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His kofia, the flat cylindrical hat favoured via Somali Muslims, gleams white as he alternatives me up on the station. A flowing kameez tunic gathers in his lap underneath the steerage wheel.
‘Welcome to Leicester, sharif [Sir]!’ says ‘Ahmed’ with a smile.
Originally from Somalia, Ahmed – he does not need me to make use of his actual title – is a writer, newbie historian and part-time imam. He can be my information to town.
‘Are you a meat particular person?’ he asks. ‘Let’s pass consume.’
We pull out of Leicester’s Victorian railway station. Its Grecian Revival structure fades into the background, a reminder of an overly other Britain.
Known down the centuries for its cathedral, historical marketplace and glove factories, Leicester – the once-prosperous capital of the East Midlands – is now a number of the first of our towns to have a majority non-white inhabitants, together with Birmingham. It could also be, lately, a number of the maximum divided puts within the nation.
Increasingly, town’s massive Muslim and Hindu communities are at each and every others’ throats. And, as India and Pakistan conflict dangerously, threatening warfare, many concern that intra-community violence will spill directly to British streets because it has performed earlier than.
Leicester can most likely be observed as a parable of contemporary Britain. It is right here that you simply to find competing visions of our country’s long term.
Jame Masjid Mosque in Leicester. Some 23.5 in keeping with cent of town’s inhabitants are Muslim, consistent with the 2021 Census
The St Matthews space of town is a hotbed of crime and has, from time to time, been the poorest neighbourhood in England
Suez Canal Barbers, which is flanked via some other barbers and Island Dishes cafe. The space is referred to as ‘Mashtown’, ‘Hell City’ and ‘Little Somalia’
The town’s Asian communities – basically Bengali, Indian, Muslim and Sikh – are well-established, having first come to paintings within the town’s hosiery and textile factories after the warfare.
In the 1990s, they had been joined via an overly other inhabitants. Somalis from east Africa first got here right here following the onset of the civil warfare of their hometown. They had been arriving ever since and lately quantity as much as 15,000.
Ahmed takes me for lunch at Island Dishes in St Matthews, a district just about town centre identified colloquially as ‘Mashtown’, ‘Hell City’ and ‘Little Somalia’.
Statistically Leicester’s maximum disadvantaged neighbourhood, this has, from time to time, been the poorest space in England. Crime is rampant in St Matthews. According to police statistics, 1,625 violent and sexual offences had been recorded right here prior to now yr on my own.
All round me are Somalis of their lengthy gowns. Walking in the course of the side road. Getting out and in of vehicles, consuming in takeaways and purchasing must haves.
Island Dishes gives ‘Swahili, Arabian & African Cuisine’. Next door is Suez Canal barbers. Next to this is some other barbershop.
Around the nook is Amira Cafe, the place I’m advised you get superb espresso, even if I see no ladies a number of the consumers – or, certainly, anyplace at the streets out of doors.
The takeaway Baaba Shair gives pizzas, burgers and shawarma along but some other barbershop.
The town’s Clock Tower in 1975. Leicester has observed its demographics alternate considerably since
Leicester’s Haymarket within the 1950s. Mass migration has now not became Leicester into the multicultural idyll of political myth, David Patrikarakos writes
Island Dishes turns out like a regular takeaway: a pitcher counter stuffed with meat and salads runs virtually the duration of the status quo. In an adjacent room, even though, I see one thing I by no means have earlier than: a piece with a curtain that you’ll be able to pull throughout when you input.
This, I’m advised, is the ‘circle of relatives sales space’ the place you’ll be able to consume privately – this is with any feminine family you might have introduced with you.
There are not any ladies to be observed, in or out of the sales space. I will have to admit, it is a disconcerting sight.
Over a meal of halal hen, lamb and rice, we’re joined via Ahmed’s two youngsters, 13-year-old ‘Mohammad’ and ‘Mahmoud’, 11, (once more, now not their actual names). Mohammad wears the cap and kameez like his father.
We talk about soccer – they enhance Liverpool and Leicester City – faculty, Formula 1 and video video games.
