There are many different minority groups in the UK and at some level, in some way, we all share similar experiences, and all want the same thing: to be treated as individual people. To not be hated for our background, culture or beliefs. These are the groups of people and individuals who we should be standing side by side with, supporting and defending each other.
Unfortunately, due to the sheer amount of lies and hate online some of us have been influenced to join in the hate attacks on social media and the real life riots that have recently swept across the UK.
But this is not who we are.
We are a people who have always supported others and helped our neighbours. We have always helped those in need, whether it is small acts of kindness or filling food banks to help feed the poor.
We are a people who know what it is to struggle, but we are also a people who know what it is like to be attacked and made into the bad guys by a society of individuals and governments with an agenda, whose sole aim is creating hatred where there was none before.
It is divide and conquer. They divide us and get us arguing with each other, so we don’t see the bigger picture. That we, all of us from minority groups, have more in common than we do differences. That we should be standing side by side in solidarity and help each other challenge the lies, hate and creating a better future for our children to exist in friendship and acceptance.
Our true strength is that we are all in the same boat, suffering from the same issues, similar experiences, and we have all survived and made it through the other side. We are all in this world together and we should be helping to make this world a better place for each other. A place where we all stand side by side in a place of acceptance. We should be standing together. Not apart.
Chris McDonagh
Campaigns Officer at FFT and founder of Traveller-rights account Travellers Against Racism.
