Notes from the North

reflections from a week of racist riots in the UK

Saturday’s Islamophobic riots in Leeds, right near where I went to an exercise class that morning

Do you know what it’s like to be hypervigilant?

It’s that sense of being surrounded by an overwhelming threat of danger. That pent up tension, like hearing a noise in your house when it’s night and you’re all alone. You hold your breath as you tiptoe through the building, familiar shapes now made strange in the dark, frightening in their potential. Adrenalin courses through your veins. You can hear your heart beat, dub-dub-dub, loud in your ears, as you pray that it’s nothing, it’s just the wind, or the neighbour’s cat, but you’re prepared, somehow, for the worst.

Hypervigilance is when an ‘individual is in an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity… linked to a dysregulated nervous system.^’ It can bring about ‘a state of increased anxiety’ which can cause ‘exhaustion.’

Hypervigilance can often be caused by traumatic events, or PTSD. It’s experienced by children who have grown up in abusive households, or those who have been through wars. After the events of 2017, I spent many years in a state of hypervigilance, seeing danger everywhere, unable to trust, unable to relax. My body, in an effort to protect me, refused to let go of the fear.

It’s been a while since I’ve felt the need to return to that oversensitive, exhausting state. I consider it a gift that London gave me, the space to relax again, the safety to let my guard down. But the events of the past few days have returned me to that old, familiar, haunting place.

I wasn’t expecting to write this reflection. As you loyal readers know, I’m on a break - working on writing my trial script for Emmerdale (which is why I’m in Leeds) and tackling the manuscript for my next Middle Grade novel (which is yet unannounced but I’m teasing here!). But as I found myself on the brink of tears this morning, riding the bus to Leeds City Center, I felt the urge to write. I needed a place to pour out this overwhelm, a space to make sense of the chaos.

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When I’m not in Leeds, I rent in a borough in East London. When my father came to visit last year, he couldn’t believe where we lived.

I’m pretty sure I got chased by skinheads on this street, he said. I couldn’t tell if he was being hyperbolic. Don’t worry, I assured him. London is very different now.

My father doesn’t talk much about his time in the UK during the 70s and 80s, but the longer I spent in Britain, the more I understand why. His experience was of Maggie Thatcher and the National Front, life in Rugby and out and proud racism. So when I decided to move to the UK, my father couldn’t quite understand it. Australia had always been much kinder to him, certainly in comparison.

But I’ll be honest, I genuinely believed that things were different, and told my father as such. In many ways, they are - we are not quite in the time of Powellism. Not yet. But I’ll be honest with you… these days, I wonder if we’re not far off.

I’m going back down to London today. Leeds might have chased the rioters out of the town square on Saturday, but I can’t be fighting back tears every time I catch the bus. I can’t be looking over my shoulder at every white man or woman walks too close, or mutters in my direction. I can’t be sitting at home alone, wondering when they’ll strike.

A man approached me in the coffee shop this morning, asking if I was Muslim (I wear a hijab, ‘tis obvious).

I reacted immediately, telling him to leave me alone.

Poor thing looked at me askance. I’m Muslim too, he said, but I couldn’t respond with the grace I wanted to. My adrenaline had spiked, my breath had shallowed. Leave me alone, I thought, followed by, I need to go home.

London is not safer necessarily, but I do have community there in a way I don’t here in Leeds. That is not Leeds’ fault, but a fact of the situation - I was only here temporarily, and I have not yet had the time or the bandwidth to build connection. So I return to my community. In community, there is safety, in community there is strength.

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But still, I am tired. I am tired at the thought that I must be hypervigilant because of who I am, because of how I appear, because I make the choice to exist and that angers some people to the point of violence. I do not hate those who hate me, that would require too much energy. No, instead, I pray for Allah to soften their hearts. I reserve my fury at those in true power, those who embolden and fan the flames, those who get off on creating conditions for cruelty and oppression. To those, I pray Allah delivers justice. If not in this life, then the next.

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I saw an uncle this morning, as I was standing at the bus stop. He was driving an Uber, a fresh toppee on his head, his salt and pepper beard staunch and proud. As he brought a paper cup of coffee to his lips, I noticed his fingers; weathered and chapped, the hand of an old man who has seen labour, who has seen life.

I thought of this uncle, picking up passengers who want to visit violence upon his body. People in his city who would berate him as they depend on him, who feel entitled to his service but not to seeing him, treating him as human. This man was not my uncle, but I have uncles like him, and I felt white-hot furious on his behalf.

See, I can handle the bullshit. In the end, I have the accent, the social capital, the language, the capacity. I have the choice to leave. But our elders? Or those recently arrived, with hopes and dreams of being able to live a life, any life, in safety? Who protects them?

I wish I could do so much more.

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We can.

We allow ourselves time to feel the fear. We give ourselves permission to be hypervigilant without judgement, for as long as we need. And we continue.

We continue to live. We continue to show up, for ourselves, and each other. We breathe, we build, we pray, we commune. We move forward, in whatever way we can. What else is there to do?

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I pray for protection for all my friends who feel afraid. For all of us who are made to feel unsafe for simply choosing life, I am with you. May Allah protect us, always.

Until next time,

Yassmin