Article
Strength in numbers
Allies across the political and religious spectrum need to come together to defend freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
Of course, as Sunny Hundal suggests, we need a "saner dialogue" on race and faith relations. Unfortunately making an attack on "self-appointed community leaders" should not be the starting point. Those whom he describes as "hurting those they should be protecting" may have their limitations, but let's not forget who is really doing the hurting.
It is not often that I find myself in agreement with former home secretary Charles Clarke. But when he stated earlier this week that the "great British veil controversy" had been "entirely negative in its impact and has done nothing to promote tolerance and understanding in our society", he is right. Because six weeks after Jack Straw's initial comments, or "grandstanding" as Clarke describes his actions, the damage has been considerable.
Under the guise of debating religious intolerance, politicians who espouse race hatred have been given a new lease of life. In his defence against charges of incitement to racial hatred Nick Griffin's legal team argued that the views of BNP, in which they described "Muslim thugs and perverts", "young paki street thugs" and Britain being "mongrelised out of existence", should be seen as criticisms of Islam and not directed at the broader Asian community.
As evidence that Griffin's views on Islam, expressed in 2004, had since become more acceptable, they cited recent comments by Jack Straw and other senior politicians to argue that such views were now part of a legitimate public debate. Teachers report a rise of bullying in schools prompted by the Islamaphobic climate. The shocking attack on the young Sikh boy in Edinburgh this week shows that racists are not going to discriminate. We are all targets of their hatred.
And this climate makes none of us, irrespective of race, creed or religion, any safer from the threat of terrorism. The recent study by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust highlighted how consciously pandering to anti-Muslim sentiment for "electoral motives" was undermining "sensible plans" to combat terrorism. All the more timely therefore, after weeks of being on the receiving end of attack, anti-racists are beginning to fight back.
It is ironic that, just as racism is spreading like a plague, the CRE is to be abolished and replaced with a new commission for equalities and human rights. Whatever constructive role it played in the past, and this was considerable particularly under the leadership of Sir Herman Ouseley, nowadays it acts more like part of the problem than part of the solution. The interventions of Trevor Phillips post-9/11 have been notable for only for his ability to compound difficulties for the Muslim community while satisfying his brazen urge for self publicity at our expense.
The initiative by the 1990 Trust to organise an alternative to the CRE's 30th anniversary convention, and to attempt to refocus anti-racist work on the increasing levels of racism and Islamophobia and a decreasing attention to institutional, structural and persistent racial inequalities in every social sphere is timely.
The anti-war movement, too, has a major role to play in exposing the logic of this wave of Islamophobia. On Saturday the Stop the War Coalition held its People's Assembly on War and Islamophobia, the culmination of a month of public meetings and vigils held across the length and breadth of Britain. It seeks to redirect the fire of the anti-war movement towards the government's deployment of "weapons of mass distraction" as the political disaster of the invasion of Iraq unfurls by the day. The current demonisation of Muslims as the dangerous "other" is the ideological fog that seeks to disguise western imperialist designs for the Middle East.
But it is necessary to seek out allies across the political and religious spectrum. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion is one of our most precious democratic rights. The right of every individual to freely pursue their beliefs, provided they do not harm others, must be defended against every challenge. If the proposal by the Dutch government to ban clothing that covers the face is anything to go by, this challenge to individual freedom is very real indeed. Writing in the Observer, Christine Odone asks, "Is it any wonder that Muslims principally, but other believers too, are getting a persecution complex? And is there any way we can prevent the inevitable backlash?"
At 6pm tonight an unprecedented alliance will come together at Central Hall, Westminster to launch a campaign in defence of freedom of religion, conscience and thought. It will seek to unite all those, irrespective of their stance on the war, around a common platform in defence of basic civil liberties.
While it is Muslims bearing the brunt of religious intolerance today, the danger is that it will extend to other minority groups tomorrow. All democrats, of all faiths or none, should come together to defend the basic principles of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and culture.
The challenge we face is great and that's why it's important to keep our eyes on the prize. To genuinely further a "progressive agenda on citizenship, democracy, public debate and civil liberties" we need the greatest breadth and inclusivity - reaching beyond existing groups such as the MCB, the Hindu Council or the Sikh Federation - but certainly not side-stepping them or joining in attacks on them.
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User Comments
SunnyCloudy
20 November 2006 4:56PM
Dear Salma,
You are making lots of points that the manifesto and my own article already agree with. Yes, there has been an unnecessary demonisation of Muslims, and yes I also agree with Charles Clarke (though probably on that point only). You can find an earlier article I wrote on the niqab controversy.
