Posted on 07/24/2005 5:29:23 PM PDT by Cougar66
Muslim youths walked with a determined stride to London's East End Mosque to say their prayers on Friday, just hours after armed police surrounded the building after a bomb threat. Wearing the traditional shalwaar kameez, their heads crowned with the white prayer caps of Islam, swathes of young second-generation Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh made their way to the mosque on Whitechapel Road, one of the oldest and busiest in London.
The moment was particularly poignant as Friday is the most important day for Muslims. Salaat-ul-Jumma, or the Friday noon prayer is necessarily communal and helped heighten the feeling of solidarity among those disaffected by the recent events and the public's reaction to them.
“I feel scared to wear Islamic clothes at the moment. Everyone gives me dirty looks,” said Mansoor, a 15-year-old muslim from Bangladesh.
His friend, Muhammed, also 15, echoed his views. “Before these latest attacks, I felt British, but now I feel that I have been left out of British society,” he said.
“I feel like running away from this country,” said 15-year-old Juber, who said that he and his friends are being stopped and searched by police at a rate of five or six times a week. “If they [the police] start harrassing mulims for no reason, then why do we want to stay in this country? It has become racist,” he added.
Other teenagers on their way to prayers said they felt all Asians were suffering at the moment, whether they were muslim, sikh or hindu, and that few of the public really understood that only a minority of Muslims engage in terrorism, with the majority condemning it.
“Anyone with brown skin is suffering from these attacks. When I get on a bus, I feel very afraid. People look at me suspiciously and some even shout 'Bin Laden, Bin Laden' at me,” said Siratu.
The Muslim Council of Britain , which has been working with government to improve community relations, expressed concern about developments on Friday: “We are getting phone calls from quite a lot of Muslims who are distressed about what may be a shoot-to-kill policy,” said a spokesman.
“I feel much more harrassed now. The incidents that have happened have not helped the muslim community as a whole. All terrorists are now being classed as muslim,” said Mez, a teenager from Bangladesh. “When the IRA was bombing London, people never said whether they were Catholic or Protestant, so what's the difference? The British government have alienated us,” Mez added.
He went on to argue that, despite all the terrorist attacks which have happened since September 11, the root of the problem had still not been addressed by the public.
“In Iraq and Palestine people are dying on a daily basis and no one is holding silences for them. What is happening in those two countries is the root of the problem of terrorism. Give the Iraqis and the Palestinians support and it will stop,” Mes said.
“America ain't playing fair,” said Rash, another you Bangladeshi said yesterday as his friends nodded their heads in clear agreement. “I'd still rather live here than there,” he finally concluded.
Boo hoo.
Mez, et. al., I am sitting here now playing my teeny, tiny violin for you.
Yeah. That'll happen.
Hello?
Stop blaming the British. It's time to blame the people who put YOU in this situation; it's way past time to stand up to them.
I think fear and distrust of Muslims is
beginning to turn into hate..all around
the world. People are finding it harder
and harder to stubbornly believe the lies
that it is all the USs fault, and all
Western civilisatons, fault.
No matter *how* many ulterior mative scumballs
and their useful idiot followers keepr telling
the same plkd lies.
Clinton kissed Arafatmouths A** for 8 years and it didn't stop one bombing. Do these baby Islamofascist think we are stupid. They need to get out of the 7th century and try living in the 10th at least.
Don't let the door hit you in the butt, Jube. And take your "alienated" friends with you.
Same old sh!t they said here after 9-11...boo frikkin hoo they had to suffer thru some dirty looks. Meanwhile the rest of the world suffers mass death and destruction at the hands of these evil infested people.
This is sounding better all the time. Maybe they will go back to Camel Dung Iraq or where ever they came from.
Sounds like the new policy is working.
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