Under Siege

The 'shoot-to-kill' police policy and state-sanctioned murder of the young Brazilian man Jean Charles de Menezes haven’t helped. Neither have media comments and Blair-isms urging a “battle of ideas” against an “evil ideology”. Religious hate crimes against Muslims have risen six-fold since the bombings. Local sources suggest Irish Muslims are suffering a similar backlash.
The Irish Muslim community began mainly with students arriving in the 1950s and has now grown to over 20,000 people, many of whom have been living here for many years and are Irish citizens. Some are asylum seekers and refugees, mostly from war-torn countries such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Algeria and Somalia. There are two mosques in Dublin. One is the Dublin Islamic Centre on the South Circular Road, the other is in Clonskeagh. Both emphasise that they are about breaking down barriers and encouraging mutual understanding between Muslims and the Irish public.
Abdul Hasseeb, a 25-year-old Indian Muslim who studies hotel management in the Dublin Institute of Technology and works for the Islamic Foundation Of Ireland, maintains that there has been a rise in anti-Muslim racist incidents in the aftermath of the London bombings on July 7th.
“The day after the attacks a 23-year-old Sikh man was mistaken for a Muslim and stabbed in Athlone,” he says. “Two men called him ‘Bin Laden’ and ‘a terrorist’, and blamed him for the London bombings and then produced a knife and attacked him. Sikhs are often mistaken for Muslims despite their distinctive beards and turbans. Sikhism is a completely different religion from Islam and Sikhs pray in gurdwaras (temple) as distinct from a Muslim mosque. A lot of people have been verbally abused, been called ‘terrorist’, ‘Bin Laden’ and ‘Black Arab’. In Stillorgan and Castleknock, racists tried to pull the scarves (Hijab) off Muslim women. Others have been spat at. Before July 7th we didn’t get such reports.”
Junaid Yousef, another young Muslim living in Dublin, relates similar reports of racism.
“There was a Pakistani student on a bus,” he says. “He had some kind of plastic bag with him ‘cos he was coming home after work. People were coming up to him and saying, ‘Don’t blow us up’ and ‘You fucking terrorist’ and he had to get off the bus.”
Junaid acknowledges that reports of such incidents inspire feelings of anger and fear among the Muslim community.
“We feel horrible,” he says. “We don’t feel free to go out in our own country. We are isolated. Before, the Irish were friendly, now they look down on you, suspicious. I’m Irish but I wouldn’t wear an Irish jersey. I watch the matches and all that but if I put on a jersey people would say, ‘Look at you, you’re not Irish.’ So I’m not proud of being Irish.”
Hebah Nashat is 22 and from Galway. She is studying medicine and works part-time. While she describes Ireland as home, she too speaks of suffering racist abuse.
“My car was vandalized in a local supermarket car-park with the words ‘Paki shit’,” she says. “People take up the line told to them by the media that people who commit such atrocities like the London bombings hate western culture and the way of life, but that’s not the case, because if they did hate the west then they wouldn’t be living here and you wouldn’t have second and third generation Muslims growing up in the west.
She adds: "The problems of the bombings should be looked at from a broader angle. There is the international crisis in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya and now a war in Sudan where many Muslims feel angry that the trouble is being stirred up by the British and the Americans over there.”
Junaid Yousef also speculates about possible causes of the bombings.
“Maybe it was because of frustration,” he suggests, “(that) they had no outlet for their views. They felt alienated or felt strongly about the bombings of Iraqis or about the Palestinians. How many civilians have died because of the 'war on terror'? This is really a war against Islam.”
“This ‘evil ideology’ talk by Blair is just spin,” adds Abdul. “Muslims are increasingly beginning to see that the war on terrorism is in reality a war against Islam and Muslims."
He continues: "Everywhere you look in the world Muslims are labelled as terrorists – in Chechnya, Kashmir and recently in Thailand, villages have been burnt and hundreds of Muslims massacred by the government under the pretext of fighting ‘terrorists’.”
When contacted by telephone, Dr Noah Al-Kaddo, director of Clonskeagh mosque and an Iraqi citizen, say the attacks on London were wrong.
“We condemned the London bombings," he explains, "Islam is a peaceful religion, no one can do such violence in the name of Islam."
It is clear, however, why London was targeted, he adds.
"We all know what the motive behind the bombings might have been what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan and British Foreign policy. In Iraq every day hundreds of people are killed. What we see now is what we said would happen before the war."
