She was getting off the bus at Queen's University, on her way to the mosque,
when the old man made his move. "He tried to pull off her hijab, there on
the bus," says Jamal Iweida, president of Belfast's Islamic Centre.
"Nobody – driver nor passengers – did anything. People in Northern Ireland
say they are against racism but few take a stand." If life post-September 11
is difficult for Muslim men in Northern Ireland, the race hate capital of
Western Europe, it's doubly hard for Muslim women whose dress makes them
even more conspicuous.
"The hijab has been pulled off ladies before, the last time was a few weeks
ago," says Iweida. "One lady was so distressed she left Northern Ireland."
Hamidah, 20, is too scared to wear a hijab. She puts on a green scarf
entering the mosque. "Maybe I should be stronger but I see the looks that
sisters who wear the hijab get," she says.
There are 5,000 Muslims, from 40 countries, in the North. Those in Belfast
are lucky to have a mosque. In bible-belt Ballymena, Muslims can find no
permanent premises. Recently, they've worshipped in a garage and a vacant
flat, but once again are on the move.
In Portadown, plans to build a mosque were abandoned following local
opposition, including physical attacks and 10,000 leaflets from the 'White
Nationalist Party'.
"Portadown Muslims have the land, they have the planning permission, but
they are too frightened to build the mosque," says Iweida. "They think it
best to keep their heads down, which is horrible in a modern democracy."
Iwedia, a Palestinian, grew up in Jordan. "In Amman, there are two
Christian churches beside the main mosque. Nobody objects to them or attacks
them, and Islam is accused of intolerance!"
The Belfast mosque is a large house in the leafy, middle-class Malone Road.
Yet it has been attacked several times. "These windows have all been
smashed," says Iweida. "After September 11, the insurance company refused
to renew our policy.
"We asked the police to help us with protection but they took too long and
then offered only one camera, so we had to do it all ourselves." Iweida
points to a range of cameras, locks and bolts, reinforced glass, and other
security measures.
It's not just buildings under attack, he says: "We have had people taken to
hospital with broken legs and noses. A man was stabbed in the chest. Our
advice to Muslims is not to go out late at night and to avoid certain areas.
In the six months after 9/11, 12 families were put out of their homes.
One was Iweida's. The family was living in Finaghy in south Belfast. "I had
my baby son in my arms when a neighbour set his dogs on us. He told me to
get out, that we weren't wanted. I phoned the police from my mobile. They
could hear it all. They took 45 minutes to arrive.
"My neighbour didn't deny what he had done but the police only cautioned
him. The next morning, £2,000 worth of damage had been done to my car. I
called the police but they weren't interested."
Later, Iweida saw the Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, on TV: "He said all 999
calls would be dealt with in 10 minutes. A man in the audience said he had
waited 15 minutes; Hugh Orde apologised to him. I waited three times as long
and nobody said sorry.
"When I went to the police station to complain, they said they would put
another officer on the case and keep me informed. That was three years ago.
I've never heard from them since."
An attack on any other religious leader in the North would have caused
outrage. "There was no great show of support for me," says Iweida. "Few
politicians spoke out. There was no statement from senior police nor
clergy."
Most Muslim men interviewed by the Sunday Tribune had been verbally abused
on the street. "It's worse if you have a beard," says one who did not wish
to be named. "They call us 'Bin Laden' or 'suicide bombers'. They equate
every Muslim with al-Qaeda. They wouldn't like it if we labelled every
Catholic as an IRA member and every Protestant as a loyalist terrorist."
Iweida can be abused on the street up to three times a day, "usually by
young males but the girls are starting it now too". He says it occurs in
all areas – religiously mixed, loyalist and nationalist: "I love West
Belfast. The Palestinian flags make me feel at home but three weeks ago my
wife and I were called 'Paki ********' crossing the Falls Road."
The nature of the abuse depends on where is in the news, he says: "If there
is a problem in Iraq, they shout 'Saddam Hussein'. If there are difficulties
in Afghanistan, we are called 'Taliban'. All the time we are called 'Bin
Laden'."
Iweida will be in Northern Ireland 10 years tomorrow. He came as a student
and married Hanan, a local Belfast woman who converted to Islam. They have
three children. He wears Bart Simpson socks – "a present from my
mother-in-law".
Most locals are not racist – one woman arrived with a bunch of flowers after
the mosque was attacked – but the racist minority haven't been efficiently
dealt with, he says. "There is also a tendency in Northern Ireland to
categorise people. It's a bit like George Bush's 'if you're not for us,
you're against us'."
Ameer Ibraham is one of 100 Muslims in Ballymena. His mother, who was born
in the town, was a secretary in the Sudanese Embassy in London when she met
his father.
"One summer holiday while back in Ballymena, my mother took a brain
haemorrhage and had to have emergency surgery. She was left partially blind
and unable to fly.
"The family moved over to be with her. I'd been due to study at the
Sorbonne but I couldn't even get a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken in
Ballymena. Eventually, I got work picking potatoes in farms. I'd earn £10 a
day if the weather was good. My father, who had been a senior auditor in the
government, could only get work as a trainee accountant.
"We got a house on the Ballykeel Estate. 'KKK' and 'blacks out' were written
on the wall. The door was kicked in, the windows smashed, and the car
covered in eggs. A firework was thrown at one of my sisters, another was
beaten with a stick."
Ibraham's father died in Ballymena during the first Gulf War. "It was
impossible to fly his body home and there was no separate burial ground for
Muslims here. Local politicians had opposed that. We had to bury him in
the Christian cemetery."
The racist attacks eventually stopped. Ibraham stresses only a tiny minority
were involved and most Ballymena people have been kind and friendly to his
family who are now accepted in the community.
After 9/11, the Belfast mosque received threatening phone calls. Abusive
emails were sent from the 'Ulster Nationalist Front' and 'Ulster Nationalist
Alliance' after July's London bombings. 'Help your country' business cards
circulated, urging Northerners to burn down mosques.
Hundreds of Muslims – Pakistanis, Asians, Arabs, Europeans – arrive at the
Belfast mosque for Friday prayers: businessmen in suits and over-coats,
students in jeans and trainers, kitchen staff in their working clothes.
Shoes must not be worn inside so a huge pile clutters the hallway. It's a
relaxed atmosphere. Prayers start at 1.15 p.m. but people arrive up to 40
minutes late. Inside, the building is dilapidated.
The main prayer room upstairs has battered blue walls and carpets, and two
pictures of grand mosques – at Medina and Mecca (which holds three million).
"We would love something like that in Belfast," jokes Iweida.
The upstairs prayer room is over-flowing. Worshippers spill into other
rooms; some are forced onto the landings and hallway. Between prayers,
Iweida delivers a sermon on recent natural disasters.
Men outnumber women 50-1 at the mosque – prayers there are optional for
women – and there is strict gender segregation. Women and children worship
in a downstairs prayer room. 'The test of fairness is how fair you are to
those who are not', announces a poster.
Donations to help fund a move to bigger premises are collected in green
plastic buckets. Every shelf on the building is laden with copies of the
Koran – it's available in the 25 languages spoken by local Muslims. Anne,
23, a civil-servant, wants to convert to Islam but is worried. "I dread the
controversy wearing the hijab causes on the street," she says.
"I saw the dirty looks people coming into the Mosque today got from the
builders across the road. On Wednesday night, I was with an Arab friend when
a group of Northern Ireland football fans passed. They made racist remarks
about him, then they spat on my car."
