by Maajid Nawaz
I reach for my blade.
I unclip my blade. What to do?
But my world slowed down again as soon as Sa’eed’s voice resonated across the courtyard. There was an air of absolute calm in him. He was in uncanny, almost hypnotic, control of his emotions. If he felt threatened, he certainly didn’t show it. Instead, he looked at Ayotunde and in a measured tone, said: “If you don’t put them away right now, I will have to kill you.”
That sentence has haunted my soul to this day. Ayotunde didn’t heed Sa’eed’s warning but continued slashing at his leather jacket with the knives. By this point, I was certain that Ayotunde was going to get hurt. I told myself this was self-defense. We Muslims are a just people, I thought, but we’re not pacifists. We don’t transgress, but if someone wants to pick a fight, they’d better be prepared to fight to the death. Sa’eed opened his leather jacket and pulled out Abdul Jabbar.
Then, from the corner of my eye, with my hand still on my blade, I noticed Dave Gomer, the student-liaison officer. He was standing right behind Ayotunde. He had come rushing out of the building after all the commotion. I saw him take in the situation, size up Ayotunde brandishing his butcher’s knives, Sa’eed with his sword, and me standing behind Sa’eed. Gomer didn’t recognize Sa’eed, wasn’t particularly aware of who Ayotunde was, but he knew me all right. He looked at me straight in the eye; it was the most arresting glance, one of extreme disappointment, rather than anger. The look was of someone feeling so badly let down. I trusted you, I could see him thinking. I trusted you to keep all this under control.
Gomer couldn’t have known that I had unsheathed my knife, not from where he was standing, because it was still hidden behind my back and beneath my clothes. But I was there, and for him that was enough.
It was one of those moments where my life could have gone one of two ways. Sometimes the smallest of decisions can have the largest consequences. But Dave Gomer’s look cut through me. His cold disappointment sliced through the white heat of my adrenaline. It pulled me up sharp, and for a crucial split second I had a flash of realization about what I might be about to do. I slid my knife back into its sheath, clicked it back in place, and pulled back, completely back. No one knew how close I had been. Gomer has absolutely no idea of the effect his look had on me. He probably thinks he failed at that college. But without his presence, my life would have taken an entirely different turn. And for that, I will be forever grateful to him.
The sad truth is that while I was fortunate enough to have Gomer there to check my behavior, there was no one around to check Sa’eed’s. No sooner had I slipped my knife back into its sheath, than he was doing precisely the opposite with his sword. In one swift, calm, almost mechanical movement, Sa’eed plunged his monstrous blade, Abdul Jabbar, the Servant of the Compeller, deep into Ayotunde’s chest.
That was the signal. As soon as Sa’eed knifed Ayotunde, from all sides young Pakistani kids came piling in; some had weapons like hammers and knives, others were just kicking and punching. It was a vicious, frenzied assault way beyond my control at this stage. Ayotunde, I knew immediately, had no chance.
Gomer was sensible enough not to do anything either. As it became clear that Ayotunde wasn’t getting up, everyone involved ran. There was pandemonium: people screaming, onlookers wanting to get out of the way, those with weapons wanting to disappear before the police appeared and found blood all over the floor. As the emergency services arrived, some sort of order was slowly restored. The paramedics went straight to Ayotunde and desperately tried to revive him as his body convulsed in its final death throes. It was to no avail. I stood there and watched Ayotunde Obanubi die.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Womb That Bore Me
The college courtyard was now a murder scene, and the police were soon asking questions. I hadn’t been involved in the actual attack and felt that I had no reason to run. I also wanted to give the police our side of the story. Ayotunde had attacked first; he’d brought knives to a sword fight and lost. Sa’eed Nur had responded in self-defense.
I was never arrested myself; in fact, the police wanted to see if I could be a prosecution witness. I was introduced to a young lawyer, an up-and-coming HT daris named Anjem Choudary. When I had run the events of the day past Anjem, he assured me that there was nothing prejudicial to the defense in what I said. And as we sat together discussing this in a fast-food restaurant, I remember Anjem commenting on how “sharp” I was for a seventeen-year-old.
“This one will make a great da’i—activist—one day,” he said, turning to his colleague.
Anjem Choudary would later go on to lead one of Britain’s most notorious, and eventually banned, Salafi-Jihadist organizations, al-Muhajiroun. (In 2010, I gave Anjem a rude awakening during our now infamous debate on BBC Newsnight. He had completely forgotten our meetings.)
Full of a sense of injustice, I recalled my story to the police. I said that Ayotunde had been armed with two knives and had attacked first. I explained how the African students had a long history of bullying the Muslim students, and this incident was the culmination of that. My views never made it to court. I wasn’t called by the prosecution because my memories did not suit the conviction and I wasn’t called by the defense because it would have looked as though Sa’eed was part of an organized Islamist conspiracy, which wouldn’t have helped his defense. One of the other students, Umran Qadir, was convicted for participating in the murder. Sa’eed was put away for life.
