The Day The Tanks Came

by Kashif Richardo

entire queue fixed on me, this man buying Muslim meat. I felt so ashamed, not for choosing the chicken. For God's sake it was just a chicken, I didn't care if it was halal or not. The fact that I didn't say it at the time was what hurt. I did not have the courage to back up my beliefs that vilifying a quarter of the world's population was wrong. What made it worse was that the sole tear on my cheek was seen as shame at almost buying a halal chicken.

  "Idiot! Why don't you bugger off with your Asian pals?" muttered one man as I returned to the checkout.

  I returned home, too ashamed to admit to my wife what had happened. She hugged me and prepared the chicken I had picked up. The non-halal chicken tasted like ashes in my mouth. Normally I couldn't tell the difference but that night it was tainted with my cowardice.

  We put my son to sleep and steeled ourselves for the news broadcasts, as though sensing people wouldn't want to watch the news, filled as it was with new news of terror, they had interceded the timetables of films, sitcoms and documentaries with short news bursts. All filled with hate and bile from celebrities and politicians. Perhaps I wouldn't have remembered the chicken incident if it hadn't been for that night. That was when it started, the presidential hopeful had been appointed to represent his party. He had been tried in a court of public opinion and emerged victorious.

  The rich entitled and the poor, ill-educated flocked to his banner in droves and the rhetoric intensified. The news was filled with his face and message. We had been sure that saner minds would prevail and he wouldn't be allowed to continue. Instead he and his support had grown. His party changed from a far Right Wing political movement to out and out Fascist. There was no dissention in the ranks; private disciplinary hearings took place behind closed doors to decide the fate of all who chose to disagree with him.

  Journalists on both sides of the Atlantic took to "outing" anyone with a past link to Islam, which in the UK wasn't hard to find. Helping a neighbour a few years ago, giving a lift to his mosque when his car broke down and the busses were late was seen as sympathising. Helping out when he was collecting for the Red Crescent in Syria was seen as supplying terrorism. We stopped talking to some of our neighbours and friends, some were Muslim and some had spoken out in defence of their friends. Others, we didn't want to associate with given their Right Wing extremism.

  Since the advent of mobile technology, conversation had taken a downturn, but now commuting was largely in silence, no one knew who would say something, or inform the media about an innocent statement taken out of context. We sat in fear of the man next to us, or the woman behind or the child staring from across the aisle. Fear purchased our silence oh, so cheaply.

  We were required to show ID cards upon entry to the city centres, we stood in line before armed private security contractors each and every day like cattle. Once a week someone was turned away, and they shuffled off knowing they would likely lose their job, their home and be forced to ask for handouts from the government, with inevitable delays for "security checks" and claims that their actions had lead to voluntary termination of their employment.

  Our neighbour, Tanveer and his wife Shameena, knocked on our door one evening.

  "We came to say goodbye," Tanveer said.

  "Why? What's happening?"

  "You have been a good friend to us over the years, but even you have grown distant. We have realised that we cannot stay in this country much longer."

  I ushered them inside. unable to believe what I had heard.

  "You were born here! You're talking as though you're an immigrant returning home."

  "That is how we are seen now."

  "Not by me, not by everyone."

  "By enough. How many call me names as I go to work? How long before I am turned away at the checkpoints?"

  "You can't let a few racists dictate how and where you live," I pleaded.

  "You ask too much, it is not just a few racists. There are those who believe the lies and they are in the majority. There are only a few who speak out to stop this."

  "I'm not in the majority. I'm not a racist, there are more like me."

  "Yes, there are. There are many like you, but you are not one of the few. We must leave before history repeats itself and they come for me and my family in the night. I didn't come to start an argument and lay blame,” Tanveer replied with a sigh. “You have been good neighbours, you watched my daughters when my wife got sick and for those moments I am grateful to have known you, but we must go. Goodbye."

  I don't know if Tanveer, Shameena and his two daughters, Aisha and Jamila, made it out. We never saw them again. I hope that he made it somewhere safe, where his daughters could walk down the street without fear. A place without people like me, who were too scared to do anything. I remember the night my wife and I had an argument and she left. It was Tanveer who came over and talked me out of my anger, telling me that I was throwing my marriage away over something that didn't matter. Sitting me down and explaining that it was only my pride that was hurt not my relationship. Driven me to my wife's mother's house to beg for forgiveness, given me the strength to admit that I was wrong, to make the hard promises, the ones I had forgotten making the day I married her. In her grace she had come back home, because of him. Without him the birth of my son, a mere year later would never have happened and I would never have known the pride and joy my son and my wife brought me.

  My wife and I sat stunned in our living room in our comfortable suburb. It had just hit home to us that the rhetoric was invading every aspect of our lives, driving good people from us and ours. I called in sick the following day, as did my wife, not able to face the stern faces at the checkpoints and the disapproval if there was a rejection of an entrant. Each production of the ID card a mute acceptance of what was going on.

  As if sensing our fear of what may come to pass, one group stood out in America, the artists and academics. Historians and writers alike joined with the opposition to the presidential candidate. Logic and reason were swiftly followed up by satire pointing out the fallacies in his policies and statements. They highlighted the evil inherent in his rhetoric. Sketch shows aired clips of him making outrageous statements with footage of the host shaking his head in disbelief, lost for words at the sheer idiocy.

  It did no good. Society had worshiped at the altar of anti-intelligence for too long, these intellectuals were mistrusted and rumours of pro-Islamic conspiracies surfaced. These rumours detracted from the message, removed the sting for the candidate. Slowly, ratings for those shows dropped and people lost themselves in more Reality TV shows, unwilling to commit to viewing potential seditious material. The ill-educated were unwilling to believe or were incapable of understanding, and the rich were thinking of all the profit that could be made with a combination of a resource vacuum and tax breaks for the rich that would inevitably follow if the candidate were actually elected.

  The votes were counted; we sat with baited breath as they were announced. As expected the Bible Belt had supported the candidate, lost in a past of conservatism and historic racism they had flocked to his banner in droves meaning that his lead in those states was unassailable, the voices of the moderates lost in the clamour. The night dragged on and one by one the states voiced their results. California, Washington and New York had all voted against him in large numbers, being the most progressive states this was not unexpected. Vermont, a traditional state also voted against, possibly offended by the reduction of liberty inherent in his statements. To our dismay the voting did not mirror our hopes, he had won. The traditional non-voters had turned out in number, both for and against. Unfortunately the type of people who didn't normally vote were made up in the majority of the type of people who didn't trust in intellect and trusted what their friend in the bar told them rather than in evidence or historical example.

  As the new president commenced his victory party, my wife and I went upstairs to check on our son. As we gazed on his peaceful countenance she leaned against me and started sobbing quietly.

  "It'll be al
right, it's only America. He can't get elected here."

  "He doesn't have to, it's already started here. They made redundancies at work last week."

  "The economy is in bad shape, it has been for a while. There's bound to be redundancies every now and again as we try and get back on our feet."

  "It wasn't the redundancies as such; it was who they made redundant."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Think about it. You can't be that blind. If everyone who is Muslim or Asian is held up at the checkpoints, who is going to have the most late marks against their name?"

  "But we're held up too."

  "Do they search you? Do they insist on a detailed computer check before letting you through?"

  "No, but…"

  "Don't 'but' that! You know as well as I do what is going on! You know what comes next."

  I slept on the sofa that night, my wife could not bear to look at me. I apologised the next day, confessed that I had been in denial about what the election had meant for the UK, but she didn't seem appeased. I had fallen short in her expectations and that was