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Omar Bakri and Captain Hook drawing attention in the UK
Death was on Abu Hamza's mind. "Seek the way of death; try to do actions that subject you to death," the Muslim cleric told his audience, most of them young men, as they sat at Friday prayers. "If you die to defend your religion, you are a martyr. ... Die honorably, don't die humiliated."This was not Gaza or Fallujah. This was Finsbury Park in north London, on a road outside a mosque that was raided by anti-terrorism police more than a year ago and has been closed ever since. Abu Hamza al-Masri, universally known as Abu Hamza, turned to the resistance fighters in Iraq. "They are keen to die honorably for the sake of God and religion," he boomed into a microphone as about two dozen police officers, the same number of journalists and a good many unenthusiastic local residents watched. Abu Hamza is different things to different people in Britain. To the police and government, he is a dangerous man connected to Islamic terrorist groups; they are trying to strip him of his citizenship and deport him to Yemen, where he is wanted on terrorism charges. To the British tabloid papers and their readers, he is public enemy No. 1, vilified daily and known as Hook. (He says he lost his hands fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, and he often wears a menacing-looking metal hook on one hand.) To his followers, he is a talismanic source of inspiration and righteousness. And to most Muslims in Britain, he is their worst nightmare -- the most visible face of Islam in a country suffused with anxiety and sometimes hostility toward nearly 2 million Muslims who for the most part are trying to live law-abiding, integrated lives. "Anyone living here who blatantly displays anti-British sentiment should be either prosecuted and incarcerated, or, if from foreign shores, immediately packed off from whence they came," columnist Jane Moore wrote recently in the Sun tabloid, echoing the sort of sentiment that Muslims in Britain fear has become commonplace. But even as the Muslim establishment in Britain tries to point out that Abu Hamza and his ilk are a small minority, leaders acknowledge that the radicals' message is striking a chord among some disaffected British Muslims. "The danger is they're trying to tap into a genuine grievance in our community," said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, the country's largest Muslim group. Britain's role in the Iraq invasion and the belief that Britain is increasingly pro-Israel are two major issues, he said. Community leaders say that some young Muslims, resentful of the police's treatment, are turning toward figures such as Abu Hamza. "More alienation, more hatred is actually being nourished," said Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, which campaigns against what it perceives as police discrimination. Shadjareh, however, is seen by many in the Muslim community as an extremist himself. "The reality of the situation is, thank God, that there hasn't been a single incident of terrorism in Britain committed by a Muslim." While Shadjareh is correct on that point, the police insist they have prevented attacks through their arrests. They also point to people such as Briton Richard Reid, convicted in the United States of trying to explode a shoe bomb in December 2001 on a trans-Atlantic flight, and French-born Moroccan Zacarias Moussaoui, who is accused of helping to plot the Sept. 11 attacks; both men attended sermons at the Finsbury Park mosque, which used to be Abu Hamza's base. Another visiting preacher at the mosque was Omar Bakri, the head of an extremist group called Al-Muhajiroun. Bakri, who has described himself as Osama bin Laden's representative in Britain, was linked earlier this month to a suicide bombing in Israel. At a recent meeting in the East End of London, the Syrian-born Bakri sat behind a desk in a community center and addressed a room of about 60 Muslims on the psychology of the suicide bomber, apparently his favorite topic of the moment. Like Abu Hamza, Bakri dwelt at length on the topic of death and martyrdom. He explained that Muslims should welcome death to get to paradise. He said that heaven awaits all martyrs, and he described palaces there that would be so large that it would take more than a hundred years to ride from one end to the other on horseback. Inside, he said, would be endless luxurious rooms, each with diamonds and baths in which would wait beautiful young women. There is considerable debate within the British security services and the Muslim community as to how dangerous Bakri, Abu Hamza and their supporters are. Although clearly a small percentage of the community, they are attracting some committed followers. "Lots [of British Muslim men] did go to Afghanistan prior to 9/11," said one moderate Muslim leader, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said that he personally knew people who had trained in Al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and that he passed on this information to the police. These men are now under close surveillance, he said. Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, attends mosque in Ilford, Essex. Recently, someone put up 15 photographs taken from video footage shot by the Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera inside the Iraqi city of Fallujah. People at the mosque gathered around the images, which showed Iraqi children apparently killed during the U.S. siege of the city, which lasted most of April. Witnesses say hundreds of Iraqi civilians died. Arabs and Muslims all over the world have been sending the pictures to each other, Bunglawala said. As they stood gazing at the pictures, congregants at the mosque "equated those killings with terrorism," Bunglawala said. "There's a feeling that enough is enough. I certainly heard a lot of support and admiration for the resistance." The question of whether that support will produce new volunteers such as Reid or Omar Sharif and Asif Hanif, who left England to become suicide bombers in Israel last year, is what concerns both the Muslim community and the British authorities. Amid the trials, the arrests, the fear, the radical preaching and the moderates' marching to proclaim Islam's love of peace, some august British institutions are trying to further understanding rather than suspicion. Eton College, Britain's most famous private high school, recently announced the hiring of its first Muslim cleric in its 564-year history. At the start of the next academic year, Monawar Hussein, 34, will take up his post at the school, which has produced 19 British prime ministers and has educated numerous royals. The school also will start offering Arabic language lessons. The young imam has no time for the likes of Abu Hamza and Bakri. "All they're doing is using the faith to further their political agendas," he said. His appointment, he said, is "groundbreaking; it's historical." And when he shows up to teach the future leaders of the country that once ruled much of the Islamic and Arab worlds, he will tell them about a very different Islam from that preached by the men who appear nearly every day in the British papers. "Islam embraces diversity, love and compassion," he said. "It's about caring for other people." Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-05-23 |
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