LONDON, 22 March 2004 — Shama Rahman was driving home from the shops when a man in a white van cut in front of her last week. At first she thought nothing of it, but every time she changed lanes he swung sharply across to try to block her. It continued for more than two miles with the man watching her closely in his mirrors until eventually he tried to run her off a flyover.
She quickly took the next exit and stopped. When she got home, she could not stop herself shaking for five hours. It was only a routine trip to the supermarket and the only reason she could think he was doing it was because of her headscarf.
Only days before a 17-year-old girl in Ilford, Essex, in the London Borough of Redbridge, where Rahman’s home is, was abducted from her school. Crosses were cut into the back of her hands and she was forced to recite the holy trinity for an hour while her kidnapper told her he was trying to save her from being a repressed Muslim woman.
The Islamic community in Britain believes such crimes motivated by religious hatred have been sparked by the Madrid bombings.
They were shocked to discover that about 40 Muslim graves in a London cemetery were smashed and desecrated before being piled up in the corner of the site on Thursday.
Iqbal Sacrane, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, thinks the biggest fear is of an attack on London. He said: “When terror strikes, it strikes all of us. God forbid if it takes place in the UK. If it is inevitable and it is linked to a group that claims to be Islamic, then once again we will be put into a corner.
“The community is suffering — women who wear hijabs, children in schools, anyone who is identified as Muslim is under pressure.”
And now, within a community that knows its problems will become unbearable if any group associated with Al-Qaeda targets Britain next, a debate is raging on how British Muslims can join the war on terror.
Leading the way is the Dudley Muslim Association, in the West Midlands which has created a forum for all local Muslim organizations to find out whether there are external factors attempting to target vulnerable youths.
The head of the association, Kurshid Ahmed, said: “We have joined the war against terror and are inviting others to come together to demonstrate that we are against these forces. We are victims just as much as anyone else and we want to confront it. That includes our own community.’
At the Muslim Association of Britain they feel that this is tantamount to spying. Spokesman Dr. Azzam Timimi said: “It is going too far to suggest we should be the eyes and ears of the community — it is like asking us to do the job of MI5. We are in this predicament because of the government. Those who carry out attacks are not in the mainstream, and nothing we do will stop potential terrorists if there are troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Ahmed insists that what he is proposing is aimed at protecting the Muslim community: “The best form of intelligence is within the community.
It is not spying. Community relations have been damaged by activities of fanatics and it is not in our interest to allow that to go unchallenged. We have to be vigilant for our own sake and for others.”
Others agree that no one should be afraid to report any suspicious activity and the police are trying to improve relations with local communities. Anything can be reported anonymously to a terrorism hotline.
