7:30AM GMT 29 Jan 2013
"When you go swimming, it’s much healthier to keep your whole body completely
covered, you know.” The Muslim lady behind the counter in my local pharmacy has
recently started giving me advice like this. It’s kindly meant and I’m always
glad to hear her views because she is one of the few people in west London where
I live who talks to me.
The streets around Acton, which has been my home since 1996, have taken on a
new identity. Most of the shops are now owned by Muslims and even the fish and
chip shop and Indian takeaway are Halal. It seems that almost overnight it’s
changed from Acton Vale into Acton Veil.
Of the 8.17 million people in London, one million are Muslim, with the
majority of them young families. That is not, in reality, a great number. But
because so many Muslims increasingly insist on emphasising their separateness,
it feels as if they have taken over; my female neighbours flap past in full
niqab, some so heavily veiled that I can’t see their eyes. I’ve made an effort
to communicate by smiling deliberately at the ones I thought I was seeing out
and about regularly, but this didn’t lead to conversation because they never
look me in the face.
I recently went to the plainly named “Curtain Shop” and asked if they would
put some up for me. Inside were a lot of elderly Muslim men. I was told that
they don’t do that kind of work, and was back on the pavement within a few
moments. I felt sure I had suffered discrimination and was bewildered as I had
been there previously when the Muslim owners had been very friendly. Things have
changed. I am living in a place where I am a stranger.
Read more at: The Telegraph
Read more at: The Telegraph
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