'Belonging' under Tory Britain

While this Conservative government shows us what it really thinks of BME people 

* By cutting funds so that women’s groups are struggling to support women resisting domestic violence or fleeing violence as refugees from war torn countries 

* By intensifying racism and sexism as seen by the increase in violent racist attacks on muslim women especially after Brexit

* By blaming migrants for the the country’s economic and social problems

* By brutally detaining, arresting, conducting workplace raids and deporting people under the racist asylum and immigration laws, 

* By forcing women to stay in violent relationships because of racist and sexist immigration     rules, 

* By proposing racist passport checks on pregnant women in hospitals, 

* By getting schools to collect immigration data on their students which is being used by the Home Office for immigration enforcement

* By taking no action against right wing racists and sexists and criminalising the victims or blaming the victim instead…

So it was shocking to see an extract of the film Left Behind (an advert for PREVENT) appearing on GEO news at peak time viewing on Saturday 15 October (watched by many South Asians in Britain) where the spokespersons along with the text all present a very ‘caring’ and concerned’  image of the British State. 

The same website (Preventing Tragedies) where the  original ‘Left Behind’ film is posted claims to ‘care deeply about the well-being of women and girls’ .  They care so much that on international women’s day in 2016 they launched  a new Prevent Tragedies Communities Conversation initiative. 

And yet BME people who disagree with government policies (foreign and domestic) are seen as ‘outsiders’ ‘suspects’ and ‘radicalised’. You also come under the PREVENT target if you show support for Palestine. After trying to force PREVENT policies into Education and Health and despite the massive opposition to these policies the government is trying to go into ‘communties’ and has even changed the name of PREVENT to ENGAGE. 

So GEO news and the Conservative government coming together to broadcast this advert, means that in order for South Asians to really be ‘Tory Party British’, and to  really belong and have any rights and access to services in ‘Tory Britain’ it is not enough to be a just a (vulnerable) human being, worker, family member, or a citizen, they must also agree with, submit and defer to racist, sexist, right wing policies and practices of the Conservative government and spy on each other….while at the same time their own day to day lives will continue to be destroyed by those very same policies and practices. 

Its only by coming together against state racism that we can get rid of this 'iron fist in a velvet glove' ruling monster...