Meg's Story: "I have seen the appeasement of violent men"

My family and I joined in the emergency response organized by Anaka and PPR as racist violence flared up across Belfast last week.

Over five days, we drove people to safer places and delivered food to families too scared to leave their houses. We brought children to school. We washed dishes at the emergency shelter, served food donated by local businesses and played with children waiting to be re-housed.

We have been a small part of an amazing mobilsation of ordinary citizens and community organizers who have worked around the clock to keep people safe and cared for in the face of danger.

What Anaka and PPR did will stay with me for a long time.

The care. The energy. The determination. The efficiency with which networks were mobilized to provide for people in the most dire of circumstances. The power of 300 people and a WhatsApp group.

I have never seen anything like it and it stands as a testament to the deep well of solidarity that exists in this city.

But I have seen other things too.

I have seen a chilling, dangerous complacency from our government.

I have seen the appeasement of violent men.

I have seen fear in the eyes of ordinary people and I have felt ashamed of my city.