The great Muslim debate
Evening Standard, 7 September 2006
Our poll this week found the vast majority of Londoners think more should be done to combat Islamic extremism. It also raised concerns about faith schools, community leaders and the Government’s response to terrorism. Today we ask six writers and Muslim to give us their views on the future of Islam in Britain.
The British media needs to be more balanced in its coverage of Islam, according to members of Christian-Muslim dialogue groups.
On the fifth anniversary of the atrocities of 9/11 in New York, suspicion of Islam in the UK is higher than ever, as shown in a recent YouGov poll in which 53 per cent of respondents felt they thought Islam was a threat to Western liberal democracy. Meanwhile 65 per cent of those surveyed said security services should focus anti-terrorism intelligence on Muslims.
Ibrahim Mogra, chair of the interfaith relations committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the media in the UK too often presented a distorted view of the religion. He said:
“Not all of the media is bad but some sections present Islam in a very negative way which is not practised by the majority of Muslims in this country. The media should be going out and talking to mainstream and ordinary Muslims and presenting that to the nation, rather than a perverted view. How many Imams have we see on the front pages talking about compassion and love, there are hundreds of them.”
Mr Mogra added that he felt that 9/11 had led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and that the media needed to ask more questions about British foreign policy, which he feels motivated the 7/7 bombers.
Summarising the contents of a report published today by the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, the Telegraph says the report claims “that anti-Semitism is no longer the sole preserve of the political far-Right, but occurs across the political spectrum, including the Left.
The MPs cite concerns about the decision of Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, to host an event attended by the Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who has reportedly banned Muslims from any dialogue with Jews”.
Daily Telegraph, 7 September 2006
For the report itself, see (pdf) here.
The attack on Dr al-Qaradawi by the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry is just ignorant. He is described as “a controversial Muslim cleric” (there are no clerics in Sunni Islam) who “has reportedly forbidden Muslims from engaging in dialogue of any kind with Jews”.
And where was this accusation “reported”? By the Middle East Media Research Institute, of course. (See here.)
Ironically, MEMRI itself was responsible for publishing a much longer transcript of an interview from Qaradawi’s Al-Jazeera programme (see here) in which he outlined his views on relations between Islam and Judaism in detail. (This was in February 2005, shortly after the Mayor of London had launched a public attack on MEMRI for their distortions of Qaradawi’s views, and presumably they were trying to cover themselves.)
In this interview Qaradawi expressed the same views that he did during his visit to London in July 2004 on the duty of Muslims to respect Jews. “Jews lived among Muslims for centuries, even when Europe persecuted them and expelled them…. They found a safe haven in Muslim territory…. Islam welcomes those who believe in the [Jewish] religion. Moreover, the Jews are probably the closest to Muslims in terms of faith and law, even more than Christians.” Qaradawi added: “There is a difference between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political movement….”
On the subject of interfaith dialogue, Qaradawi stated that he objected to dialogue with people like Israel’s chief rabbi because “he supports the murder of Palestinians on a daily basis, supports the destruction of homes and the eviction of people, and supports the crimes and the barbaric slaughter that are taking place every day. How can I shake his hand and sit down with him?”
But Qaradawi added that he had no problem engaging in dialogue with representatives of the Jewish community who oppose the repression of the Palestinians: “I welcome Jews who dissociate themselves from what Israel is doing, and I welcome being with them.”
He summarised his views as follows: “I oppose dialogue with Jewish rabbis living in Israel, who support the crimes committed by Israel. With them there is no possibility [of dialogue]…. We will hold a dialogue with those who are reasonable among them, as well as with the Christians, as indeed I have been present at a number of conferences for Islamic-Christian dialogue. But with those ‘who do evil’, as Allah said, we shall neither argue nor shall we have any dialogue.”
Obviously the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism didn’t even bother to check their facts before repeating Qaradawi’s “reported” views on relations with the Jewish community.
As a contribution to promoting harmonious interfaith relations, an evangelical Christian magazine has reprinted Patrick Sookhdeo’s anti-Muslim rant from Monday’s Evening Standard.
“I can accept criticism of my faith and religious beliefs. Muslims do have the moral and intellectual resources, across the religious, political and social spectrum to be able to meet any such challenges that might be posed. Tough questions have been asked in the past and it is no different today…. However, what some critics of Islam engage in is something else altogether. It is not criticism, to which at least Muslims might be able to respond, but an attempt to portray Muslims as Untermenschen. This is especially true of those who set their sights on Europe’s Muslim minorities. Everything, from a lack of housing to rising rape statistics are attributed to the Muslim presence in Europe. If someone commits a crime or struggles at school then the broader questions are asked. If a Muslim does the same, the problems are reduced to the person’s faith (which may only be nominal). If Muslims aren’t terrorists then they’re practising dissimulation.
