I was 22 when I was on the same King’s Cross tube train as one of the suicide bombers on 7/7. I thought we were all going to die when I heard a bang, the lights went off, and everything went black and smoky — until 45 long, horrific minutes later, I heard a faint voice saying: “It’s the police. We’re coming to get you.” I can’t begin to describe the sense of relief. It may have been 20 years since that moment, but I still relive it like it was last week.
I never thought I would dedicate my 20s to countering extremism. I wanted to be in the corporate world; that was my dream and what I was aiming towards before 7/7. However, that day changed my life — I did a total 360 and wanted to turn my pain into something positive. The bombings left me with lots of unanswered questions, so I decided to quit my full-time job and work more closely with the JAN Trust charity. While it was initially founded in 1989 to help improve the lives of BAME women, the work I did with them aimed to transform the way we tackle and counter the growing epidemic of online radicalisation and extremism through classes and workshops.
In that time, I saw how online extremism was impacting the lives of young people and their families. One of my key achievements was developing the WebGuardians programme which provided the tools to help educate family members concerned with a loved one’s radicalisation.
However, with my work with JAN Trust, I heard the other side of the story. I spoke to Muslim mums who had sons that had travelled to Syria, or joined ISIS. They had lost their children too, but they didn’t have a body to bury or a gravestone to grieve over. I also saw the impact of the racism these women faced for being visibly Muslim and the single point of blame for all the actions of extremists, whose beliefs have nothing to do with Islam.
In 2015, I was awarded an OBE for services and work towards community cohesion and interfaith dialogue. Then, in 2023, after working all across the UK, the JAN Trust stopped receiving government funding, and so I closed that chapter on my life.
During that time, I was becoming increasingly concerned with far-right extremism. JAN Trust was targeted by the far right — we had our windows smashed, received rape threats, and I even needed police protection. My husband would tell me so many times to stop, but I would persevere. I wanted to make the world a better place. The right wing would always criticise Muslims for not doing enough to counter extremism, but here I was sticking my head above the parapet — and for what? What had always kept me going was speaking to people and seeing the difference we could make.
7/7 did change Britain forever; the country was not prepared for that sort of horror happening in the streets. While I grew up in London in the 1980s, and racism has always been a problem, I feel the terror attacks compounded anti-Muslim sentiments. A prime example was how my mother was treated before she passed away in 2021. She used to wear a headscarf, and after 7/7, when we were out together, I could see the dirty looks aimed at her, hear the mumbling, and see people moving away. And 20 years on, things have not gotten better. Last year, we saw race riots directed towards vulnerable asylum seekers across the UK.
I would say I no longer feel safe in the country I grew up in. I know I’m not alone in thinking this; from the networks and friends I made through my work at JAN Trust, people are feeling ostracised from society. It feels like we’ve gone backwards to the days of our parents and grandparents, where being beaten up for not being white was commonplace.
Looking back at the last 20 years, I’ve seen how online extremism has impacted everyone in society and, in response, I’ve tried to create tools to make the world a less hateful place for everyone. No one should be living in fear behind closed doors. No one should be having bricks through their windows. 7/7 saw me go through a near-death experience, and I decided to dedicate myself to countering extremism. However, I believe we’re now at a very scary stage. 7/7 changed Britain — and I think the country has now changed for the worse.
Kimberley Bond is a Multiplatform Writer for Harper’s Bazaar, focusing on the arts, culture, careers and lifestyle. She previously worked as a Features Writer for Cosmopolitan UK, and has bylines at The Telegraph, The Independent and British Vogue among countless others.
