By now we would have all seen the full footage of the Manchester Airport incident of the two young men, Muhammad Fahir Amaaz and Amaad Amaaz. We would have also seen the CCTV footage of the officers being attacked and the various footage of the officers attempting to subdue to young men on other passer-by’s phones. Two contrasting images have formed of a man’s head being stomped on and of officers being attacked.

Images are powerful, so much so that many rallied to support the family in the incident.

The image of 10 sucker punches at an officer was so powerful it challenged the idea of justice for the young men. What would happen if more footage came out of what we have yet to see of what Greater Manchester Police were responding to up until what we have seen now?

What more imagery is there to add to this story?

The power of those images comes from the people. We empowered the image od the unjustifiable act of stomping on a mans head. But, as a south Asian Muslim myself, our community is weak and now we have empowered the image of 10 sucker punches to justify the first image.

There are those who continue to support them and empower the unjustifiable stomping image, and as do I, but there are those who have jumped ship and in some twisted manner supported the police officers as ‘defending themselves’ and being ‘only human’. They empower the image of a young man punching police officers as justification. To those people, I ask; why are you still seeking acceptance from western British values?

It is clear to me and to others that you were prepared to find any reason to not support them. And despite the unjustified nature of stomping on the head of a man down in a way that can easily lead to them dying, you fail to focus on this and instead focus on them subdued with reason. No matter what lead up to that incident of the stamping on his head, there was nothing that could justify it because that frame is powerful. Yet those in our community are so prepared to abandon ship that they justify it.

They empower the image of attacking an officer to beyond the power of an image of a man down being stomped on. These two perspectives come to clash each other to justify or not justify the other. As the picture widens of this incident, we continue to only support selective frames. I may be guilty of it too but sometimes an image comes out so compelling and strong that it should overpower everything else. Attacking an officer can be explained in a court as self defence and under some rare circumstances even justified but the image of a police officer, meant to serve and protect, almost killing a young man has never been justified.

I was once at a rally that ended in a Section 12. Police officers were pushing protestors who were leaving onto the streets and my friend was pushed by an officer and almost hit by a moving police car. The irony of that situation sits with me. An older woman was in a fit of rage and crying because her sons were arrested. She was on the road with oncoming vehicles posing a threat. Rather than helping her, as we were doing, officers stood by. It was myself and others instead who has to help her up and pull her away. I still remember, shouting at an officer that if he wanted to do his job then he should stand in front of the cars. He walked away.

There is a photo I took where she had fainted and you see an officer approach those helping her. If my camera lens went wider (it was a 50mm) it would have captured those being arrested behind, a man being stripped naked and the massive police presence. I tell this story because it shows how the subject of the photo is not justified by what happens beyond it. Nothing justifies the lack of action by the Metropolitan Police to not help a woman get to safety even if, hypothetically, the wider image shows her trying to hit an officer because that one photo I took should be powerful enough.

Empowering the wrong image leads to disempowering the images that lead to change. And all too often, the South Asian and Muslim community fail to demand change for our youth. Instead, we seek acceptance in British values and to fully integrate into British society. That is why Priti Patel, Suella Braverman and Sajid Javid were poster images for the Tory party’s anti-immigration stance. They were ready to integrate so much so they rejected and turned their back on the community that raised them and eradicated their identity so they could justify what the South Asian and Muslim community should not justify.

From Emmet Till’s open casket image on the front of newspapers to the photos of George Floyd with “I can’t breathe” written on them, the Black Lives Matter movement empowers them and the South Asian and Muslim community should take a page from their book of demanding change. Those images are more powerful than any sentence strung together in attempts to justify their unjustifiable deaths. Regardless of what happened before, we need to empower the image of the police officer stomping the young man’s head and plaster it everywhere for those who do not have a bystander with a phone and for those who lose their lives because of police brutality. That is the power of images and that is how we demand accountability and change.