09/09/2026
Back in July, Elia Ayoub went to Belfast during the week of July that includes the yearly bonfires on the 11th as well as the Orangemen’s march on the 12th, to see what – if any – similarities existed between sectarian issues in Northern Ireland / the North of Ireland (NI) and his home country of Lebanon.
He speaks with members of Anaka Women’s Collective - a community group that empowers and supports migrant and refugee women in NI - who have been monitoring the groups responsible for acts of violence against people of colour. In doing so, he discovered that they are rarely spontaneous, and instead products of organised far right strategy.
However, Elia writes, “far right and racist-sectarian actors are not the only organised groups operating in Belfast. One of the surprising things I heard from the Anaka Collective is that, despite the ongoing risks posed by the far right, they felt less anxious around the eleventh and twelfth this year thanks to the massive demonstration against racism that Belfast saw days after the pogroms in June.
One thing I’ve learned from Lebanon is that the process of sectarianisation – the process through which sectarianism is created and reproduced – is not some impermutable law of nature. It is a social construct that also contains within it the potential for its antithesis, de-sectarianisation. The same is true of racialisation, both of which are intimately linked in NI.”
🎨 Alexandra Francis 🌞
https://shado-mag.com/articles/opinion/how-belfast-came-together-after-the-pogrom/