The day of the murder, as the crowds began to disperse, Ayotunde’s friends passed me and whispered harsh calls for revenge. My instincts kicked in. I knew these guys would need to witness just how doggedly we were prepared to defend ourselves so that they wouldn’t retaliate. The initiative had to be seized by us, and speed was everything. That night I was picked up by some of the former Pakistani gang members; they had managed to find out where a few of the African students lived. We reached their address and parked up outside, keeping the car running with its lights on. Our aim was to be seen, and so we waited until someone came to the window and spotted us. Immediately, the curtains were drawn in what was probably fear. We wanted to scare them and send a message—if you haven’t had enough yet, we’re still here and have more to offer. Once they’d seen us, we drove away, job done.
I’m not proud of what I did. And behaving like this certainly wasn’t something endorsed by HT. What we did that night, a calculated move to instill terror in the hearts of men just after their friend had been murdered, is probably the lowest I’ve ever stooped in my life. It is difficult to argue now that going to their house that night was self-defense, but that’s what we did. My seventeen-year-old reasoning was that the African students had started it. They’d come tooled up and had lashed out at Sa’eed Nur. We needed to petrify them enough that they backed off. On a crude level, it worked: they stopped.
My deepest condolences go to Ayotunde’s family. Such a cold-blooded response to the murder of another individual was part and parcel of the person I’d become. There was a total desensitization from the violence I’d grown up around. My reaction, too, was inextricably bound together with my membership in HT.
It is very difficult to separate who I am now from everything I have been through. I remain cognizant—as brought out so starkly in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies—that given the right circumstances most ordinary people are capable of descending to despicable depths. I might now actively campaign against the views that HT espouses, but my skills in being able to argue and organize, to rally and inspire, all undoubtedly come from my training in the organization. To ask if I regret joining HT is a difficult question to answer. It would mean I regret who I am now, that I regret my current work, myself—I don’t think that can be the case. Some people may not like that answer, but it’s the only honest one I have. Sometimes the truth can be like that: harder and harsher, more bitter than people would ever care to admit.
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The murder redoubled my commitment to HT. Dave Gomer’s intervention seemed to square with the views of the HT leadership, that direct action was not the way. Once you went down that route, you were exposing yourself to the consequences. The HT philosophy was to challenge and to stir things up, but take things no further. The murder reinforced for me that the HT line was the right one to follow.
That was despite the response of the HT leadership to events. It was Ed Husain and I who were responsible for HT at the college. Ed had been nowhere near the incident: he was studying when the murder took place. As I was the one who had been there in the thick of it, I went to see Omar Bakri to explain what had happened. I was smart enough not to mention the former gang members, but told him everything else. As far as I was concerned, I had been following the edict of the group to the letter. I was whipping the place into fervor as per his instructions. Omar Bakri, after all, had visited the college himself the week before, and had offered no criticism of our conduct. Indeed, he’d seemed delighted with what we’d achieved.
Bakri, however, was under pressure from the qiyadah. He had been criticized for the way the British wing was bringing heat on the whole organization. On top of this, there were voices within the UK organization that were critical of his tactics: these included the physicist Fouad Abu Mohammed. On two fronts, then, his provocative leadership was under attack. Now that a murder had taken place, the dissenting voices rose to a fever pitch.
Even so, I still expected his support. Omar Bakri sat and listened to everything I said, and then ignored it. He went out and gave media interviews where he denied any HT role in the incident, said the organization had never campaigned on the campus and condemned Sa’eed Nur for the attack. I was deeply saddened by this. Though it was true that HT had no direct role in the murder itself, condemning Sa’eed without condemning ourselves was a step too far for me. Sa’eed had come to the college to help us; we were the ones, under Omar Bakri’s guidance, who had whipped up the tension. Now this brother was being thrown under the bus for the sake of political expediency. My support for HT didn’t waver, but my belief in Omar Bakri never really recovered. Whereas before I would have unconditionally followed whatever instructions he gave me, I now felt myself doubting his sincerity.
One of the outcomes of the murder was that it saved me from following Omar Bakri. His attempts to shore up his position by distancing the group from the murder were not enough; his leadership deteriorated to the point that, just a few months afterward, he was suspended by the qiyadah. Seeking a new niche, Bakri reincarnated himself as even more extreme. He became a Salafi-Jihadist and went on to form the now-banned group al-Muhajiroun, which eventually became the banned Islam4UK. Anjem Choudary, the diminutive but passionate Abdur Rahman from Redbridge College, and some other prominent HT activists followed Omar Bakri in this folly. About a dozen or so of al-Muhajiroun’s members have since been convicted for terrorism-related offenses. This new group continued the same aggressive tactics Omar Bakri had employed while leader of HT, most notoriously protesting at Wootton Bassett—the town in Southwest England through which military processions go—when the bodies of soldiers are returned from Afghanistan.
Having lost that emotional pull toward Omar Bakri, I found it easier to stay with HT proper and the new policy of drawing back from aggression. It was decided that showing the videos of the atrocities in Bosnia was pumping up emotions to a fervor that was difficult to control: the line between Islamism and Jihadism was in danger of becoming blurred. The new leadership wanted to distance itself from any suggestion of violence: the carrying of knives or other weapons for self-defense was no longer allowed.