“The biggest myth pushed by some of these critics is attributing vast political power to Muslim minorities. Laws and policies, foreign and domestic, are said to have been created just to placate the ‘angry hordes’ of Muslims from London to Rome. I notice this delusion is pushed most heavily by the array of pseudo-conservative commentators across the pond, backed up by bigots on this side of the geographic divide. Even the most harshest critic of Islam should stop and think at this point: Can it really be that marginalised, underachieving, politically weak, socially divided sets of communities, who routinely receive negative media coverage (whether this is their fault or not is besides the point), are in a position to influence the agendas of governments that rule some of the most powerful, stable and prosperous nations in the world today? Well, can it be true?
“It is said that violence is a problem Muslims are faced with. Similarly, it could be said that racism is still a problem for Europe, which it has failed to fully address.”
Muslim girls are forging ahead at school but hit a brick wall of discrimination when they enter the workplace, the Equal Opportunities Commission says today in a report on its two-year investigation of the experiences of women from ethnic minority communities across Britain.
See also Laura Smith’s article in the same issue:
Mandy, 29 and from a Bangladeshi Muslim background, spent five years at a media company but left when it became obvious there was no career progression for her there. “Because I am a short, brown woman, my supervisor told me the clients wouldn’t take me seriously,” she says. “I would prepare the presentations but I would never give them. I was the back-office person unless it was convenient for them to use me.” After trying for several years to get a job in the cultural sector, she won a position at an arts organisation. But there the situation was even worse. “In the first week I was wearing my shalwar kameez with a shawl,” she says. “The manager said, ‘You look like a Taliban terrorist.’ I asked him why he said that and he told me we Muslims were too sensitive and needed to lighten up. I was the only Muslim woman. There was a culture of ignoring it so everyone became complicit in the treatment.”
“The latest Government proposals to resolve the problems of extremism by encouraging integration into British society are flawed and disingenuous. Not only are they predicated on a wrong understanding on the sources of extremism, repeating Blair’s view that Muslims have no legitimate grievances against the West, they also are not ultimately geared towards the promotion and enhancement of civic-mindedness amongst Muslims….
“In spite of the actions of New Labour, whose participation in foreign crusades and targeting of the domestic Muslim community has led to the dissatisfaction that we have heard and seen so much of, Muslims have taken a lead role in civil society groups and institutions. Muslims have helped establish and participated in voluntary organisations, anti imperialist associations such as the Stop the War coalition, media monitoring and pressure groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, and charitable bodies which help the needy at home and abroad.”
An interesting and wide-ranging article by Nasser Amin, on the BLINK website, 5 September 2006
“The rhetoric about ‘Islamic fascism’ is a pack of lies – another attempt to repackage the increasingly unpopular ‘war on terror’ by identifying a current enemy of the US government with something that everyone can be counted on to oppose.”
Alan Maass writes in Socialist Worker (US), 8 September 2006
Projects to build minarets in several communities in German-speaking Switzerland have come up against strong opposition from local residents.
On Monday the Zurich cantonal parliament said it would look into banning the construction of minarets across the canton. The decision came after parliament accepted an initiative from the rightwing Swiss People’s Party calling for the canton’s planning laws to be altered to forbid minarets.
The move has been condemned by centre-left and centre-right parties as well as by a leading Muslim organisation in the canton.
The Swiss Federal Commission against Racism last week called for more tolerance towards Muslims. It called on local authorities to show greater flexibility over building and zoning restrictions to allow the construction of religious buildings and to “reduce populist pressures”.
“The West needs strategies conveying to the vast majority of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims that acquiescence to jihadists and their ideologies means a rupture with Western civilization. The consequences for this should be spelled out by withholding Western commerce, the Internet, arms, machinery, and know-how – all of which still represent the bulk of progress as we define it in today’s world…. In the West itself, the last vestiges of tolerance toward Islamic fundamentalism must be removed. Laws targeting extremist speech, Islamic dress, storefront unregulated mosques, and the traffic of immigrant Muslims who do not speak the language nor share the values of freedom must surface in the legal codes of America, Europe, and Australia. The West must clearly process the fact that it is facing an existential threat to its core values, and it cannot be shy about installing tools of war in its democratic practices.”
Mad Mel enthusiasticallly welcomes these proposals: “Exactly. Anything less misses the main point – that it’s ideas that kill, and that it’s these murderous ideas, not just the bomb cells, that must be destroyed.”