Increased home working and fewer opportunities to socialise during the coronavirus pandemic is threatening to make society less tolerant of diversity, a report warns.

Reduced access to workplaces, leisure centres and other communal facilities is likely to make it much harder to form friendships that break down prejudices, the Woolf Institute said.

Without alternative opportunities for social mixing, its researchers believe this will lead directly to an increase in prejudice.

The research centre, based in Cambridge, is launching the results of a two-year study, which saw 11,701 adults surveyed about their attitudes towards diversity in England and Wales.

The report, How We Get Along, suggests that there is an emerging consensus that diversity is a positive thing, but that change has occurred too quickly.

More than half (53%) agree that ethnic diversity is good for society, 46% believe the same of migrants and 41% believe the same of religious diversity.

However, 60% of respondents said they feel the number of migrants in Britain has risen too quickly over the past decade, half believe ethnic diversity has increased too quickly and 43% believe the same of religious diversity.

The findings also suggests that negative beliefs about religions such as Islam continue to be widely held.

Religious prejudice, particularly towards Muslims, is the “final frontier” for diversity as people still appear willing to express negative attitudes.

The report authors are concerned that Covid-19 will make people become less tolerant, as it reduces their opportunities to make friends outside of their ethnic, religious or national groups.

Workplaces provide opportunities to create “shared goals, break down stereotypes and foster positive attitudes”, with the report finding that those without work are twice as likely to have no friends outside their own ethnicity, nationality and religion.

Dr Ed Kessler, founder director of the Woolf Institute, said: “As people are forced to work from home during Covid, there is a risk that they go back into isolated silos.

“Creating new opportunities for friendships should be a key ingredient of public policy.”

While overall trends are positive, attitudes towards religious diversity were markedly less so, suggesting religion is a “red line” for many people in England and Wales.

The polling found less than half (44%) of people would be comfortable with a close relative marrying a Muslim.

This compares to around seven in 10 respondents feeling comfortable with a loved one marrying an Asian or black person.

However, the data also suggest that a majority of Muslims had the same negative marriage attitudes towards Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Sikh people and those of no faith.

Dr Hargreaves said: “The good news is that there is a strong consensus in our findings that diversity is good for our country, whether we look at ethnicity, migration or religion. It is, however, also clear that, of these three forms of diversity, acceptance of religious diversity lags significantly behind.

“Being Muslim, in particular, appears to remain a “trigger” for prejudice, making religion a ‘final frontier’ for prejudice in England and Wales.”

Overall, women, younger people, Remain, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters appear to be more positive towards ethnic and religious diversity in Britain.

People living in more ethnically and religiously diverse communities were more likely to hold negative attitudes.

Remain, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters showed more positive attitudes towards migrants in Britain.

Attitudes towards migrants were more negative everywhere outside of London except for the south east, which the authors said may be a “regrettable bad news story from the provinces” for multicultural Londoners.

People in the North West were the least likely to have ethnically diverse friendships, and were 54% more likely than Londoners to only have friends from the same ethnic background.

Those in the North East were the least likely to have any non-British friends, and were two-and-a-half times as likely as Londoners to only be friends with British people.

The slide into a bizarre world of believing conspiracy theories and voicing openly toxic and bigoted views took place slowly over the last decade whilst many of us were not able to fathom how quickly and extensively social media had taken charge of our lives. As the Founder and previous Director of Tell MAMA, which supports victims of anti-Muslim hate, the world that I know of today, as someone reaching his fifties, is virtually unrecognisable to the one in which I worked just a decade ago and where there was real hope that levels of racism, prejudice and intolerance were finally on a downward slope.

Today’s world is also a far cry from that in which I grew up. As a refugee from Amin’s Uganda in 1972, and having fled a second time from Africa in 1983 because of military instability in Kenya, I suffered at first hand the openly racist abuse meted out to Asians and African-Caribbean communities in Kent where I was schooled. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, that open racism existed, flourished and led to the murder of young black men such as Stephen Lawrence. Such open hatred impacted on many young men and women from BME communities, though the economic boom of that period helped to also temper some of the racist anger and bigotry. Anti-racism work, equality marches and work-based equal opportunity schemes seem to have turned the tide against division that many of us assumed would mean a country more at ease with its diversity.

