Recently in the news you may have heard of two brothers being murdered in Tooting. This was shocking to most of the Muslim community of how brutal our youth have become. What was most tragic was the fact that a mother lost two of her sons in one go. The father said that she still does not believe it and is expecting them to come through the door any second. The murder of Muhammad has also left his young pregnant wife a widow and son fatherless. So the question that is on everyone’s mind is what the reason was. There have been many rumours that are circulating through grapevines. One that keeps re occurring is that it was gang motivated. Tooting has been infamous for gang related violence for many years. It has a large Pakistani and Tamil community. Generally the fighting takes place within the communities and not against.  

The Pakistani gangs in Tooting are the leaders and strongest in numbers and violence. They have a reputation that they have built over the past two decades. It stems from armed robberies to extortion and gang violence.  The life on the street for any gang member revolves around one strong principle. That is "rep", the reputation of a man on the street is everything. It is what he is known by, it is his degree, his M.A and Ph.D. His respect is built on his rep and he will kill to protect his rep.  Now two things occur for a man with a rep on the street and they both happen simultaneously.

Firstly, he is feared and respected by his peers for the number of fights he has had or whatever he has built his rep on. And secondly jealousy from “lower” street boys (who wish to raise themselves) above his rep and they will always try to attack his rep. His role in turn is to protect his rep and at the same time go higher in the ranks. What happened to Muhammad and Haydar Ali is a tragedy but it is gang related according to rumours. The brothers were involved in a bitter feud with another local gang and had been accused of being “facety”. This resulted in cars being smashed and people being hurt and reputations being damaged. This issue has been ongoing for a long period of time and it culminated in the murder of two brothers.  

The sad thing is that this is not unusual, it is happening everyday and these issues are reaching boiling point in many largely populated Asian communities. A lot of people fail to give these young guys any attention, so they go and try to seek attention in the most horrendous ways and from the wrong types of people. Some people say it is the age, what can you do? Yes there is truth in that, the age is difficult but the responsibility does fall on us. We need to do more to deal with the rude bwoys on the street. Because they are the next generation and if we fail them than I doubt others will be running to pick them up.

This was a public contribution by Brother Adel Jazak'Allah Khayr Brother. If you would like to contribute to this site please click here.

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