By Huma Yusuf
London: On Saturday, while Muslims were celebrating Id-al-Fitr to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan, four windows of the Tonna Mosque in Neath, Wales, were smashed by vandals. This is the latest, and by no means the most violent, incident in a series of anti-Muslim assaults across Britain. According to a report released in June, approximately half of Britain’s mosques and Islamic centers have been attacked since 9/11.
Anti-Muslim acts soared following the May 22 murder of a British Army soldier, Lee Rigby, who was hacked to death in Woolwich, south London, by two Muslim men claiming to avenge the killing of Muslims by the British military.
The Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella body of 500 mosques and other Islamic groups, swiftly condemned the murder, but the backlash has been severe anyway.
According to Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), a monitoring project, more than 120 anti-Muslim incidents — including attacks but also instances where hijabs were pulled off women’s heads — were reported in the week after Rigby’s murder, up from an average of about 20 incidents per week. Some 26 mosques and Islamic centers have been attacked since his death.
Earlier this summer, explosions went off outside three mosques in the West Midlands; the one in Tipton was targeted with a nail bomb. Also in the past couple of months, a mosque and Islamic school in London were set on fire, a mosque in Redditch was spray-painted with swastikas, Muslim graves were desecrated in Newport, and bacon was left at the entrance of a mosque in Wales.
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Although the number of reprisal attacks has tapered off, said Fiyaz Mughal, director of Tell MAMA, “a high rumbling of Islamophobic incidents continues in the background.” Like others in Britain’s Muslim community, Mughal is worried that, after the surge in retaliatory assaults following Rigby’s death, a broader kind of anti-Muslim sentiment may be setting in, stronger than existed before.
The growing popularity and online presence of far-right anti-Muslim groups like the English Defense League suggests that the threats will continue: Graffiti bearing the group’s acronym has been found at several attack sites.
The West Midlands police has advised more than 200 mosques on how to improve security, and officers elsewhere are investigating attacks and vandalism. But calls by Muslim groups that the government acknowledge Islamophobia as a problem and devise a national strategy to counter it have not been heeded. And the government’s recent drives against illegal immigrants have fueled hostility toward people perceived as outsiders.
Increasingly, it seems as if British Muslims will have to push back on their own. But they are ill-prepared. Earlier this year, the directors of mosques throughout the country were advised to implement better security measures, including fencing, panic alarms and safe rooms. But 1,300 out of the country’s 1,500 mosques continue to take no precautionary measures.
This is partly because of a lack of resources. Talha Ahmad, committee chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain, told me, “People running mosques do so on a volunteer basis, and often lack the professional and social skills needed for community activism.” But Mughal, of Tell MAMA, said that the Muslim community hasn’t learned from recent incidents. “No one is asking what needs to change after Woolwich,” he said.
One thing that needs to change is how Muslims engage with other Britons. For now, they support few monitoring or advocacy projects in Britain. Some 80 percent of the community’s charitable donations go abroad. In the 18 months since its launch, Tell MAMA has received just over £50, or about $80, from local Muslims.
British Muslims should focus their energies closer to home. According to Ahmad, some mosques responded to this summer’s spike in anti-Muslim incidents by including non-Muslims in Ramadan-related festivities. It’s a welcome gesture: Getting together seems like a fine first step toward getting along.
[Huma Yusufis a columnist for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn and was the 2010-11 Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.]
(Courtesy: The New York Times)
London: On Saturday, while Muslims were celebrating Id-al-Fitr to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan, four windows of the Tonna Mosque in Neath, Wales, were smashed by vandals. This is the latest, and by no means the most violent, incident in a series of anti-Muslim assaults across Britain. According to a report released in June, approximately half of Britain’s mosques and Islamic centers have been attacked since 9/11.
Anti-Muslim acts soared following the May 22 murder of a British Army soldier, Lee Rigby, who was hacked to death in Woolwich, south London, by two Muslim men claiming to avenge the killing of Muslims by the British military.
The Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella body of 500 mosques and other Islamic groups, swiftly condemned the murder, but the backlash has been severe anyway.
According to Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), a monitoring project, more than 120 anti-Muslim incidents — including attacks but also instances where hijabs were pulled off women’s heads — were reported in the week after Rigby’s murder, up from an average of about 20 incidents per week. Some 26 mosques and Islamic centers have been attacked since his death.
Earlier this summer, explosions went off outside three mosques in the West Midlands; the one in Tipton was targeted with a nail bomb. Also in the past couple of months, a mosque and Islamic school in London were set on fire, a mosque in Redditch was spray-painted with swastikas, Muslim graves were desecrated in Newport, and bacon was left at the entrance of a mosque in Wales.
Although the number of reprisal attacks has tapered off, said Fiyaz Mughal, director of Tell MAMA, “a high rumbling of Islamophobic incidents continues in the background.” Like others in Britain’s Muslim community, Mughal is worried that, after the surge in retaliatory assaults following Rigby’s death, a broader kind of anti-Muslim sentiment may be setting in, stronger than existed before.
The growing popularity and online presence of far-right anti-Muslim groups like the English Defense League suggests that the threats will continue: Graffiti bearing the group’s acronym has been found at several attack sites.
The West Midlands police has advised more than 200 mosques on how to improve security, and officers elsewhere are investigating attacks and vandalism. But calls by Muslim groups that the government acknowledge Islamophobia as a problem and devise a national strategy to counter it have not been heeded. And the government’s recent drives against illegal immigrants have fueled hostility toward people perceived as outsiders.
Increasingly, it seems as if British Muslims will have to push back on their own. But they are ill-prepared. Earlier this year, the directors of mosques throughout the country were advised to implement better security measures, including fencing, panic alarms and safe rooms. But 1,300 out of the country’s 1,500 mosques continue to take no precautionary measures.
This is partly because of a lack of resources. Talha Ahmad, committee chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain, told me, “People running mosques do so on a volunteer basis, and often lack the professional and social skills needed for community activism.” But Mughal, of Tell MAMA, said that the Muslim community hasn’t learned from recent incidents. “No one is asking what needs to change after Woolwich,” he said.
One thing that needs to change is how Muslims engage with other Britons. For now, they support few monitoring or advocacy projects in Britain. Some 80 percent of the community’s charitable donations go abroad. In the 18 months since its launch, Tell MAMA has received just over £50, or about $80, from local Muslims.
British Muslims should focus their energies closer to home. According to Ahmad, some mosques responded to this summer’s spike in anti-Muslim incidents by including non-Muslims in Ramadan-related festivities. It’s a welcome gesture: Getting together seems like a fine first step toward getting along.
[Huma Yusufis a columnist for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn and was the 2010-11 Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.]
(Courtesy: The New York Times)