British Islamophobia post the 11 September

Since the events of the 11 September 2001 in the USA, there has been in Britain, an exponential rise in anti-Islamic polemic and Islamophobia, which eclipses even the Salmon Rushide affair. Only in part, can this resurgence in Islamophobia be explained as the corollary of the events of the “11 September”. Islamophobia was already a subterranean inherency of the body politic. In truth, the “11 September” has just provided a pretext for the legitimisation of Islamophobia; it is now politically acceptable to be overtly anti-Islamic. This represents a significant development in the dynamic of British Islamophobia, as a socio-political phenomenon. For it is no longer politically necessary to address the concerns of the British Muslim Community, it is far more politic to criticise the Muslim community.

Indeed, “Islamophobia” is now a pervasive and overt socio-political phenomenon amongst much of Britain’s polity, media and intelligentsia. It is quite apparent that since the “11 September”, that the Labour Government and most of the media have quite shamelessly been engaging in anti-Islamic rhetoric. One of the most concerning and damaging polemics has came from the Welsh Secretary, Peter Hain, whilst speaking as Minister for Europe, on the BBC’s “Breakfast with Frost” programme, 12 May 2002 – Hain remarked:
“We need to work much harder to integrate Muslims in particular with the rest of society. We very much welcome the contribution that the Muslim community makes to British culture. They enrich our culture. They are welcome here. But there is a tendency amongst a minority to isolate themselves and that leaves them vulnerable to either exploitation by Osama bin Laden-type extremists and fanatics on the one hand, or targeting by racists and Nazis on the other.”
This was obviously a quite deliberate statement, as it was largely reiterated by Hain in an interview with “The Guardian”, published on the 13 may 2002, in which he made the accusation that:

“Some Muslims are cutting themselves off and feeding both rightwing politics and their own extremists. We need an honest dialogue about the minority of isolationist, fundamentalists and fanatics who open the door to exploitation and who provide fertile ground for al-Qaida extremists.”

Hain’s comments are quite clearly xenophobic, which is all the more concerning given his prominent role in the anti-apartheid movement. His assertion that the Muslim community is particular need of being integrated with the rest of society is quite unfounded. The majority of British Muslims are perfectly competent English speakers. Moreover, Muslims are professionally diverse and representative of British society – despite racial and religious discrimination in the work place. Also British Muslim children are mainly educated in secular schools. Indeed, there are far less Muslim children than there are Christian or Jewish children educated in single faith schools.

Not only are Hain’s comments fallacious, they are divisive and irresponsible; Hain is holding the whole of Britain’s Muslim community accountable for the actions and views of a small minority. This is ridiculous; Hain has not made similar comments about Britain’s Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Hindu or Sikh communities. However, the British Muslim community has the least history of sectarian violence. Yet conversely, it is the Muslim community that are, proportionally, the greatest victims of xenophobic violence.

Britain’s Muslim community represents a significant proportion of the British population, particularly amongst ethnic minorities and thus is an integral and indivisible part of British society. The British Muslim community is Britain’s largest “minority” group. Yet, rather than welcoming its contribution as Hain suggests, the polity and media marginalize and react against it.

Hain remarks were symptomatic of the Labour Government’s exploitation of British cultural Islamophobia for political ends. It is evident that the British Muslim community is growing exponentially in comparison with the Christian majority, altering Britain’s religious demography. Whilst statistically, Islam is a long way off reaching demographic polarity with Christianity in Britain, on a global level, Islam is a more vibrant religion than Christianity. Islam the fastest growing religion in the World and is set to replace Christianity numerically as the World’s foremost religion in the near future. Moreover Islam already has more “practicing” adherents than Christianity; it is well established that the majority of those who denote themselves as Christians, are non-practicing, indeed many are agnostics.

