Trouble in my community

[glo]

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.

[Jayda]

hola glo,

i am so sorry this is happening to you, please be safe whatever you do... i think it would be a good idea if you know the families involved to call the parents and explain how this is escalating out of control, and suggest a town hall meeting. invite all the parents from the neighborhood and all the kids too... everybody needs to talk. if they cannot work out what is between them at least try to have them set rules with each other to keep their feud contained within their own families and not gang or clan wars...

please let us know how you are!

Dios te bendiga

[Tania]

You should announce the imam about the whole situation. He will handle the problem in the right manner

[Woodrow]

It does sound like it is a family matter. Sadly this is a cultural issue and they may not listen to the Imam. But, it would be a good idea to contact the Imam at the nearest Masjid.

This is one of those situations where it is best to keep out of as much as possible.

Reserve calling the Police to only the point where it appears blood shed is likely to happen. Much of what you are seeing is all show, one family trying to say "look my family can beat up your family.", to a rival family.

[Muezzin]

Silly arrogant people who happen to be from Pakistan like the ones you mention are part of the reason for Indo-Pakistani stereotypes, glo. It's completely unaccaptable behaviour that scares you and embarasses me. However, Woodrow is right in that you should keep out of it - those types won't like an outsider interfering and may turn hostile towards you.

The imam might be able to help, but if it's a bunch of hotblooded Pakistani youths causing the trouble, only the police will be able to teach them a lesson, quite frankly.

And just to clarify for anyone who might be offended: my parents are both Pakistani, and we all know about idiots like the ones that glo describes.

[Sabbir_1]

It will die out, i dont think nothing major is gonna happen....

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.

They aint gonna do nothing they all scared they just wanna be seen as tough and hard wid there iron bars.. with there mates..

But if it does increase the tension than best thing to do is approach the mosque. and tell the imam to give a khutba or something on a friday about this matter..

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.

Probably just a rumour.. dont know even if its true.. this the danger of rumours fights start over a silly rumour soom fool made up....

[Skillganon]

Silly arrogant people who happen to be from Pakistan like the ones you mention are part of the reason for Indo-Pakistani stereotypes, glo. It's completely unaccaptable behaviour that scares you and embarasses me. However, Woodrow is right in that you should keep out of it - those types won't like an outsider interfering and may turn hostile towards you.

The imam might be able to help, but if it's a bunch of hotblooded Pakistani youths causing the trouble, only the police will be able to teach them a lesson, quite frankly.

And just to clarify for anyone who might be offended: my parents are both Pakistani, and we all know about idiots like the ones that glo describes.

I figured, I was going to say something along the line before my Comp crashed. Asian.
Dnt get them .

Glo Stay out of it, and let the police handle it. If their is a respected (pious) muslim mediator in the community than he might be able to cool things down.

[glo]

Greetings, all.

I am aware that this is a family matter, and I have no intentions of getting involved, unless absolutely necessary.

I am, however, concerned for our community as a whole.
There is a police van with CCTV camera at the local secondary school, because there was some serious fight there the other day.
Today there was a police helicopter flying overhead for ages, and there are rumours that there was a stabbing at the mosque earlier today.
Like I said, it's all rumours at the moment, but the police presence is enough to make everybody twitchy.

It may be somebody else's business, but when my own (or somebody else's) children are at risk of getting caught between the lines of some street fight, then it becomes mine and everybody's business too!

Our children usually walk home from school on their own, but today we picked them up ... and I don't want them to go out now!

I am listening to the local news to find out whether the rumours are substantiated. I'll let you know if I hear more ...

Peace to you all.

[skhalid]

Poor fing...I'm sorry dat dis is happenin' 2 you..all I can advise u on is to ..Keep a low profile, stay completely away from those who are involved in the feud so far...and don't go out at night!!!
I'm not sure who can help u...ave you tried ur local council....surely dey can do somefin to resolve this...or @ least make it safer for you and other ppl in ur area.

[Snowflake]

I'm sorry to hear this Glo. It is obviously pure ignorant and arrogance as far as these people are concerned. Firstly, I doubt an imaam would get involved for fear of his own safety and secondly these people probably will tell him to mind his own business. If they respected others that much this wouldn't be happening in the first place.

The police is in a much better position to reprimand and punish such people. You can pressure the law to take this matter seriously than they are. Stress the fear you feel and how it's making you fear for your safety.

Finally Glo, I find that the biggest weapon we have is prayer. Ask God to cleanse your community of social ills and let peace reign. I've done the same when rowdy teenagers hang out on my street behaving like lunatics. I pray to Allah to make them go away and alhumdulillah they soon vanish.

Hope everything is back to normal soon inshaAllah (God willing).

[glo]

The local news were vague, but the information that was given supports the rumours:

The police was called after fighting broke out outside the mosque after lunch time prayers.
It is not treated as a racial incident, but the feud between two families.
Four arrests and five admissions to hospital ...

I feel dreadful right now. Somehow you kid yourself that that kind of thing could never happen in your own community ...

