The police were getting ready for far-right demonstrations in 100 locations, we were told. Hounslow, a west London suburb, has a decent mix of Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Sikhs but we have never had any serious race relations trouble. This changed at 3 p.m when Hounslow’s high street became a ghost town. Panicked police officers asked shops to close down, with their shutters up, preparing for an onslaught. Locals were baffled. From whom? Where? Why us?
The Hounslow Muslim Centre, a mosque, is close to the high street and word soon got out that this could be a target. Before too long there were two to three dozen people surrounding the mosque entrance, as if forming a human shield around it. It was peaceful; they had no weapons. It seemed to be a spontaneous, even baffled response to the idea that a mosque could find itself under attack in a place like Hounslow. Then we were given another lesson: the incendiary effect of social media.
TikTok users were on high alert, looking to cover anything kicking off anywhere. Soon, pictures of the Hounslow mosque ‘defenders’ were going viral. One account, @shawnuk, posted a livestream that collected 10,000 viewers and more than 110,000 likes within 20 minutes. Suddenly masses of youth, of around two hundred, started to gather in solidarity at the mosque. But they came with their faces covered with masks and balaclavas, armed with weapons like bats, clubs and knives. They chanted for members of the EDL to dare approach the mosque.
Instead of skinheads, police vans swarmed up with armed police carrying batons. After a while, dispersal order was issued – threatening arrest if people didn’t leave. No one moved: indeed, the crowd grew. Tensions were rising. I saw a group of around seven young men with black rucksacks, being chased by armed police officers. The contents of those rucksacks was such that they didn’t want the police to find: they threw them over walls and garden fences and shortly after were apprehended.
At this point the Dean of the mosque stepped outside, asking everyone to return to their homes. They began doing so. At the time of writing, it seems that Hounslow will not, contrary to what police feared, be target of an EDL attack. But this evening offered a case study in how the expectation of attack can be incendiary, how fast word passes on social media and how quickly those looking for a fight can move to find one.
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