But you spoil it by saying: "but certainly not side-stepping them or joining in attacks on them."
Firstly it is perfectly within our rights and very important to question them and their existence. Especially given the frequent turf wars and the grab for money (that I have documented here before). The point we made is that by holding these people up as the *only* representatives of a very diverse groups, the politicians and media are distorting the conversation.
I would also ask why you need "representing" in the first place. Let them remain as lobby groups, as the manifesto states. We haven't said they should be abolished, merely that a diversity of voices should be heard. I'm not sure where you disagree.
Metatarsal
20 November 2006 4:58PM
Jack Straw was not calling for a ban on the veil, he was calling for a public debate. There was a public debate and I think that most people while not being particularly happy with the use of the Niqab/Burka were happy to admit that the wearer had every right to use it.
Why shouldn't we be having these debates? The peaceful integtration of Muslim communities into British society is quite simply the most important challenge that we currently face. The wearer of the Niqab/Burka is making a pretty powerful statement as to what they think of mainstream Western culture which is what provokes concern amongst a very many people.
It is completely out of order to equate the legitimate concerns of the majority of the population with the naked racism of the BNP.
Let's face it, you're just trying to stifle debate and silence criticism. It's pathetic.
Publicansdecoy
20 November 2006 5:21PM
Religious tolerance and freedom = great Religioons seeking to insulate themselves from any criticism whatsoever, and seeking to protect their privileged relationship with the government, which is entirely at odds with their influence on people generally (let us not forget that two thirds of people in this country oppose faith schools) = not so great
Christina Odone has made the fundamental (and might I say quite offensive) mistake of assuming that all people of a religious bent will think with one mind. How ridiculous to assert that the proposed Dutch law (which I actually don;t think is a great idea) is "a declaration of war against" all that country's Muslims. Who knew that Muslims only thought with one mind?
I would like ot see religious tolerance, but juding by the tone of Odone's article, and by the list of speakers invited to this rally, I think one can expect a list of people standing up to protect their own position and looking to stifle any criticism of a religion or its followers. This is not what I understand by religious tolerance, I'm afraid.
llohan
20 November 2006 5:23PM
'Freedom of though conscience, religion & culture' indeed - Salma Yaqoob is a member of Respect - a coalition that is fundamentally driven by the SWP who argued that anyone who opposed the recent religious hatred bill was either 'a conservative or a racist' - in other words she, and her party, absolutely do not support freedom of speech and have, in fact, been at the forefront of the 'left-wing' 'liberal' assult on the idea of freedom of speech. Her and her own party have relentlessly demanded that people like Griffin be persecuted, blithely ignoring the consequences that has for anyone who wants to say anything controversial or offensive - unsurprisingly Muslims have been some of the first people to be prosecuted in this new climate of censorship - but she, and her own supporters, have only themselves to blame as they have argued again and again that there are some things that cannot be said and they have supported laws that restrict freedom of speech.
As one of the posters has said above Salma is one of those who wants to make some things beyond debate or discussion and, as such, reveals a fundamental ignorance of how democracy works - particularly for the most vulnerable groups who need free speech more than any other.
She and her supporters should be ashamed.
Tzimisces
20 November 2006 5:26PM
Here we go again..... First, Islam is NOT a race, so this cheap conflation of the two is little more than attempt to stifle legitimate criticism. Second, Islam, as practiced in the UK, is often a conservative, reactionary faith. I have no problem in attacking such a faith. I don't see it as being "left- wing" or "progressive" to make such attacks illegal. Third, the great "British Veil Controversy" did one thing. It made a distinction between a person's *right* to do something (i.e. wear the veil) and other people's *right* to criticise such an action. This is a distinction which many so-called progressives have totally missed. Instead they have labelled such criticism as "racism" Fourth, the hysterical tone of this article suggests that those parts of the left which have allied with religious reactionaries are losing the argument. Smears are symptomatic of someone who refuses to acknowledge what is going on.
StevoKingoftheNewts
20 November 2006 5:29PM
It's easy to sit in a nice North London cafe tapping away on a laptop pontificating about these issues. But the coalface is in Keighley, in Bradford, in Oldham.
And fine words from liberals won't cut it up there because those fine words bare little or no relation to what's happening on the ground.
If you live in Keighley, then the BNP talking about "young Paki street thugs" sounds like your everyday experience. It speaks to you in a way that liberal chatter in the Guardian about inclusivity and progressive agendas do not.
