My Pakistani neighbours and I stuttered in disbelief, laughed uproariously, shouted in anger and fell into mental paralysis as Home Secretary John Reid and Abu Izzadeen performed a dramatic one-act play on Sky News. It was a few days before I was due to leave London for my holiday in Morocco, and I had visited next door seeking tips and guidelines for how to behave in an Islamic country during the month of Ramadan. There was no warning of what was about to take place on television.
A long shot introduced Abu Izzadeen, who has become a household personality by commending the 7/7 suicide bombers. He was ambling along the path to the entrance of the Forest Gate Community Centre, sporting a lily-white djellaba. Knotted at the nape of his neck was a white veil, with yards of cloth draping over his broad shoulders.
His son wore the identical garb without the veil, and hurried alongside his father who flip ped and flopped in his sandals up the steps and through the front door.
John Reid was at the podium, stage right, suitably relaxed and seemingly fit for purpose. He bruised and battered his way through his speech to grannies and grandpas from the Pakistani community. (Their sons were at work.) He warned them about the consequences of terror and its evil effects in this green and pleasant land.
Like all Stalinists, Reid presumed that, as the commissar for security in the central committee of the politburo, he was all-knowing and his audience backward and ignorant. The elderly people present seemed puzzled. They thought, perhaps, that Reid had come with a grovelling apology for the brutal performance of his uniformed officers who had fired a bullet, busted a head and slapped an innocent woman around.
Not a word of this emerged from the lips of the commissar. He solemnly warned his audience that in their midst are those who seduce their grandsons into committing suicide bombings in which innocent civilians are murdered.
Enter Abu Izzadeen on cue. The big man of Islam was centre stage now, misbehaving, raving and ranting: Blair is a murderer, John Reid is just about the same. They were killing Muslims all over the world. How dare you, he shouted at the elderly Muslim throng, invite this man here in our Islamic community - and he pointed his index finger at the Home Secretary. (His son by this time had disappeared from view.)
Reid managed an impish smile, his mission accomplished. Abu Izzadeen had performed his part, almost effortlessly illustrating Reid's description of the seducers of so many Asian youth.
What angered my Pakistani hosts was that Reid knew nothing about the intense discussions that go on in their homes, small groups meeting in each other's houses to debate the political line offered them by al-Qaeda. Parents follow every move their sons make, lest they drift from legitimate dissent against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan into cauldrons of hate. They felt insulted and unrepresented.
I tried to calm them: it was only a stunt, a cynical preamble to Reid's bid for the Labour Party leadership at the upcoming conference. And Abu Izzadeen, they agreed, was way off-beam, a showman full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. All the young men there had visited his meetings once or twice, but his message had fallen on stony ground.
Off went Abu Izzadeen to the BBC the following morning, calling for sharia law in the Islamic state of Britain. And Reid? He played on cue at the Labour party conference. No no-go areas, he shouted from the platform. We will go where we please, he declaimed, as he laid down the law to Abu Izzadeen and any others who questioned his presence in their midst.
As it turned out, the Sky News clash was staged by Reid and his cohorts at the Home Office. They organised the meeting, Abu Izzadeen was invited in advance - his performance guaranteed - and the press was alerted to film and report the confrontation.
John Reid is not fit for purpose.
