Journey through Britain's Muslim divide
On the bombers' route between London and Leeds, Patrick Barkham finds communities riven by a generation gap Patrick Barkham Saturday July 16, 2005 Guardian The M1, down which three of the suicide bombers drove on their final journey, is famous for its grey monotony. But its dullness is in contrast to the diversity of the Muslim communities for which it is the backbone. Retracing their route in reverse from London, to Luton, Leicester, Derby and Leeds, is to travel through Muslim Britain. British Muslims are experiencing the crisis wrought by the attacks in vastly different ways, and the most pronounced of those is the chasm between the young and old. Saleem Tayyab had just finished in the kitchen on Tuesday evening when he heard that the bombs were detonated by British Muslims. A 33- year-old father of four, he is moderate, hard-working, urbane. Thirty-one years ago, his father founded Tayyabs on a street behind the East London Mosque, barely 500 metres from the Aldgate bomb. The garment workers who first ate their freshly cooked kebabs are long gone but the Tayyabs' family business has thrived. Saleem is shocked and apologetic but confident that "everybody" in the country "knows the difference between mainstream Muslims and organisations that are responsible" for the terrorism. Like many older Muslims, he speaks of children being "brainwashed". "They can't sit at home and decide to blow themselves up. It's a larger story than that," he insists. Thirty miles up the M1, Luton, the chosen rendezvous for the suicide bombers sweats out the heatwave. Periodic anti-terrorist raids by police have given the town's 30,000 Muslims an extremist hue. Muhammad Sulaiman, 68, was president of the Central Mosque when the Syrian-born cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed spoke there a couple of years ago. When they heard his message they unplugged his PA and manhandled him off the premises. But his jihadist group al-Muhajiroun and its successors continue to hand out leaflets, campaigning and recruiting on the streets nearby. The mosque leaders insist there are barely half a dozen extremists in Luton and all are banned from the town's 12 mosques. "The police are well aware of these guys," says Qurban Hussain, deputy leader of the borough council. A Liberal Democrat candidate in this year's general election, Mr Hussain is sharply conscious of the extremists: he received death threats for standing for a "western" political party in the May elections, even though it was the anti-war Lib Dems. Like every older Muslim encountered along the M1, Mr Hussain emphatically denounces the suicide bombers. He speaks of an intelligence failure but is happy to scrutinise his own community. "This is another tragedy: the generation gap between young and old in the ethnic minorities is much greater than in the indigenous population. Our elder generation were law-abiding and hardworking. Where they failed was they put all their God-given hours into work and didn't spend time with their children. When these people are brainwashed, they are brainwashed to an extent that they don't talk to their parents." As the dome of the Masjid Umar mosque sparkles in the evening sunshine, 100 children gather for Islamic classes on the generous playing fields of Crown Hills Community College in Leicester. "Twinkle twinkle little star," four five-year-old girls in white jilbab and hijab sing. "Allah created you, and He created me/In truth and so perfectly." They finish with prayers for the victims of the London bombs. Driven to their classes by parents in VW Passats, these children study Arabic and the Qur'an five evenings a week. "We want them to be proud Muslims and proud British citizens," says Ibrahim Mogra, their gentle, engaging teacher, also a committee member of the Muslim Council of Britain. "This is our country, this is home. There is no reason for them to feel second-class or alien. If you ask them who they are, they would say Muslim and I think that's right. As a person of faith, for me, God comes before everything. But there is no contradiction. I'm Muslim, I'm British, I'm Asian, I'm an imam, I'm a teacher." After their lessons, young pupils point out double standards in government and media treatment of their faith. Of course the bombs were wrong and destroyed innocent people's lives, but look at what fuelled it: Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine. "In Afghanistan people die every single day but that's never mentioned," points out Irshad, 14. "Nobody is there to help the people in Palestine." Arshad, also 14, finishes the argument: "It's not a war against terrorism, it's a war against Islam. That's how some people see it." Past old garment factories being converted into designer flats, evening prayers at the shiny modern Masjid Umar mosque brings working- class Muslims on to the streets. It is wearily routine for reporters to rush to mosques whenever there are outbreaks of extremism. As Mo, a young Muslim who works