BEESTON, England, 7 July 2006 — Muslims living in this rundown northern English suburb still feel shunned a year after two men from their community blew themselves up on London’s transport system.
Hardly anyone stops by the shops dotted among the rows of uniform red-brick terraced houses in this predominantly South Asian neighborhood of Leeds. Tiny backyards are strewn with rubbish and debris.
“Business in the area has been severely affected,” said a furniture shop owner in Beeston, who complained of a subtle economic boycott since the bombings — because he is Muslim.
Spotless new furniture accumulated over the past 12 months clutters his shop, but no buyers have come. “What I used to earn in a week before July 7 now takes a month,” he said. “They have associated us with the bombers.”
Britain has been on high alert since four British Muslims detonated bombs in their rucksacks in coordinated attacks on London’s buses and underground trains in July 2005, killing 52 people. Two of the bombers — Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer — both lived in Beeston, while Hasib Hussain lived in a different area of Leeds. The fourth bomber, Jermaine Lindsay, lived northwest of London.
Many in the community blamed UK foreign policy in Iraq for the bombings, which they say were also fueled by the long-standing alienation of Muslims from society. The cloud of suspicion has yet to lift. Britain is home to around 1.8 million Muslims, nearly 3 percent of the population.
“There is no doubt there has been an effect on businesses owned by Muslims in the area. There will be some politics in boycotting the shops by some people,” said Arshad Chaudhry, chairman of the Leeds Muslim Forum.
One disheveled customer shuffled into a virtually empty barber shop and haggled over a bill of 6 pounds. Down the road, a battered wooden board announced the entrance to the Kashmir Muslim Community Center, housing a mosque where some of the bombers prayed. Though many of the young Muslim men who pray at the mosque are reluctant to speak about the bombers, particularly if they had grown up with them, others feel they now have a duty to speak out.
“People from among Muslims should not be afraid to speak about it,” said Sardar Mahmood, a 25-year-old Muslim resident. “I just talk about it now — it’s not my fault what happened.” Mahmood, who works as a supervisor at a printer’s factory, recalls some of the comments he received at work in the aftermath.
“Some of my English colleagues would jokingly say, ‘I hope you’re not going to blow us up,’” he said.
Mahmood said he and others like him did not believe the bombings last July were Islamic. “The 10 to 15 lads here are my age — we would never do something like that,” said Mahmood, about his fellow worshippers. “One of the biggest sins in Islam is committing suicide and killing innocent civilians for no reason. Only Allah knows what these guys were doing.”
Mahmood and the other young men are trying to open a snooker center in the basement of the community center to “try and put the children on the right path.”
However, the issues cited by many British Muslims as the sources of alienation are still key talking points a year after the attacks. “From the mehfils (gatherings) I have been to, I have heard a lot of lads do still talk about these issues — Muslims in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Iraq being killed,” said Mahmood. “They ask why are the Americans still in Iraq, even after removing Saddam?”
Councilor Mark Harris, leader of Leeds City Council, said he was aware some people in Beeston felt the area had suffered as a result of the bombings but did not believe that was representative of the Beeston or Leeds community.
“Certainly the council in particular and all the community and the faith groups in the city have made strenuous attempts from the very outset to make it clear what happened last July is... in no way representative of the Leeds or Beeston community,” he said.
Ed Carlisle, 27, is part of “Together for Peace,” a Leeds-based initiative which aims to tackle peace and conflict issues in the city, and has lived in Beeston for the past four years.
“It’s fair to say that last year has probably spurred many to be more intentional about whom they build a community with and whom they befriend,” said Carlisle, a community activist and Christian.
His efforts were not shared by some in Leeds, such as those of a young, working-class white man Carlisle met at a peace march last year, who drew on racial stereotypes to form his views.
“I think he assumed that people throughout the established Muslim community had known about what was going to happen, and just kept quiet because they were all complicit in it. There are people like that.”
Many people in Leeds generally have a low opinion of Beeston, said Carlisle, but for him it’s a relatively integrated community — he lives on a street only meters away from the mosque beside people from the Congo, South Africa, Malawi, Taiwan, India and Bangladesh.
“I live on what I genuinely consider to be the most friendly street I’ve ever lived on — that’s not propaganda, it’s my lived experience,” said Carlisle.
“It’s just a row of red-brick back-to-backs just behind the Hamara Center in Beeston Hill — the street is amazing, and everyone talks to each other.”
