One nation in black and white

Like many inner-city estates it is undergoing a much-needed refurbishment. Lambeth council has spent £5 million on new buildings and park regeneration. But no amount of municipal cosmetics can hide the fact that drugs and gun crime form a dispiriting backdrop to everyday life.

Just for today, though, things are different. The Nation of Islam’s presence has secured an amnesty — if unspoken — on the estate as the courteous young black men and women set about instilling black pride and promoting peace. They’re uniformly and smartly dressed, the men in black suits and bow ties, the women in long, white muslin robes.

One by one, black parents drop their children inside the playground, before heading off to do their Saturday chores. They can go about their shopping safe in the knowledge that nothing untoward will happen to their children for the next few hours.

As the sun breaks through, more and more children arrive. The numbers break the 150 mark as the Nation rolls out a day differing little from those organised summer fairs throughout the nation. Older children divide into two football teams while the younger ones form a queue to have their faces painted — tigers and princesses for the day.

Not many venture over to the tables selling Nation of Islam books, videotapes and issues of the movement’s main newspaper The Final Call, bearing headlines that read “Bring the peace! A call to gangs to stop the violence,” and “What Muslims really believe”.

With the exception of the photographer with me, there is only one other white person: a youngster sharing his football skills with the others kids. Suddenly, a thumping bass line kicks in. The sound system is hooked up, reggae bounces out and laughter fills the air.

The brooding tension that usually drapes a Saturday afternoon on the estate is dispelled. Throughout the day I see only one confrontation. When a muscular teenager blasts a football at another teenage player, tempers tighten and snap. As swearing fills the air, a besuited man intervenes. His name is Brother Simon. He is tall and broad-shouldered, with neatly cropped hair, but he uses only the authority of his voice to restore order, quietly, but surely.

A resident studies the moment, nodding to herself in approval. She has also seen that I have witnessed the football incident, and as she passes me she tells me that she wishes the Nation of Islam was here more often. That way, black kids could play safely.

Formed in the US in 1930, the Nation is led by a controversial figure, Minister Louis Farrakhan. The UK offshoot was set up 14 years ago. Its presence on the streets of London’s black heartlands in Hackney and Brixton reflected the growing radicalism of sections of the community.

Its membership swelled as an angry black community watched the killers of Stephen Lawrence walk free. Then things seemed to go quiet. Today the numbers are said to be up to about 4,000 — some observers cite the growth in interest as a reaction against the attack on Iraq and increased Islamophobia on the streets of Britain. But that is only half the story.

The Nation of Islam is a well-organised and disciplined black-activist movement. Its members are not Islamic fundamentalists, nor do they see themselves as brothers in arms of the fundamentalists. Theirs is a message of black conservatism and black empowerment. To get this message out, they take to the streets with The Final Call, written in the US where half a million copies are printed every month. An undisclosed number are sent to the UK and sold for £1 a copy. Members will wait until the early hours of the morning outside clubs such as The Fridge and Mass in Brixton and NightMoves near Hackney, to try to impress on bedraggled hedonists the value of education, black pride and community spirit.

They hold regular meetings in areas ravaged by crime and drugs and on Sundays between 6am and 9am Brother Christopher broadcasts a show on Genesis, a pirate radio station. Uncomfortable with the illegality of pirate stations, but mindful of the need to broadcast their message, they see what they call the “community” station as a valuable forum for debates and phone-ins on subjects such as the need for members of the black community to educate themselves.

The head of the Nation in this country is Hilary Muhammad. Getting to talk to him is a tortuous process of phone calls, text messages and yet more phone calls. When I eventually make a breakthrough, I am given just 45 minutes’ notice that I will be granted an interview.

I also ask to speak to other members but am denied. “Brother Hilary alone speaks to the press on behalf of all members,” they reiterate. When I enter the Nation’s headquarters, I am searched — I’m not quite sure why, but I’m told that it’s standard procedure. As I wait for Brother Hilary, I note a room full of videos and DVDs of Minister Farrakhan, the movement’s guru and bane of the Home Office.

Brother Hilary — tall, slim, courteous and soft-spoken — has been the UK Nation of Islam leader for the past six years. He took over from Brother Leo Muhammad six years ago. We start by talking about the rise in popularity of the Nation among blacks and I press Brother Hilary for a figure. He won’t give one: membership, I am told, is “vast and sundry”.

He says: “We’re not so vain that we’re of the mind to be throwing out figures, saying we’re this successful or that successful. Our mission is to re-educate and train our people as a consequence of them being robbed of their name, language, culture, religion, god . . . ”

Brother Hilary is convinced that the pressures of living in a white and, as he sees it, increasingly racist society is taking a toll on black people. Home Office figures show that 4,840 cases of racially aggravated woundings and 20,589 cases of racial harassment were reported last year — statistics, Brother Hilary believes, that back his argument.

He also points to Commission for Racial Equality poll findings published last month that blacks and whites are less likely to share friendships as further proof of a foretaste of things to come.

“Modern-day multicultural Britain is not working and is failing blacks. White society has failed us. They have not educated us properly. They have told us from an early age that if we can’t make it in music or sport then the best we can expect is a job in McDonald’s, Boots or Sainsbury’s. What we need to do is start looking after ourselves.”

Which brings him back to education, the backbone of the strategy for black self-improvement. The Nation of Islam has set up its own schools because, he says, the state system has failed black children, particularly boys.

“Middle-class white women are not trained to educate young black boys,” he says. “There are no resources put into the community to train black men to teach black children, to discipline black men. Middle-class white women cannot do that, just like middle-class black women could not train middle-class white boys.”The subject dearest to Brother Hilary’s heart is that of Farrakhan and his battle to enter Britain. The Nation of Islam has been fighting the issue in the courts since 1986, when Farrakhan was refused entry on the grounds that his public statements would be racially divisive and his physical presence would threaten public order.

Farrakhan gave his critics more credibility when he had this to say recently on what he claims is Jewish control of the media: “See, you so-called Jews — I’m not gonna give you the credit for being one of those that obey God. You know what images do. . . you painted us, big lips, red eyes, kinky hair . . . you mocked our characteristics and made us hate God’s creation of us. You did that. Hollywood did that. You think we don’t see you?

” Brother Hilary refuses to accept that there has been any wrongdoing or to apologise for Farrakhan. “He has said nothing outrageous against the Jewish community that is not true,” says Brother Hilary. “No one accuses the honourable Minister of being a liar but there are some people who are so arrogant that they do not want people to pull them up on their shortcomings or pull them up on their extremism.”

Is the rebirth of the Nation of Islam in Britain just a phase, or should society start paying heed to the movement’s new-found appeal? Ashok Viswanathan, campaign director at Operation Black Vote, fully understands why black people, in particular the youth, are looking towards the Nation of Islam.

“Many blacks feel demonised,” he explains. “They feel that their communities are over- policed, yet under-protected by the law. And so they turn to a party like the Nation of Islam because they feel here’s a party that understands them and who can best represent their interests.”

The Family Day draws to a close and there are satisfied smiles on the faces of the Nation of Islam members. The rain held off, the expensive hire of the bouncy castle was money well spent and the older children have been kept off the street for a few hours.

The black inhabitants of this estate have seen at first hand that the Nation of Islam is not a lunatic fringe political group but a collective of people who look like them, who understand their language and who, most importantly, state that they are on their side.

BIRTH OF A NATION

THE NATION OF ISLAM was formed in the US in 1930.