Watch Nancy Durham's report, Muslim Mission, on The National on Friday, July 7.

On July 7, 2005, four British suicide bombers killed 52 people — and themselves. The attacks came nearly four years after New York's 9/11, and soon became known in Britain as 7/7.

The bombers and their victims were passengers on London underground trains and a double-decker bus. I heard the bus blow up near my Russell Square apartment.

The physical impact of the bombs was devastating. The cultural impact still reverberates through Britain and especially in the Muslim community.

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MPACUK — the the Muslim Public Affairs Committee U.K. — was formed in 2000 with the aim of giving Muslims a voice in British society, engaging them more in British life, especially by getting them involved in politics. The emergence of England's homegrown 7/7 bombers made MPAC's campaign all the more urgent.

That bloody day last summer brought the need for change home to 30-year-old Yorkshire-born Shabbir Dastgir, who's been a member of MPAC since the beginning.

He recalls his shock at learning one of the bombers had spent time in his own community in Birkby, a suburb of Huddersfield, Yorkshire. But when he reflected on it, Dastgir says he wasn't really surprised "because our community just does not have an infrastructure that deals with modern-day developments."

"It's very, very village oriented, the mosque elders," he says. "Their mentalities are very, very much back in India, Pakistan." The way Dastgir sees it, Muslims themselves must take responsibility for their own alienation. Ultimately, he believes, Muslims must account for the outrage of 7/7.

Channelling the anger

So the group is targeting mainstream Muslims — imams and community leaders — and criticizing them for being complacent.

"It's not good enough for you to just come out and say this was wrong … you need to go one step further and hold your hand up and say this was a failing of the Muslim community."

Refocusing the community's outrage is another challenge that Dastgir says is not being met. Imams and leaders are not offering practical solutions to deal with Muslim anger.

"I am an angry young man," Dastgir says. "I'm very angry about what the British and American governments are doing in Iraq … what they're doing in Afghanistan … But I think anger needs to be channelled into something that is effective."

For Dastgir, getting into politics, media, academic life and business is the positive way to give young Muslims a voice in something that affects them and that they care about.

Imam goes beyond theology

I attended midday prayers with Dastgir at the Masjid (mosque) Raza in Huddersfield's Birkby neighbourhood.

He regularly uses time just before or after prayers to lobby his imam, Haider Ali from Pakistan, pressing him to deal head-on with 7/7 to help prevent another suicide bomber going to work in Britain.

The sombre imam preaches in Urdu, a language Dastgir is a bit rusty in, to make his case. They sit cross-legged on the floor and talk across a low table with the Koran open upon it.

Dastgir goes straight to his theme, the London bombings of July 2005. The imam explains it has nothing to do with Islam. Dastgir wants more than that. He wants practical solutions.

After several minutes of listening to theological explanations, Dastgir gets what he wants.

"I wasn't expecting this but this is really good," he tells me. " What imam has said is that, when a Muslim is praying, he has permission to break away from his prayer, which is such an important act of worship, if he sees another human life in danger — that person must be helped."

It may seem obvious that anyone would try to save a life no matter what — no matter the religion, no matter what you're doing. What's important here, for Dastgir, is that this is the first time he's heard an imam spell out a Muslim's duty to intervene, in connection with 7/7. He likes the message because it's about deeds not words.

Afterwards, the imam tells me that the conversation with Dastgir was not all one way and also had an impact on the religious leader. "Every time there's a revolution it's driven by the young," he observes.

A very long disengagement

Trying to engage young Muslims in politics in Yorkshire is hard work for Dastgir.

Remarkably, there's a view — widely held in some neighbourhoods — that the alleged suicide bombers were not suicide bombers at all. Perhaps they were unwitting carrier pigeons, directed by others, and didn't know what they were about to do.

And there's the conspiracy theory that the British government orchestrated it as a pretext for a war to control oil.

Nineteen-year-old rapper Shiraz "Shezi" Ali of Flipside Family performed one of his songs for us. Down Like That is a rap encouraging young people to stay away from drugs.

He listened to Dastgir's appeal to get involved in politics but Shezi's not about to add that message in his raps to kids.

Shezi admits he's confused about the bombings.

"I'm not sure," he says. "That's what I'm saying because there's so much conspiracy over it. Was it the Muslim bombers or was it them lot?" By that, he means Tony Blair's government. In the wake of botched British police raids on suspected bombers since 7/7 there is a climate of fear and distrust. As Shezi tells me, the "only protection I've got is Allah."

Shezi presents a challenge for Dastgir.

"What I've got to remember is people like Shezi come from knowing all the anger that's out there, knowing all the frustrations that are out there. So it's going to have to be an effort on both our parts. I'm going to have to make an effort and bridge that gap and say, 'I think these are the issues.' "

Another doubter of the official version of events is 22-year-old Ali, a security consultant I met in the Leeds suburb of Beeston. I met him in the park where one of the bombers is said to have played cricket the day before he blew himself up.

Ali says he knew Shahzad Tanweer: "He played cricket, football, he went to uni. He was just like any other lad. There was nothing different about him. I personally don't believe all four of those lads woke up that day, left their house to go blow themselves up and innocent people with them."

A week after I met Ali — and one day short of the first anniversary of the attacks on London — Tanweer’s suicide video was released via Al-Jazeera TV. In it he says: "What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger." He goes on to say that attacks will carry on "until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq."

Dastgir has reason to worry about a "dark scenario" and another, inevitable, bombing.

"I think it's going to confront the community again," he says. "It's going to be young men who are not supported, who are not guided, who are not shown the way ahead, and I regret to say that unfortunately I think it's going to be more of the same."

Source: cbc.ca

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