Patriotism: The Olympics and the EDL
And how love is my defiance
I have put off writing the interview piece I was originally going to write up for this week because, in reality, my mind is elsewhere. This week’s news cycle has been tough — Palestine, the lies about a female boxer and then, to wrap it all up, we’ve got the UK’s far right violence on the streets out to kill, to destroy, to burn.
Last week, I felt so much pride and patriotism as I watched Team GB at the Olympics: Andy Murray in his last tournament, the women’s rowing quadruple sculls winning gold, Tom Daley’s dive, Alex Yee winning the men’s triathlon, and so much more. Many of us have become experts in various sports just to cheer for our athletes, many of whom are people of colour. And yet, here we are being told once again that we don’t belong here, that they don’t belong here.
I started Brown Bodies because having a safe space to talk about the experiences of our communities is beyond needed. This year, I’ve realised it’s even more important because our joy, our love and our softness is constantly under attack. It’s not deemed as important as it is in our white counterparts. Our love, our joy and our softness is systemically undermined, maybe even broken down to keep us from hope (see partition for an example of this). If you look at popular culture, how often do people of colour have to go through something horrifyingly traumatic before finding peace? Look at porn where women of colour are more likely to experience aggression at the hands of their partner than white female performers. Look at the news; we see how our children are not deemed as worthy of life because of the colour of their skin. They need to have pushed a lifeboat away from a war, crossed an ocean, and then become Olympians for society to deem them worthy of its support. Look at the government — are we going to have to wait until people of colour are murdered this week before they call it what it is? Do we need to be completely destroyed before we’re afforded protection?
I watched Riz Ahmed’s The Long Goodbye (watch it if you haven’t) when it first came out and I remember thinking I need a way out for my family if something like that ever happens. A back up plan. An exit route. And I have one. I have one planned in my head every time I move. I had never in a million years thought that those were the thoughts I’d have to have. Yet the atmosphere around Brexit instilled a fear in my heart that has only grown. For many of us, trauma of exile, persecution and division is passed down genetically — there’s more and more evidence to show this — so maybe I was perceptible to this fear. I had hoped we were the generation to break the trauma.
Today, please check in with your friends and colleagues. Especially, your Muslim friends and colleagues and your brown friends and colleagues. So many people are too scared to go out, too paralysed to work, fearful for family members. Check in with those who are angry too. And if you haven’t got anyone to talk to, hit me up. I can chat shit for days!
I truly don’t know how we change things or how we move forward. I am also angry and upset. I have also felt paralysed scrolling through social media. But I genuinely do believe that love, joy and softness are radical acts of resistance against the aggression of racism, Islamophobia and patriarchy. When people have said this to me in the past I have felt a surging anger. Why the hell would I show any love to those who have set a hotel on fire that is housing asylum seekers? And the answer is, I wouldn’t. While I understand that anti-immigrant rhetoric from our government has led those hardest hit by economic stresses to believe their suffering comes from immigrants ‘stealing’ their resources (rather than the corruption, policies, and greed of the government and the wealthy), I also can’t bring myself to show their violence compassion.
No, when I talk about love as a radical act I mean this: systems of oppression are designed to strip away our humanity, to harden our hearts, and to keep us in a constant state of vigilance and survival. In such an environment, the very act of nurturing love and joy becomes a powerful form of defiance. Romantic love, friendships, familial connections, community ties, and faith all require a level of vulnerability and openness that is profoundly challenging when the default state is one of survival. Survival can make us guarded, hardened, and wary of forming deep connections. To invest in relationships is a radical act, a deliberate choice to prioritise connection over isolation, to believe in hope over despair. To reconcile the fear of loss and continue to cultivate vulnerability, because what love brings with it is worth it.
Love, in all its forms, is a testament to our resilience — we create and sustain bonds despite those that seek to divide us, to strike fear in us. Oppression might tell us that we can’t maintain our love, that we’re not worthy of it, or we’re too broken to heal it. But love reminds us of our inherent worth. It gives us dignity. It allows us to be our authentic selves. Love creates community. It gives us our support and solidarity. Why do you think the advice is to surround yourself with your people when going through grief? It’s a shared humanity. And in that, there’s protection. There’s understanding.
When I say I love love, it is not just an Instagram slogan nor is it ‘woo woo’ hippy nonsense. It’s a way I declare my defiance.
I know I have quite a few readers not from the UK, thank you for reading. Here is some context of what is currently happening here that this piece is in response to.