Southampton, 11:30 pm, 3 December last. Henry Nowak, 18, British, white, crosses paths with Vickrum Digwa, 23, British of Indian ancestors and Sikh religion. Nowak was returning from a party, but he was not drunk. Digwa walked with two daggers on his waist, a ritual kirpan and a larger one. “Bad man”, joked Nowak, trigger of the first tragedy.
Digwa attacked, stabbing him several times with the larger dagger. His brother then called the police, falsely claiming that Nowak had hurled racial slurs and assaulted the young Sikh man. Digwa’s mother arrived before the police and took away the murder weapon. Police officers were greeted by two versions of the event. Nowak asked for help, injured by stab wounds that caused internal bleeding. Digwa denied having used the weapon and reproduced the report agreed with his brother.
Then, the second tragedy began. “I don’t think you were stabbed, man,” one officer said, as his colleagues handcuffed the fallen victim. “I can’t breathe”, the young man repeated, in a belated echo of his plea six years ago. At 0:30 am, he was pronounced dead.
The third tragedy was born after Digwa’s conviction, when videos of the police action emerged on June 2. Under the slogan “white lives matter too”, yet another echo of Floyd, Nigel Farage and other leaders of the British radical right called for xenophobic demonstrations, which degenerated into clashes with the police. JD Vance, vice president of , joined in, blaming the “mass invasion of immigrants” and calling for “righteous anger.” The dignified response came from Mark Nowak, Henry’s father: “We don’t want this to encourage more division or hate.”
Why, thoughtlessly, did the police believe Digwa’s version and ignore Nowak’s cry for help? The mystery may be explained by an “anti-racist commitment” document published last year by the head of the British police.
It defines a goal of “equality of results” that would not be achieved by treating everyone equally, but by “responding to the specific experiences” of each ethnic group. The phrase, inspired by the identity commandment to “treat unequals unequally”, basically eliminates individuals, replacing them with symbols. Nowak does not exist: he is merely the representation of the “Western white man”. Digwa does not exist: it is the representation of an oppressed ethnic minority.
The police did not see people, but symbols. Farage and JD Vance joined the fashion game, reversing their signs to (falsely) accuse the British state of discrimination against white people. According to identity manuals, institutions must “treat unequals unequally” in order to teach society an anti-racist lesson. The practice, they guarantee, would lead to the reform of minds, producing true equality in the future. Southampton, a city of symbols, proves the mistake: when institutions separate people according to ethnicity, they teach society that racism is the consensual rule.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the conservative opposition, daughter of Nigerians, raised in Lagos (Nigeria), condemned Farage’s riots, but called for policing that is blind to skin color. It is the voice of the old-fashioned idea that individuals are not symbols.
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