Signs of the Times Autumn 2024
August 12, 2024
Dream with us at Greenbelt!
August 20, 2024
by Raj Bharat Patta
It was appalling and shocking to see the spiralling violence, riots and intimidation across the country following the horrific incident of three girls who were stabbed in Southport on 29th July 2024. These riots have been extremely racist and anti-migrant. There has been so much venom spat out by far-right extremists against people who looked different from them. Mosques and police officers have been attacked, property vandalised, hotels with people seeking asylum were targeted and this has created an atmosphere of fear among ethnic minority communities.
Laura Hood in her article, “UK riots: five essential reads on what triggered a week of violence” explains what happened to cause these riots, which gives a summary of the whole episode so far. She mentions: the middle-aged radicals, the political elites who enabled islamophobia, the phoney ‘masculinity’ of racists, the unspoken problem of English nationalism, and the hypocrisy of in-group logic.[1] It is an interesting read that gives a political perspective on the situation today. Online and offline hate mixed with the spreading of misinformation served as a tool to incite violence and riots on the streets of Britain.
The way communities came together with a message of love and compassion to resist and counter-protest against the rioters is heartening and welcoming as they offer signs of hope. Thanks are due to the public services – the police in particular – for the way they handled the situation, and for bringing to justice those miscreants who caused the riots. Inter-faith expressions of solidarity and the peace-building efforts among grass-root groups have found their true meaning at a time like this. In all these attempts, one could notice public theology coming alive from various quarters of society, making an impact on the lives of people in local communities. There have been several positive stories that were shared about how people, transcending their identities, came forward to offer support and solidarity to ethnic minority communities. On a recent visit to a local mosque, the leader was sharing with us how a neighbour reached out to them, saying that if anyone were to come after them, he would be standing by them and chasing away the offenders. This boosted the morale of the local communities living in fear.
Where is the divine in all of this?
The misuse of Christian language and symbolism by far-right groups in the UK, inciting violence and racism, is both inhuman, irresponsible and unspiritual. Where is God in all of this? The far-right extremists’ self-justification is that they are defending “Christian Britain” and therefore have the divine on their side. Does God side with those inciting violence and spitting hatred and fear against ‘the other’?
But who is this ‘divine’ that the rioters claim? For me, it is a colonial image of God that they are projecting through their deeds of violence. Such an understanding of God emerges from these rioters’ experience of privilege and power, for coloniality thrived on the principle of ‘divide and rule’ which forms a bedrock to their selfish (mis)understanding of God. Demonising the ‘other’, in this case immigrants, and ethnic minority groups, demonstrates their rage about diversity and intolerance of inclusivity. Their God, who is regimental, dictatorial and divisive. Such a divine identity is a disgrace, for God in the public sphere is known otherwise in the names of love, peace and justice.
From my own immigrant’s perspective, when we and our communities have experienced fear and felt threatened, I have wondered each day, ‘where is the divine in all these riots’? The kind of God that I have experienced from my Dalit Christian roots can never align nor locate themselves on the side of the rioters. Riots in our context today are human made, for they are orchestrated to sow the seeds of fear on the ‘other’ driven by misinformation and xenophobia. For God so loved the world that any act that destroys, deviates and disturbs the vision of God for the world – ‘the new heaven and new earth’ – where love, peace and justice flourishes, is against the will of God. The week-long acts of violence, criminality and hatred are acts of un-divine, against God and are not of God.
A decolonial understanding of God as love is my key in locating the divine in this context. God in Jesus, whom I have experienced as a crucified-risen saviour provides me the lens in understanding God from the bottom-up. During this month’s lectionary reflections on God in Jesus as the bread of life, I understood God as consisting of various ingredients of life well kneaded like in a bread, involving a process of fermentation in love and cooked on the fire of compassion. God for me is a composition God, where the ingredients of life like love, peace, and justice, are combined in the bread of life. During the riots, these ingredients of life are destroyed which thereby distorts the very being of God.
As also mentioned in the Christian scriptures “whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (I John 4:8v). Who are those who do not love and therefore do not know God, who is love? Or why is it that there are some who do not love and why are there some who are never loved? This is where we recognise and explain that due to power imbalances that exist in our society due to class, gender, race, colour, caste, religion, region, and language, there are some people who do not love or there are some who are never loved. Structures and systems of injustice have taken deep root in our society, allowing the powerful to oppress and discriminate against the powerless, giving room to lovelessness and ultimately leading to the ‘un-God(ly)’, which for me is ‘un-love.’ Riots are an expression of ‘un-love’ today and thereby are un-God too.
It is here we need to name the negative impact of Brexit and also of people like Robinson, Farage, Musk and such other people who have been creating a toxic atmosphere where the division of ‘us’ and ‘them’ has ever widened. These people have misused their power and allowed their public spaces to be fertile grounds in promoting vile against the other. Prestige, positions, prejudice, privilege have crept into the society as ramifications of power, causing some not to love others, for they do not know God, who is love. In other words, wherever and whenever injustice thrives, hate and hatred is spread against the ‘other,’ fear is sown through violence and life is threatened, it is un-divine, not of God, for there is no place for love there.
By contrast, God is located in our being and becoming a nation of sanctuary, offering hope, home and hospitality for all. God’s sanctuary is on the margins, among the migrants, the ethnic minority communities and in the efforts of solidarity and love. On the one hand the divine is weeping with the families of the three little girls who were stabbed in Southport and on the other hand God is walking with the counter-protest movements inviting communities to stand with the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the stranger and the ‘other’ working for a transformed world.
The context of the riots calls all of us to name and acknowledge our privilege and invites us to be bold in our love for the other, defeating racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, antisemitism, and pseudo-nationalism. God for me has come real to us as we witnessed how prayer served as a counter movement to the far-right marches, for prayer helped us to overcome fear and instil the courage to work for God’s justice of God by loving creation unconditionally.
Rev Dr Raj Bharat Patta is a Methodist Minister in Stockport and a Dalit Liberation Theologian, author of ‘Dalitekklesia: A Church from Below’, and ‘Subaltern Public Theology: Dalits and the Indian Public Sphere’. He was also a speaker at Modern Church’s 2023 conference.
