Trump's ban on Muslims is divisive and dangerous.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets throughout Britain last night to protest against Donald Trump’s declaration of war on Muslims. That’s what the ban on Muslim countries amounts to. 1.5m people in the UK signed a petition to prevent Trump’s “state visit” to our shores and parliament voted unanimously to repeal Trump’s immigration ban, leaving Theresa May isolated in her sycophantic, shameful acquiesce.

This show of solidarity and defiance against the US miscreant affords some much needed succour to my jaded soul. This country will not be divided by hate and fear.

Article I of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Donald Trump’s contempt for human rights is not breaking news, but his executive ban on Muslims shows a chilling incognisance of history, human psychology and national security. Far from being safer, by depicting all Muslims as suspected terrorists, Trump is making the world a more dangerous place. His dehumanisation of an entire people based on their religion is sinister and dangerous.

Dehumanization negates the humanity of people different to us, who are portrayed as imbecilic and sub-human. It desensitises us to the plight of “other” and makes the conditions for discrimination and oppression possible. Slavery, the Holocaust, the Rwanda and (ongoing) Darfur genocides are just some examples of how the dehumanisation of people, based on colour or creed, can become justification for persecution and ethnic cleansing.

In order to diffuse the dirty bomb of hate that Trump has detonated, we must counter the narrative that conflates Islam with terrorism. Throughout the reporting of “the troubles in Northern Ireland”, I never heard the words “Protestant” or “Catholic” followed by the word “fundamentalist”.  Not since the holocaust have human beings been so universally demonised because of their religion. Standing by and allowing it to happen again would be unconscionable.

Dehumanisation is expedited with stories depicting the outgroup as evil. When we have little contact with people who are different to us, we become susceptible to the shorthand of stereotypes, which is why we need to get out more and share our positive stories.

At seventeen, in my naivety, I decided to trek across Europe (from Ireland) to visit my friend who was au pairing in Switzerland. The route involved two boats and three trains. On the final leg, I was exhausted and, having chatted to brothers (19 and 20) on the Harry Potter style train for a couple of hours, I dropped off. They watched over me while I slept and missed their stop so that I could be protected and not disturbed. I was struck by their respect for me as a young woman. They were Moroccan Muslims.

In response to Trump’s Muslim ban, Jeremy Greenstock, a former chair of the UN Security Council’s counter-terrorism committee, said  “I don’t think Islamic terrorism is an existential threat to western democracy. If there is to be a global anti-terrorist coalition that is effective, it’s got to deal with some of the causes of it, rather than the symptoms. It’s got to deal with governance in the Middle East.

There’s no evidence that the 7 banned countries pose a terrorist threat in the US, but there is proof that hate speech incites violence and divides communities, which does undermine national security.

In just ten days of Trump’s presidential win in November, 900 hate crimes were documented, 40% of which invoked Trump’s name. 

On Sunday night, 6 Muslims were killed and 8 injured when a Mosque was attacked in what Canadian Prime Minister, Justine Trudeau, called a terrorist attack. The right wing media here and in the US initially reported the gunman as being a Moroccan Muslim, with Trump’s press officer citing it as justification for the ban on “bad dudes”. These claims were false and a suspected white supremacist has now been charged.

In the UK, the Global Terrorism Index reported that the number of terrorism fatalities had steadily grown since the Iraq war and the former head of MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller, said the Iraq invasion led to a huge increase in the terrorist threat to the UK.

Every pound of Muslim flesh that Trump and May feed the far right unpicks another seam in the increasingly fragile fabric that binds our communities together. Shame on Theresa May for her complicity.

How being adopted by a Muslim family and a chance encounter with "white van man" gave me hope for 2017

Chrsitmas got off to a bad start. One of the bikes got stolen from the back of our campervan on the first day of the holiday. Since my parents died, Christmas has been the hardest hurdle. Their absence at the table is agonising. All the fairy lights in Piccadilly can’t ignite the light that grief extinguishes at Christmas. For the past 2 years, we’ve gone away. Left cold by the icy, xenophobic winds of Brexit, and being Spanish speakers, we headed for Spain.

Late on Christmas Eve we parked up on a square in Arco de la Frontera, said to be one of the prettiest Spanish villages. Morale (robbery) and provisions (shops shut) were low.  The next morning, Christmas day, three brothers came out with a football shouting, “Feliz Navidad” (happy Christmas) and invited our 8 year old to play with them. Having spent several hours playing together, the children’s parents appeared with a tray of biscuits, cake and refreshments. Mum was wearing a hijab and spoke Arab to the children. Unable to reciprocate their hospitality, we were reluctant to accept but it was clear that rejecting this gesture of kindness would be rude.

