From the International Business Times:
Protesters across parts of the United Kingdom have begun reviving the ‘take the knee’ gesture following the murder of Southampton student Henry Nowak and the release of police body-worn camera footage showing officers handcuffing him as he lay fatally injured.
…Images and videos shared on social media have shown people kneeling outside police stations and public buildings in what organisers describe as a response to the handling of the case.
Commentary on Nowak’s death has been extensive, with many writers saying much the same thing. We know that Nowak’s killer, Vickrum Digwa, gave a false account to police, as a result of which police handcuffed Nowak and intially disbelieved his claim to have been stabbed. The pathologist found that nothing could have been done to save his life (although, inevitably, a fringe theory that police likely dislodged a blood clot is doing the rounds), but Nowak died without dignity, thinking that the police believed him to be a racist attacker. Much of the debate focuses on to what extent the police attitude and incompetence are attributable to Digwa being able to leverage a false allegation of racism.
Nowak’s last words were “I can’t breathe”, which was evocative of George Floyd’s final moments in Minneapolis six years ago. The circumstances of Floyd’s death appeared to vindicate Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem at sport events as a protest against police brutality against African Americans, and after Floyd’s death Kaepernick’s gesture was copied in solidarity in the UK first by football teams and then by some politicians – including Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner. Some police officers also joined in, signalling their solidarity with “Black Lives Matter” protestors.
Not everyone approved, and divorced from the context of refusing to stand it was derided by some as a kneeling gesture of submission – and even specifically as a gesture of white submission to ethnic minories. Last year, for instance, Richard Holden MP referred to the NHS as “taking the knee to damaging and oppressive cultural practices” because of a document on a website that argued against a ban on cousin marriage.
The populist right adopting a gesture that it has previously repudiated and tried to stigmatise is an odd way to protest on behalf of a cause. As such, its appearance can hardly be called a “revival” so much as an ironic appropriation meant as a rebuke against the 2020 protestors and the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. As expressed by Tommy Robinson:
As Southampton police refuse to “take a knee” for Henry Nowak.
Reminder of them doing it outside UK Parliament for George Floyd’s fentanyl overdose!
This also points toward another use of Nowak’s death, as a somewhat perverse way to downplay what happened in Minneapolis. As Elon Musk puts it:
In both cases, police were uncaring, but only in one case does Starmer bend the knee
Musk here was commenting on a social media post by Kevin Sorbo, who referred to Starmer (misspelt as “kier Starmer”) as “kneeling for fentanyl addict George Floyd, who died of an overdose”.
No-one is arguing that Southampton police murdered Nowak, who was stabbed during an altercation, but the police officer who restrained Floyd is currently in prison for murder. The cases become more comparable, however, if Floyd wasn’t killed by police after all. The claim that Floyd died of an overdose has become “common knowledge” on the populist right through repetition, having been spread by Kenye West and Candace Owens in 2022 and repeated by Marjorie Taylor Greene last year.
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