Mohammad may get dressed in a different way, however there may be little else to split both of those cheerful, chatty boys from their fellow pupils at British colleges.
According to the 2021 census – the newest – Leicester is kind of break up in two between white and Asian populations, with 43.4 in keeping with cent figuring out as Asian and 40.9 in keeping with cent as white. Within that, 23.5 in keeping with cent of the inhabitants are Muslim and 17.9 in keeping with cent are Hindu.
But there may be some other hanging pattern.
Only 57 in keeping with cent of Leicester citizens had been born in England, down from 65 in keeping with cent in 2011. More lately, a mid-2023 estimate calculated that 3.6 in keeping with cent of town’s overall inhabitants had arrived from out of the country in one yr.
Mass migration has now not became Leicester into the multicultural idyll of political myth. Rather – in scenes witnessed across the nation – other communities siphon themselves off into other wallet, interacting handiest with their very own teams.
Muslim households gravitate to the japanese portions of town, corresponding to the world round Evington Road, whilst Hindus generally tend to reside close to Belgrave Road additional north.
Census information additionally expose that during one crowded a part of North Evington, just about the railway station and the cathedral, a complete 43 in keeping with cent of the over-16s talk very little English.
This is most likely essentially the most excessive instance of town’s ethnic communities failing to combine, however North Evington is in no way an outlier.
Among 34 Leicester neighbourhoods, a minimum of a 5th of the inhabitants cannot talk the language, consistent with census information. It is sort of as though portions of this town now are British in title handiest.
The result’s as miserable as it’s predictable. While many migrants have introduced large cultural advantages to the United Kingdom, others have imported ideologies and political feuds – particularly from the Indian subcontinent – and, once in a while, the violence that is going with them.
In the months of August and September 2022, longstanding tensions between Leicester’s Hindus and Muslims over problems together with the disputed area of Kashmir exploded following a cricket fit between India and Pakistan.
Parts of town erupted into protests and side road combating, fuelled and augmented via on-line propaganda.
Such divisions are actually infecting British politics. In remaining yr’s common election, the sitting Labour MP, Jonathan Ashworth, misplaced his thumping 22,000 majority to unbiased candidate Shockat Adam, who ran on a unmarried factor: Gaza.
Adam made his priorities transparent via dedicating his victory to ‘the folks of Gaza’ whilst Ashworth claimed he suffered harassment and intimidation all over the marketing campaign. The Conservatives, in the meantime, received neighbouring Leicester East thank you largely to the constituency’s considerable Hindu vote.
A supply who spent a few years operating professionally with the tensions and divisions in Leicester, and has observed them at shut hand, tells me: ‘The Hindu network has a tendency to vote Conservative, in large part as a response to the Muslim network’s Labour leanings and its robust hyperlinks to the Labour political status quo right here.
‘Hindus, consequently, have develop into extra radicalised with more youthful, Right-wing components rising, particularly from the rising Indian diaspora settling in Leicester, including gasoline to ongoing tensions.’
My supply is deeply involved in regards to the screw ups of a few within the Muslim network, additionally, announcing: ‘Part of the issue is a permissive surroundings. When ISIS comes out and says throwing homosexual other people off structures isn’t incorrect however mandatory, few other people right here talk out in opposition to it as a result of they do not disagree.
‘They are not going to move out and do it, however there’s a failure from the Muslim network to take on extremism head-on, partially because of currents of sympathy inside of it against sure portions of extremist dogma.’
Back within the eating place, we end consuming. ‘Come on,’ says Ahmed. ‘It’s time to wish.’
The City Retreat is a masjid – a network centre for Muslims – housed in a corporate-looking development a six-minute stroll from the cathedral.
I’m right here for Friday Prayers. The imam, Shafi Chowdhury, is extremely charismatic.
‘When a idiot speaks, don’t worry with how to answer him,’ he preaches. ‘He’s hurling insults and he is being abusive and offensive; I do not wish to deliver myself to that degree.’ An aged guy nods alongside in settlement.
‘If you in truth take a look at what Islam teaches then it is very other to the acts that folks devote in his title,’ this worshipper later tells me. ‘And in terms of the ones examples, your downside will have to be with the people now not the religion.’
