Latest news with #SunderKatwala
NBC News
2 days ago
- NBC News
Northern Ireland town is engulfed in racist riots for a third day
LONDON — Dozens of mostly young men torched homes and smashed in windows in a Northern Irish town late Wednesday, in a third night of what officials described as coordinated 'racist thuggery' against the community's ethnic minorities. Some residents of Ballymena, about 25 miles northwest of Belfast with a population of 30,000, responded to the anti-foreigner vigilantism by sticking the Union Jack or signs in their windows reading 'British household' and 'locals live here,' in an apparent attempt to be spared by the rioters. NBC News' British partner Sky News has seen residents from ethnic minorities packing up suitcases and leaving their homes, while others have spoken of their terror that the mob violence will continue. The violence first flared Monday during a vigil for a teenage girl who was the victim of an alleged sexual assault two days before. Two teenage boys, both 14, were charged with attempted rape and appeared in court Monday, communicating through a Romanian translator. The boys' identities have not been released because of their age. Masked rioters broke away from the otherwise peaceful vigil, building barricades and throwing bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks at houses and police. Riot police responded with rubber bullets and a water cannon. More than 40 officers have been injured over the three nights, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, known as the PSNI, said. The violence also spread to other towns in Northern Ireland, such as Coleraine, where a bus station was attacked, access to the train station was blocked and rioters pushed trash cans onto the rails and set them alight Wednesday night, police said. In Larne, some people whose homes were destroyed were given shelter at a leisure center — until that was targeted and set on fire, too. In total, 10 people, all men in their teens, 20s and 30s, have been arrested. Three of them, aged 18, 17 and 15, have been charged and are set to appear in court Thursday. 'This violence was clearly racially motivated and targeted at our minority ethnic community and police,' Ryan Henderson, PSNI assistant chief constable, said Tuesday at a news conference. 'It was racist thuggery pure and simple and any attempt to justify and explain it as something else is misplaced.' A Bulgarian national who lives in Ballymena and asked that her identity be protected told Sky News, 'It's terrifying, honestly, I'm scared to get out of the house,' She said she had been in Northern Ireland 'for a while — I've pursued an education here,' she said. 'I've done multiple things for the community and it's just absolutely heartbreaking that it's not the same Ballymena that I had when I first came here.' "It is important," said Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a think tank that focuses on immigration, identity and integration, "to draw the clearest red line between the legitimate debate about immigration policy, including numbers, the pace of change and the quality of integration, and hateful abuse and threats." 'Governments need to manage asylum much better nationally and locally,' he said, 'but must challenge more forcefully those stoking hatred and socializing violence against migrants, and the platforms that let hatred run riot without impediment.' Northern Ireland is no stranger to unrest, but usually between 'unionists' — mostly Protestants who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom — and 'republicans' — mostly Catholics who want it to become part of the Irish Republic. Though this conflict, called 'the Troubles,' officially ended with a peace deal in 1998, sporadic clashes still break out between these often segregated communities and police. This week's unrest in Ballymena follows a different trend, however. Anti-foreigner sentiment has in recent years surged across the U.K. and indeed Europe and the West. As prices for food, fuel and housing rise due to inflation, and public services become squeezed, some politicians mainly on the populist hard-right have sought to blame mass immigration for putting undue stress on the system. Pro-immigration progressives argue that immigrants provide an essential net benefit to society, both bringing high-level skills and filling less glamorous but necessary jobs. Last summer, anti-immigrant violence flared across the U.K. after three young girls were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in the town of Southport in northwest England.
The Independent
08-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
The forgotten heroes of VE Day are the Muslims who fought for Britain
This week, as we commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day, our nation pauses once more to honour the generation who fought for freedom – often at great personal cost. It is a moment for remembrance, reflection and renewal. And yet, for many years, I've felt there is something incomplete about the way we tell this story. My work has focused on social mobility and social integration in Britain. I've spent much of my life trying to build bridges between communities, across differences and disciplines, and towards a deeper shared sense of belonging. That work, though often hard and always necessary, has taught me something fundamental: we cannot build a truly prosperous, cohesive future without a full and inclusive understanding of our past. It was at a dinner last year convened by the Good Society Forum that a conversation with British Future's Sunder Katwala really opened my eyes. In the context of the great world wars, we talked about the stories we inherit as Britons and the histories we then choose to share. And I realised – even after all these years of working in this space – how little I actually knew. I began to see with fresh eyes the huge, often unrecognised, contribution of people who looked like me, prayed like me, and whose names have long faded from public memory. That is why I put together 'Great Faith: Stories of Sacrifice and Contribution' – a portrait series and storytelling project that seeks to shine a light on Muslim servicemen and women who served in the Allied and British Armed Forces during the world wars, and those who continue to serve today. Unveiled this week and created in collaboration with the remarkable British war artist and portrait painter Arabella Dorman, this collection features 80 portraits that humanise and honour those whose bravery has too often gone unseen. These are not abstract tributes; they are deeply personal, evocative portraits – each one a window into a life lived in service to this country. They tell the story of Captain Anis Khan who, having served courageously in Dunkirk, was captured and spent nearly four years as a prisoner of war – the longest of any Indian officer in the Second World War. So, too, the story of Lance-Naik Islam-ud-Din, a British Indian Army soldier who sacrificed his own life to save that of his comrades, when he threw himself on a live grenade in Pyawbwe, Burma (now Myanmar) – resulting in a posthumous award of the George Cross. They also tell the more recent stories of Rear Admiral Amjad Hussain, a senior Royal Navy officer who, at the time of retirement, was the highest-ranking member of the British Armed Forces from an ethnic minority background, and Captain Ammani Bashir, a general duties medical officer inspired to sign up by the service of her father, a retired lieutenant colonel who spent over three decades in the British Army. This project is not about setting one group above another. On the contrary; it is about completing the picture – about reminding ourselves that Britain's war effort was not homogenous but richly diverse. Muslims, alongside Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and others, stood shoulder to shoulder to defend the freedoms we all now enjoy. The armies of 1914 and 1940 looked far more like the Britain of 2025 than we often imagine. During the Second World War alone, more than 2.5 million soldiers from pre-partition India joined the Allied forces – hundreds of thousands of them were Muslim and many were decorated for valour. Their names are etched in dusty archives but absent from too many classrooms, Remembrance Day services and national narratives. 'Great Faith' is part of a broader set of campaigns to change that – to bring dignity, recognition, and representation into the heart of how we remember. Because when we see ourselves in the story of Britain, we are more likely to feel we belong in its future. And in today's polarised climate, where extremists on all sides try to co-opt history for their own ends, telling the full truth has never mattered more. The military should never be a symbol of exclusion or division – but of shared sacrifice and service. By including all who gave and continue to give, we resist the falsehood that patriotism is the preserve of the few. It belongs to us all. Throughout the year, the portraits will travel across the UK, accompanied by educational materials and personal testimonies. We hope they will prompt conversation, introspection, and pride – especially among younger generations, for whom identity and belonging are live questions. There is not a more British story than that of service and sacrifice, and of the 10 million who served in the world wars – a great many of whom were Muslim. That history doesn't just deserve to be told – it deserves to be seen, honoured, and passed on. In remembering together, we can belong together. Nizam Uddin OBE is an entrepreneur who works at the intersection of financial services and technology. He was previously the senior head of mosaic and community integration at The King's Trust and is currently vice-chair of SOAS University of London. Great Faith: Stories of Sacrifice and Contribution is open from Wednesday 7 May 2025
