The Islamic Republic of Dewsbury – Danny Lockwood

by Esmerelda Weatherwax (May 2012)

Dewsbury, or more specifically the area within Dewsbury called Savile Town, is known nationally as, first, the home of three of the four suicide bombers who murdered 52 people in London in July 2005 and second for being the current United Kingdom HQ of Tablighi Jamaat and the site of their Markazi Mosque. As we know Tablighi Jamaat control many mosques including the Abbeymills site in West Ham where they want to build the so called mega-mosque, which will then be their national Headquarters, if not their European Headquarters.

Dewsbury and Savile Town are also of personal interest to me as my husband lived there for two periods during his childhood and things his father told us of those times are relevant.

So many purchases of houses, often from elderly people who are desperate to leave because they are the last of the original inhabitants left on that street, are made by cash.

The rugby team were more stubborn. Vandalism became normal. The pitch would be littered with broken glass which had to be cleared before every match. Pieces of jagged metal would be deliberately embedded in the turf, in particular around the try lines where players would slide across the grass. The police encouraged them to find other premises and eventually they did so.

He describes the difficulty of even taking a photograph of the building. Google street view succeeded where he was wary. Like their building in West Ham the atmosphere is not welcoming.

He describes an event which took place in June 1994 which makes sense of something I witnessed in West Ham in either 1992 or 1993. I took the many tents which appeared all over the (contaminated) site to be part of an Eid celebration. I now believe it was an Ijtema, or pilgrimage, but can find no confirmation of this on line.

Lockwood is of the opinion that if the 1989 riot was the turning point for Muslim youths expressing themselves by physical violence then the Ijtema of 1994 was the maturing of a united and aggressive Islamic front against authority.

Lifting the lid on over 20 years of Cultural Revolution available from The Press here.

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