BELFAST: A week of racism-fuelled disorder in Northern Ireland, fueled by unrest in English towns and cities, is proving difficult to end, with fears that sectarian divisions in the UK region are feeding into the violence.
“They burned everything, there's nothing left inside, just ashes,” said Bashir, whose supermarket in Belfast was torched during a crackdown on foreign-owned shops and businesses.
A mosque in a town near Belfast was also targeted late on Friday.
“We fear what could happen next, 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, citing security reasons.
Northern Ireland has seen overnight unrest, mainly in pro-UK loyalist neighbourhoods, which began on August 3 following anti-immigration demonstrations in Belfast.
Violence sparked by misinformation spread on social media about a suspected knifeman who killed three children in Southport on July 29 has sparked chaos in England.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said on Saturday that 31 people had been arrested during the disturbances.
“At a basic level the Belfast attacks are similar in their dynamics to anti-immigration protests in white working-class areas of England, the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere in Europe,” said Peter McLoughlin, a politics lecturer at Queen's University Belfast.
“It is driven by racism and fear of the other, but in Northern Ireland it also interfaces with 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-UK Protestant loyalists and pro-Irish unity Catholic nationalists continues.
Outside Basir's smoke-stained shopfronts in the staunchly loyalist inner-city district of Sandy Row, the British Union Jack flies on lampposts and graffiti proclaims staunch allegiance to the UK.
“There is a sense within Loyalists that has prevailed through the peace process in Northern Ireland that their community is being pushed back, that their community and British identity is under attack,” McLoughlin explained.
Many loyalists feel they must “oppose outsiders coming into those areas, who are seen as taking supposedly Protestant jobs and homes and encroaching on a once-dominant community,” he added.
After last Saturday's anti-immigration protests, rioters took to the streets to attack foreign-owned businesses.
“What happened last week was crazy,” Turkish chef Yilmaz Batu, 64, who has lived in Northern Ireland for two years, told AFP.
“Before there was no problem,” he said, sitting in the Sahara Shisha Cafe, one of several Middle Eastern and Turkish-owned businesses near Sandy Row.
The Northern Ireland Muslim Council said in a statement that “much of the violence is whitewashed and fueled by deliberate misinformation and disinformation on social media.”
“False and dangerous stories” about Muslims “who form a small minority in Northern Ireland” led to the attacks, it added.
Northern Ireland has a lower rate of immigration than the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
The 2021 census showed that 6 per cent of the population was born outside the UK or Ireland, with around 97 per cent describing their ethnicity as white.
The disorder was “extremely shocking to the wider community,” said Fiona Doran, president of the United Against Racism group, which co-organised a solidarity rally in Belfast on Saturday.
The demonstration, which attracted thousands of people, gave people “an opportunity to take to the streets to show that Belfast is a welcoming city, a city that does not tolerate racism and fascism,” she told AFP.
An anti-immigrant rally in Belfast earlier in the day saw around 100 protesters carrying British flags and placards reading “Respect our country or leave!” was written
Some chanted the name of Tommy Robinson, a notorious anti-Muslim agitator who has been accused of helping to fuel unrest in England through constant social media posts about the incidents.
Nearby, behind armored police vehicles, more than 1,000 counter-protesters chanted “Put out the racists!” chanted.
Bashir told AFP on Saturday that he was not sure if he would reopen his supermarket.
“My question is: are we able to do that? If we do, it will be because of all the people who came out to show us support,” he said after the solidarity demonstration.