What the BNP is doing is driving a wedge between the poor communities in the North. We need to fight this by coming together. But that can only happen if there is common ground. At the moment I see nothing from the Muslim side that suggests common ground is there. The passionate young Muslim men and women who can make a difference in this are moving further away from the common ground towards all out Islamo-wierdness. They are falling right into the BNP trap.
Meanwhile the BNP spout hatred that appeals to white people who are frightened by aggressive young Asian lads standing on the corner in gangs, being abusive to passers by and by mute women creeping about fully veiled.
There will be many more race riots before this is over. Next summer won't be fun. But as most of the trouble will be tucked away up North I don't suppose the Guardian commentariat will care very much.
Eigan
20 November 2006 5:31PM
Dear Salma, You should have the right to wear the veil if you choose. I should have the right to say how intensely shaming and offensive I find it.
WillMatthews
20 November 2006 5:36PM
Excellent piece by Salma Yaqoob as always on her blog. I think it is crucial to bring together people against the rise in poltiical attacks on Muslims rights to express their religion - and it is important to recognise that the increase in Islamophobic rhetoric HAS led to increases in physical attacks fuelled by hatred - from beyond the usual 'suspects,' including organisations and individuals who one may not agree with on a broad range of other issues. In that sense, it is entirely the correct thing for self-styled liberals and progressives to be involved in.
In terms of the issue of free speech and the BNP, surely the fundamental issue is whether or not people have the 'right' to incite hatred when their exercising of this 'right' stops other people exercising their own right to determine their religion, sexuality, and so forth?
I notice that Liberty are very involved with this alliance, so a lot of people's objections would appear to me way off the mark.
aidanmat2
20 November 2006 6:06PM
[Writing in the Observer, Christine Odone asks, "Is it any wonder that Muslims principally, but other believers too, are getting a persecution complex?]
One rhetorical question deserves another: Is there any time in the last 700 years that Muslims, principally, have *not* had a persecution complex?
[While it is Muslims bearing the brunt of religious intolerance today]
Obviously, not today.
[SunnyCloudy: The point we made is that by holding these people up as the *only* representatives of a very diverse groups, the politicians and media are distorting the conversation.]
It's Muslim representative groups that are principally doing their community a disservice. When non-Muslim Europeans hear intollerant, violently ant-Western hate speech from other parts of the world, it largely goes in one ear and out the other. Babaric attitudes are hardly surprising (and thus excusable) when they emerge from parts of the world we consider developing nations.
What is truely disturbing is hearing almost the same sentiments, or at least sympathy with those sentiments, expressed (very slightly) more eloquently by the likes of Inayat Bunglawala and Tariq Ramadan.
Inayat's most recent article on CiF, for exmaple, was to express mild disagreement with Hizb ut-Tahrir "views and methodology".
Mild disagreement!? That's what the moderate, western, pro-democracy MCB thinks of a group that seeks to impose Sharia law on the entire nation, and has few qualms about using fear, intimmidation, or violence to achieve its aims? For the vast majority of British people, such a concept is a hair's breadth away from fascism.
The problems is not that politicians and media are "holding up" Muslim interest groups as examples- the whole concept of a political lobby group defined by a religion is ridiculous. It's bound to lead to "the Islamic view", which is global and mainly influenced by some of the least friendly places on earth, rather than representing "British citizens who are Muslim", many of whome may not be particularly religious anyway, and many of whome might even wish to *not* be Muslims, if if wasn't that in some cases their own family would be prepared to kill them if they express doubt about the existance of Allah.
The fact that the MCB and many other (pretty much all) of the Muslim interest groups are not prepared to challenge such attitudes, and often actually appear to largely agree with them, actually serves to *create* the problem of unfair discrimination against otherwise innocent Muslims. If the MCB can't identify the difference between moderate Muslims and fascists, how on earth is the rest of Britain supposed to?
joepublik
20 November 2006 6:13PM
Yes I note the pamphlet from yet another Muslim pressure group BMI. Don't we have enough already? And how many are paid for by the tax payer? It begins - "Freedom of religion is one of our most precious democratic rights". Try preaching that in the streets of Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan with or without a headscarf. Try not to confuse European Enlightenment values with the primitive ones of the homeland from which you originate. And please don't ban me CiF - that statement is not universally offensive.
I had thought that with Sunny's refreshing (as always) new start we were set for a new direction on CiF. Of course I forgot how perverse the editors could be. If you want to be really nasty then bring back Bodi I say.
llohan
20 November 2006 6:14PM
Will Mathews - 'In terms of the issue of free speech and the BNP, surely the fundamental issue is whether or not people have the 'right' to incite hatred when their exercising of this 'right' stops other people exercising their own right to determine their religion, sexuality, and so forth?'
