Terror attacks, fire divide Londoners

LONDON >> The cars still zip over London Bridge at their typical fast clip, drawing little obvious attention.

But some pedestrians walking the bridge over the River Thames each day say they find themselves glancing at the passing traffic and wondering: Is that the one? Is that the one that’s going to swerve my way? The one whose driver wants to kill me for reasons I’ll never quite grasp?

The city has endured a series of terrorist attacks in the last three months. In the last week, London’s worst fire in decades claimed at least 79 lives, and a group of Muslims leaving prayers marking the holy month of Ramadan were intentionally run down by a man in a van.

The city — and the country — seem divided: Between rich and poor, Muslim and non-Muslim, between those who welcome outsiders and those who fear them.

Still, London retains much of its imperial grace: The West End theaters are full, the pubs and restaurants are jammed with people enjoying the long lingering light of balmy summer nights. But Britain has suffered a traumatic year of political change and unrest.

The attack this week on Muslim worshippers outside Finsbury Park Mosque marks a new and longfeared escalation — an outand-out attempt to harm Muslims simply for their faith. The deadly fire at the Grenfell Tower public-housing high-rise is not primarily about the gulf between Muslims and the rest of British society; it’s about class.

At least 79 people died after the fast-moving blaze destroyed the subsidized housing tower in the wealthy borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

In the hours after the June 14 tragedy, furious residents said they had complained about dangerous fire conditions for years.

But the residents — mostly poor, mostly immigrants, many of them Muslims — got the cold shoulder from the politicians in charge of London’s wealthiest borough.

Neighbor May Naroee said it was easy for the borough council to ignore the safety complaints from tower residents.

“The council wrote them off as just a bunch of Muslims,” she said. “Are we not truly living in a state that is Third World if we’re living in Third World conditions? These people were sent to their death in the most expensive city in the world.”