Even as London's Muslim mayor of Pakistani heritage led a multi-faith vigil on Monday in memory of the victims of the capital's latest terrorist outrage, it emerged that one of the three attackers who killed seven and injured 48 on Saturday night in the name of Islamic extremism, was also a Londoner of Pakistani origin.
Perhaps somewhere in the gaping chasm that separated the beliefs and life choices of 46-year-old mayor Sadiq Khan and 27-year-old murderer Khuram Butt may be found some of the answers for which those seeking to tackle the radicalisation of disenfranchised Muslims in the west are now so anxiously searching.
Either way, it was a moment that underlined the complexities of the security situation now facing many western societies.
Born at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, on October 8, 1970, Sadiq Aman Khan was a product of British colonial interference in the land of his parents’ birth. Fleeing the blood-soaked horrors of partition – the division of India by the British in 1947, Khan’s grandparents were among the countless tens of thousands who emigrated to the newly created Islamic state of Pakistan.
Just before his birth, Khan’s parents swapped the economic hardships of Pakistan for the promise of self-improvement in the United Kingdom, at a time when rising immigration was inspiring racist violence and abuse in Britain.
From the outset, life was tough for the Khans. The future mayor of London was the fifth of eight children whose father, Amanullah, worked as a bus driver and whose mother, Sehrun, was a dressmaker. The family of 10 squeezed into a three-bedroom council flat in south London.
Life there was "good but tough", Khan told the Evening Standard in 2015. "You had to be streetwise and smart, to learn to fight" – he and two of his brothers took up boxing – "[and] to cross the road when certain people were coming. The rules of the game were: don't be seen to be weak, earn respect."
But Khan would overcome this inauspicious start to become, in his own words, a “working-class boy done good”. At school he excelled at cricket, trying out for Surrey county, but instead chose to take advantage of what was then Britain’s free higher education system to study law at the University of North London “without having to run up huge debts … I got a university place based on my talent rather than my ability to pay”.
Khan graduated in 1991, and in 1994, he joined a firm of London solicitors as a trainee. That same year he married Saadiya Ahmed, a fellow lawyer. The couple would go on to have two daughters, Anisah, now 18, and Ammarah, 16.
By 1997, Khan had become a partner, specialising in human rights, and frequently found himself taking on London’s Metropolitan Police force, on behalf of clients variously claiming to have been victims of wrongful arrest, racial discrimination, assault and false imprisonment.
In 1994, Khan joined the Labour Party and won a seat on Wandsworth council. After a decade, he quit council chamber and the law to run successfully as Labour candidate for the parliamentary seat of Tooting, his home borough, in the 2005 general election.
He would serve three terms in a parliamentary career which got off to a controversial start. In his first year, he was one of 49 Labour MPs who, in the wake of the July 7 London bombings, defeated their leader Tony Blair's plans to allow terrorism suspects to be held for up to 90 days without charge. For this, he was named Newcomer of the Year by the right-wing Spectator magazine "for the tough-mindedness and clarity with which he has spoken about the very difficult issues of Islamic terror".
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Biog
1970 Born October 8
1991 Graduates in law
1994 Elected local councillor
1997 Partner in law firm
2005 Elected MP for Tooting
2008 Appointed communities minister
2016 Elected mayor of London
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The following year, Khan was among prominent British Muslims who signed an open letter stating that the British government’s foreign policy, including “the debacle of Iraq ... not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region, it is also ammunition to extremists who threaten us all”.
Khan’s political star rose in 2007 when Blair was succeeded by Gordon Brown. As a government whip, in 2008, Khan demonstrated the pragmatism of his politics, drawing flak from civil-rights groups, by shepherding into law legislation allowing terror suspects to be held for up to 42 days. His reward was his appointment in 2009 as minister for communities, followed by a promotion to minister for transport, making him the first Muslim to attend Cabinet.
British Muslims, he wrote in a pamphlet in 2008, needed to "leave behind our victim mentality" and "accept that as strongly as they feel about Iraq or counter-terrorism measures, poverty and inequality have the biggest impact on the lives of the majority of British Muslims and do the most to prevent potential being fulfilled". His proposal, Fairness Not Favours: How to Reconnect With British Muslims, was a blueprint for "address[ing] the major obstacles that prevent many Muslims … [from climbing] the social ladder and [taking] up new opportunities".
Khan’s own ascent of that ladder is a powerful case in point. Serving three terms as MP for Tooting, in September 2015, he won selection as Labour’s candidate for mayor of London.
After a bitter campaign in which the Conservative candidate maligned Khan as a “radical” with Islamist views, the son of a Pakistani bus driver who presented himself as “a mayor for all Londoners” won the day with more than 1.3 million votes, the largest personal mandate of any politician in British history.
His “burning ambition”, he told the media, was for all people across the capital to have the same opportunities he had enjoyed. But with his mayorship now overshadowed by not one, but two divisive terrorist attacks, Khan’s priority now must be to ensure that London’s diverse communities remain unified.
As though dealing with the aftermath of Saturday’s attack weren’t enough, this week Khan found himself the target of a much-criticised Twitter attack by United States President Donald Trump, who misrepresented what the mayor had said about the outrage.
Trump’s outbursts were in stark contrast to the message of support for Khan from the US Conference of Mayors, which commended him for his statement and “leadership during this crisis”.
On Monday night, flanked by representatives of all faiths at the memorial vigil for the victims of Saturday night’s attack, Khan spoke passionately as he set about the important work of buttressing London’s belief in itself as one of the world’s beacons of harmonious diversity – work that may yet prove to be the defining task of his mayorship.
His message to the “sick and evil extremists” was “we will defeat you. You will not win”.
And, “as a proud and patriotic British Muslim”, he added this: “You do not commit these disgusting acts in my name. Your perverse ideology has nothing to do with the true values of Islam and you will never succeed in dividing our city.”
weekend@thenational.ae
