Another View

Kenan Malik asks, "Islamophobia? What Islamophobia?

According to Iqbal Sacranie, Muslims have never faced greater physical danger than they do now. The editor of the Muslim News, Ahmed Versi, similarly believes that, "After 11th September, we had the largest number of attacks ever on Muslims."

My personal experience and the statistics that do exist both challenge these claims. When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, racism was vicious and often fatal. Stabbings and firebombings were routine in some parts of Britain. In May 1978, over 7,000 Bengalis marched from Whitechapel to Whitehall in protest at the murder of garment worker Altab Ali near Brick Lane—one of eight racist murders that year. In the decade that followed, there were at least another 49 such killings. For Muslims, the end of the 1980s—from the Rushdie affair to the first Gulf war—was particularly tough. I used to organise patrols on east London estates to protect Asian families from racist attacks.