In terms of my passion, I was closer to the position of Omar Bakri than this new leadership. But Omar Bakri hadn’t backed me up, and they did, so I gave them a chance. Nasim was crucial here. He was rising through HT ranks rapidly and was insistent that I stay in the group. Importantly, he believed my version of what had happened at Newham. That meant a lot, and in return I fell in behind the group’s new direction. I stopped carrying my knife around for the first time in years. I’d gotten so used to having it strapped behind my back that to begin with it felt strange not having it there, like something was missing. I could have thrown the knife away, but instead I decided to keep it. It remains in my desk drawer to this day, to remind me of where I’ve come from.
Having let the situation escalate, Newham College now made up for lost time. Determined to root out the problem, the school expelled the entire Student Union committee. “Your presence,” the letter read, “is not conducive to a safe and secure environment in the college.” My parents hit the roof. My saving grace was that my expulsion was not for the murder. I had not been arrested or charged for that, and so I could say to my mother that they were overreacting—they were banning me because of my political activism.
Nevertheless, Abi and I had a huge argument about what I should do next. I wanted to start again at another London college: to carry on as before, continuing my HT activities. Abi, though, wanted me back in Southend where she could keep a closer eye on me.
“Why don’t you go to the local grammar school?” she argued.
Grammar schools are selective schools where only those students who gain high grades are admitted so they can be taught in an accelerated environment.
“You’ve got the grades and could do well there.”
I was only thinking about HT and insisted on returning to London. Back and forth this discussion went on through the night. Abi said that she wouldn’t fund me going back to live in London. I responded that I was going, and I would find the money so I could do so.
That was too much for her. My mother sensed that something had happened at the college. She could tell that there was something about that crowd that she wanted to keep me away from. The argument got more and more heated, until at about four o’clock in the morning, exhausted, she lost hope—but she didn’t stop. Totally exasperated by her errant, stubborn son, Abi started to weep and began beating her womb.
“I curse you!” she sobbed between the blows against her stomach. “I curse the womb that gave me such a son: a son who will not listen to his own mother!”
As I watched her in horror, I felt every blow she inflicted on herself. “Stop it!” I implored, forcing down her hands, and I began to cry. I couldn’t watch her do that; it was too much for me. What had I reduced my mother to? I stopped arguing and agreed that I would come home, and try to get into the grammar school. It was the best decision I had made in a while.
Soon after, I went for an interview at Westcliff High School for Boys, with then-headmaster Mr. Baker. My grades were nowhere near the grades of the other students. However, I was able to talk Mr. Baker into letting me in.
“I am a lot more mature from my time out,” I explained. “I want to study and really believe I could do well.”
I didn’t tell Mr. Baker that I had been expelled from Newham College. Instead I said that I’d decided to take a year off. Before everything was computerized such maneuvers were so much easier to pull off. In fact, it was not until many years later, when Mr. Baker invited me back to the school to address the student assembly, that I revealed how I had talked him into letting me in without telling him about the expulsion. The students all burst out in approving, roaring laughter, while poor Mr. Baker flushed every shade of red until I thought the man would have a heart attack.
If nothing else, my HT training had taught me how to argue. To Abi’s relief, I impressed him, and he offered me an unconditional place. Abi’s desperate intervention to force me to stay in Southend saved my academic career. I certainly would not have ended up at university if on that night, in the early hours of the morning, Abi hadn’t beaten the womb that bore me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A Show of Hands to Harden the Heart
Westcliff High School for Boys could not have been more different
from Newham College. I’d gone from a secondary school, where I could count the number of black and Asian people in my year on one hand, to a London campus where Muslim students were the majority, back to a boys-only Southend school, where again, almost everyone else was white.
I stood out from the start, and not just because of my skin color. I was unique in having taken a year off. I was a year older than them and more experienced. I had a formidable reputation in the town from my pre-HT days and my own car: a Vauxhall Astra SRI. When I turned up, many of the kids knew who I was. “You’re Maajid? The Maajid?”
“Yes, I am, and I’m back,” I said.
For the first time in a long time, I was not under threat. The other students were intelligent and studious, a little sheltered but well-meaning. By contrast, I probably seemed exciting and dangerous. In the time since I’d joined HT and been away in London, the whole problem of racism in Southend had died down substantially. A younger generation of B-boys—Moe’s younger brother, Chill’s younger brother, and others—had taken over; Southend would never be the same again. During those two years, I experienced almost no racism whatsoever.
This peacefulness allowed me the time and space needed to really develop intellectually. I’d always been reasonably capable, but had never bothered to apply myself before—I used to rely on “winging it” and would get by without making much effort. Now, feeling settled, I got into my studies. I discovered what I could achieve if I really put my mind to it. This excited and inspired me.
My history teacher was Dr. White—he had a PhD in his subject and really knew his stuff. A number of the students were scared of him because he was strict, but intellectually he was amazing. Mr. Moth and Mr. Skelly, who taught my economics class, were also fantastic. I appreciated the fact that my teachers genuinely seemed to like me, and that I could talk to them one on one.
