Why I love Finsbury Park and what it says about London
Yet again we wake to another terrible incident in London. This time in Finsbury Park just down the road from me here in Archway. On another hot summer’s night, when we should be safe in our neighbourhood.
For those who know Finsbury Park, it’s a truly multi-cultural mix of Londoners and those of us who come to live here from other places. Irish, Algerian, Somalian, Asian, Eastern European, West Indian and others, we know the area as one that’s busy all hours of the day and full of the buzz and excitement of any inner city neighbourhood. We know Finsbury Park for the pubs, clubs, chicken shops, the bowling alley, the park itself and the mosques around the train station. You can hear the call to prayer from the mainline platform at Finsbury Park station. It’s not the prettiest place but it’s where we live and where I keep finding myself drawn back to.
It was the first area in London I lived in when I arrived as an 18 year old from Dublin and was welcomed as everyone else was to drink pints, eat chips, wait for buses outside the station. Many late nights I staggered home from pubs, clubs and parties from Finsbury Park to Manor House to Wood Green to Stroud Green and Tollington and Archway. Finsbury Park was always busy and loud but never threatening. I lived in Tollington and Seven Sisters and then in nearby Wood Green, Turnpike Lane, Palmers Green, Alexandra Palace and now back in Archway.
All violence is shocking but this is our area and these are our neighbours coming from their mosque on a hot summer’s night. That someone could target those going about their worship during this period of Ramadan is appalling. Devout, caring, compassionate Muslim people who go to mosque while we go to bed. Always friendly, always nodding hello as we do around here.
Now some are trying to divide our city. Some, driven by hatred, try to undo all that we hold dear. You can see it online within hours of the attack. The voices of the EDL and others. The talk of revenge. The language of division and hatred.
Living in London gives you a context for compassion and togetherness. We nod and say hello to our neighbours, the people that work in the shops and tube stations, the faces we pass on the streets where we live. I can only imagine if you live in a smaller less diverse part of the country and read the language of hatred in some of our press, you’d have a different view of things. In London, we know the good in all of us. We see it and say hello every single day.
That this comes so quickly on the heels of Westminster and London Bridge attacks gives us barely time to breathe. While we deal with the horrors of Grenfell Tower and try to figure out who is responible and what went wrong, now we have more ordinary people of our city dying before us.
Let’s hope that the city and the country keeps calm and we don’t see a long hot summer of violence despite the anger out there.
Let’s hope we see this attack being treated in the same way as the others in how we discuss and respond to this violence against our neighbours. Let’s hope that our communities come together, as we always do, to say that these people who commit these crimes are not like us.
They don’t reflect what we believe. They don’t represent those of us who love this city, celebrate our diversity, embrace our differences and reach out to each other when our communities are under siege.
Be strong, London
