London Terror Attacks
One year on, are we still paying the price?
Article written by: Amina Hirsi
The apparent attempted suicide bombings in London on July 21 2005, exactly two weeks after the attacks that left over 50 dead, 700 wounded and countless other people affected left us all in utter shock and horror. In Commissioner Ian Blair’s words, “Our security services were faced with the greatest operational challenge since the Second World War.”
Ethnic Eritrean Mukhtar Said-Ibrahim, aged 27, was apprehended after being identified by his London-based parents. According to information provided to interrogators by Hussein Osman, Said-Ibrahim was the alleged ringleader of the cell. His family arrived in Britain in 1992 to claim asylum as refugees when he was aged 14. Estranged from his parents, his world view appears to have become radicalized while serving time in prison. Hussein Osman, 27, of Stoke Newington, London, was a naturalized Briton of Ethiopian origin, married and with children. Yassin Hassan Omar from Somalia was arrested the following Wednesday in Birmingham. Yassin came to the UK very young and lived with foster parents before moving out to live in a council flat on his own. “There’s no link between them and our community whatsoever,” said Nur, a Somali social worker, expressing a view echoed by Eritreans and Ethiopians alike. “Whatever developed in these guys’ heads happened here in the United Kingdom.”
When the ethnic origins of the suspected culprits were disclosed the implications for the East African communities in the UK were disturbing, to say the least. Much as they tried to disassociate themselves from these individuals, the debate about Islamic terrorism and immigration raged around them. East Africans being generally distinct and ‘visible’, were easy to identify by those bent on victimization and revenge.
Slurs such as ‘home-grown’ terrorism, ‘evil ideologies’ of violence and hatred, “barbaric crusaders, envious people who resented and were jealous of the western world’s freedom and democratic heritage” etc…. were endlessly thrown at the Muslim communities. No serious reference was made to the current or historic contribution to this Nirvana world nor were the issues of socio-economic and cultural exclusion and the corollary alienation of its subjects. Arefaine Berhe, the Eritrean community peace activist said, “There is a strong feeling of alienation within our people. We feel that all fingers are pointing at us; Sometimes walking down the street, I feel people staring, waiting for me to detonate a bomb.”
