Category Archives: UK

Cameron accuses Muslims of ‘cultural separatism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David CameronThe Tory Party website has posted David Cameron’s speech to the “Islam and Muslims in the World Today” conference.

Cameron attributes the Channel 4 poll results, which indicate widespread suspicion among Muslims about the official account of 7/7, not to the understandable mistrust of a government that lied about the Iraq war but to the prevalence of “cultural separatism” within Muslim communities. He goes on to blame “the influence of a number of Muslim preachers that actively encourage cultural separatism. One such preacher is Yusuf al’Qaradawi….”

Cameron also complains that the “process of rising Muslim consciousness [which he apparently thinks is by definition a bad thing] has been accelerated by the creed of multiculturalism, which despite intending to allow diversity flourish under a common banner of unity, has instead fostered difference by treating faith communities as monolithic blocks rather than individual citizens”.

He continues: “This rise in Muslim consciousness has been reinforced by a second, parallel, factor at work: the deliberate weakening of our collective identity in Britain. Again, multiculturalism has its part to play. By concentrating on defining the various cultures that have come to call Britain home, we have forgotten to define the most important one: our own.”

As for Muslim disaffection with British foreign policy, Cameron has found a solution: “We have to explain patiently and carefully that in Iraq and Afghanistan we are supporting democratically elected Muslim leaders.”

Universities ‘must improve help for vulnerable Muslim students’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Universities must employ Muslim chaplains or advisers and join forces with Islamic schools to break down widening divisions between British society and its Muslim communities, according to a senior Government adviser.

In a wide-ranging review of Islamic university syllabuses and the support available to Muslim students in England, published today, Ataullah Siddiqui, will tell institutions that their teaching of Islamic studies is “out of date” and for years has been conducted “in isolation and probably in complete ignorance of the [Muslim] community”.

Courses should be more job-related, departments should link up with seminaries and madrassas to reflect Islam in Europe post-9/11, they should have more qualified staff and provide better pastoral support for Muslim students, according to Dr Siddiqui.

Times, 4 June 2007

See also BBC News, 4 June 2007

Posted in UK

Blair in moderate Muslims appeal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tony Blair says he wants the “voice of moderation” among Muslims to be heard, as £1m funding was announced to boost Islamic studies at UK universities. Ministers hope the money, announced as a report criticised teaching quality, will help train more imams in the UK. At a conference on Islam, Mr Blair also called for closer links between Islamic schools and mainstream state schools.

Muslim News editor Ahmed Versi was among those at the conference, he told BBC News that overall, the language used by Mr Blair was “quite welcoming”. But he said he did not properly address the most important issue to Muslims – what he called the “double standards” of foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. “These are the issues which are radicalising young people and he did not talk about that,” he said.

Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, a critic of the government’s foreign policy, told the BBC the conference was “fronted” by Cambridge University, but had been organised by the government which had “deliberately chosen to exclude those Muslims who disagree with government policy.” He accused Mr Blair of using “divide and rule” tactics.

BBC News, 4 June 2007

See also the Independent, which reports that “Islamic studies will be designated ‘strategically important’ to Britain’s national interests, allowing tighter official scrutiny of university courses”.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission has characterised this as “social engineering designed to highlight Islam as a problem rather than a solution to extremism”.

Posted in UK

Blair can no longer deny a link exists between terrorism and foreign policy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Let us look closely at recent developments in government policy toward Muslims. The British Muslim reaction to the July 7 attacks was exemplary, as Ken Livingstone pointed out, and this was a proof that they were well integrated into society. A policy of constructive engagement would have spared no effort to make the best of these tragic events.

“Instead, the British government has adopted an attitude of double denial, at home and abroad. Obsession with the ‘terrorist threat’ rapidly colonised debate and drove the government headlong into an approach restricted to the ‘fight against radicalisation and extremism’…. Further, this policy was accompanied by a demeaning – and frequently paternalistic – argument on the necessity of ‘integration’. Muslims, so it went, must accept those British values (liberty, tolerance, democracy, etc) that make up the essence of ‘Britishness’….

“The problem today is not one of ‘essential values’, but of the gap between these values and everyday social and political practice. Justice is applied variably depending on whether one is black, Asian or Muslim. Equal opportunity is often a myth. Young citizens from cultural and religious ‘minorities’ run up against the wall of institutionalised racism. Rather than insisting that Muslims yield to a ‘duty to integrate’, society must shoulder its ‘duty of consistency’….

“Tony Blair will make his last gesture toward the Muslims of Britain today at an international conference on Islam and Muslims in the World…. While I have been invited to participate in the conference, not a single representative of the leading British Muslim associations has been invited to speak, not a single sensitive subject has been touched upon. It is as though these associations and their leaders were part of the problem, and could not become an active part of the solution.”

Tariq Ramadan writes in the Guardian, 4 June 2007

Blair engages with ‘moderate Muslims’ – but excludes MCB

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tony Blair will address a high-level conference on Islam in London today as part of the Government’s strategy to engage with moderate Muslims and isolate religious extremists.

Politicians and religious leaders from more than 30 Muslim countries will attend the event. It will be addressed by Islamic scholars from Britain and overseas. In a sign of the importance attached to the event, it will open with a video message from the Prince of Wales, and this evening Gordon Brown will host a reception.

David Cameron will speak at the conference tomorrow, having been asked to do so by Mr Blair, as will the Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chartres.

There has been some criticism because the programme includes no speakers from the Muslim Council of Britain.

