On the anniversary of the suicide bombings that killed 53 people, London looks like a city untouched by trauma. There’s been little sign of open hostility following the attacks—no race riots and little recrimination. Some World Cup commentators have taken pains to point out the scattering of British Asians among the flag-waving crowds that accompanied the England team to Germany. The attacks seem only to have enhanced the capital’s reputation for good-humored fortitude and tolerance of diversity. “The immediate aftermath [of the bombings] was tough but London showed resilience and it was only a blip,” says James Bidwell, chief executive of Visit London, the city’s official tourist body. “The vibrancy and excitement of London is now at its best.”
In the air of self-congratulation that currently pervades the city, it’s almost possible to believe that the slaughter of 7/7 was the work of fanatical extremists with negligible support from a Muslim community—now numbering 1.6 million across the country—that has moved a long way towards assimilation or tranquil co-existence. But this may be wishful thinking. Recent evidence suggests a more complicated and disturbing picture: a society more divided than most Britons would like to believe. A poll of British Muslims published this week in the London Times found that 13 percent believe the four London bombers are ‘martyrs’. What’s more, two percent say they would be proud if a family member joined Al Qaeda. And those results tend to confirm the bleak findings of a Pew opinion poll, released last month, which revealed that British Muslims hate their own country, the West and Jews more than do Muslims from any other European country.
Indeed, the 7/7 blasts can be seen as both symptom and cause of a deepening rift. Long before last summer, a high rate of unemployment as well as resentment at government support for the war in Iraq was prompting Muslim youths to reexamine their place in British society. And some heavy-handed policing over the past year has done nothing to dispel resentment at what’s seen as unreasonable discrimination. Community leaders have complained of harassment after an increase in the use of stop-search tactics in the street. Ill-feeling intensified last month after a police raided the East London home of two Muslim brothers suspected of making a chemical weapon and shot one of them, apparently by accident. The police found no evidence of wrongdoing and released both brothers without charge.
The government deserves some of the blame for rising tensions. Legislators established a taskforce to find ways of strengthening the Muslim community’s ties with wider British society but have been slow to take action on the recommendations, say critics. Muslim MP Sadiq Khan this week compared Prime Minister Tony Blair to ’the Grand Old Duke of York… marching all these talented British Muslims up the hill of consultation and dialogue only to march them back down again."
The long-term danger may lie in a subtle shift in attitudes, a mutual suspicion that may fade but never quite disappear. On the one hand, the knowledge that British-raised Muslims could turn against their own countrymen with such ferocity has bred a new mistrust among the white majority. But that same mistrust causes Muslims to doubt their own acceptance, says Ben O’Loughlin, a researcher at King’s College, London, who has studied the impact of the bombings on the capital’s Muslims.
Many had believed that they could be wholly British—and Muslim. But last summer’s attacks have forced them to reconsider. “The only thing that makes them feel excluded is how they are looked at by whites,” says O’Loughlin. “Events like July 7 and the white majority’s reaction makes them question whether citizenship is enough to belong.” As London celebrates its own recovery, that’s a small posthumous victory for the terrorists.