We were invited in for a meal. Mortified, I said, “You don’t even know us”, to which they replied, “We’re all brothers and sisters of the world”.  Overcome by this simple act of humanity, on Christmas day, I hugged the stranger whilst surreptitiously wiping away a tear. After all, 2016 wasn’t exactly the year of compassion.

We were treated to traditional Msmen flatbread and Moroccan mint tea. The sweet amber liquid was poured from a lavish silver tea pot into ornate glasses with golden rims. My son, who had only got a few stocking fillers from Santa (who deposited the main pressies at home), shared what he got (a 4 pack of funky pencil sharpeners and a selection box) amongst his new friends. He wanted to hand my stocking filler over too but when he realised it was a pocket guide to Trumpisms, he relented. “I don’t want them to know that Trump hates Muslims” he reasoned, though I suspect they already have an inkling.

Afterwards, while the children overcame the language barriers by playing the card game “UNO” on the floor, we learned that, although the children were born in Spain, their parents were Moroccan. They met in Northern Spain and had established a thriving business on a market stall. When their oldest child developed life threatening respiratory problems they moved south, hoping to increase his life expectancy. Although he has made a full recovery, the family are struggling to make ends meet. Dad sells clothes out of his boot and both worry for the future of their children in a country that has a youth unemployment rate of almost 50%.

That night, curled up in our van, adorned only by tiny fairy lights (lovingly & thoughfully gifted to us by friends), my son drew parallels between the Christmas story and us being far from home, in a strange place, being shown the kindness of strangers. It’s ironic that my child learned the real meaning of Christmas from a Muslim family whose code of ethics is clearly a way of life, not just for Christmas.

The next day we drove down to the Costa del Sol and parked up in a town where British expats almost outnumbered locals, 60% of whom don’t speak a word of Spanish (though I understand  no language/citizen tests declaring allegiance to the King are imminent). My son struck up a friendship with a British boy on the beach. His father, a self described, “white van man” (WVM) from Rochdale, sat down beside me. He asked if I’d heard about the “nutters” who’d driven a lorry into Christmas shoppers in Germany. I had deliberately avoided all news so I hadn’t. I braced myself for an Islamophobic tirade, after all, he was a white van man and from Rochdale, so he must be racist right? Wrong.

He was horrified by the attack but he was also angry about how Muslims were routinely portrayed as terrorists by the media.  He was particularly angry about the BBC’s reporting on the plight of Palestinians. Turns out, he knew a Palestinian refugee whose family had been killed by an Israeli mortar attack in Gaza. When the Palestinian was walking in the park to keep warm, he came across a gang who had cornered a younger boy and were threatening violence. Rather than walk by, the man risked being deported by stepping in and saving the boy, with whom my son was playing. Since then, WVM has been an active campaigner for Palestinian human rights (unlike Theresa May).

WVM confided that he voted to leave the EU because he wanted to teach the Tories a lesson. He was angry at his Tory led council giving themselves wage increases while bins are left unemptied and deprivation soars throughout Rochdale. He was angry that his local A&E was shut and that the Tories allow fat cats to legally avoid paying taxes while he is vigorously pursued for every penny.

He admitted that he had to work 6 days a week just to get by and that Saturday had to be cash in hand. “I’m not proud to admit that” he said, “but I have to put food on the table for my family”.

He was more ashamed about voting to leave the EU than he was about taxdodging. “It was a protest vote”, he said, "I didn't expect it to count". All the polls said we’d remain. So I figured, what the hell, I’ll give the Tories a bloody nose. My vote won’t matter". Living in an area that also voted to leave, this has been a recurring theme, but it seems the Tories would rather take this country into economic Armageddon  than admit the truth. That the electorate may loate them even more than immigrants.

The moral of the story is not rocket science. Most Muslims are not terrorists and most white van men are not racist. If the only interaction with people who are different to us is limited to prejudice infused stereotypes, fed to us daily on a shovel by the media, the likelihood is that you will believe the opposite to be true. It’s no coincidence that those parts of the UK with the highest number of immigrants voted to stay within the UK. Contact with people who are “other” removes the sense of fear and perceived threat because we’re interacting with three dimensional human beings, as opposed to a two dimensional stereotypes.

To counteract the rising xenophobia and hate crimes unleashed by Brexit, we should all get out more, or rather, put ourselves out there more. Make 2017 the year you speak to people you would never normally engage with. Strike up conversations in the room/bus stop/at the school gates with the person least like yourself.  Open your heart and mind and reach out to your brothers and sisters of the world. You never know, they might surprise you.