To the Xenophobic Gardener

An Open Letter to my Xenophobic Gardener

My parents hired you, a gardener – a family friend – to do some work on their patch. You visit every Wednesday, working away in the soil, drinking cups of tea. You are what many might describe as a ‘bit of a geezer’. A phrase that covers a multitude of sins.

One day, my parents both happened to be out. I was working, but it was a hot day, so I decided to offer you a drink. A man that jumps at even the slightest invitation to a conversation, you struck one up. Of course, and as is the case in any 2021 chat, the conversation turned to viruses, vaccines, and variants. Turns out the renaming of the delta variant was too little too late, thanks WHO. Or maybe this was an insignificant gesture in the grand scheme of things, a band aid to cover the aching wound of centuries’ worth of pre-existing prejudice.

My hackles were raised at the mention of ‘these Indians’ coming over and bringing with them the variant. Anyone watching my face would have read my grimace from a mile off. But of course you were oblivious. And so the dehumanisation begins, I thought. But at that point, I understood the worry, because I shared it. Movement of peoples during these Covid times is a real public health threat; but I just don’t think you held the same sentiment towards those who spread the variant from Kent back in late 2020. There is another layer here.

I expressed how much of a tragedy the events in India were, and you proceeded not to empathise, but to draw attention only to the sheer amount of people. ‘A million of them could die and no one would notice,’ you said. I can’t even remember what I said to that, but I know I should have said more. I was caught in a mental bind, backed into a corner. My inherent politeness and people-pleasing tendencies were combining with my indirect subservience to someone who my parents had employed, but all this uncomfortably jarred with my views of the world. I should have done better. But now I write.

Define ‘no one’. Your statement implied a detachedness, an ignorance of the inherent humanity of these people, of their families and friends torn apart by grief and worry, of the undeniable fact that people were noticing (this was all over the news at the time), with your justification only being that there was a great number of them. You didn’t ever see these individuals as people worthy of empathy, but an unthinking mass. I seethed.

And it gets worse.

‘It should be more like a mass sterilisation programme than a vaccination programme over there.’

Blood rushed to my face as I scrambled for an appropriate reaction. How is someone meant to explain the horrificness of such a statement in the heat of the moment? A statement that stinks of racism, white supremacy, and eugenics without even realising it.

‘I’m not sure I agree with the ethics of that,’ I said. A disagreement, but not a strong enough one. Especially against someone like you, someone who has so much conviction in their views that they will start spouting them to anyone within earshot, without even a thought as to whether or not they’ll agree with you.

I was angry. I couldn’t concentrate on my work for the rest of the day. I was angry at you, for assuming that you could just strike up a conversation with me and offload your poisonous views onto me. But I was also angry at myself, for not taking enough of a stand, for panicking and fumbling and doing next to nothing to make you think about the violent effects of such statements and views. I know that the gap between what I think and what I say needs to close. Punishing myself excessively doesn’t help, but recognising that I need to do better and holding myself accountable is part of the process.

A few weeks later, I took a break from work to hang some washing up in the garden. Another hot day. Another Wednesday. Another reference to ‘these Indians’. My skin bristled. I was in fight or flight, but I’d had time to brace myself for it this time.

As I countered some of your statements, referencing the fact that our ties with India, and the reason for the movement of people between the two countries, stemmed from a history of colonisation and violence, you began randomly throwing around statements. You brought up some Pakistani men in the north of England who had served a sentence for abusing children and wanted to stay in the country. ‘I just want them all gone,’ you said. Gone where? You referenced their dual passports and citizenship, as if that were a crime in itself.

I replied something like, ‘I don’t know the specifics of this particular story, but do you not think that if people have been brought up in this country, been socialised by our culture, that they are our responsibility when they commit crimes?’ You again referenced dual citizenship, and their ‘using’ it. I felt better about my reactions this time, that I’d possibly at least given you some food for thought, that you seemed to be clutching at straws with no real argument. But still I could have done more. I recognise that although my conversations with you make me feel uncomfortable and angry, they do not pose a threat to my existence. I’m annoyed because I don’t agree with your views, but I’m not scared for my life as a result of being implicated in them. I hold a privilege here, and I need to use it.

Of course now I think of all the things I could have said. And so I write. I could have said ‘So one of my friends has dual citizenship because her dad is from the US. But she was brought up here, has no cultural affinity with that country, and little contact with her dad. If she so happened to commit a crime, should she be sent away there, even though the US and its culture had no bearing on her committing a crime?’

I could have said ‘You’re acting as though the crime these men committed is the important part of this story, but it’s really just an excuse to demonise people with non-white, non-British heritage. What about the members of our own royal family who have abused children and not even served a sentence? Where should they be sent? What about the British police officer who recently raped and murdered a young woman as she walked home? Where should he go? Where is your energy for these crimes? Are you really concerned about the crime at all? Or just the fact that people of Pakistani heritage committed them? Are you prepared to admit that their upbringing and education in this country, their socialisation into our culture, could have caused them to act as they did?’

I could have said ‘I know you feel this way because our country’s politics and media thrive off the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality. We are forced to form our sense of national cohesiveness against an identified ‘other’. Politicians and the media make us feel scared about ‘swarms’ of immigrants, so they can act as our protectors against it and win our votes. But actually, you have more in common with these Pakistani men than the privileged ministers who have forged this dehumanising narrative that you have bought into.’

Reading and writing help me to make sense of the world. I like writing because it helps me think critically about things. Through writing, I can learn something, work through it mentally, and then re-present it in a way that makes sense to me. It’s my way of processing the world around me, as I am indeed doing here. But people like you won’t read what I write. The only way that I can challenge your way of thinking is through what I say. So what I say needs to get better at doing that. There is an art to challenging people’s views without getting into a pointless, angry debate with them. And that is an art that we all need to practise. Next time, I’ll be ready.

I would honestly like to sit down with you and have a civilised chat and work out what has made you feel this way. (I mean, I can take an educated guess. But it’s important to understand first-hand why people have these views if we want to do anything to begin undoing them.) I’d rather not be cornered while I’m trying to get on with my work, though.

The lesson of this is that people among us hold these views, more than we might think, and they might be working in our garden. They might be fixing our toilet, or painting our fences. They might be sat around our dining table. They’ll be pleasant to us because we don’t challenge their view of what this country should look like. But will we keep paying them to be in our gardens, keep making them cups of tea and chatting about the weather?