Thus, Islamophobes fear that the growing cultural fusion between British Muslims and non-Muslims will ultimately lead to the Islamic dilution of the national culture. However, within Islamophobia, there is a strong element of racism – the majority of British Muslims come from ethnic minority groups. Therefore Islamophobia provides for many a politically acceptable and legal form of racism. Whilst racial discrimination and incitement to racial hatred are unlawful religious discrimination and incitement to religious hatred are lawful. It is therefore legal to incite anti-Islamic hatred and to discriminate against Muslims, yet unlawful to incite anti-Jewish hatred and to discriminate against Jews because they are bizarrely held to be a racial and not religious minority group.

Therefore, it is politically advantageous for the Government to pamper to this anti-Islamic xenophobia, portraying the British Muslim community, as bearing some responsibility for the “11 September” attacks. Hence, when Hain refers to: “the minority of isolationist, fundamentalists and fanatics who open the door to exploitation and who provide fertile ground for al-Qaida extremists”, he is deliberately misrepresenting the situation, he knows that there is no evidence to link more than a handful of Britons to al-Qaida. This hardly constitutes “fertile ground for al-Qaida extremists” or for terrorism per se.

Yet, it is clear that there is a growing political schism between Muslims and the Labour Government due to the Labour Government overtly anti-Islamic agenda. Nowhere is this more evident than in relation to Labour’s foreign policy. The Labour Party has always had strong Zionist ties, ergo the Labour Government pursues a particularly virulent pro-Zionist and pro-Israeli foreign policy agenda. This of course presents an inherent incompatibility with Labour’s supposed commitment to an ethical foreign policy, racial and religious equality, democracy, indigenous self-determination, human rights, anti-apartheid and anti-fascism.

Moreover, the Labour Government’s commitment to a pro-Israeli foreign policy also runs contrary to the position of other European States. The pervasive view in Europe is that the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East is Zionist intransigence and expansionism. Consequently there is more support in Europe for the creation of a viable Palestinian State, without the Israeli precondition of an end to Palestinian militancy.

Pre “11 September”, there was widespread apathy amongst the British public to the Middle East conflict - the majority of the British public being decidedly agnostic upon the issue. Whereas there is enormous support amongst the British Muslim community for Palestinian nation-statehood; “the right to return” of the five plus million Palestinians living in the Diaspora; and the Palestinian right to armed resistance against the continued illegal Zionist occupation and oppression. Consequently, there is utter disdain and contempt for the Labour Government pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian agenda.

The Labour Government consistently refuses to impose arms sanctions, let alone economic sanctions against Israel, despite Israel’s flagrant abuses of UN resolutions and even though Israel uses British bought arms against the civilian population in the illegally “occupied territories”. Moreover, the Labour Government has been quick to condemn Palestinian resistance movements as “Terrorists”; yet conversely has not censured Israel for its human rights abuses, its policy of apartheid, and its perpetration of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the indigenous Palestinian civilian population. Nor will the Labour Government condemn the Israeli Prime minister, Ariel Sharon, for his role in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indeed, Cherie Blair, the Prime Minister’s wife has effectively been censured by Downing Street, for her comments expressing sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians and the hopelessness that drives some Palestinians to become suicide bombers. Notwithstanding, that she made the comment in her capacity as a leading human rights lawyer and not as a representative of the Labour Government.
There is also widespread discord in the British Muslim community, with Britain’s role in America’s “War on Terrorism”, which is in truth, a thinly veiled “War on Islam”. There is huge concern that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, leant British military supported the USA in a war against Afghanistan, an Islamic nation. Notwithstanding that there was no evidence of any Afghan involvement in the “11 September” attacks – the pretext for the war. Indeed, the USA has not provided publicly any credible evidence to link Al-Qaida or any other Islamic organisation to the “11 September” attacks.

Therefore, it is politic for the Government to socio-politically isolate the Muslim community from the rest of British society. Thus, Hain’s polemic against Muslim isolationism is in essence a polemic against “political Islam” and Islamic dissent. That is to say, that rather than allowing that the Muslim community has legitimate grievances against the Labour Government on foreign policy; Hain is presenting all Islamic dissent as “Isolationism”. Hence, Muslims are being marginalized and scapegoated for exercising the democratic right to object to Government policy and for political heterodoxy.