Whilst the UK is in a far better place than the ’80s, the reality is that, as a country, we have slid backwards towards openly aggressive far-right marches rallying thousands of people, national political instability and a rising sense of mistrust which is acutely felt between BME communities and the two main parties. This, mixed with a recent economic crisis, has created the perfect storm for social insecurity and it is this insecurity that some have played upon in fomenting divisive and openly hostile views toward groups of people in our society. It is also within this environment of insecurity that people have sought comfort within narratives of division that blame others and which provide a sense of meaning to them, however twisted that may be.

For such individuals, conspiracy theories become reality since the world around them is unstable and frightening. Grasping onto something almost tangible, that explains the complexity of life in a simplistic fashion, fills the void that many of us currently feel in an increasingly frightening world. This is why, for example, conspiracy merchants who peddle views of an ‘Islamic takeover’ or of hordes of Muslims outbreeding other communities, manage to find a receptive audience. With less money in people’s pockets, communities aggressively vying for resources in austerity, and a sense of confusion as to where we are heading as a nation, you can see how easy it is for people to believe that there are hidden factors at play. The culprits, in their opinion, are more than likely Muslims, Jews or migrants.

Both Muslims and Jews have felt a sharp rise in hostility towards them and hate crime figures show such a rise over the last five years. Much of this is due to hate online and, furthermore, since 2012, when I founded Tell MAMA, it was clear to me that social media companies would not remove hateful and criminal material, nor would they take down far-right, neo-Nazi or Islamist extremist accounts. Their business model was based on getting traction for their technological revolutions through more accounts opening up. In doing so, they helped create the fog and smoke of disinformation and gave an amplified voice to extremist groups masquerading as ‘free speech’ martyrs. These companies, whilst levelling the playing field for more voices to be heard, also exposed people to views and opinions that would have been marginalised for a reason. Yet their platforms also legitimised toxic views by placing those views into a worldwide market of ideas where extremist groups were better equipped to promote them.

Let me explain. Marginalised, divisive and racist groups by their very nature had to be far more energetic and driven to try to win supporters. Before the advent of social media these people had to host events, print leaflets and remain active at a street level. That all took time and money and, to make it worse, they also looked pretty scary. However, such groups were always driven; they had to be to survive.

Now post their divisive messages on social media with a ‘friendly face’, remove the racist insignia and blame migrants, Muslims and foreigners, and strangely there was a more receptive audience as people’s fears and insecurities rose over the last decade. Additionally, as many of us played catch-up to try to challenge extremist and divisive views, these individuals and groups already had a head start since they were naturally driven and could see the power of the new platforms. It was a toxic, heady mix that was to have a severe impact on our society, as we are now seeing today.

This is why we must mobilise and defend the social values we enjoy in our country, and which are under threat. It is not just those, as this paper has highlighted, who try and divide local communities, who we must challenge; it is also those beyond our shores, who support extremist groups and seek to destabilise our democracy by fomenting instability, whom we must remain vigilant against. If we take our eye off the ball in these crucial years, it is not only our values which may change – it could be our very understanding of reality. Now that truly is frightening.

Politicians across Europe are calling for a ban on the Islamic veil but Bosnian Muslim Indira Sinanovic is defying the trend as well as widespread prejudice in her own country, becoming the first fully-veiled woman here to run for public office.

Sinanovic, 37, wears the niqab – a garment that covers the hair and all the face apart from the eyes – and her aim if elected to the council in her central Bosnian hometown of Zavidovici is to battle prejudice and social exclusion.

Bosnia has no laws against the public wearing of the niqab and the burqa, clothes that have come to be associated with a fundamentalist reading of Islam, but a ban on court officials wearing headscarves has made Sinanovic and other activists wary.

“It’s the basic right of every citizen,” said the outspoken mother of two, speaking ahead of Sunday’s election in the office of IML (Islam My Life) Television in the town of Zenica, where she works as a journalist.