This turns out completely affordable.
For many years, Leicester’s Asian communities have maintained their very own very transparent traditions, which in flip have created a hybrid western-Asian tradition, rooted in track, movie, and meals.
By the 1990s, the Belgrave Road was once drawing households from as some distance away as Sheffield for buying groceries and recreational. Leicester’s cinemas had been a number of the first within the nation to turn Bollywood movies.
Yet the variations between the teams have proved fertile soil for ethnic populists to take advantage of. And, as two older contributors of Leicester’s Muslim network inform me, those tensions have worsened with time.
Thanks to the rising affect of conservative Islam and a ‘keep our tradition in any respect prices’ angle, segregation has larger even inside of Muslim communities.
This has grown with the unfold of conservative Deobandi and strict Wahabi Islam, infrequently inspired with monetary backing from Saudi Arabia.
‘As a end result we had much less revolutionary notions about ladies’s roles in society, a lot much less integration in wider society,’ they are saying.
‘Parallel societies emerged. Some communities had been so conservative that that they had their very own mosques, their very own graveyards, even.’
Hindus, too, are dealing with radical alternate. Under strongman Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian politics has shifted clear of a extra inclusive id to a nativist tradition that rejects all non-Hindus. These ideals had been imported right here to Leicester. Clashes had been – and are – inevitable.
While previous generations sought to steer clear of hassle, their successors are extra strident in saying their identities. ‘They really feel entitled to their ‘rights’ and won’t settle for being observed as a push-over or being victimised via different communities,’ the supply tells me.
Some imagine Leicester’s rising divisions had been made nonetheless worse as a result of enhance schemes as soon as supplied via central and native govt had been withdrawn.
The impact on this town is depressingly transparent to look.
Rabbi Sam Lebens, who teaches philosophy at Haifa University in Israel, was once born and grew up within the town.
‘Originally, Leicester’s multiculturalism was once an attractive factor,’ he advised me. ‘But issues started to switch after the second one Palestinian intifada in 2000.’
Following the rebellion in Israel, there was once ‘a tangible antisemitic local weather’ amongst Leicester’s Muslims, says Rabbi Lebens.
‘One time we had been adopted to synagogue via a gaggle of Somali Muslims joking about burning it down. And if these items occur to you steadily sufficient, you begin to be much less trusting. And that is an actual disgrace.’
After prayers, Ahmed takes me to the Nomad Cafe in St Matthews the place the espresso, he guarantees, is superlative.
Once once more, everyone seems to be Somali. I ask Ahmed if he thinks there’s a downside with integration right here.
‘For an intruder searching in, that preliminary evaluate may appear correct,’ he concedes. ‘However, in case you are anyone who lives right here, and visits other neighbourhoods, you would see that what seems like segregation on a map does not replicate the total image. All the other teams right here combine.
‘Yes, the faces listed here are predominantly Somali. But you’ll be able to additionally see English other people. In each block of about 40 apartments, there are round 4 or 5 English other people residing there.’ This moves me as most likely creating a fairly other level from the only he intends.
For Ahmed, ‘integration’ manner conserving your ancestral cultural id – particularly your faith – and development on it, now not operating to assimilate.
There is way to take into consideration.
In Leicester, there’s a future of British Islam – within the erudition and tolerance of Imam Chowdhury, within the type, scholarly Ahmed, and, maximum of all, in his smiling, cheeky youngsters.
As we sat in Nomad, Ahmed mentioned his eldest son, Iqbal.
‘He’s born within the clinic down the street,’ he stated. ‘He is a Leicester boy, however could also be of Somali heritage and a Muslim, and all this makes him what he’s. Neither of this stuff can reside with out the opposite.’
But if we would like this extra certain imaginative and prescient of Leicester – and Britain – to emerge there will also be not anything however 0 tolerance for the currents of misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism and racism – to not point out the foetid extremism – that infects a few of our communities.
Against the ones there can by no means be any retreat. For Britain, and all of its other people, Hindus, Muslims and non-believers alike.
