As some of you may know I live in a community with a sizeable Muslim minority. I have been told that most Muslims in this town are from the same area in Pakistan, and many are related.
Muslims and non-Muslims live alongside each other without too much contact between the two groups (something I have always felt unhappy about - but that's not the purpose of this post). There is never much interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims, but no animosities or tensions either.
Just recently (in the last few weeks), some tension has erupted between what seems to be two Pakistani families. Rumour has it that there are accusations of one family abducting a member (daughter??) from another family.
I have lived here for 10 years, and it has always been a peaceful place.
Suddenly there are gangs of Pakistani youths walking and driving around the streets at night, incidents of youths gathering equipped with iron bars and cricket bats, police raids, police patrolling the streets at night, rumours of beatings and other incidents.
This is happening on my own doorstep! People are starting to fear for their safety and their community!
It may be 'just between two families' now ... but I fear that this could escalate quite easily ...
What can be done about this?
Who is the best person to mediate? (Surely not the police?)
Should the mosque be approached?
I feel quite vulnerable right now.
What do you all think?
Thanks.
Peace glo
Here I stand.
I can do no other.
May God help me.
Amen.
Come, let us worship and bow down •
and kneel before the Lord our Maker
[Psalm 95]
It's not quite like that.
The problem is more that us here 'in the streets' just hear rumours. A kind of Chinese whisper of what really happened.
So by comparison, the accounts from the police and the local media seem to offer a more balanced and realistic perspective ... ( call me naive ... )
Here is the story in today's news (I have taken out the names of location and individuals):
What exactly is a Community and Diversity Officers, I wonder?
I googled our town in the news to find out what the media said.
What worried me was that I also came across the BNP's version of the event - which was very distorted! It didn't even mention that the fighting was between two Pakistani families, thereby giving the impression that it was a racial attack (against white British people, of course!) That's what worries me!
That's how these things can escalate and turn into nasty inter-racial situations, even in a community where racial differences have never been a problem!!
Peace
yes glo it is a problem,
such fights were very common where i grew up in a coal mining, village and although when i grew up many of friends fathers were miners, they didnt have dark faces when i saw them as they had put in showers by the time i was growing up in the 1980's and 90's.
it is a sickness, culture over what is right and wrong as set out by God in his scripture given to mankind.
in islam we call this jahiliyyah, meaning pre islamic ignorance and unfortunetely there is a lot of it in the muslim community that creeps back in when we are not watching.
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Trouble in my community (OP)
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