[Saaf_laandon_mo]

My family and I came to the UK in 1975. I was almost 6 at the time. We lived in Southfields, south London - a pretty nice area. Growing up I do remember being called a paki, at secondary school some older kids even tried to force bacon down my mouth. The bacon incident was a common thing happening to a lot of the asian pupils in the school. This was in 1982.

Between 1984 and 1990 my parents bought a corner shop. My mum ran this on her own following a divorce, and I can honestly say that we were subjected to racist incidents every week. The work paki was a common insult, by the way all my sisters were born in Mozambique, our parents born in India.

Following the gulf wars I have been spat on on a crowded tube (no one said anything) and I have walked into a pub with some friends, only for drinkers to say, "we dont want any arabs in here". There have still been occurences in recent times where I have been called a Paki - but to a lot thats ok because "its only an abbreviation of Pakistani". Last week my aunt and uncle were telling me they were about to board a train in Horley (Surrey), and a young white guy with some dogs on a lead pushed infront of them and muttered "its dogs before Pakis" My uncle is 70 - he spent 20 years working for Scotland Yard.

I would say that recently the racist element has been funnelling their hatred principally towards muslims. Even more worryingly this is not always as open as the BNP, but also subtly done by other main stream, elements.

For me this is the most worrying thing. A common consensus amongst a lot of disillusioned young men I talk to is not "Is it because Im asian?" but, "Is it because I'm muslim?". Before anyone steps in to say "muslims dont integrate etc etc and are bringing this upon themselves", I would say all the muslims I personally know are either working professionals or have their own businesses. They all contribute to the UK in terms of employing people, paying taxes, helping in the community, being involved in local and higher level goverment.

I love this country, I pay my taxes, my daughter was born here and as far as I'm concerned she is English. I have held a british passport - been a british citizen - since 1980. I, nor my family, have never claimed any handouts even though we were penniless when we arrived in the UK. I am not a unique case, the majority of muslims I know are the same. It's just a shame that recently we as muslims are made to feel that we have no place in this country unless we abandon our faith/culture.

The irony is that even those brown faced people who were once practising muslims and have abandoned Islam for the English culture that a lot of non muslims say we should adopt, - who drink, who go to bars, pubs & nightclubs, who eat pork, who change there names to English/westernern variations - even they wont be accepted by the racist element.