Hidden

His name is Lewis Hawks
And you may not know his name
As it has been hidden compared to more deserving outrages
He has been charged with five counts of attempted murder
For attacking five young men in the streets of Edinburgh
Five young Muslim men
And for having terrorist connections

His name is Lewis Hawks
And his name should not be remembered
So we shall refer to him as a weapon wielding racist terrorist
And his attacks are against the background
Of a racist anti-immigrant pogrom in Belfast
Where rioters went door to door looking for victims

He is a weapon wielding racist terrorist
But you would not know it by watching British media
Fifty-Nine minutes were devoted by BBC News to the Edinburgh attack
Where as BBC News devoted 317 minutes to the Golder’s Green attack on two Jewish men
That, even at the time, was not terrorism

He is a weapon wielding racist terrorist
And while the BBC has a history of audience manipulation
They are not alone
Sky News 43 minutes vs. 282 minutes
GB News 9 minutes vs. 355 minutes
And in online British news sources
Nine articles a day vs. 196 articles a day

He is a weapon wielding racist terrorist
And he is the hidden underbelly we don’t talk about
While a community and his victims suffer in fear and anxiety
The machinery of the state pays lip service to their suffering
While sliding into authoritarianism that shocks even Americans

He is a weapon wielding racist terrorist
And he is a symptom rather than a cause
In a state that proscribes groups such as Palestine Action
And jerry rigs the courts to call them terrorists
With female Judges ironically, and disingenuously, ignoring how Palestine Action follows a long British tradition of civil disobedience
Including the Suffragettes who fought for a woman’s right to be a judge
A state that arrests demonstrators for the phrase
“I oppose Genocide. I support Palestine action”
With the majority of those arrested in their 60s

He is a weapon wielding racist terrorist
And we have a hidden problem
Not that we have a race relation and immigration problem
But that we do not recognize our institutional contributions to these issues
Our institutional blindness, inaction, and action
And our government complicity and tolerance of intolerance
The under policing of the extreme right
And the defense of the indefensible

He is a weapon wielding racist terrorist
And we are becoming what we are supposed to be against
The irony of the BBC running an ad stating
“Trust is earned, This is our BBC”
As it excludes and ignores those it does not like
Demonizes those it can’t ignore
And lionizes others it is told to support

He is a weapon wielding racist terrorist
And we recognize him as such
Much like we fight racism by stopping our institutions and government being racist
And we stop our institutions and government being racist by recognizing them as such
By saying enough is enough

He is a weapon wielding racist terrorist.