This makes absolutely no sense and reveals the kind of knots that anti-free speech campaigners, such as yourself, Salma, Gordon Brown etc, get themselves into when trying to justify your authoritarianism.
Let's get this straight - speaking anything, even hatred, does not deny anyone else anything. If anything, speaking invites more speech and even passionate denunciations of other things that have been said.
Action may deny other people exercising their rights - physical hurt, assault, restraint etc but it is an intellectual deciet to try and claim that speech and action are the same thing. This is why, in democracy, we have valued the ability to say whatever we like as the distinction between thought, speech and action has always been clear. We have controlled physical assault because that does genuinely restrict the rights of others.
To conflate the two, thought/speech and action, is intellectually extremely week, slippery and evasive.
Furthermore, answer my point - the first groups to be actually targetted by the new incitement laws have actually been Muslim protestors - the very groups the pro censorship groups apparently have set out to protect.
Until we recognise that people have the right to wear a veil but that others have an equal right to condemn this, in whatever verbal way they wish, we will not be able to have an open and frank debate about such matters in society.
In any case, the veil debate is pretty superficial, and does very little to get to the heart of the issues when it comes to relationships between young asians/muslims and young people in general the rest of society. Salma's alarmism and scaremongering is of little use if we are to move discussions forward.
jeremyjames
20 November 2006 6:15PM
@ Salma Yaqoob
"While it is Muslims bearing the brunt of religious intolerance today, the danger is that it will extend to other minority groups tomorrow. All democrats, of all faiths or none, should come together to defend the basic principles of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and culture."
But not free speech, apparantly.
Why are Muslims bearing the brunt of religious intolerance? Perhaps because so much of what they purport to believe is intolerable. When I read a Muslim writer like Ms Yaqoob questioning stoning women to death for adultery, whipping girls for having been raped, querying the idea that one woman is worth four men, the right to hang homosexuals, sending teenage girls back to hill villages to marry uncles, the right to exclusive Muslim faith schools and so on, I will listen to her preaching about Liberal Values of which she seems to have not the first understanding.
This article shows just what Sunny Hundal and those who sympathise with him are up against.
StevokingoftheNewts
You should invite Ms Yaqoob or any other of the metropolitan 'Liberal' Muslims to Keighley for a fish supper, a little chat and a stroll - after dark.
UriCohen
20 November 2006 6:16PM
Will
The way people determine their religion can not be lumped with the way their ethnicity, race, social class and sexuality is determined. I wish it was so simple! Religion is a philosophical and ideological spiritual construct that is often subject to cultural and political manipulation.
However, it difficult to change your social class (very few people manage to achieve this during their life time). It is possible to change your sexuality, but very difficult. You can try and change your colour of skin, but you will still be regarded as white, black, yellow and brown, as Michael Jackson found out.
joepublik
20 November 2006 6:48PM
jeremyjames: I had a fish supper once in Keighley about 30 years ago. From the sound of it I have no wish to return though I remember the moors and the town fondly. I had difficulty understanding them then - I imagine nowadays it would be impossible.
I think our joint notes say the same thing.And I weep for Brittania. When will the likes of Yaqoob appreciate what they have? But then anyone sharing a common thought platform with Galloway has to be slightly.... well you know.
Am I banned yet?
Joe.
llohan
20 November 2006 7:00PM
UriCohen - I don't understand your point. Whether or not you can change something about yourself or not should not be an issue when it comes to free speech - as far as I can see, we should be free to 'hate' - even if what we hate is another 'race' or 'ginger haired people' - those groups should be free to speak, or 'hate' back. What should be controlled is action - it is action that should be legally restrained because it is action that genuinely prevents others from exercising their rights - hence the strong punishments we have for assault, gbh, kidnapping etc.
Making 'incitement' a crime is also something that we should interrorgate as an idea - particularly when people are being accused of incitement, not because they genuinely are inciting people to act in a direct and iminent way to harm another, but in order to prevent them expressing unpopular views.
The idea that Muslims are systematically under attack because people have questioned the wearing of the veil is also something that needs to be challenged as the relentless suggestion from Salma and her supporters that Muslims are facing an epidemeic of 'Islamophobia' can only reinforce a sense of isolation and victimhood amongst young Muslims - a sense of isolation that Respect is hoping to benefit from in terms of electoral gain.
