What History Teaches Us About Terrorism, Communities And Fighting Misconceptions Towards Immigrants
Picture it. The scene plays out in a major Western city. The foreign-born terrorists, “were hold (sic) up in Martin’s Mansions, Sidney Street. The police surrounded the area at 2am to ward off [their] escape.” The army gets called in. Journalists from all the big media groups are embedded with police; the latest technological advances mean the whole world will know in great detail the events unfolding.
Sound familiar? It should. It describes an act of terrorism. It happened in London and was dubbed by the British press as the ‘Battle of Sidney Street’ or the ‘Stepney Siege’.
One month before the ‘battle’ an organised group of extremists had killed three police officers and wounded two others in a well-planned operation. “Who are these fiends in human shape?” the Daily Mirror was moved to ask. Well, they were all recent immigrants from a region of active religious persecution and political repression. You won’t find grainy smartphone videos of the ‘Battle of Sidney Street’ on YouTube though. Nor will you be able to review 24-hour live coverage and blogging of it on the BBC. The events on Sidney Street took place in January, 1911. To some that’s a long time ago, but not nearly long enough for there not to be important lessons we should remember today.
While the names, ethnic or religious groups involved, casualty rates and locations may vary, the attacks in Paris, Berlin, Nice, Orlando, Brussels, the Lindt Café siege in Sydney — they’ve all happened before. We do not need to fear it as some new and horrible reality. Even a passing familiarity with history shows that terrorism and extremism; radicalisation of youth; fear and resentment towards the communities from which the terrorists come, are not new.
In 1911 the ‘terrorists’, or as they were called, ‘radicals’, ‘anarchists’ or ‘revolutionaries’ were Russian or Latvian immigrants, mostly of Jewish heritage. By 1900, ten years before the events described above, some parts of East London were almost entirely inhabited by Jews who had given up their homes and livelihoods to escape violence, persecution and pogroms in the Russian Empire. As in today’s London — or Sydney, Paris or Brussels — not only did a new community of migrants face discrimination and resentment by a local population not eager to compete with the generally unskilled or semi-skilled newcomers, but in wanting (or in some cases, being forced by circumstances) to live largely in ‘ghettos’ or ‘ethnic enclaves’ they were surrounded by people of similar background and culture. While this gave them some sense of community and continuity, it stoked fears among the native Londoners, as in the space of a generation a large part of their city was transformed and rendered alien to them.
Then, as now, there were politicians and media figures who actively whipped up distrust and hatred towards these newcomers. Today commentary by British newspapers and politicians, from the Prime Minister down, talking about a ‘swarm’ of refugees echoes the dehumanising ‘disease’ terminology used by their forbears one hundred years ago to describe Jewish migrants.
In 1911, after the Stepney gun battle, The Morning Post described the new community of Eastern European Jews in London as, “…typhoid bacilli,” and “…aliens of the worst type — violent, cruel and dirty.” That’s not the anarchists themselves the paper is referring to, that’s the entire community. A quick internet search today among leading British or Australian newspapers would reveal similar misleading or hateful standards of commentary applied to Muslims, particularly refugees. They or their parents or grandparents have often fled dictatorships, oppression and persecution to try and eke out a new life. There is nothing unique about this; it is a pattern that recurs throughout human history.
In the early years of the twentieth century the Russian Empire was one of the most autocratic and illiberal states in the world. Unions, mass political parties and free press were all heavily restricted by the government. Anti-Semitism and pogroms were, if not encouraged by the state, at least not actively discouraged. Local authorities and in some cases church leaders were happy to condone these periodic waves of violence against the empire’s Jewish population.
Due in no small part to these measures, radicalisation of elements of the population was all but inevitable. Jews, non-Jews, Russians and minorities were all active in the revolutionary left-wing movements that flourished in pre-war Russia. Jews were overrepresented in these organisations for obvious reasons; the status quo actively persecuted them. This led however to the wider population hating and fearing Jews even more.
Many of those who fled then, and who flee now, are resentful and fearful towards any government, based on their experiences with their own. Add to this a hostile reception by elements of their new home country; “Go back to where you came from!” is a recipe for an existential crisis; when going back means death or torture, and staying means vilification or persecution. It is meaningless too for the children and grandchildren of immigrants, born in the new country but who would be strangers in their family’s former homeland. It is not remotely surprising that many of the newcomers feel no attachment to their Western home. They are told they do not belong.
The Battle of Sidney Street also reminds us that fear and misconceptions about these new communities is perennial. In Australia historically there has been fear, racism and intolerance directed towards many different groups; Irish Catholics; non-English speaking Whites; non-Europeans post-1945; Vietnamese in the 1970s; Lebanese from the 1980s; Chinese and other Asian immigration (a feature since at least the Gold Rush, but in particular) from the 1990s; Africans from the 2000s; and now, most noticeably Muslims from many different backgrounds are the main target. And that’s aside from the terrible treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander first nation people.
For every generation fear and hysteria about an ‘other’ is whipped up, and every generation, after far too much malice, discrimination, populist policies and hate crimes, the ‘other’ is eventually accepted and we move on. Until another group arrives, and the process begins again. The same was and is true in London. Whether or not the Jewish influx at the turn of the 20th century was the first large mass of different-looking–sounding-and-acting people to settle in London, many more have followed since. Some, like Jews then and Muslims today, have been associated with the actions of a violent minority and so are particularly targeted. Yet the idea today that Londoners are scared or put out by the great-grandchildren of Jewish Latvians assumes they can even tell that they are in any way different to themselves.
Finally — and this is the key — integration, open arms, empathy and giving the ‘other’ the benefit of a doubt go a long way. Turn of the century Britain let in large numbers of immigrants, but the government made no effort to integrate them or harmonise relations between them and their new British neighbours. This has not changed all that much today. Immigrants should become familiar with the values and culture of their new home and often do. They can’t be expected to know everything before they arrive. However it is not enough to say there is a culture gap, and that’s that. For example, gender equality is still in many areas imperfect in Australia, but it is a key principle and one that any new Australian needs to know about. The aim isn’t to turn every new arrival into a beer-guzzling, BBQ-hosting cricket fan, but rather to make sure that everybody is on the same page, and from this mutual understanding, further harmonising between cultures can take place with ease.
This said, it’s a two-way street. It is all very well to chastise immigrants for not adapting to local values, but if no attempt is made to educate Australians — or Westerners in general — as to the ways in which new immigrants and their cultures function — from how they dress, eat, or the languages they speak, and instead they only hear politicians fear mongering against the newcomers, then history will continue to repeat itself. Immigrants and existing communities are both scared of the unknown. When no effort is made to bridge the gap, to respect each other and try and learn more about different cultures, then fear and misunderstandings will continue to proliferate and lead to prejudice, xenophobia, violence, radicalisation and reaction. The downward spiral will continue.
Trawling through old newspaper pieces about the events on Sidney Street, I found among the repetitive and hateful descriptions of the crime or the communities the perpetrators came from, a piece by the Rev. Cannon Barnett in the old Brisbane paper, The Telegraph. He wrote:
“The pictures which imagination is forming of bloodthirsty anarchists breathing out fire and slaughter in the midst of a mass of sympathetic aliens are all perversions of the truth…The great need in East London is that the people, by receiving more respect, should gain self-respect…The lesson which I believe can best be drawn from the Stepney Siege is the importance of a higher moral standard.” Indeed it is, Rev. Indeed it is.
