January 16, 2008

UK: Muslim Gang Culture (Part 3 of 3)

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Britain's Muslim Gang Culture: Part Three of Three

A Brief History Of Squalor

Gang culture has flourished in deprived parts of London since at least the early 18th century. During the 1700s, a slum called St Giles existed close to London's West End. Called a "rookery", drinking dens flourished here, where cheap gin was drunk. Crime and prostitution flourished. In 1751, a quarter of the houses there were drinking dens. The houses were cramped, arranged like a maze, with walkways and doors leading into other properties. A criminal could commit a crime and flee to St Giles, knowing he could "vanish" from the forces of the law.

The criminal gangs of St Giles became the model for Fagin's gang, depicted in Dickens' "Oliver Twist", published in 1838. This haven for criminals lasted for almost two centuries until demolished at the end of the 19th century. There were spates of reported "garrottings" in the West End in the mid 1850s and in 1862. The perpetrators came from St Giles.

During the 1840s, Henry Mayhew visited parts of London and interviewed its poorer inhabitants. His studies would be published in 1851 in three volumes, called "London Labour and the London Poor". For the most part, Mayhew's subjects plied honest, but badly paid, trades. In 1860, Mayhew described visiting St Giles, where he noted that many windows had "spike nails" in the walls beneath them. A fugitive could climb through the window and use the nails to climb down the wall beneath.

In 1899, Clarence Rook published Hooligan Nights, an account of the life of a young criminal and gang leader from Southwark called Patrick Hooligan. He would carry a "chopper" with him, in case he met rival gangs. During the 1950s, much of the criminal activity in Soho was controlled by Maltese gangs. In the 1960s the Kray twins controlled organized crime gangs in East London, while the Richardsons controlled gangs south of the river.

The current gang culture of London and other British cities, like those in the rookeries of former times, draws its membership from the poor and socially dispossessed, who attempt to assert control over small closely-defined territories. Where the rookeries' inhabitants engaged in robberies and traded in cheap alcohol, contemporary gangs rob and steal and trade drugs, and sometimes weapons.

Hackney

In 1976, I went as a student to live in the Borough of Hackney, in East London. I soon heard of gang rivalry between individuals living in three housing projects. Now, Hackney has more than 30 such gangs, each one connected to a particular "estate" or housing project. Some of the gangs are black, some racially mixed, while the Bengal Tigers who operate in the south of the borough are Bangladeshi Muslims. The territorial instinct of these gangs is astounding.

Last month, a 16-year old black youth called Nassirudeen Osawe was killed at a bus stop in Hackney's neighboring borough of Islington, the 27th teenager to die in the capital in 2007. He was stabbed to death at 2.30 pm in the afternoon on busy Upper Street. He was six days away from celebrating his 17th birthday. According to the Guardian, police investigations were being made into the activities of members of the "Shakespeare" gang, who live in a bleak housing project on the edge of Hackney known as Milton Gardens Estate. It appears that Nass Osawe was killed for "offending" members of this gang, probably by being seen on their territory.

In 1984 when European "regeneration" money was flowing into Hackney, I designed letterheads for the community center based in Milton Gardens. Though the local young people then were boisterous, they were generally friendly to each other and to outsiders. Now the Shakespeare gang, which has members as young as 10 years old, defines the Milton Gardens neighborhood.

An internal police report quoted by the Guardian claims that Hackney now has the "the highest rates of increase of gun and knife crime in London", involving "terrible acts of gratuitous violence". The gangs engage in warfare based on postcodes (zip codes). The Guardian quoted a member of the Metropolitan Police's Violent Crime Directorate, who said: "There have always been territorial gangs in London. What's different is the levels of violence that are used. In most cases it is knives, and, extremely rarely, guns. It is postcode related. I've spoken to young people who say it's about respecting territory and, because they've got nothing else, they have to hold on to what little they have got. And the trigger seems more tightly sprung. It's not a phenomenon that's going to go away overnight."

When a teenager can have his life snatched away merely for being on another gang's "turf", it is obvious that the growing phenomenon of gang culture is creating for young people a climate of fear and defensiveness. Trapped in shabby housing projects, they are pressured to join gangs, where they gain protection from other rival gangs. In such a paranoid climate, it is small wonder that ethnic and religious tensions are now thriving in some regions of Britain.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Hackney was racially mixed and genuinely tolerant. The problems for Hackney began in the mid 1980s, when properties began to be bought by white professionals from outside the borough. Suddenly the "haves" were living next to the "have nots" in the same streets, and resentments began to grow. At the end of the 1980s, new migrants began to flood the borough. First came Kurdish and Turkish refugees, followed in the 1990s by Somalis, then Bosnians and more recently members of European Union countries. With different disadvantaged groups all competing for the same diminishing supply of homes and jobs, the minority groups have no love for each other.