Times, 4 June 2007

Posted in UK

The Islamist – ‘a PR job for the Blair government’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Young Muslims are no more likely to join Hizb ut-Tahrir than young Christians are to join the Moonies. You have to be of a certain bent to come under the influence of a cult and join as a fully paid-up member. Fortunately, in my experience, the vast majority of young British Muslims have more sense and critical acumen than Husain.

“The suggestion that the radicalisation of Muslim youth can be laid firmly on the door of Hizb is also hard to swallow. The anger of young Muslims against the West has a much broader context. There was a great deal going on during the 1990s that agitated young Muslims and brought anti-Western sentiment to the fore – from the first Gulf War to the genocide of Muslims in Chechnya. But Husain sees the world in reductive, one-dimensional terms.

“When he finally realises his folly, and bids farewell to Hizb, Husain continues to be a reductive extremist. Now, the entire blame for the radicalisation of Muslim youth is placed on multiculturalism – the very idea that gave Husain all the opportunities he had in life! Terrorists, he tells us, are a product of sexual frustration. So we ought to provide them with generous doses of sex to usher them towards peaceful directions.

“Hizb ut-Tahir should be banned so that they can take their nefarious activities underground and become even more difficult to tackle. Muslim organisations are secret terrorist sympathisers. Husain doesn’t tell us what we should do with them. But I suspect he wants everyone locked up, leaving the terrain open for his brand of neocons to run amok….

“The occasional insight of Husain’s memoir notwithstanding, The Islamist seems to have been drafted by a Whitehall mandarin as a PR job for the Blair government.”

Ziauddin Sardar reviews The Islamist in the Independent, 1 June 2007

Muslim women players fight to wear hijab on the pitch

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FootballA national five-a-side Muslim women’s football team is fighting for the right to play in their religious headscarf. Team captain and chairwoman of the Muslim Women’s Sport Foundation Rimla Akhtar is leading the campaign.

Under rules of the International Football Association Board, scarves such as the hijab cannot officially be worn. Individual referees can decide whether to let women flout the regulations or send them off. Miss Akhtar, from north London, said the attitude towards the hijab was causing resentment and is demanding legislation be altered to allow it.

The IFAB is yet to make an official decision but Miss Akhtar said that if football bosses continued to drag their feet, sides such as Iran could lose their best players. “I wear the hijab and it is kept on very securely, so it is not a safety problem”, she said. “There is as much chance of a player pulling on your shirt as there is of them pulling on your hijab.”

IFAB guidelines state a player must not “use equipment or wear anything that is dangerous to himself/herself or another player”.

Liverpool supporter Miss Akhtar, who was the only Muslim girl in her school team, belongs to the British Muslim Women’s Futsal Team. Futsal is a form of football first developed from street football in South America.

Miss Akhtar said five years since Bend It Like Beckham was released, in which a young Sikh player fights against prejudice, discrimination has not been stamped out. “We should be clear that wearing the hijab is not an issue.”

Evening Standard, 31 May 2007

MCB commends UCU stand on spying

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Muslim Council of Britain welcomes the decision taken by the University and College Union (UCU) to reject government guidelines on how to supposedly tackle extremism on British campuses.

“Of course, if people come to know of violent acts being plotted then they have a clear civic duty to share that information with the police without delay. However, our universities must remain institutions which facilitate and encourage rigorous intellectual inquiry and discourse. The role of lecturers must be to facilitate and encourage critical thinking, not to stifle it or abort the process,” said Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, Secretary-General of the MCB.

It is ironic that some of the politicians who now recommend these measures were themselves victims of intelligence spying because of their political views when they were students in the 1970s. Just as intellectual freedom was priceless then, it should remain so today.

The MCB fully supports the UCU’s stand that there is no corroborative evidence of British universities being used as ‘hotbeds of Islamic extremism.’ Hence the directive to target Muslim students would only give rise to greater discontent, alienation and discord.

“Whatever the challenges that beset our society we should not resort to the dangerous ways of intellectual censure and religious witch-hunt,” added Dr Abdul Bari.

MCB press release, 31 May 2007

Who’s afraid of Tariq Ramadan?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ramadan New RepublicPaul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism, which has become the bible of ex-leftist supporters of the “War on Terror” like Nick Cohen, has a major article in The New Republic devoted to attacking Tariq Ramadan.

Mad Melanie Phillips hails Berman’s “magisterial piece of writing” which she claims “not only manages to disinter the extremism that Ramadan goes to such lengths to conceal but he also comprehensively shreds the various useful idiots who have sanitised Ramadan’s thinking for public consumption”.

Mel expresses her outrage that “despite the fact that Ramadan was excluded from the US because of his suspected links with extremism, Oxford university has given him an academic berth – and the British government appointed him as one of its advisers on how to deal with … Islamist extremism. Berman’s article shows just how deeply the west’s collective brain has been put to sleep.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 30 May 2007

‘I took a picture of Tower Bridge and was arrested for terrorism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Socialist Worker Tower BridgeGovernment ministers and police chiefs are demanding new powers to allow the police to stop and search people in the streets if they suspect them of terrorism. These powers echo the notorious “sus laws” of the 1970s.

Then the laws created an atmosphere of fear as police targeted young black men. Those laws were abandoned after widespread rioting in the early 1980s.

A glimpse of what these new laws would mean was shown last week when two foreign students were arrested for “terrorism” after taking snapshots of Tower Bridge.

Socialist Worker, 2 June 2007