boy looked up, his eyes meeting mine. He frowned, his beetle-brows drawing together, then his curiosity sank without a ripple.
'What's happened?' I called out to the corridor. It was nearly lunchtime and my stomach grumbled loudly.
'We've won, Muhammad. We've won!' shouted Andrew, a thirty-something, crumpled-looking English teacher, 'we've beaten Paris – I've just heard it on the BBC!' He was in a state of near-ecstasy and looked like he was ready to jump into the air, or collapse – or perhaps both. Other teachers began crowding round.
London ... Paris: the fog broke. The Olympics. We'd won the Olympic bid. 'Wow ... wow, well done London!' I shouted with glee. This was something we'd fought for years to achieve: Londoners, and many of us in Muslim organizations, had fought hard to bring the Olympics to our city. Paris had been the front runner but had been pipped at the post. It was hard to believe: the Olympics was actually going to happen right here in London. Not only that, but in the heart of the famous East End, where I had spent so much of my life. I suddenly remembered my student and stumbled back into the classroom with a dazed smile.
'What's happened, sir?' the boy asked, his curiosity piqued again. I gave him the big news. It was almost one o'clock so I finished as quickly as I could and hurried to the staff room. The news had spread like wildfire: the TV showed crowds going wild in Trafalgar Square and the talk on everyone's lips was about our victory. We had won against all the odds, it was a great story indeed.
Defeating front runner Paris by fifty-four to fifty votes had been sweet. Jacques Rogge, the International Olympics Committee president, had made the dramatic announcement at 12.49pm the day before. No city had ever hosted the Games three times (London's last two Games were in 1908 and 1948). My colleagues at the MCB – the Muslim Council of Britain, the body representing 500 Muslim organizations – had used their influence in swinging the votes of several Muslim countries. The Secretary-General, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, and Chair of the London Affairs Committee, Tanzim Wasti, were appointed as Olympic Bid Ambassadors; they spoke with several key Muslim ambassadors in London, arguing with them for Muslim member countries to support the London bid. The MCB also wrote to the Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on 5 July urging that Muslim member countries back London in its bid to host the 2012 Olympics because of 'London's vibrant multiculturalism and its positive and active engagement with the city's many different ethnic, racial and religious communities'.
We sent each other excited text messages and calls that evening, congratulating ourselves on our efforts. The MCB congratulated London's bid leader, former Olympic champion Sebastian (Lord) Coe, London Mayor Ken Livingstone and the entire bid team for their historic achievement. 'I send my warmest congratulations to you and every member of the London 2012 team for winning the bid for the UK,' the Queen told Lord Coe.
★ ★ ★
Thursday, 7 July 2005
My routine began pretty much the same way every day: Wake up early, do my Fajr (pre-sunrise) prayer, a bit of short exercise, eat breakfast, spend some time with the kids before school and college, then kiss my wife and head off into the East End of London. This day was no different and the morning air was hazy and warm as the rush-hour traffic inched slowly forward. Once I had finally reached the borough of Tower Hamlets, I drove through familiar streets – streets which had once rang to Yiddish calls, and before that to the dialects of Kerry and Donegal – a place which was my 'home from home' when I first settled in the UK.
Tower Hamlets and the East End are a million things to a million different people – 'the Awful East', as Jack London called it – a ghetto beloved of writers, complete with Cockneys who still loved their pie and mash, but also homeless beggars, drug addicts and prostitutes. Yet it was also home to tens of thousands of Bangladeshis, my countrymen and women. As the situation in war-torn Somalia was turning from bad to worse, many Somalis had also made the long journey to the UK and now made Tower Hamlets their home. Soon they were being joined by those from other European countries also attracted to our country: Polish plumbers, Latvian builders, Estonian and Russian IT contractors, and more. The continuous wave of new immigrants and their transient presence – sooner or later they moved on to other parts of London – had been the defining feature in this part of the city for centuries. Nowadays, these new people and the white working-class Cockneys jostled with the City wealth and yuppies that were now crowding in.
Passing through this landscape, I was a roving special needs teacher engaged in behavioural support throughout the borough's inner city schools; a slim figure, middle-aged, often dressed in a suit (which had seen better days), my greying hair dyed to its once-natural brown. Some of the pupils I dealt with were in gangs and came from problem families: boys who had lost fathers, mothers who had lost husbands to addiction, or with other wives 'back home'. They were bright kids who just needed a bit of time to get on their feet – before drugs or prison got hold of them. Today, with the news of the Olympics and optimism charging the air, perhaps that world was now going to change. Even the dust-filled classrooms of the crumbling Victorian school where I was teaching couldn't hide the hope we all suddenly felt. I was still light-headed as I made my way to Tower Hamlets' Special Educational Needs department. It was housed in a rather dilapidated three-storey building near Queen Mary University, but was widely regarded as one of the top such units in the country.
At 10.00am my phone chirped and I looked at the text message on the screen, which was from a close friend. I had to read and re-read it again, willing the words to focus. I stood up and read it a third time: 'News about a few explosions/ collisions in the London Underground, British Transport Police has shut down the entire Underground system.' I was confused. Collisions on the Tube ...? But why more than one? The thought flashed through the back of my mind – not a terrorist attack, surely? But who ...? Without warning, I had a flashback to the afternoon panic at my office nearly four years before; 11 September 2001 was etched into our collective memory. Those attacks had changed the world forever, particularly for Muslims: two Muslim countries were now under US occupation and Muslims in the West had been put under increasing scrutiny. I looked over at my colleague, blankly; she was as puzzled as I was, clearly having seen or heard something too. Before she opened her mouth I read her the text message in a dry monotone. She shot bolt upright and yelled, 'Oh My God!' I flinched, startled, as others looked from across the room. The news began to spread quickly across all floors.
I called home to check that my daughter, Rima, and son, Raiyan, were still there: they were undergraduates and might be up for lectures or still sleeping – I wasn't sure. I was relieved to hear Rima's voice, telling me she had the day off and Raiyan would go into the university in the afternoon. My wife, Sayeda, was working in a local nursery and my other two children were at school, so the family was safe. Sayeda gasped and stifled a scream when I called and told her about the explosions.
I then quickly phoned the executive director of the East London Mosque, Dilowar Khan, in Whitechapel to find out if he knew anything. I was the mosque's Honorary Chairman and had been there when Prince Charles and a Saudi prince visited together in November 2001. In fact, although I was from a different part of Bangladesh than most East End Bangladeshis (who usually hailed from Greater Sylhet) and didn't live in the area, I had adopted the community and they me for many years: during my PhD in the mid-1980s, I had volunteered to teach some young community members science and mathematics; they were now becoming the community's elders. Dilowar's number was busy, so I left a message.
I was walking back to my desk when the phone chirped again: Dilowar was on the other end. He was well-liked in the community, a man who until recently had lived in the same council house for over twenty years, a stocky, kind figure who was familiar to everyone around. He told me breathlessly that there had been an explosion near Aldgate tube station. This was grim news: Aldgate was less than half a mile from the mosque. I told him to get in touch with the local police and other key people in the community. He asked me whether I could get down to the mosque – quickly.
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