Muslimah_Sis, I had assumed (and hoped) that the imam would have great authority and respect in a Muslim community. Could he not speak out and advise people?

I agree that praying for our community is all I can do at this moment in time.
I just wish Muslims and non-Muslims would stand and pray together in this, publically!

peace

[Snowflake]

:
Muslimah_Sis, I had assumed (and hoped) that the imam would have great authority and respect in a Muslim community. Could he not speak out and advise people?
peace

We assume and we hope that too Glo. But the reality is very different. I myself approached a mosque to deal with loud music and the beating of drums coinciding with prayers times, at a nearby wedding venue.

I was told the imaan does not want to get involved. The bitter truth is that if muslims had an ounce of bravery as they did in the Prophet's times, then the ummah wouldn't be suffering from oppression today.


Anyway, I don't wish to tar all imaams with the same brush. This one might have the guts to approach the offenders. Do try inshaAllah. But knowing what I know, I would say don't get your hopes up too high.

Hope it goes well. In this case I'd love to be proved wrong.

[Grace Seeker]

Is there an inter-religious council in your community? The closest thing I can relate this to are race riots that occured in my community many years ago. (I know this is a family issue, not a race issue, but I haven't seen any family feuds break out in the streets.) In our situations, all of the community's religious leaders (and by all I mean representatives of most of the churches, both black and white) got together and called for a a "prayer for peace" assembly in the town square. That showed that there were far more people of both races who wanted to live peacefully with one another than to fight. Some of the youths still got into fights at school, but beyond that the rest of the community calmed down.

[netprince]

Race issues do have a tendency to escalate and community leaders do get involved to try and prevent the escalations.

However, from my experience of feuds between two families, they normally never escalate to anyone outside of the family. The town i live in has had an ongoing feud between two halfs of the same family for as long as i can remember. These feuds have never spilt over to people outside of the family involved. People have been injured and even jailed from the family involved but i honestly cant remember one incident that involved anyone not from within that particular family.

All i would say is to be careful not to get involved unnecessarily and if it is a family thing then it isnt something that will spill over to other people.

May Allah(SWT) bring peace to your troubled community.

[Fishman]

I had assumed (and hoped) that the imam would have great authority and respect in a Muslim community. Could he not speak out and advise people?

The people who would do this probably aren't the type of people who would act on what the Imam says. They would probably just listen to him and think it's a good message, but somehow think that they are not doing any wrong and are protecting their families.

[snakelegs]

updates? has it quieted down any?
sounds a lot like my neighbourhood when drugs were big business on my block.

[glo]

It's quiet for now, snakelegs.

I don't know what happened about those who were arrested and/or admitted to hospital ...
It's strange how difficult it is to gain reliable information about what's going on in your own neighbourhood!

peace

[Dawud_uk]

peace glo,

exactly, there was a fight and a killing later in my own local area but the police and especially the media didnt have a clue so really they just make an educated guess or make it up.

remember that such things are cultural, and there are perfectly good islamic ways to resolve such disputes but really this is not good enough for the cultural types who dont want to follow the full rules of islam.

“Whoever contends with and contradicts the Messenger after guidance has been clearly conveyed to him, and follows a path other than that of the Faithful Believers, We shall leave him in the Path he has chosen and land him in Hell, what an evil destination!” [Quran, Surah An Nisa 4:115].

Peace,
Abu Abdullah

[FBI]

Anyone see the movie "Battle Royal" that'd teach them.

[glo]

peace glo,

exactly, there was a fight and a killing later in my own local area but the police and especially the media didnt have a clue so really they just make an educated guess or make it up.

remember that such things are cultural, and there are perfectly good islamic ways to resolve such disputes but really this is not good enough for the cultural types who dont want to follow the full rules of islam.

“Whoever contends with and contradicts the Messenger after guidance has been clearly conveyed to him, and follows a path other than that of the Faithful Believers, We shall leave him in the Path he has chosen and land him in Hell, what an evil destination!” [Quran, Surah An Nisa 4:115].

Peace,
Abu Abdullah

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):

SEVEN people arrested following Friday's disturbance in X - in which a police officer was assaulted - have been released on police bail.
A total of five people were taken to X General Hospital, two of whom suffered stomach injuries, and another two received head injuries.

Four of the men were discharged by Saturday evening and the fifth man remains in hospital in a stable condition.

Police recovered a number of weapons at the scene.

Friday's incident, which happened just before 2pm, near the mosque in X Street, is being linked to a fight in Y Street on Tuesday evening.

Police are saying the gang had left the scene on Tuesday evening by the time they arrived and the victim refused to make a complaint or statement to officers.

Supt X, Head of Operational Support at X police station, said: "Despite receiving no official complaint or statement following the incident last Tuesday, officers did carry out a series of actions.

"These included increasing our high visibility patrols in the area and making use of the mobile CCTV system.

"In addition to this, the Community and Diversity Officers spoke to the families we believe were involved and the community representatives to try to defuse the situation."

Police say they are not treating either fight as a racial incident and the violence was part of an ongoing dispute between two Asian families.

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