Gangs of youths, who called themselves "posses" began to emerge openly in the late 1980s. These would engage in "steaming" in shopping areas, robbing all and sundry. In 1990, I moved to Clapton in Hackney, off Lower Clapton Road, which was then called by the Guardian "Murder Mile". It gained this name from a spate of killings, mostly drug- and gang-related. In some cases, the killings appeared racially motivated, as happened in the case of the Pakistani owner of the local Post Office, killed by a black gang.

I lived in a pleasant-looking street inhabited by journalists, actors and wealthy television producers who lived beside affluent and poor Muslim and black families, Irish prostitutes, and assorted drug dealers of all races. In this bizarre environment, hardly anyone spoke openly with each other. To avoid confrontation, people adopted an attitude of indifference to others' activities, even if these included noisy late-night parties, openly smoking crack or making obscene displays in the street.

Shortly before I left Hackney in 1998, on one sunny June afternoon I heard what I believed to be fireworks outside my window. I heard a woman cry out "Why did you have to do that?" but did not bother to look outside. I discovered later that the noise was the sound of a neighbor being blasted with a shotgun in the street, while children watched in horror on the sidewalk. The killing happened after a trivial argument about ownership of a car stereo. The same neighborhood continued to be called "murder mile" years later.

Hackney may be extreme, and has fewer Muslims than some other London boroughs, but it mirrors in microcosm what has happened across Britain.

In the segregated urban ghettoes where many Bangladeshis and Pakistanis have lived since the 1960s, where young people perceive their opportunities to be limited, the gangs have become more defensive. Sometimes the Muslim gangs are trying to defend their territory, sometimes their frustrations have been deliberately exploited by Islamist activists. Al Muhajiroun has exploited animosity between Sikhs and Muslims in Southall, West London, and also in Derby.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, which gave rise to Al Muhajiroun, similarly exploits a gang mentality among its members in the lower echelons. New recruits are encouraged to steal from or intimidate outsiders, to show their commitment to the group's aims. In August 2005, a month after the London bombings, then prime minister Tony Blair suggested that he wished to ban the Islamist group. In response, Hizb ut-Tahrir warned that the "Muslim community" would not tolerate such an action, and could mount riots in cities across Britain.

Tower Hamlets

The borough of Tower Hamlets in east London lies to south of Hackney. Only 51% of its population are white. Tower Hamlets has a high Muslim population, with the largest concentration of Bangladeshis in London. Most come from Sylhet district in northeastern Bangladesh. Here, gang culture has thrived. Of 27 gangs in the borough, 26 of these are Bangladeshi.

As is typical with many gangs, violence is enacted upon others of the same ethnicity who belong to gangs tied to other housing areas. On February 4, 2003, three of the gangs, the Poplar Massive Kru, the Shadwell Massive and the Bow Kru engaged in street warfare, armed with meat cleavers, kitchen knives and machetes. Three people ended up in hospital. A Bangladeshi student explained that the gangs had originally started "to fight off the white racists who were attacking us. But there are so many Bangladeshis here now that the whites have moved away and we end up fighting each other."

The largest of these gangs at that time was the Brick Lane Massive, numbering 250 members. Brick Lane Massive has been in existence since the 1980s and is the best known of the Bangladeshi gangs. White prostitutes regularly ply their trade along Commercial Street and in side streets leading to Brick Lane, such as Fournier Street, Fashion Street and Hanbury Street. Prostitution has been part of life in this area of London since the time of Jack the Ripper. His last victim, Mary Kelly, was found mutilated in her home in what is now Fashion Street. In 2002 and 2003, the Brick Lane Massive turned their attention to harassing and intimidating these prostitutes. Police Superintendent Simmons said: "These fundamentalists do not like the girls because they claim they are against the Koran. They harass them, but are met with remarks like 'Jack the Ripper didn't get us and neither will you bastards'."

In 2003, a small six-man unit of police called Operation Ashford was set up in Tower Hamlets to deal exclusively with the problems created by the Bangladeshi gangs. These gangs use a variety of weapons, from Samurai swords to meat cleavers and baseball bats. Sometimes molotov cocktails are thrown at rival gangs, but rarely are guns involved in the violence. The general Bangladeshi community is fiercely proud, and has set up its own monitoring and support schemes to wean youngsters from the prevailing gang culture. These include the Aasha Gang Conflict Mediation group and the Shaathi Mentoring Project.

