‘We all live together in this place’
Unity and anger mix in Finsbury Park, site of latest hate attack
For the past six years, Abdul Ahmad has told friends that his ethnically diverse neighborhood of Finsbury Park was safe from violence or terrorism. The only thing people disagreed about is which rival soccer team to support, Arsenal or Tottenham.
Any notion of this north London enclave being immune from terrorist attacks was shattered early Monday after a van swerved into a group of Muslim worshipers leaving evening prayers, injuring nine people. One man died at the scene. He had been receiving first aid when the attack happened, but it was not clear whether his death was a result of the assault, the fourth terrorist attack on England in three months.
The driver of the van, Darren Osborne, 47, a father of four from Cardiff, Wales, was arrested on suspicion of terror-related offenses. Witnesses said he shouted, “I’m going to kill all Muslims — I did my bit,” after ramming the van into the pedestrians.
The suspect had not been known to authorities.
“It’s scary and difficult to understand,” said Ahmad, 28, a Somalian refugee, as he stood near the crime scene Monday that was roped off by police. “You run away from a dangerous place like Somalia, only for the danger to be still there with you. The world seems very small right now.”
The mixed-income neighborhood reacted with solidarity, as has become commonplace after terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere. There was also sorrow — and revulsion — over another assault on British soil.
“We all live together in this place, and we are proudly multicultural,” said Hanaja Fischer, 65, an Orthodox Jew standing in the shade of a tree by Finsbury Park’s busy subway station as London’s temperature soared to an unseasonably hot 90 degrees.
“Somebody just decided to do a very stupid thing. You can use anything as a weapon now. Normally, everyone gets along
very well here,” Fischer said.
The harmony described by Fischer, Ahmad and others wasn’t shared by all in this community where the attack occurred.
Students Ijeoma Mbnye and Aisha Amir, both 17, stood on a street corner holding signs that read, “#United against all terror,” but their message was accompanied by frustration at growing Islamophobia.
Muslim leaders reported a rise in hate crimes in Britain after the recent terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. The Muslim Council of Britain said Monday’s attack was a result of the “violent manifestation” of Islamophobia.
“We should be safer, we shouldn’t have to look over our shoulder all the time,” Mbnye said. “Not all Muslims are terrorists, and I blame the government for creating the impression that they are.”
Amir weighed in: “If the guy that did this was a Muslim, he would have been called a ‘terrorist’ straightaway, but because he is a white man, it’s assumed he has a mental illness. Where is the justice?”
Both young women said they had witnessed racism and religious intolerance in Finsbury Park but were never personally affected.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said police declared the attack to be terror-related within eight minutes, but several groups of young Muslim men near the area of the attack Monday told USA TODAY they did not believe the timing was that fast. They said initial comments by May and the police were discriminatory.
Some took out their anger on reporters at the scene. Police had to intervene to disperse a man and woman shouting at a cameraman and other reporters.
“This is fake news. You don’t care about any of us or the people who were hurt here,” the woman shouted. “Why are you here? What is the story you are going to tell?”
Ahmad, who lives in the neighborhood, said people had the right to get angry, but he hoped those feelings would not lead to a permanent change for Finsbury Park, perhaps fed by future assaults.