BELFAST: A week of racism-fuelled disorder in Northern Ireland, sparked by disturbances in English cities, has proved harder to end, with fears the British region's sectarian divisions are feeding into the violence.
“They burned every single thing, there's nothing left inside, just ashes,” said Bashir, whose supermarket in Belfast was torched during attacks on foreign-owned shops and businesses.
A mosque in a town near Belfast was also targeted late on Friday.
“We are afraid of what might happen next, there is a lot of hostility towards 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 nightly unrest, mainly in pro-UK loyalist neighbourhoods, which began after an anti-immigration protest in Belfast on 3 August.
The violence has mirrored unrest across England, spurred by misinformation spreading on social media about the suspected perpetrator of a knife attack in Southport on July 29 that killed three children.
The Police of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said on Saturday that 31 people had been arrested during the unrest.
“At a fundamental level, the Belfast attacks are similar in their dynamics to anti-immigration protests in white working-class areas in England, Ireland and elsewhere in Europe,” said Peter McLoughlin, senior lecturer in politics at Queens University Belfast.
“It is driven by racism and fear of the other, but in Northern Ireland it also borders on sectarian political dynamics,” he told AFP.
Three decades of violent sectarian conflict known as “the Troubles” largely ended in 1998, but bitterness and strife remain between pro-UK Protestant loyalists and pro-Irish Catholic nationalists.
Outside Bashir's smoke-cured shopfront in the staunchly loyal inner-city district of Sandy Row, British Union Jack flags flutter on lampposts and painted murals proclaim fierce allegiance to Britain.
“Within Loyalists there is a feeling that prevailed throughout the Northern Ireland peace process that their society is in retreat, that their society and British identity is under attack,” McLoughlin explained.
Many loyalists feel they “have to oppose outsiders coming into these areas, who are seen as taking supposedly Protestant jobs and houses and encroaching on a community that was once dominant,” he added.
After last Saturday's anti-immigration protest, rioters rampaged through the streets looking for foreign-owned businesses to attack.
“What happened last week was crazy,” Yilmaz Batu, a 64-year-old Turkish chef who has lived in Northern Ireland for two years, told AFP.
“There was never any problem before,” he said, sitting at the Sahara Shisha Cafe, one of several Middle Eastern and Turkish-owned businesses near Sandy Row that were affected.
The Muslim Council of Northern Ireland said in a statement that “the vast majority of violence has been whipped up and fueled by deliberate disinformation and disinformation on social media.”
“False and dangerous narratives” about Muslims who “make up a small minority in Northern Ireland” led to the attacks, it added.
Northern Ireland has low immigration compared to the rest of the UK and Ireland.
The 2021 census showed that around six per cent of the population were born outside the UK or Ireland, with around 97 per cent describing their ethnicity as white.
The disruption was “extremely shocking to the wider community”, said Fiona Doran, chair of the United Against Racism group which co-organised a solidarity rally in Belfast on Saturday.
The demonstration, which drew several thousand people, gave people “a chance to come out into the streets, to show that Belfast is a welcoming city, it's a city that says no to racism and fascism,” she told AFP.
At an anti-immigration rally the day before in Belfast, around a hundred protesters carried British flags and placards reading “respect our country or leave!”
Some chanted the name of Tommy Robinson, a notorious anti-Muslim agitator who has been accused of helping to fuel the unrest in England through constant social media posts about the events.
Nearby, behind lines of armored police vehicles, more than 1,000 counter-protesters chanted “racists out!”
Bashir told AFP on Saturday that he is unsure whether he will reopen his supermarket.
“My question is: can we do it? If we do it will depend on all the people who came out to show us support,” he said after the solidarity demonstration.