The Aasha mediation group, whose name means "hope" in Bangla, proved itself to be so successful at resolving conflicts that in 2004 Tower Hamlets Borough Council set up their own "rapid response team", capable of sending mediators to scenes of conflict.

Though methods are in place to quell serious incidents, the gangs remain in Tower Hamlets and show little signs of disappearing. In 2006 the Times interviewed a member of the Shadwell Massive, a gang with 70 members. At one stage, this individual had been earning £960 ($1,880) each week selling heroin. He said: "Before, it was mixed and you would get to know other people, but now no one meets anyone. You grow up with this mentality that 'we're Bangladeshis, whites are whites and blacks are blacks'."

Most gang violence in Tower Hamlets occurs between rival Bangladeshi gangs, but a trial which ended last month suggests that any "outsider" who enters gang territory is potentially a target. On April 8, 2006, John Payne, a white 33-year old construction worker was walking home through Stepney after a night out. With him were two female friends and a work colleague. A small group of "Asians" were waiting in a car park and began shouting racist abuse at them. The four were set upon. As the attack proceeded, more youths gathered to join in, bringing the total number to around 30.

One woman was repeatedly punched and was hit on the head with a metal pole. The two men had their heads hacked with machetes. John Payne's head was split open, and fragments of his skull entered his brain. While lying on the ground, his assailants continued to kick and punch him. As a result, he was paralyzed down one side and was left with slurred speech. He also suffers now from epilepsy.

The attackers belonged to a gang from the Clichy housing estate (project) in Stepney. On December 9, 2007, three men - Sodrul Islam, 23, Delwar Hussain, 21, and Mamoon Hussain, 20, - were found guilty of attempted murder. The Hussains are pictured above. On Friday January 8 last week, the three convicted individuals were each given 18-year jail sentences. John Payne told the court: "Never being able to play football with my son is the harshest thing that I will ever have to endure."

No-Go Areas

What is shocking about the activities of some of the Muslim gangs is that their levels of hostility and violence contradict the claims of "victimhood" made by Muslim community leaders. The self-appointed "representatives" of Muslim groups are constantly claiming that Islamophobia permeates all levels of British society, and this phobia is compounded by the police, politicians and the media.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) complained in November two months ago that Britain was in danger of becoming like Nazi Germany. He said: "Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn't lead us to a time when people's minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, and poll after poll says that we are alienated, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable."

Bari had earlier compared British Muslims to Jews living under Hitler in December 2006, failing to notice that Jews in Britain are four times more likely than Muslims to receive faith-based assaults. Some of these attacks on Jews appear to be perpetrated by Muslims.

Rabbi Alex Chapper described how he was returning home from a synagogue in Ilford, Essex with three Jewish friends. All wore skull caps. A gang of seven Pakistani youths followed them shouting out "Yehudi". One cried out: "We are Pakistani, you are Jewish. We are going to kill you." Rabbi Chapper was struck in the face and one of his companions was hit on the head with a bottle. Though they identified the youths to police, no action was taken. Rabbi Chapper said that the police "just did not seem interested. I feel very let down."

The British media rightly reports attacks upon Muslims and other minorities by white racists, but seems wary of publicizing attacks by Muslims, perhaps fearful of stoking up racial tension.

Last week Henry Webster, a 16 year-old youth, gave evidence at Bristol Crown Court. Last year at Ridgeway School in Wiltshire, he was taunted by five Asian pupils. He was urged by one of these to attend a fight on the school tennis courts, which he agreed to, on the condition that it would be "one-on-one".

The news of the fight was relayed by text message to others. The Asian pupils were connected to a gang called "Asian Invasion". When Henry Webster arrived at the tennis courts, he was set upon by about 16 young Asian males. He was hit with a claw hammer, which entered the fluid surrounding his brain. Now he has permanent brain damage and cannot concentrate for more than 20 minutes at one time. Accused of inflicting grievous bodily harm are four teenagers - Wasif Khan (18), Amjad Qazi (19) and two youths of 15 and 16 who are too young to be named.

When the BBC reported on the trial, no mention was made of the assailants' ethnicity. Certainly there was no mention that they were Muslim, though if white teenagers had attacked an Asian Muslim, it would be a certainty that the BBC would mention the victim's religion. Such consciously-biased reporting enforces the dogma that Muslims are usually "victims" and rarely "oppressors".

Since publishing parts of this article, I received a communication from a reader. He told me that in his son's school in Shepherd's Bush in West London, a gang calling itself "Asian invasion" had a presence. This group tried to persuade Asian and black students to join Islam. He mentioned that while talking to another parent, he heard this group exists in schools in Harlesden, Willesden and other regions. That the group also appears to be operating 70 miles away in Swindon, Wiltshire, should be a cause for concern amongst educational authorities.

