The government will fund Muslim groups according to how active they are in fighting extremism, the communities secretary said today, warning that paying “lip service” to the struggle was not good enough.
Ruth Kelly urged members of Britain’s Muslim communities to do more in what she herself said would be a “challenging” message to some listeners.
She also attacked the Muslim Council of Britain – without actually naming it – by criticising organisations which had boycotted Holocaust Memorial Day.
Praising the contribution of many groups to good relations with other communities, she added:
“It’s not good enough to sit on the sidelines or pay lip service to fighting extremism. I want a fundamental rebalancing of our relations with Muslim organisations. In future our strategy on funding and engagement must shift significantly to organisations taking a pro-active leadership role in tackling extremism and defending our shared values.”
This rather reinforces suspicions that Kelly wants to sideline the MCB and deal with the Sufi Muslim Council, whose launch she attended in July. The SMC is irrelevant and unrepresentative but has the advantage for Kelly that it places the blame for the development of extremism on the community itself rather than on the government’s foreign policy.
Postscript: Yup, that what’s going on. See the Times, 12 October 2006
See also Osama Saeed’s comments at Rolled Up Trousers, 12 October 2006
“For many Muslim women in Britain and Europe, the decision to wear a veil is not about ‘internalising oppression’. It is a statement of identity adopted in the face of rising Islamophobia and government demands to step through yet one more hoop to prove you are a ‘good Muslim’.
Leading race campaigner Lee Jasper attacked the British media for “double standards” after the case of two white far-right activists arrested over a massive suspected bomb-making operation was ignored. Jasper, secretary of the National Assembly Against Racism, contrasted the virtually non-existent coverage given to the alleged terrorism haul with the media firestorm around Muslim terrorism.
“Sunday saw people gathering to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the great battle of Cable Street. On that day progressive people of all kinds rallied to protect the significant minority of immigrants in London’s east end against the strutting jackboots of a domestic fascism, one of whose very arguments was against the very ‘separateness’ of the Jews who lived there. Their very garb, unusual diets, habits of living in close proximity to each other was a standing affront to the beef-eating Englishness of the Moselyites. ‘Leave the Jews alone’ was the response of the best of the British left. Let them eat dress and live as they want. It is a call that should be echoed about today’s whipping boys, the Muslims.”
“New Labour has turned tolerant Britain into a powder keg of racial and religious mistrust through their misguided and ill-thought-out policy of multiculturalism.
“With one article in a local newspaper, Jack Straw has built up the walls of ignorance and division ever higher. A Muslim community that has been on the defensive for years is now finding itself facing a barrage of criticism about the way it chooses to express its faith; jeopardising its basic right of religious freedom. I oppose Mr Straw asking Muslim women who talk to him to take off their veils, not because I believe the veil is compulsory in Islam but rather because his politically motivated opinions have created a climate of intolerance against the veil and those who wear it.”