On Immigrants, Identity, and Who the Real Enemy Is
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED
5-22-26
A few years ago, my brother Roger Martinez and I were walking past a hookah bar on the Edgware Road in London when three young black women sitting at one of the outside tables, heard Roger’s accent and asked us if we were from America; we said we were.
"We can't go to America," one of them said.
"Why not?" Roger asked.
"We're Somalis, Muslims”, one of them replied, “Trump says we're terrorists and he's barred us from entering the US. There's only 12 million of us on the planet.", she added with a wry smile.
We had forgotten about that ban entirely. We stopped and talked for a while. They were warm, funny young women with strong London accents — they'd been born there. Roger asked about traditional dress and head coverings. They were all dressed as young western women typically dress. They explained that they wore traditional clothing when they wanted to show respect to their parents, at cultural events, or simply when they felt like it. It was part of who they are.
I feel no threat or anxiety about immigrants wearing traditional clothing. When I left London more than fifty years ago, Young Indian women almost always dressed in traditional clothing. That's largely changed now, and it changed on its own terms, over time, within families — not because anyone demanded it.
I'll be honest: when it comes to the full covering of a woman's face and body, as practiced by some Muslims, I find it difficult to look at its origins without seeing misogyny and patriarchy. Whether the Quran demands it or Allah commands it are questions I'll leave to those with more knowledge of the subject than me and to the women themselves. What I am certain of is this — no priest, no mullah, no religious authority, and no politician has the right to tell a woman how to dress. And we should stress that Madison Avenue and the fashion industry pressure women relentlessly too, shaming girls into a different kind of conformity. The coercion comes from many directions.
I’m writing this commentary after watching some of the coverage of the far-right rally in London last week and the disgusting spectacle in the video above, of the rabid crowd chanting "take them off" at three French women on a stage dressed as fully covered Muslim women. It accomplished nothing except cruelty, and if the fascist elements that are behind such events thought they might “shame” this section of the immigrant population in to “assimilation” as they see it, they are wrong.
When people feel attacked, they hold more tightly to the traditions they came from. That's human nature. The second and third generations — the children and grandchildren of immigrants — will negotiate their own relationship with their heritage, and that negotiation will happen within families, organically, in ways that no outsider can engineer or accelerate. Muslims make up roughly 6% of the UK population. And they are overwhelmingly working class. They are not a threat. They are neighbors and, more importantly from a workers’ perspective, they are our class allies.
There is also a breathtaking hypocrisy at the heart of the demand that immigrants abandon their cultural traditions. The British Empire once encompassed 23% of the world's population. British officers, colonial administrators, and settlers went to Africa, India, and across the globe and dressed, worshipped, and conducted themselves as British people. Any soldier who "went native" was considered an embarrassment. The Empire imposed itself on the world. It did not ask permission and it did not assimilate.
Finally, and most importantly: anyone who thinks this movement will stop at Muslims is not paying attention. Muslims are simply the most visible target right now. A Sikh friend told me with some horror that a few Sikhs had shown up alongside the racists at that rally. They would do well to reconsider. The turbans, the kippahs, the crosses that aren't the right kind of cross — all of it is on the list. So are atheists like me.
The crisis ordinary British people are living through is not caused by immigrants. It is a failure of a system that cannot provide basic necessities in one of the wealthiest countries on earth. The people at the top of that system need someone to blame, and immigrants are a convenient answer. Meanwhile, the wars, the drone strikes, the destabilization of entire regions of the Global South — these are what drive people northward in the first place. They are not invaders. They are the refugees of other people's wars
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