There have been savage attacks upon Muslims, such as the killing of Shezan Umraji in July 2006 during a battle between white and Asian gangs in Preston, Lancashire. This town has the highest incidence of racial attacks in Britain. Three months later, after four Muslims had given evidence in a trial of two robbers, white and black gangs began to intimidate Muslim citizens, leading to cars outside a mosque being pelted with stones in a near-riot, and a Muslim youth being stabbed in the arm.

All racial and ethnic violence is abhorrent, but incidents of this nature should be reported objectively and honestly. Some "sensitive" incidents are only reported in the national media when trials come to their conclusion. On November 7, 2004, computer programmer Christopher Yates was walking home from a female friend's birthday party in East London. As he passed the East London University's Barking campus he was set upon by three Muslims. While lying on the ground, he was kicked repeatedly in the body and head. His head was repeatedly stamped. He died at the scene from facial injuries. The attackers, who had been drinking and smoking cannabis, ran off while one, Sajid Zulfiqar, shouted out: "We killed a white man." While Mr Yates lay dying another youth called Junaid Khan stole his mobile phone.

Despite the implied racism of this comment, the attackers were not charged with "racially aggravated murder". The three killers planed to flee to Pakistan after the attack. On November 24, 2005 Sajid Zulfiqar, 25, Imran Maqsood, 21, and Zahid Bashir, 23 were sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum 15 years to be spent behind bars.

Peterborough in the east of England has a sizable Asian population. In the early hours of September 21, 2001, a 17 year old called Ross Parker was walking home with his girlfriend in Peterborough. He was set upon by a gang of "Asians" who used an aerosol spray and a hammer to attack him. He was punched and kicked, and stabbed in the throat with a foot-long hunting knife, an action which killed him. Shaied Nazir, 22, Ahmed Ali Awan, 22, and 25-year-old Sarfraz Ali were given life sentences for murder in December 2002.

Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, recently wrote of some regions of Britain becoming "no-go" areas for non-Muslims. For Ross Parker and others, the truth that no-go areas can exist for non-Muslims is undeniable.

Gang culture as a whole has meant that for many young people in Britain, no matter their race or religion, certain territories are "off-limits", and Muslim gang culture alone is not responsible for this. The signs of Britain's divided societies have been visible for some time. Burhan Wazir wrote in the Times of November 27, 2004: "The new racial tensions pit Pakistani against Kurd, or West Indian against African, while the white majority focuses on the cleaning of its own Augean stable. In Woolwich and Plumstead, southeast London, where young West Indians have been at war with their Somali neighbours, a black youth speaks of the African newcomers as being "a different kind of black, like dirt", and a West Indian grandmother wishes the Somalis would "go back where they came from".

In Harringay, North London, a man was killed during a street fight between Turkish and Kurdish groups. In the West Midlands, successful Asian businessmen casually dismiss local blacks as lazy and drug-ridden. And in Peterborough, designated as a cluster area for the dispersal of asylum-seekers, the greatest resentment of the newcomers - who include an estimated 3,000 Kurds - is to be found among the city's 10,000-strong Kashmiri population."

After the Bishop of Rochester's comments, results of a poll were published in the Telegraph newspaper. 56 percent of respondents thought Muslims should do more to integrate into society. With the report came claims from priests who refused to have their names revealed. One priest said he had been blocked from driving into an area of Oldham, scene of the 2001 race riots. The youths wanted to know why he was entering "their" area.

As I mentioned in part two, apostates from Islam are harassed by Muslim gangs. One priest from Rusholme in Manchester claimed he knew of "dozens of cases" of Muslim converts to Christianity being attacked. In Leicester, Asian Christians are scared of being identified when they leave churches for similar reasons. A vicar in East London was told he must stay out of "Muslim areas".

Kriss Donald

In Glasgow in Scotland, the region known as Pollockshields has the highest concentration of Muslims, mostly coming from Pakistan. On March 15, 2004, 15-year old schoolboy Kriss Donald became the unwitting victim of gang rivalry. Imran "Baldy" Shahid was leader of a Muslim gang called "The Shielders". He had earlier been attacked with a glass bottle in a club. Shahid claimed that the attacker had been one of the "McCulloch Street boys", a white gang from Pollockshields. Shahid decided that he would seek his revenge.