at a BT call centre, points out, reporters didn't swarm around Catholic churches whenever the IRA blew someone up. Mo buys me a soft drink from the local kebab shop. "Stay here, I've got something to show you." He returns with a sheet of typed paper that his sister stuck to her bedroom wall. "Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali visited the remains of the World Trade Centre," it reads. "When reporters asked how he felt about suspects sharing his Islamic faith, Ali responded pleasantly, 'How do you feel about Hitler sharing yours?' Ever wondered ... why a nun can be covered from head to toe and she's respected for devoting herself to God, but when a Muslimah does that, she's considered oppressed?" Despite his wispy blonde beard, Hussain, 27, still looks better suited to Scott, his former name. "I wouldn't be surprised if the bombs were planted by MI5," he says, a conspiracy theory suggested by more than one young Muslim milling around the mosque. Yet even the most unapologetic appear a million miles from being potential bombers. Hussain's white non-Muslim family does not understand his conversion. "I let them have their opinions and agree to differ," he says. In Derby, 12 miles off the M1, Yahya Akhter, a local bookseller, says al-Muhajiroun "are very active" at the nearby Jamia mosque, haranguing and handing out leaflets outside. The group were accused of recruiting Derby resident Omar Khan Sharif, who was found dead after attempting a suicide bombing in Israel two years ago in which four people died. Mr Akhter sells Islamic books and shalwar kameez. The 38-year-old, who came to Britain from Kashmir 10 years ago, believes the generation gap is based on the language barrier between English- speaking young Muslims and their elders. "It doesn't matter what the imam says inside the mosque because the young people don't understand. The real education goes on outside. In mosques our religious leaders are speaking in Urdu. The only people speaking in English are extremists like Abu Hamza and Bakri Mohammed. Youngsters do not get the real message of Islam." 'Reactionary product' Muslims did not do enough to prevent extremism and must replace imams who don't speak English, he says. But the extremists are a "reactionary product of this country" and not produced by Muslims alone, he argues. Hamza and Bakri Mohammed were "given enormous and disproportionate media time to say poisonous things. Why did you make them our heroes? Why did you give them airtime?" "Have they found the bomb?" asks one young Muslim hovering at the police tape, the curtain for a drama starring a robot, jerkily searching for explosives near where two of the bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, grew up in Leeds. "If they haven't found it, they'll pull one out of their back pocket," shrugs another. The Ali Cool ice-cream van chimes out as it labours up the hill in the heat. Beeston's tatty red-brick terraces are significantly poorer than the Victorian roads where most Muslims live in Luton, Leicester and Derby. A sense of harassment has been building with the heat, police presence and press scrum. Ima gathers at the police tape with a group of mates. The 27-year-old knew Shehzad Tanweer pretty well. For him, there is a "cultural gap" between the generations. "The generation that did the bombings have had a free rein. They've been given a good education and been able to do whatever they like. The older generation haven't tuned in. They don't know Tupac Shakur or Steven Gerrard." Like many younger Muslims, Ima wants to see not just his elders but wider society trying harder to understand modern British Muslims. "We need a close examination of what the youth of today are thinking and doing." On the other side of the class divide in Leeds is Hashim Talbot, 18, and waiting for his A-level results before going to study law in Cardiff. Hashim prays at the Grand Mosque in the leafy north of the city, linked in press reports to the fourth bomber, Jamaican-born Lindsay Germain, who changed his name to Abdullah Shaheed Jamal when he converted to Islam. Hashim is certain his mosque is moderate and says "secretive" mosques must open up. He also has an acute sense of the difference between old and young Muslims: elders are theologically aware but politically passive; younger people are theologically dumb but politically active. "Young people like myself are more politically aware. It's not only Iraq. A lot of people have sympathy for the Palestinians, who we see as brothers. But young Muslims are not as educated in their religion so they go for radical ideas because with these they can see change happen quickly. Moderate Muslims are too slow for young people." Ima quietly watches the police close off more roads. "Any young person is vulnerable to any form of extremism," he says. "You have to open the doors a bit. Lack of information breeds misinformation. The less we are told, the less we feel this is our country." Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