“(If elected) I would try to turn attention to the people who live in poverty, to be their voice in the municipal council and push for projects to improve their social status,” she said.

Bosnia has one of Europe’s largest indigenous Muslim populations, a legacy of its centuries-long history as part of the Ottoman Empire, but prejudice against overt displays of religion is widespread and Sinanovic has borne her share of it.

Sinanovic, who wears a long black robe and hides her eyes behind glasses, says she herself has been called names in the street such as “Ninja” or “Terrorist” or has been told “Go to Afghanistan” and “Go to Syria”.

Islam has traditionally been very liberal in multi-ethnic Bosnia, which for nearly 50 years was part of officially atheist Yugoslavia, but attitudes have shifted since the three-year Bosnian war, when Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs fought a war of “ethnic cleansing” that cost 100,000 lives.

Poverty is still widespread 20 years later and Bosnia remains deeply divided between Serbs, Croats and the Muslim Bosniaks.

Arab mujahideen fighters who came to help their Bosniak co-religionists during the war brought more conservative habits with them, as did an influx of Saudi money after the war, much of which financed the building of traditionalist mosques.

Racism is not the domain of any specific racial, religious or cultural group. That is a fact and blaming a particular group for racism is not reflective of what is taking place. Factually, though, we know that street based anti-Muslim prejudice is perpetrated mainly by white males, between the ages of 15-35. This not to blame a specific racial group, it is to highlight the demographic of where perpetrators are coming from.

Yet, as we have suggested, it is not found just in one community. It can be found in all communities and vigilance against it is essential.

It is therefore particularly depressing when we find antagonism and inferences to prejudice and bigotry in the language of those from BAME (Black and Minority Ethnic) groups. In this video, of an incident in Alum Rock, Birmingham, the depressing reality of issues comes to light.

In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, there was a sense of solidarity between BAME groups as they came together to tackle overt racism which saw individuals attacked in the street because of their race. That solidarity was a source of strength in some of the most difficult moments.

That said, racism and bigotry against the majority community is unacceptable. We cannot tackle racism and bigotry without tackling all forms of it and this forms the moral basis of the work. In the meantime, we hope that BAME communities take time to come together and campaign on issues to ensure that prejudice is tackled. This also means including Jewish communities who have given much in the fight against racism, bigotry and prejudice.

The post Does Black on Black Abuse Show a Breakdown in BAME Solidarity? appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Sometimes, many of us forget about Northern Ireland and the social dynamics that make up this part of the United Kingdom. Recently Northern Ireland has been in the news for a series of racist attacks in South and East Belfast, by the Ulster Group – the Ulster Volunteer Force.

A Muslim woman reported into us last week on the intimidation that sections of the Muslim community are receiving, including death threats from what seem to be, people associated with a Loyalist group.

Last year, Eid-Ul-Fitr prayers were held by the local Muslim community in Belfast. Worshippers had to be evacuated due to a hoax fire alarm and online threats to worshippers were also made. This year, the local Muslim community held official prayers in the town of Lisburn and within the large Lisburn Leisureplex. Plans were made to hold it in the Leisureplex since there was ample parking and it was not near the city centre so that any inconvenience to local residents could be reduced.

Yet, as can be seen by the following comments, threats and anti-Muslim abuse by Loyalists came thick and fast.

The following comment was also made by the Muslim female who reported this material into us. She stated:

“I have been an involved member of the community for over 10 years. I feel it has never been this bad…”

On Wednesday, the former pastor of the largest church in Northern Ireland, James McConnell, will be up in court for his inflammatory comments about Islam. The pastor has not withdrawn his comments and has suggested that he is willing to go to jail, with some stating that he is being persecuted by Muslims for his faith.

Some within Muslim communities are genuinely concerned that Wednesday and the James McConnell case will further inflame tensions. If he is found not guilty, some Muslims feel that it will open the door to possible anti-Muslim hatred and his views being legitimised. If he is convicted, others feel that there will be a backlash against Muslims. Either way, the future for race and faith relations in Northern Ireland certainly does not look healthy.

The post Intimidation in Northern Ireland Towards Muslims is Deeply Worrying appeared first on TELL MAMA.