"Baldy" Shahid, his brother Zeeshan "Crazy" Shahid, Mohammed "Beck" Mushtaq, Zahid Mohammed and Daanish Zahid got into a stolen silver Mercedes Kompressor and drove to McCulloch Street in Pollockshields, haunt of the gang. There they saw Kriss Donald and his friend Jamie Wallace walking into Kenmure Street. According to Mohammed's testimony, Baldy Shahid was looking for any white victim.

The gang fought with the two youths, and focused on the slightly-built 15-year old. Kriss Donald was shouting: "I'm only 15. What did I do?" Kriss was dragged into the car where he was pushed on the floor and punched in the back. The Shahid brothers, Zahid and Mushtaq then took the schoolboy to an open spot near the walkway running by the river Clyde. Here, the youth was stabbed 13 times, doused in gasoline and while still alive he was set alight. Kriss Donald apparently tried to roll in mud to extinguish the flames before he died. It is alleged that before he was killed, Kriss Donald was castrated and his eyes were gouged.

The Shahid brothers and Mohammed Mushtaq fled to Pakistan. Daanish Zahid was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment on December 16, 2004. With no extradition treaty from Pakistan, the Shahids and Mushtaq could have remained there, were it not for the intervention of Mohammed Sarwar, Britain's first Muslim Member of Parliament. Sarwar negotiated with Pakistani authorities. He visited Pakistan four times to this end, and on October 5, 2005 the three fugitives were brought back to Britain. On November 8, 2006, they were sentenced to life imprisonment. None of the three showed any remorse during the trial and its aftermath.

Imran "Baldy" Shahid had led the Shielders gang since 1994, when he was 17. In that year he clubbed a 25-year old man with a baseball bat, giving his victim brain damage. He had fled to Pakistan and was given a four-year jail term. He physically attacked a woman social worker and tried to drive a car at her, for which he was given a two-year jail sentence. When someone started to date his sister, he had cut off the man's finger, apparently serving it to him in a glass of milk. The Shielders, who appear to have been named after Shields Road in Glasgow, fought with another Pakistani gang, and in 1998 were thought responsible for a car-bomb attack.

The local Member of Parliament, Mohammed Sarwar had complained in January 2006 that not enough was being done to control the violent activities of non-white gangs. He said: "A lot of people come to me and say the police are not doing much for fear of being accused of racism. Gang culture is a problem, it is a big challenge for us all and the police should not have any fear that if they (arrest) people from Asian communities they will be accused of racism."

Mohammed Sarwar paid a heavy price for bringing Kriss Donald's killers to justice. In late 2005, five days before "Baldy" and "Crazy" Shahid and fellow Shielders gang member "Beck" Mushtaq were brought back from Pakistan, a BMW car was blown up in the car park of Sarwar's family business. Sarwar was warned that his youngest son would be kidnapped. After receiving personal death threats against himself and his family, Mohammed Sarwar resigned in August last year after a decade in office.

With the rise of gangs, gun crime and knife crimes have risen. Often, victims are innocents, such as 11-year old Rhys Jones who was shot dead in Croxteth, Liverpool on August 22 last year.

In August 2007, the British government was accused of covering up the statistics on gun crime. Between 1998 and 1999, there were 864 injuries and deaths in the country from gun attacks. Between 2005 and 2006, there were 3,821 such incidents. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, had previously claimed that such crime was decreasing.

The situation in Britain is worsening, with knife crime claiming more victims than guns. The notion of Britain being a "multicultural" society is a lie. It is a fractured mosaic of smaller societies, most of whom appear to be in a state of constant conflict. Home Office figures on racially motivated murders, released in October, 2006 showed that between 1995 and 2004, of 58 killings classed as "racially motivated" 24 involved white victims.

There is much work that needs to be done by all communities and political representatives. The Labour government, while championing "multiculturalism" has presided over the destruction of communities, and the emergence of gang culture.

On Monday this week, Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said on radio: "There are areas in which there is no contact or very little contact between different ethnic and cultural groups. Nobody is putting up walls and gates but we all know that in virtually every big city there are places where different kinds of people feel uncomfortable, whether that is Asians in so-called white areas or white people in so-called black areas."

"We know that white flight is accelerating. That schools - we know this from studies done by Bristol University - are becoming more segregated than the areas they sit in. So there is a phenomenon we have to deal with and I think that the Bishop of Rochester was right to raise this."

In 2001, a report into the rioting of the northern communities of Oldham, Bradford and Burnley declared that an "open and honest debate" on multiculturalism was needed. Hopefully, it is now time that the elephant in the room is finally acknowledged. Only if the problems of multicultural conflict are discussed "openly and honestly" can there be hope that Britain's dire current situation may improve.

Adrian Morgan