Terror and Racism in Liverpool

I suppose we could make a grim joke about Emad Al Swealmeen, the supposed Islamist terrorist who died when his bomb exploded inside a taxi outside Liverpool Women's Hospital on November 14th. We could describe him as a failed suicide bomber who blew up in anger when asked to pay his taxi fare, or some such thing. Fortunately, for most people, the reaction has been highly responsible, with attention focussing upon the serious aspects of this incident. For a few people, it has given them an opportunity to incite racism, but let's look at that later.

For this incident was no joke. Whatever his level of competence (or incompetence) Swealmeen meant serious, lethal business, even though there is still some uncertainty about his target. The police theory is that he was headed to Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, where he would have joined the Remembrance Sunday congregation and detonated the bomb. However, as his specific destination request to the taxi driver was for the hospital, there is always the possibility that the hospital itself was his target. The consequences of that are too horrible to contemplate, but our experience of recent terror attacks means that it cannot be ruled out. We can only be grateful that Swealmeen was the only fatality. David Perry, the taxi driver, escaped with minor injuries.

 The obvious question arising, of course, is why did Swealmeen do it? The Sun, with its usual regard for accuracy, was in no doubt: 

"POPPY Day bomber Emad Jamil Al Swealmeen struck after his asylum bids were turned down".

As Swealmeen left no "martyrdom video" or suicide note, we cannot say for definite what drove him to his one-man bomb plot, but we can perhaps glean something from his history in this country. Al Swealmeen had a history of mental illness and lived in various countries in the Middle East before moving to the UK, a member of his tribe in Jordan told the BBC.

Wikipedia says here: 

"He arrived in the UK in around 2014 and claimed for asylum as a Syrian refugee, which was denied as officials believed him to be Jordanian rather than Syrian; his immigration status at the time of the incident is unknown. Seven years before the incident he was sectioned after trying to kill himself and waving a knife in Liverpool city centre; following this he converted from Islam to Christianity in 2015". (The Sun says 2017).

And his conversion is of particular interest, as it led to scrutiny - some of it unfriendly - of the role of the church in Liverpool. As the BBC puts it:

"The Bishop of Liverpool, Paul Bayes, has rejected criticism of the church and how they accommodate asylum seekers, saying it did the right thing in supporting Al Swealmeen. We didn't welcome a terrorist, we welcomed someone who was a little bit lost and not in his own nation and who was on a journey," he said".

This led to the wider point that asylum seekers from the Middle East - particularly from Iran - frequently convert to Christianity because they can then fight deportation on the grounds that they would face persecution or even execution in their home countries.  This is no idle point. The charity "Open Doors" has a "World Watch List" of 50 countries where Christians are being persecuted;8 out of the top 10 are predominantly Muslim states. 

This raises the question: how many of the asylum seekers are genuine converts to Christianity? Much as I hate to quote Anne Widdecombe, she had a point when she said that fake conversions in prisons are very similar, with convicts - "old lags" as Anne called them - trying to work their tickets and gain early release. It has even been discussed in Parliament. Christian News reported in 2017:

"Prisoners are pretending they have turned to Christianity in a bid to get out on parole earlier, an MP has claimed .Convicts are telling officials they're turning to God because it means they stand a better chance of being released, David Nuttall has suggested.

Speaking in the House of Commons he called for those released to have their faith monitored to ensure they have not played the system."

As for Swealmeen , who was perhaps playing the same game, he seems to have inspired confidence among established Christians. Following his conversion, he lived for eight months in Aigburth, Liverpool, with a devout Christian couple, Malcolm and Elizabeth Hitchott. As The Sun says:

"Former soldier Mr Hitchott said: “He first came to the cathedral in August 2015 and wanted to convert to Christianity. He took an Alpha Course, which explains the Christian faith, and completed it in November of that year. That enabled him to come to an informed decision and he changed from Islam to Christianity and was confirmed as a Christian just before he came to live with us."

Mr Hitchott says that Swealmeen's application for asylum was rejected because of the knife incident. He was appealing against this decision and it was under review, so it is a mistake to say that he carried out the attack because his asylum application was refused. As for his conversion to Christianity, that seems to have been short-lived. After he left the Hitchotts and went to live in a bedsit, he is said to have reverted to Islam. As The Times says: 

"One theory is that Emad Al Swealmeen, who had converted to Christianity... was trying to atone for apostasy which is considered to be punishable by death by some Islamic scholars... Associates are believed to have told detectives that Al Swealmeen, 32, an Iraqi asylum seeker, had since returned to Islam, although sources said that was “not a motive for an attack”

In the end, we are none the wiser as to why Swealmeen carried out his botched attack. As the Bishop of Liverpool told the BBC:

""Even to this day the police are telling us, nobody quite knows why he did what he did."

Out of this melancholy story, however, one light of hope shines through. Apart from one pitifully small appearance by a paltry bunch of neo-Nazis outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, the people of Liverpool have remained united ( a failure for Swealmeen AND the Neo-Nazis). For this, they received praise in in a letter published on behalf of Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy, Liverpool City Mayor Joanne Anderson, Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell and Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram. And a remarkable group of women turned out to condemn the far Right goons...

As theguideliverpool.com says:

"One group of women from Liverpool 8 have been campaigning outside the Women’s Hospital over the past few days, with homemade placards making their opposition to racism clear."

As a local activist, Sonia Bassey MBE, says in the same article "there's no room for terrorism, hate or racism in our city".

And we, in the rest of the UK, must aim to achieve the same. That way, the Emad Al Swealmeens of this world will always fail, however they attack.