Group indoctrication whether religious or secular are powerful tools, this
should be no surprise... ask Patti Hearst.
_____
The mystery of 'Sid'
By Nasreen Suleaman
BBC News
Why did he do it? Months of investigations have uncovered an apparently
integrated, happy, western-thinking man behind the face of one of Britain's
first suicide bombers. But many questions remain unanswered.
Like millions of others, Ian Barrett watched the news just a week after the
7 July bombings to discover that three of the men responsible were from the
Beeston district of Leeds.
But it was only later that evening, when old school friend Rob Cardiss
called Ian on his mobile, that he realised he knew one of the bombers.
"Do you realise who Mohammed Sidique Khan is?" asked Rob.
Ian didn't recognise the name. Rob told him: "It's Sid - from school!"
Mohammed Sidique Khan was someone Ian had lost touch with, but at school
they had been close friends. Khan's story is not one of cultural isolation,
racial segregation or adolescent religious indoctrination.
The Beeston of Khan's youth was a largely white neighbourhood - and indeed
he seems to have spent most of his time in the company of white English
lads. Over the past few months I have spoken to many of those white
childhood friends, friends who knew Khan as Sid, and they all tell a similar
story.
Their accounts of Khan's upbringing and character show a man who spent most
of his formative years not really mixing with other local Muslims.
And, says Ian Barrett, unlike the other children of Pakistani parents, he
was not under any family pressure to take an interest in Islam.
"The other Pakistani lads would have to go mosque because their families
would say 'You're going to mosque.' But Sid didn't go," says Ian. "He didn't
seem interested in Islam and I don't ever remember him mentioning religion."
Khan was, by all accounts, an exceptionally well integrated person. His
anglicised name "Sid" was just one symbol of his willingness to take on a
British identity.
"If it wasn't for the colour of his skin, he would have been [seen as
exclusively] English," says Ian. "I just thought of him as a Beeston lad -
and that's what he was - a Beeston lad, born and bred."
Socially skilled
During the 1970s and 80s, the Muslim population of Beeston swelled. But
while the community grew in number and confidence, Khan appears to have
negotiated the potential for divided loyalties in a multicultural society
with remarkable social skill.
Ian Barrett and Rob Cardiss recall how fights would regularly break out
between English and Asian lads at their secondary school.
Khan never took part - and somehow also managed to avoid being reprimanded,
by either side, for remaining neutral. In fact, the only criticism he
appears ever to have attracted was some mild adolescent teasing from the
other Asian lads about his friendship with an English female classmate.
So how did he become one of Britain's first suicide bombers?
With a decade of experience in journalism, fluent Urdu and a Yorkshire
upbringing, I assumed I was well placed to discover what led to Khan's
remarkable transformation.
But no one could have prepared me for the febrile atmosphere and wall of
silence that has been built up by the Beeston Muslim community that knew
him. What is clear is that many people are either too scared to talk - or
scared that if they do, that what they say will be distorted by the media.
When the world's press first arrived - and I mean scores of journalists - we
were treated with courtesy and respect by Beeston's Muslim community.
We immediately descended on Cross Flatts Park, close to the streets where
Khan grew up and where he and the other bombers had played sport.
The local Pakistani lads were heartbroken to learn that Khan could have been
responsible for killing people. They were willing to reminisce for the
cameras about how Sid was a decent and popular guy.
However as the press began to report stories about radicalisation taking
place in local gyms, youth centres and Islamic bookshops, the Muslim
residents of Beeston became angry and then wary.
First-hand stories
We have heard the second-hand stories, the rumours and the speculation. But
we have yet to hear the first-hand testimony of those who attended these
places to really know if any kind of radical Islamist ideology was being
spread by Khan or others.
When I returned to Beeston several weeks after the attacks, the silence had
been partially lifted.
But there was another barrier to getting at the truth: the willingness of
many people to prefer conspiracy theories to some honest reflection about
how three young men in their midst could have carried out these terrible
attacks.
I was told frequently that the 7 July bombers were either duped into it or
were innocent victims of somebody else's bombing campaign.
One Muslim young professional spoke for many when he told me that if the
Metropolitan Police could have shot Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent
young Brazilian mistaken for a potential suicide bomber, then they could
also be wrong about Khan.
I told him that if he had any evidence that undermined Khan's guilt then
that would be a sensational story indeed.
The release of Khan's suicide video has diminished some of the doubts about
his role in the attacks. But to some extent those doubts still persist in
Muslim areas - not only in Beeston but among many other British Muslims I
have spoken to.
That's not to say that since July 7 Muslims haven't been asking some
important questions. The Muslims I speak to want to know how Khan, a British
Muslim like them, did what he did.
We have discovered that not only, as we suspected, there is "an enemy
within" - but that its nature is highly complex. Mohammed Sidique Khan
exemplifies that complexity.
Here was a Muslim who was publicly respected and admired. He was neither
socially isolated nor economically disadvantaged.
If he, with all his trappings of Western culture, is capable of this, how
can we prevent it happening again?
And, most uncomfortably for those of Muslim origin like myself, does it
encourage our non-Muslim neighbours to look on us all with suspicion?
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4354858.stm
Published: 2005/10/19 09:24:20 GMT
C BBC MMV
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