The Labour Government is also exploiting this Islamophobia vis-à-vis its asylum and immigration policy. The Home secretary, David Blunkett, presents an image of Britain, as a country overwrought with bogus asylum seekers, whom he conveniently labels: “economic migrants”. The Government also draws attention to the fact that the majority of asylum seekers are Muslims, yet fails to draw attention to the fact that only a small minority of Muslims are asylum seekers. This reinforces the perception of Muslims as “undesirable aliens”, parasites, and criminals. Whereas conversely, the Muslim community, which generally has more dealing with asylum seekers, tends to hold the view at that the British Government deliberately and unfairly denies asylum to deserving applicants for xenophobic reasons.

However, Islamophobia is not unique to this Labour Government, successive British Governments have continued a policy of marginalizing and ignoring domestic Islamic political issues. Despite being Britain’s most prominent non-Christian religion, Muslims are not recognized in law as an ethnic group, whereas conversely, Jews and Sikhs are. Yet, whilst neither Jews nor Muslims are a single race of people, both groups define themselves culturally by religion, tradition, and cultural heritage. Hence, the rationale that allows the Law to accept that Jews are a distinct ethnic group ought to apply equally to Muslims.

Moreover, it is patently clear that English family law is anti-Islamic – there can surely be no justification for the refusal to recognize the validity of the “Shari ‘a” (Islamic law) in Muslim marriages and in relation to Muslim children. Instead, family matters involving Muslims are invariable adjudicated by non-Muslim judges, even when the marriage itself is an Islamic marriage.

Moreover, English Family Law is itself quasi-Christian. Therefore, somewhat perversely, a marriage entered into between consenting adults in accordance with the “Shari ‘a” is recognized as legally valid, yet if the marriage breaks down, the “Shari ‘a” is dismissed and the matter is judged according to quasi-Christian law – notwithstanding the inherent incompatibility with the terms in which the marriage was entered into in the first place. There is a strong sense in the Muslim community that Muslim family matters should be dealt within accordance with the “Shari ‘a” in Islamic courts, which could easily be incorporated into the English legal system. After all, English Family Law is essentially detached from the main corpus juris.

Nor indeed is there any justification for the continued rejection of polygamous marriages in a “secular” society. It can hardly be said that the legal recognition of polygamous marriages would be economically burdensome; currently a British Muslim man could have four de facto British wives, all with children, and all living in different houses, and all recipients of various social security benefits. If anything, it would be less economically burdensome for the legal recognition of polygamous marriages.

It is clear that this Labour Government that has no desire for the Muslim community to be integrated into British society. It is the Government that is taking a leading role in isolating the Muslim community for its own political ends. Instead of condemning irresponsible and inflammatory anti-Islamic journalism, the Government has contributed to it. The Government could and should have demanded the release of British citizens illegally detained in camp X-ray; it could and should have refused to support US military action in Afghanistan and proposed US military action in Iraq; and instead of providing arms to Israel, it could and should have supported military intervention to protect the innocent Palestinian civilians from Israeli genocide. Yet it chooses not to.

Thus the Labour Government has sought not to embrace the British Muslim community; rather it has sought to suppress the rise of Islamic culture and politics. So it is “assimilation” and not “integration” that the Government is seeking: Muslims are being asked to abandon core religious, political, cultural and moral beliefs, and to instead accept those of the “majority”. This is nothing short of ethnocide, not to mention, fundamentally undemocratic. Moreover, the Labour Government has demonstrated all too clearly that it is prepared to resort to Machiavellian tactics, fuelling racial and religious tension, in order to facilitate its anti-Islamic agenda. Therefore, it would be forlorn for Muslims to look to the Government for any respite in this unfounded wave of anti-Islamic polemic, as it is clearly Government led. If Muslims are to engage effectively in the democratic process, Muslims need to vote for Muslims candidates in every possible election, regardless of party-political affiliations, so long as the candidate is prepared to support Muslim political issues.