SporeRB
maddyone
I was frightened too growstuff and I think we all were. I was always aware if I went to London, exactly the same as now.
Maddyone, can I ask you some simple questions?
When you went to London, did anyone spat on the ground in front of you whilst you are walking?
Do you encounter anyone who looked at you with so much hatred as if they would like to kill you?
Do you have anyone came to you and told you to your face to go back to your own country?
Do you have a boss that came to you and forbid you from wearing clothes that represent your religion?
Do you have a child who did not acknowledge your family on social media when she was young because she worried what other people thought of her?
Do you have someone at your office killed during the 7/7 bombing in London?
Do you have relatives on your husband’s side that hate you because of your religion and tried to break up your marriage, intimidated you and even trespassed your property when you were not there?
All the above happened to me and my Muslim family when they came to visit me from abroad as tourists but that does not stop any one of us from visiting London or anywhere else for that matter.
My daughter’s partner went to Israel to trace his Jewish ancestry and he was taken in for questioning twice at the airport because there was a stamp in his passport of a country that did not recognised Israel as a country.
A country he and my daughter visited to see my family a few months before.
I told him that is definitely a holiday to remember, it is not everyday you visit a country and end up taken in twice for questioning.
SporeRB I live in central London, and I am so sorry that your family have had such a frightening experience of the city. It is perfectly understandable why some people are cautious about coming into London, and if they are wary then they are sensible not to come into the city. I can only speak personally, and have never felt frightened here. This is despite living near enough to Tavistock Square to have heard the bomb explode on the bus on 7 July 2007, and being caught up in the aftermath. I also worked at an event in the area of London Bridge the day after the stabbings a few years ago. The police agreed for the event to go ahead, and all of us involved in the event turned up, as did most of the patrons, as we did not want the terrorists to frighten us into cancelling the event. I found your questions really thought provoking as I think that I have to answer 'no' to all of your questions, and so maybe that is why I am not frightened to live in London. I have, for instance, never been told to go home, but the mother of a friend of mine, a British Citizen, was told to go home on one occasion, but that was the day after the Brexit referendum, but it caused the same upset that your family must feel when they are thus treated. I do have both Muslim and Jewish friends, and the current rise in Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism is indeed very worrying.
