Henry Nowak was a promising young 18-year-old man who was brutally murdered. Described as “kind, intelligent and talented”. His life was taken in a senseless, violent act. His murderer falsely accused Henry of racism to the police attending the scene. Their subsequent inaction – based on this accusation – condemned Henry to dying in handcuffs while repeating the words: I can’t breathe.
Those same words had been spoken by a man in police detention before. Famously by George Floyd, whose subsequent death during a police arrest led to mass protests – riots – politicians taking the knee. A movement whose core voice was also its name: Black Lives Matter. Anyone, from any race, colour or creed, asking parity for all lives had missed the point.
George Floyd, BLM, taking the knee — civil revolt, they are all by-products of their time and environment.
The treatment of Henry Nowak, the lack of reaction by the general public, the coverage by the mainstream media, and the juxtaposition of deafening silence by people – such as Keir Starmer – as details emerged, compared to the furore in the days following Floyd’s death, show that not only do we live in different times, but that there are different standards applied depending on race.
Instead of people pulling down statues, the wool is being pulled down over eyes and ears.
It is right to call for calm. To avoid using this tragic moment for further hate or political gain. Henry’s father, Mark Nowak, exemplified strength and dignity as he made a speech following the verdict. He said the family didn’t want Henry’s death to cause further division, hatred or tension.
It gave this writer pause before putting words to page.
Division. Hatred. Rising tensions.
All key ingredients for creating the sort of environment where innocent people die in the care of those expected to protect and to serve.
It’s only possible to find hope, love, and understanding through difficult conversations and hard choices.
Vickrum Digwa stabbed Henry five times with a religious ceremonial dagger, known as a kirpan. It is part of the Sikh religious code for believers to carry one. There are accepted alternatives to carrying a full dagger but under UK law, as long as the kirpan is being carried for religious practice, it is not illegal.
Understandably, the legality of carrying a weapon – albeit, purely as a religious artefact – has now come under scrutiny. Some of this will be from dissenting voices distrustful of any outsider faith, others from a place of logic and fairness. It should be noted Sikhs in the UK have a lower crime rate than other demographics while being disproportionately vulnerable to religious and racial hate crimes.
The actions of Vickrum Digwa shouldn’t drag an entire community into the firing line. The murder was the action of an evil individual who had been barred from a Gurdwara for his conduct. He is not reflective of Sikhism, which calls for equality of all mankind, honest conduct, and striving for justice.
Following the case, it is clear Digwa was a despicable human and a non-practising Sikh.
One bad example shouldn’t create division among different people and cultures.
However, if something can go wrong once, to the degree an innocent young man loses his life, every preventable action should be taken to stop it happening again. Blasphemy laws have been abolished in the UK. A step that is seen to modernise society. But to the side of this, certain religions have exemptions. These run counter to the clean worldview a post-blasphemy law country should look like.
No exemption should exist for any faith to carry what would otherwise be illegal.
The laws of the land should not bow to practices and beliefs from elsewhere. It has allowed one bad actor to find a loophole and carry out a heinous act. One time is one too many and it could inspire others to deliberately look for other ways to circumvent laws under the guise of religious freedom.
Creating exemptions – loopholes – is two-tier justice. There have been accusations of two-tier policing. Details that have emerged around police training suggest there has been an over-correction that has led police forces in the UK to be more concerned with appearing racist than acting without prejudice.
Henry Nowak said nine times that he couldn’t breathe.
He told them he’d been stabbed.
One officer replied: “I don’t think you have, mate.”
Of course he had been. Fatally. And the inadequate police inspection for any wounds was only part of the treatment – which Henry’s family described as “inhumane and degrading” – by the police which meant in the last moments of his life, he died without hope, in blind panic.
There was bias – how unconscious or deliberate, you can decide – with both George Floyd and Henry Nowak which led to their respective deaths.
For George Floyd, the attending police officer reacted with bias created because he believed the man in question was a threat and acted with inappropriate force.
Henry Nowak was the victim of a different fear: institutional terror of being seen as racist. To such a degree that an accusation of racism took operational priority over the duty of care to a dying victim.
Even as the details emerged, the power of racism drove the narrative and the media’s acknowledgement of the incident.
Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, which may have contributed to his death, while not being the cause. He didn’t comply with the arresting officers. But the story became charged. His death at the hands of law enforcement created a storm that travelled across the Atlantic, creating a watershed moment.
Nowak had less alcohol in his system than the UK drink driving limit. He had been falsely accused of being drunk, abusive and racist. He pleaded with the police for help, while being compliant with unnecessary handcuffing. While the key difference between the deaths – the police didn’t murder Nowak, Digwa did – the police in both instances acted on assumption and feeling. Fear without evidence.
The backlash has been subdued and gravitas of what such police behaviour represents downplayed by police commissioners and the Prime Minister.
George Floyd’s death was treated as a way to start the great exposé.
Henry Nowak’s has been met with an attempt to create a cover-up.
Some of the covering up is deliberate. It’s from the same agenda that created a world where being white means you can never be the victim of racism. It’s from a legacy media culture more comfortable exposing one kind of institutional prejudice than another. A Prime Minister who is aptly named Two-Tier Keir.
Some of it is so obtuse, it can only offend. Judge Mousley, when sentencing Digwa, started his minimum term at 15 years. In the UK, it is a mandatory life sentence of 25 years for murdering with a knife. Judge Mousley said Digwa hadn’t carried the murder weapon with the intention to use it. A non-Sikh would not be given this leniency if they’d been walking home from Argos with a new set of kitchen knives.
Judge Mousley added eight years (but removed two for “mitigating factors”) because Digwa “abused the privilege extended to Sikhs”. In doing so, reinforcing a two-tier view of the modern UK and protecting the sanctity of a religious exemption above the principle of equal law.
It is all indicative of an imbalance. But people’s rage has become colour-blind. Or worse, driven by the strongest virtue signal.
It is too insensitive to proclaim: White Lives Matter. But leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, said “every life matters”. Which falls very close to another phrase. Writing in 2020 about the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, I wrote: People using the counter chant All Lives Matter, haven’t understood the core issues. It’s a big part of their privilege, believing a universal view is the fix for isolated problems they’ll never face.
It hasn’t aged well. We’re all facing different issues but they are by-products of the same misguided ideology. There is a universal fix: stop the overcorrection, the fear of being seen as something you are not, create a truly equal and fair society.
If your anti-racism, policing concerns, civil-liberty principles, rage against the establishment, or human-rights activism only activate for some victims, you are not seeking fairness or justice. They are nothing more than pliable and malleable principles shaped around misguided loyalty to causes only wearing justice’s clothing to cover harmful agendas.
Justice is when all lives are afforded the same set of rules and are judged through the same lens. No exceptions. No excuses.
The Reflective Page 