At Greenbelt

Someone came up to me after the talk: “So, are you a Muslim?” I felt a little surprised. “No,” I replied, “I’m not”. “… Oh, so what are you?” I felt the need to be sensitive; I had just addressed a predominantly Christian audience on a Sunday morning at the Greenbelt Festival, talking on the subject of Islamophobia. I kind of felt like saying: “Why do I have to be a something?”

It reminded me of being aged 11 in secondary school and my Christian religious studies teacher telling me off for saying I didn’t follow a religion. It seemed incomprehensible to him, and he refused to accept it. He wrote the words “Don’t Know” next to my name on the blackboard. I had a lump in my throat.

I thought for half a second as the audience started to disperse, and replied: “I’m an anarchist”. I don’t think it was the response he was looking for or expected, and the conversation seemed to end. The incident stuck in my mind. Perhaps it is strange that a non-religious anarchist would be talking at a Christian festival about the double standards applied to Muslims in this country, and urging for equality of the faiths.

A young man came up to me and asked me what it was like being arrested. On 25 October, it will be three years since I was arrested opposite the Cenotaph for breaking the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA), and it seemed strange people still remembered and wanted to know about it. I always forget the actual feeling of how real it was. Everything else paled into insignificance as I read the names of people who had died in such a sad way, names of innocent women and children, men who were just following orders. The feeling is immediate, it puts the emphasis on the here and now: without description, you are saying this is what is happening, this violence is wrong, these people and this government are responsible, this war must stop.

I told the young man it wasn’t that scary being arrested and the police were very polite.

In reality, I think the naming the dead ceremony was so humbling and consuming that being arrested seemed extremely insignificant next to a child being killed through warfare.

Being arrested for protesting against such obvious injustice is like a confirmation that our government is acting illegally in its involvement of the war. In arresting peaceful nonviolent anti-war protestors who weren’t harming anyone, they just show how government policy both foreign and domestic is completely illegitimate.

I turned and a woman who was a bit older than me put her hand on my arm: “Have you felt welcomed here?” What a strange question, I thought. “Yeah, I’ve had a really nice time. I especially liked the Christian punk rock.”

She seemed really pleased then I realised she had assumed I was a Muslim. I wondered if she would’ve been so concerned if she knew I was a nonbeliever who doesn’t actually support organised religion per se.

I kind of feel that mostly everyone realised I was coming from the angle that all religions have good and bad sides and we should encourage and support the good, and have equality across the board for all.