There are clear lessons for the Government here, he says. "In Ireland we need to reconsider the use of Shannon: does it help the Irish or Iraqi people?”
Abdul, Junaid and Hebah all highlight the role of the media in stirring anti-Muslim sentiment and in trying to equate Islam with terrorism. In particular, they single out journalists such as Mark Dooley in the Sunday Independent, who recently wrote a piece under the headline ‘Our Inept Response To Arab Terrorists Living In Ireland Must End’, and Michael Graham, a regular guest on George Hook’s Newstalk 106 radio programme, whose mantra is “the problem is not extremism. The problem is Islam".
“Why is the world afraid of Islam?” Hebah asks. “The actions of the IRA, is that called Catholic terrorism? Everyone knows that the Israelis are illegally occupying and terrorizing the Palestinians for the past 60 or 70 years. But does anyone refer to them as ‘Jewish extremists, Jewish terrorists or Jewish terrorism’?"
George Bush and Tony Blair waged war on Iraq, killed thousands and lied to billions of people, he says. Are they called ‘Christian Terrrorists’?
According to Abdul, many young Muslims feel under constant scrutiny as they go about their daily lives. They also feel under pressure to abandon their Muslim identities.
“During interviews I did following 7th July I felt as if the questions I was being asked required me to say that Islam is a bad religion and we should abandon it,” he says.
Adds Hebah: “People are assuming things about Islam, using a biased media as a source of information. Take the recent banning of the Hijab in French schools for example. The world’s many cultures, races and religions are rapidly converging into a multicultural community. Monoculture is a thing of the past." But trying to remove the things central to a person's identity is, he claims a violation of their human rights.
He says: "France is aiming to fix the problems between the different cultures and religions, by aiming to make the whole community similar in appearance, remove diversity and impose monotony."
This, he believes, is a superficial solution for a complex problem.
"People will rebel. This may even increase any hostility that may be budding in some youths. It will remove from youths their freedom to practice their religion completely, such as for French Muslim women from wearing the Hijab –which is obligatory for Muslim women – or French Jewish men from wearing skull caps.
Wearing the Hijab in Ireland is not always a comfortable experience.
“People are not alien to the concept of the Hijab,” Hebah continues, “they know what it is and what faith it is from. No one has passed any negative comments. People do get a little surprised when they hear me talk in an Irish accent though! People are very curious, and always ask question like why I wear it etc.”
What does Hebah think of the Muslim faith being regarded by westerners as one that is anti-women?
“Ask any Muslim woman if she is oppressed as a Muslim woman or a follower of Islam,” she says. “No Muslim woman is oppressed in Islam. Islam gave rights to women that hadn’t existed before. No Muslim woman ever needed to partake in protests or burn her undergarments to claim civil rights."
Such rights, she says, were outlined by God in the Quran 1,400 years ago. In fact, the majority of converts to Islam are women.
"God has described in the Quran that men and women are equal," she says. "We are equal, but different. We each contribute to society but in different yet complementing ways. In the Quran God does not forbid a woman from working.”
The attitude of young Muslims to socialising varies. Abdul says he listens to drums'n'bass, while Junaid listens to Cat Stevens and Islamic music. Generally, Islam frowns on music, believing it a distraction from God. Of course, like any religion, people follow the rules at different levels.
Said Elbouzri, a Moroccan citizen working as social care worker here, says he loves instrumental music and has been to see Riverdance and Kila. Junaid socialises with his Muslim friends and enjoys sports, especially cricket and football.
Hebah says “With my friends, I love getting pizza, watching DVDs, going to the cinema, restaurants, coffee, walks, visiting them at home, and going shopping.”
Under the guise of fighting terror, Bush, Blair and Bertie Ahern are planning to introduce measures that will further curb our civil liberties, such as allowing the CIA interrogate Irish citizens on Irish soil, restricting the rights of Muslims to practise their faith, introducing ID cards and even restricting “verbal” criticism of western foreign policy.
Despite the Taoiseach's claims to the contrary, Ireland is now one of the most important stop-over points for the US in its war on Iraq.
“Hate breeds hate, love breeds love,” says Abdul. “The occupation of any country should not be acceptable. People should have a better understanding of Islam."
Over 158,549 US troops passed through Shannon since January," he continues. "Our challenge is to end that complicity with mass murder. People must mobilise to defend civil liberties and stop war. There is a big anti-war demonstration on 24th September at Shannon. I’d encourage people to get there.”