This is a cross post from The Times by Maajid Nawaz, executive director of Quilliam
This week I rediscovered a dark part of me that I thought I had put to rest. For most people, the routine journey home from work brings few surprises. Mine took me back 20 years in a flash. At the station a man was harassing a grandmother, her daughter and grandchildren. It happens. But it was the timing that shook me. The family were Muslims of South Asian origin, in headscarves and the man was gesticulating: “Go home, this is England.” This was three days after Oslo. The children looked petrified. And the man did not expect what happened next.
I flew into a rage. Recalling obscenities I had forgotten existed, I rushed towards him with sheer hatred. If he had not dashed for the exit, I honestly do not know what I would have done to him. Once the whole ugly scene was over, I apologised to the family for swearing. As they tried to thank me I walked off as fast as I could. I didn’t want them to see me. Within two minutes, I was home, shaking and crying.
You may wonder what upset me so much. The damsels were saved, the bad guy retreated, mission accomplished, surely? Well, no. Quite the opposite. I knew what had done this to me. In an instant I was engulfed by my rage growing up in Essex, fighting street battles with neo-Nazis who stabbed many of my friends. In time, I morphed into the “monster” they said I was and joined an extreme Islamist group. This led me ultimately to be held in an Egyptian jail where some of my friends were tortured. And this insignificant man brought it all back, everything.
Since being released and leaving the extremist group, I have spent my time leading Quilliam, a group that challenges Islamist and anti-Islam extremism. At a summit last month in Dublin I spoke on the idea that far-right and Islamist extremism have a symbiotic relationship and both must be challenged. But an ignorant man brought home to me on a deeply personal level that, after Oslo, we are in danger of slipping backwards. What to many may look a trivial and insignificant incident, for others is the reopening of an infected wound.
And so I cried. I cried not because I might have offended this ignoble man, or for the helpless grandmother or her children, although I was happy to stand up for them. I cried because I discovered what I was still capable of doing. The anger was still raw inside me, the wounds are still there, and they are still there in our society. I am happy that I did not assault the man. But I also know that had he attacked the grandmother I would have acted, and that fills me with deep doubt.