As Britain tries to recover from the sting of terrorism, it is its basic values that it will find challenged, writes Anita Mir from London Has the model of multiculturalism in Britain -- long perceived as an exemplary experiment the rest of Europe could do well to emulate -- failed? Three of the four bombers who executed the attack on the capital on 7 July, killing 52 and leaving hundreds injured, were born and bred in Britain. They were not the creatures of madrassas, but of the British system. They went to British schools, their first language was English and despite the high density of Muslim Asians (the young men's families were of Pakistani origin) in their home town of Beeston in Leeds, it is inconceivable that at some time in their lives they did not have friends who were English. They saw the open society of the West and ultimately they rejected it. I will here attempt to analyze the larger political issues and the issues around identity that could have contributed to transforming three young men who were considered model citizens into men bent on destroying the society to which they -- despite what they had come to believe -- belonged. I will then look at the possible fallout of their actions. Those who planned the second and failed attack on London two weeks to the day of the first bombing are now known to have been linked to the first group of bombers. The idea, therefore, that the first attack was a sporadic incident has to be dismissed. A chain is emerging. It may lead back to some of the right-wing maulanas who direct services at mosques in the country; it also might not, for as we all too well know, the message of hate is pervasive. If it is what you go looking for, it is easy to find. The message, whether in Britain, Pakistan or indeed Egypt, is the same. It speaks of a golden age of Islam, the rape of the Muslim world by the infidel West, the "gifting" by the West of a Muslim majority country -- Palestine -- to the Jews as appeasement for the West's own crimes against the Jews. To this list of dishonourable acts is now added the invasion of Iraq and the killing, since the war began in March 2003, of over 25,000 Iraqi civilians. Are these sufficient grounds, however, to make a man (or woman for that matter) kill, and in the process kill himself? In my own country, Pakistan, I have interviewed a large number of men who are members of one sectarian group or another. The rank and file of these groups is invariably young, uneducated and poor working class. But here, in Britain, the story -- so far, it must be added -- is different. Of the four bombers, one was formerly a teacher of children with disabilities, another had attended university. Prior to the war in Iraq, when the "war on terrorism" was focused on Afghanistan, a number of British raised Muslims left to join the mujahedeen and fight against Britain. In subsequent analysis it has been noted that as well as the usual stereotypical men from working class backgrounds, the Afghanistan cause also attracted men from affluent, privileged families. What then was, and what is, the predominant factor that pushes these individuals to buy into a George W Bush styled simplistic worldview that sees only divisions of "us" and "them"? Minority communities are by their very nature isolated from the larger community. To say that British Muslims are isolated, then, is to say nothing. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jews may be, or may desire to live, isolated from the majority English populace. I think it is the nature of these individual communities that need to be examined, and I think they need to be examined in respect to one another. Is there, for instance, some support mechanism within the Hindu community that allows second generation Hindus to straddle both worlds? And is there, perhaps an opposing mechanism that prevents such a movement in a Muslim community, so that one is either within the community or outside of it? Is this to do with the rigour of the faith or, as I think more likely, the rigour of interpretation? Moderates -- usually the silent majority -- in both Muslim countries (the term "Muslim world" is, I hold, an anomaly) and in Western countries are now eager to be heard. They are saying that such bombings are "not in our name" and that the Islam the bombers are said to have given their allegiance to, is not an Islam they know. I think that one of the major problems facing those of us who call ourselves liberals, yet who have not abandoned the value of religion, is that we do not know what Islam is. We might think we know what it isn't, but where is our line of enquiry? Our scholarship? As I write these lines I realise how easy it would be to be comforted, as the Islamists evidently are, with the idea of a golden age and the possibility of a Renaissance. Both are deluding ideals, for they prevent us from living in the present, from following the middle way. What, then, is the way forward? British Prime Minister Tony Blair is meeting with Muslim leaders both from Britain and from Muslim countries. But who are these Muslim leaders and whom do they represent? By 8 July, the day after the bombings, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) had received over 30,000 threats. The MCB did not, however, grow indigenously from a Muslim community; it was the brainchild of Tony Blair's government office. It is worth here pointing out that there is not a single Muslim community, but several Muslim communities and even within these communities there may be dissent. Do organisations such as the MCB speak for -- and to -- any of these people? Is their outreach minimal compared to the politicised maulanas who speak to crowds of a hundred and more? Public support is gathering for the deportation of those maulanas who live in this country and yet preach hate for the values and ways of life of this society. The Foreign Office argument that "it is better to have them where we know they are" has worn thin. If connections are made between the bombers and these right-wing maulanas, the political judgment of tolerance will be proved to have been devastatingly wrong. Following the discovery that three of the London bombers had received some instruction at madrassas in Pakistan, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has pledged that his government will crack down on those madrassas that propagate hatred and violence. This action may have some long-term effects for peace in both countries, but one cannot help think that it comes too late. The madrassas should have been clamped down upon when they first began to flourish, with the support of US aid, in the early 1980s, following the end of the Afghan war. In the last few days I have been talking to strangers, or it would be correct to say that once they find out where I'm from, I've been "talked to" by strangers, each of them with a theory, each with a comment on how difficult it will be for Asians, and in particular Pakistanis, to live securely in this country. I have overheard a young woman say to her friend, "Get a black cab, not a cab driven by a Paki." I've heard of a young girl who works in a supermarket being told, "You're a terrorist," and the young girl leaving her workstation crying, unable to resume her duties. These are the small incidents; the kind of things that often go unobserved. What reaction will such incidents inculcate? There will, of course, be those who are on the brink and who will be pushed by tales such as this and worse to go down the extremist path. I think two other shifts will take place. The Asians in Britain will want to stand separate from one another. A Hindu will want to be distinguished from a Muslim, a Sri-Lankan Muslim from a Pakistani Muslim. I also think the majority of British Muslims will -- as they already are beginning to -- take a stance that is apologetic. The guilt for this crime is not theirs, but they feel it, and perhaps will be made to feel it, through association. The fabric of life in this country has undoubtedly changed. Soon, laws will be amended to reflect this change. As long as the bombings remain vibrant in peoples' memory it will be possible for the government to convince citizens to accept greater surveillance, intrusion into their private lives and even "mistakes", such as that which occurred on 22 July when an innocent Brazilian was killed by police at Stockwell underground station. Once again, the British system of multiculturalism is being pitted against the American style of national allegiance. It is argued that the first does not require active participation of its citizens and allows them to continue to follow, to a great degree, the pattern of life they would have abided by in their home countries. The second requires a publicly demonstrable belief by all citizens -- new and old -- that the values of American society are worth upholding. While the debate continues, incorporating too a discussion of the particular ethos behind the formation of the American state (as it is often called, a "state of immigrants"), Britain is moving towards the American model. In support of this argument I offer two examples, both of which were implemented before the bombings. Once you have been resident in this country for ten years you can apply for nationality. Nowadays you do not, as you once did, automatically receive a passport in the post; you have to participate in an official collective ceremony, not unlike the American ceremony on which it is no doubt based. My second example I take from an observation of a number of shopping arcades in London, the city that has the highest multi-ethnic population in the country. Here, stalls have been set up to encourage people to enroll in English classes. This action might appear innocuous, were it not connected to the debate about language and nationality which argues that the use of English in the home may help produce citizens who are foremost, British. Such measures, all without political consensus, are moving the country towards the controversial process of state designed integration outlined by the Home Secretary David Blunkett. I think this would be a great pity. The multicultural ideal is a wonderful one and is surely worth fighting for. What to my mind is frightening is not the thought of another journey on the tube or the bus, but how thin a veneer our ideas of tolerance might prove to be.
