Source: The Guardian

Omar Raza was walking near his home in Glasgow’s south side when he was confronted by three men hurling racist abuse, calling him a “**** Paki” and accusing him of funding Islamic State.

“It was three against one, so I tried to defuse the situation and walk past them. But I was suddenly attacked from behind and put in a head lock.” Raza was kicked to the ground and the bag he was carrying upturned and its contents strewn across the pavement, before his attackers ran off.

“It all happened so quickly,” he told the Guardian on Thursday ahead of Friday prayers at Glasgow Central mosque. “Of course I’ve been the victim of hate speech before, but never a physical assault. You hear a lot of stories from down south but the south side of Glasgow is supposed to be a diverse community. It’s obvious that what’s going on [in Paris] is seeping into society and a lot of people are acting on half-truths.”

The 26-year-old actor and comedian said those of his generation struggle as the first to be fully integrated into western society, while still being expected to shoulder responsibility within their own community. “When you are at an age when you are trying to make a choice about your identity, it is even more difficult when you are western, Scottish, Muslim, and how do you cater to all of those?”

Describing the months since the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January as a “dark and emotional time”, he added: “As a Muslim you are expected to have this calm equilibrium, but especially when you are pushed time and time again sometimes you do want to give [the racists] what they want and explode.The older generation don’t always see these tensions.”

He has been unimpressed by media coverage of the Paris attacks. “The destruction in Paris was awful but unfortunately the media has created a brand of what is safe to support, so they romanticise a city like Paris, but with Syria or Palestine there are darker aspects that people don’t want to embrace.

“On social media it’s about how you project who you support. People are doing that by very hollow means like changing their photo to a flag.”

Mohammed Nawaz Ali, 23, a Glasgow grocer, agreed: “On the news apps, you see the first six or seven stories are on Paris, someone who survived, someone who was caught, but there’s a lot happening in other countries, the same number of deaths every single day.”

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