Salma and her crew are a threat to both free speech based democracy and the future dialogue necessary if all groups are to eventually feel part of the same society.
DivinaComedia
20 November 2006 7:12PM
The power will have to be grabbed back by the people, unless in the UK we have a true participative democracy with a constitution passed by referenda!
We cannot carry on allowing crazy corporatism to run our nation, so mad that they will use terrorist tactics to push through military-industrialist policies, and who will destroy the planet.
Peoples of this world unite against your pseudo democratic corporate governments, never shall we be vanquished; do away with the politics fear.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/08/296319.html Our Bolivarian brothers and sisters have done it, it is time to do the same.
Only giving power to the people, ALL the people, in equality of conditions, with an economy run by and for the people; will bring democracy.
DEMOCRACY FOR EUROPE NOW!
A revolutionary salute!
MoreMediaNonsense
20 November 2006 7:25PM
Salma - do you approve of the interpretations of Islam that decree death to apostates and the stoning of women who commit adultery ?
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt support death for apostates - see here : "In April 2006 after a court case in Egypt recognized the Bah�'� Faith, members of the clergy convinced the government to appeal the court decision. One member of parliament, Gamal Akl of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, said the Bah�'�s were infidels who should be killed on the grounds that they had changed their religion.[23]" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam.
Is it Islamophobic in your view to denounce such views as extreme and repellent ?
Don't you think such extremism should be opposed ? Are you aware that the British Muslim Initiative is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and you are tonight sharing a platform with them ?
How would you feel if you were a Baha'i in Egypt faced with such people coming after you threatening judicial execution ?
Seems to me that's the kind of real injustice you should be campaigning in the world Salma, not the perceived affront of the religious to some cartoons.
polemicist
20 November 2006 7:42PM
This is typical Respect rubbish deliberately conflating race and religion and thus treating any criticism of Islam to supposedly show how 'racism is spreading like a plague'. By attempting to cast muslims as an oppressed entity in this case, the author is subscribing to the wearisome cult of victimology which seasoned observers will be able to dismiss without further ado. Many of us have now got wise to the Muslim agenda of religious and cultural imperialism through the creeping expansion of the ummah and the goal of a world-wide caliphate, such that garbage about 'demonisation' fools no-one but the gullible and the dhimmied.
Furthermore, the author and the bunch of usual suspects attending the Rally for Religious Tolerance, are in fact wilfully confusing tolerance of religious belief with the ability to proselytise and intimidate through such beliefs. There are no restrictions on holding whatever religious beliefs or delusions you may wish to hold, but to demand the right to bandy about your chosen belief system in public via the wearing of symbols or modes of dress, like some badge of honour, is provocative and offensive to the sensibilities of the rest of us. You may have your belief system in private, but you may not rub our noses in it or attempt to intimidate us with it in public.
The stated aim of calling for a system "where all faiths are treated with respect" is also a nonsense, in that faith and culture should never be above criticism such that some aspects will be not worthy of respect. Perhaps the author should reflect that, in the interests of their so-called 'faith', there are those who would gleefully separate her from her clitoris - and that such primitive, tribal, superstitious rubbish merits no 'respect' whatsoever. Rather than focusing on some imagined racism the author would be better advised to address the intolerance and barbarities within her own 'faith' regarding the status of women, homosexuals, jews, christians, apostates and infidels. It is not the rest of us who have declared jihad against the 'other'.
aidanmat2
20 November 2006 7:56PM
[MoreMediaNonsense: Don't you think such extremism should be opposed ? Are you aware that the British Muslim Initiative is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and you are tonight sharing a platform with them ?]
Of course she doesn't care. Nearly all these putative "Muslim representatives" are really representing Islamic values, rooted such places as Iran and Saudi Arabia. They often add "British" into their title merely because they happen to be resident in Britain, prefer collective description "Muslim" as opposed to "Islamic" to help disguise their intended purpose, and (much like the BNP) put up an anodyne website with sanitised versions of their ideology whilst keeping their controversial material offline and harder to casually locate. The jihadist organisation MPAC-UK even describes itself as "the UK's Leading Muslim civil liberties group" - seriously!
None of the Muslim organisations will speak out strongly against penalties for apostates, it violates their whole raison d'etre. The net effect actually increases animosity between Muslims and non-Muslims, and far from helping the security situation, helps to create the conditions for increased extremism amongst British Muslims.
headlikearock
20 November 2006 4:56PM
"defend the basic principles of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and culture"
i see you've left out "speech".
will you be defending these principles as they apply to, say, bnp members?