The light breaks through

Twice before I have felt inspired by a big demonstration of Oxford’s welcome to refugees.

The first time was a decade ago when the city came together to welcome Syrians fleeing the war and its accompanying brutality. The second was the city celebrating refugees everywhere during the visit of the giant puppet figure of Little Amal in 2021, when thousands lined the streets to show their support.

This week we’ve again seen Oxford at its best, and it’s all the more important because the violence people feared was over here, not over there.

Asylum Welcome was named as one of the much-publicised targets for far right, anti-refugee demonstrations planned for Wednesday evening. For “demonstrations”, read intimidation and violence. In the few days leading up to Wednesday evening, we were determined to keep services running and to close only for the few hours before the event. We were nonetheless very anxious. We had all seen the violence and hatred of the last week, and we all feared further escalation.

Ahead of the evening, we were overwhelmed by expressions of local support, offering us solidarity, donations, office space if we had to close, dropping off cakes and even a much-appreciated watermelon.

The arrival of our local Imam and Bishop together, bringing lunch for the staff, volunteers and clients in the office just before we closed up, felt very symbolic.

The police were helpful in helping us prepare. But our biggest dilemma was how to respond to the wish by the local Stand Up to Racism group to organise a counter-protest to protect our office. While we valued their solidarity and indeed encouraged our staff to join an event earlier in the week, we were concerned that, in the narrow residential street and enclosed courtyard where our office is located, we were creating risks for local residents and police as the opposing groups met – all for the sake of an empty office. So, we reluctantly discouraged supporters from attending. I’ve rarely been so uplifted by being ignored!

I chose to spend the evening at the local asylum hotel. Those terrible scenes of rioters forcing their way into the Tamworth hotel earlier this week were so vivid that the safety of our office didn’t feel important. Some hotel residents had seen the news and threats and were scared; others were just bewildered as to how anyone in what they had believed was a safe country could hate people they didn’t even know enough to want to attack them.

Well, the far-right protesters never materialised. But the counter-protesters certainly did, both at our office and at the hotel. Whether the extremists’ failure to turn up was caused by the arrests, the deterrent effect, the enhanced police presence, the size of the counter-protests across the country, or simply their overestimation of strength, we don’t know. What we do know is how inspiring the sense of solidarity brought by public support was, both before and during the evening. At the hotel, once the residents realised that the singing and cheering came from counter-protesters as a sign of support, you could feel them relaxing, standing taller and cheering back. And in the street outside our well-protected office, the sense that Oxford cares was reinforced by every chant of the 500-strong gathering.

The day after the protest-that-never-was, we can’t assume that the troubles are over or that the extremists have gone away. They haven’t.

But we can go back to work strengthened by the many people who want to show that we are a better, more compassionate society than some would have us be, and confident that we live in a city and country where many are willing and proud to stand up for their values. That makes us all stronger.

We have often said that we depend on the solidarity and support of our local community – that has never felt truer. We, at Asylum Welcome, recommit to doing our part to strengthen and deepen that community, in the spirit of welcome.