Ayoon Wa Azan (British Muslims - 2)
Jihad el-Khazen Al-Hayat - 30/10/06//
My personal contribution to Aesop's fables is a story about a fox and his son. They approach a village, but the villagers see them and chase them away with stones. As they are running the little fox asks his father why people always treat them in this manner. The father fox says: Son, people are mean but we are not nice ourselves.
The story came back to me as I was reviewing the deterioration in relations between the British Muslims and the Labour Government and parts of the local media. Relations have moved 180 degrees since 1997, and the honeymoon is turning into a rancorous divorce. As in most divorces, both parties share the blame.
In 1997 the Runnymede Commission published a report entitled "Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All". Islamophobia was defined as the fear and/or hatred of Islam, Muslims or Islamic culture. Unfortunately, Islamophobia is still alive and kicking, as numerous media reports and unfortunately even government statements, have shown recently.
After the 1997 general election, for the first time a British government made a concerted effort to introduce Muslims into the House of Lords. In addition, Labour Muslim MPs were elected. The government helped set up Islamic faith schools, to put Muslims on the same level as the Catholic, Anglican and Jewish communities. It worked hard with the Muslim community to introduce a new offence of religious discrimination so as to offer Muslims the same kind of legal protection from discrimination under the law as Jews and Sikhs enjoyed from existing anti-racist legislation. It was under the previous Conservative government that moves began to set up and then encourage the Muslim Council of Britain, but they intensified under Labour.
Although the discourse on Muslims in Britain, and government policies, constantly refer to the "Muslim community" this is a somewhat misleading term. The between 1.6 and 2 million Muslims in Britain form a very diverse group, and some observers think that to call it a "community" is misleading. There is no central leadership or institution, and the Muslim Council of Britain does not really fit such a role.
Although the majority of the community is drawn from the Indian subcontinent - Pakistan, Bangladesh and India - it also includes people from many countries in the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, as well as British converts to Islam (who tend to be particularly zealous). They come from different traditions and schools of Islam. Some are devout practicing Muslims, some do not to go the mosque or fast. The diversity could have been something to celebrate. Instead, the whole community, representing perhaps three per cent of the total population of Britain is now being seen as something threatening and extreme, which insists on being separate and which is nurturing a generation of fanatics who may resort to blowing up themselves and as many of their fellow British citizens as possible.
The Arabs in Britain tend to be lumped together with the wider Muslim community. And yet Arabs from say Lebanon or Palestine might find their national identity, or political identity, as important as their religious identity and might have as much as, or more, in common with nationals from their own country, whether Muslim or not, as with a wider amorphous "Muslim community" dominated by people from Pakistan, Bangladesh or India.
In the current battle of words between the government and some Muslim circles over the government's succession of tough new policies, there are faults on both sides. On the Muslim side there is sometimes too little willingness to look at the fear, or hatred, or mixture of both, among non-Muslims in Britain that has resulted from the actions of a few Muslim extremists and terrorists and the prospect of more terror to come. The terror attacks in the US on 9/11, and the suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, had a very traumatising effect. It is true that Britain has lived with terror for a long time, including that from the IRA and other Irish nationalist groups and splinter groups. But although there were killings, assassinations and bombings, and civilians died on the mainland, the aim of the Irish bombers and assassins was not primarily to kill as many civilians as possible in as dramatic a fashion as possible.
The rise in anxiety over the dangers of Islamic extremism, and the development of Islamophobia, is not just due to an inherent racism and to Muslims being an easy target. Islamic terrorists have justified their actions on Islamic grounds, however misguidedly. However much others may say their terrorist actions mean they are not "real Muslims," they and some others consider themselves as martyrs. The threat from jihad is very real and not just a figment of Western paranoia. There have been plots uncovered, and there are links between some British Muslims and international terror networks including Al-Qaeda. Opinion polls among Muslims to gauge support for or sympathy with terrorists and suicide bombers are hardly reassuring. No wonder the Muslim presence is regarded with some caution and suspicion.
But on the other side, the public opinion and media coverage is often unfair and has been near hysterical in recent weeks. Only a tiny proportion of British Muslims have been, or are, involved in terrorism.. The religion as a whole is being vilified, and there is huge ignorance about Islam and Muslims. Muslims are often portrayed unfairly. For example with the issue of segregation, it is necessarily the case that Muslims want to be segregated. Some white Britons will want to escape from the poor areas where Muslims in large cities find themselves. So the development of areas of high concentration of Muslims can be because white people move away. A similar phenomenon happens with the development of predominantly Muslim schools.
On October 16 the Guardian newspaper published news of an 18-page document drawn up by the Department of Education about extremism on campuses, and reported that universities are going to be asked to "spy" on Asian-looking and Muslim students they suspect of involvement in Islamic extremism. The Department of Education is asking academic staff to inform on students to the police's Special Branch because campuses have become "fertile recruiting grounds" for extremists. Some academics refused to cooperate and criticized the government bitterly.
There should have been no surprise here, as Home Secretary John Reed had already asked Muslim parents to keep an eye on their children for signs of radicalization. In other words, he was asking parents to spy on their children.
The Blair government continues to deny the obvious. British Muslims are clearly opposed to the war on Afghanistan and Iraq. They have also noted that Tony Blair resisted along with the Americans a ceasefire in Lebanon.
That position on Lebanon must have been the last straw for the Labour Party which finally forced Blair to declare his intention to step down next year.
The rift between the government and the Muslim community deepened when on August 12 three Muslim Labour MPs, three Muslim members of the House of Lords, and 38 Muslim groups signed an open letter to Blair calling for "urgent" changes in UK foreign policy to show that the UK values the lives of civilians.
The signatories to the letter warned that British policy is putting civilians at increased risk in the UK and abroad. They pointed to the "debacle" of Iraq, and the UK's stance over the Middle East crisis. Labour MP Sadiq Khan said British foreign policy is seen by many British Muslims as unfair and unjust. "Whether we like it or not, such a sense of injustice plays into the hands of extremists." Home Secretary John Reid furiously repudiated the letter, describing it as a "terrible misjudgement" and insisting that no competent government would remain in power if policies were "dictated by terrorists."
It is clear that the Labour government is riding the wave of public resentment. Still, the British public cannot be blamed for their alienation from Muslims when they read that a sizeable proportion of British Muslims find the home-grown terrorism of 7/7 justified, and that in a survey 40 per cent of British Muslims said they want to live under Shariaa law in areas where they form a majority.
Multi-culturalism has now given way to integration or assimilation.
http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com
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