After enduring the full glare of the national spotlight six years ago, during the summer riots of 2011, the residents of the Birmingham inner-city suburb of Winson Green had happily returned to blissful anonymity – until last week.
Khalid Masood lived here for several months with his family, tending his garden, talking to neighbours and going to the mosque every week in white, flowing robes. His presence here was swiftly taken in some quarters as further evidence that Birmingham and the West Midlands have a particular problem with terrorism.
Since 1998, 39 people from Birmingham have been convicted of terror offences, and there were several arrests after Masood’s attack, leading to suggestions that the city was now the “jihadi capital of Britain”.
“It’s funny how when a Muslim commits an atrocity, we’re all tarred with the same brush,” says Tariq Jahan, whose 19-year-old son Haroon was killed in the 2011 riots. “Now it’s a few lads from Birmingham and the whole of Birmingham has been tarnished. Which is not true. There’s so much fantastic work in the community that never gets a mention. Don’t try and separate us.”
Jahan has lived here most of his life and knows Winson Green and its people better than most. His son was one of three young men who were killed when they were hit by a car driven at them deliberately as they tried to defend shops from looters. Afterwards, as police feared that anger at the deaths of Haroon, Abdul Musavir, 30, and his brother Shahzad Ali, 31, would boil over, Jahan appealed for calm.
“Black, white, Asians – we all live in the same community,” he told the crowds. “Step forward if you want to lose your son. Otherwise, calm down and go home, please.” Police credited him with averting a riot and Jahan was held up as a hero afterwards, something he still feels uncomfortable with.
“My son died. Am I getting an award for the death of my son?” he says. “It didn’t make sense to me. It took me a long time to realise I was in shock.”
Jahan threw himself into helping people, setting up the Haroon Tariq Jahan Foundation – his son’s full name – with the aim of seeking justice for his son, delivering aid to refugees in Syria, Turkey and Greece, and helping homeless people in Birmingham.
Walking around Winson Green, Jahan is confident that the area is now as harmonious as anywhere else and that community segregation did not cause Masood’s radicalism. “Since the riots, everyone has been getting on really well,” he says. “I’m a bit worried now – it feels like after the death of Lee Rigby. Afterwards everyone was very afraid. To have a soldier killed by a couple of madmen on the streets – it was as much of a shock to us as everyone else.
“You get calls from all sorts of people saying ‘what’s going to happen?’. And you say nothing’s going to happen. Go about your daily business. Just be a little more aware. We know the backlash and the verbal abuse that we get.
“But there’s so much fantastic work that’s being done in Birmingham. Don’t blame Birmingham because one person has done something wrong.”
Sybil Spence has represented the area where Masood lived for three decades as a member of Birmingham city council. A former nurse from Jamaica who arrived in the UK in 1961, she is perplexed by allegations that the city is segregated. “When people come in and can’t speak the language it is obvious that they don’t mix as quickly as they should,” she says. “But when they do learn there are so many people to help them. They quickly get acclimatised.
“It’s difficult for the older ones to pick up but there are some very decent people who get involved.”
Just a little way from Masood’s last address in Hagley Road is St Augustine’s church. The spire rises 185ft and is a landmark for miles around. “Christians are probably a minority in many Birmingham primary schools, especially in this area,” says the vicar, the Rev Matthew Tomlinson. “But my experience has given me no reason to doubt that Birmingham is a model of community cohesion with different faiths working happily together. In my 17 years here as a vicar I’ve never experienced any hostility or any hostile remark from people of any other faith.”
It’s not the same everywhere, he says. On the other side of Birmingham, there have been incidents of anti-Christian vandalism and comments “that are presumed to have a religious motivation”.
“I don’t think Birmingham necessarily has a problem, we just have a big population, and a big Muslim population. If there are going to be Islamic extremists they are just going to crop up in places like this.”
Local communities are less important than they were, he says: “Because of the way people connect, with online communities. I don’t think that anyone has a clue what to do about that.”
Jahan believes that although there is no segregation, there’s also no real drive towards integration either. “We’re supposed to be integrating and learning each other’s cultures. I see very little of that. The only people I do see who actually do that are people of faith, faith forums. They’re the only places you’ll see people of all colours, all nations.”
Jahan is as baffled by Masood’s motivations for the attack as anyone, but is disturbed by what he sees as a growing appetite across society for revenge. He gives regular talks to schoolchildren in Birmingham about radicalisation and tries to get this message across.
“When I suffered the loss of my son, and watched him die in my arms, can you imagine what the next person will feel if I go and take revenge? I’m only going to continue a legacy of hate.
“When my son died, 30,000 people came to his funeral. Why did they come? They weren’t asked to come. They came because they cared – that’s what the people of Birmingham are all about.”
