There’s some interesting stuff buried in this ICM poll of British Asians aged 18-34, particularly on the vexed issue of “Britishness”, which has been used to accuse minority communities in general, and Muslims in particular, of a failure to integrate.
The question “Thinking about your nationality, to what extent do you feel British?” produced the following figures for those answering “completely” or “a lot”: British Asians – 59%; Whites – 73%. For those answering “a little” or “not at all”, the percentages were: British Asians – 38%; Whites – 26%.
This didn’t stop the BBC heading its press release “Over a third of British Asians don’t feel British” – which of course ignored the fact that over a quarter of white people evidently feel much the same way. Indeed, 38% of white respondents from Scotland said that they felt only “a little” or “not at all” British – exactly the same figure as that for British Asians.
Broken down on the basis of religious affiliation, the figures for young British Asians who feel “completely” or “a lot” British were: Sikh – 77%; Muslim – 64%; Hindu – 46%; Christian – 46%. The figures for British Asians who said they feel only “a little” or “not at all” British were: Christian – 52%; Hindu – 51%; Muslim – 35%; Sikh – 20%.
So it can be seen that, among young British Asians, Muslims in fact have a significantly more developed sense of British identity than either Christians or Hindus.
This did not prevent BBC News from running an article, headed “Many Asians ‘do not feel British’“, which featured a picture (subsequently removed) of two Muslim women wearing the niqab, reinforcing the perception that British Muslims are particularly lacking in a sense of “Britishness”.
See also Dave Hill’s post at Comment is Free, 31 July 2007
“… burqas and niqabs should be banned in all public spaces because they present a security risk. Anyone might lurk under those shrouds – female or male, Muslim or non-Muslim, decent citizen or criminal – with who knows what evil purposes….
“Whoever coined the term ‘Islamophobia’ was quite shrewd. Notice the intellectual sleight of hand here. The term is not ‘Muslim-phobia’ or ‘anti-Muslimist’, it is Islam-ophobia – fear of Islam – yet fear of Islam is in no way the same as hatred of all Muslims. One can rightly or wrongly fear Islam, or more usually, aspects of Islam, and have absolutely no bias against all Muslims, let alone be a racist.
In a ruling published earlier this month, the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU), found that Newsnight and File on 4 had misled the public by broadcasting allegations in November 2006 concerning Hizb ut-Tahrir that were not based on evidence.
“Islamic belief, however simply or modestly it may be stated, is an extreme position to begin with. No human being can possibly claim to know that there is a God at all, or that there are, or were, any other gods to be repudiated…. it is even further beyond the cognitive capacity of any person to claim without embarrassment that the lord of creation spoke his ultimate words to an unlettered merchant in seventh-century Arabia. Those who utter such fantastic braggings, however many times a day they do so, can by definition have no idea what they are talking about….