Skip to content or view screen version

The Muslim Problem

Nafeez Ahmed | 10.10.2006 15:14 | Analysis | Anti-racism

Muslims, it seems, are a problem. No, I should rephrase that. Muslims, it seems, are perhaps the problem of our times. Or at least one might be forgiven for believing that after the last few weeks and months. We've just had Jack Straw, the Leader of the House of Commons, and former Foreign and Home Secretary, tell us that Muslim women who cover the face with a veil or niqab make community relations "more difficult." And this is because, he says, concealing the face is "a visible statement of separation and difference."


So what is Straw saying? He's not just saying that he finds it "uncomfortable" to talk to a Muslim woman whose face he can't see. He's saying that the fact that some Muslim women choose to cover their face is a direct cause of communal tension, and a confirmation from Muslim women themselves that they indeed are different, and do not wish to engage in society.

Straw later went on to elaborate that he'd rather those Muslim women who wear the veil simply don't do so at all.

Straw's little outburst comes hot on the heels of a series of remarks, observations and political maneuverings consistently pointing at the various problems that Muslim pose to British, and western, society. In August, we had the 'liquid bomb' plot which both former and active military and intelligence experts have found to be either impossible or barely existing.

President Bush took the opportunity provided by the scare to declare that: “The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.”

The same phrase, a phrase he had never used before, he had also used that month to describe Israel's conflict with Lebanon. A conflict in which the preponderance of casualties was amongst Lebanese Muslims (as well as Christians).

And here in the UK, politicians, police and commentators described how the 'liquid bomb' plot proved that the threat came from British Muslims who, without any clear reason, without any obvious profile, from any social background even including a university education and a handsome employment, spontaneously decided to become suicide killers. By implications, we have a significant British Muslim problem. A problem of British Muslims spontaneously converting into Islamic fascists.

We then had Home Secretary John Reid's admonition to Muslim parents in East London that they ought to watch out for "tell-tale" signs of their childen undergoing this spontaneous profile-devoid, inexplicable process of conversion. What are these "tell-tale" signs? Rather than pointing, for instance, to the dangerous activities of notorious, entrenched, and proscribed extremist networks with terrorist connections like al-Muhajiroun and its successor groups, Saved Sect and al-Ghuraabah (and now al-Sabiqoon al-Awwaloon), Dr. Reid qualified his statements in an article in that most credible of tabloids, the Sun: "I appeal to you (the Muslim community) to look for changes in your teenage sons -- odd hours, dropping out of school or college, strange new friends."

**cough**splutter**

Sorry excuse me, it's just that this sounds a lot like me when I was, erm, busy failing my A-Levels at seventeen years old. Maybe I was spontaneously turning into an Islamic fascist but didn't realise? Maybe I should turn myself in?

Around the same time, the Pope decided to pipe in with a speech in which he quoted a Byzantine Emperor saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Some have suggested that angry Muslims took the quotation completely out of context, but an inspection of the rest of his text shows this not to be the case. The Pope, unfortunately, used the citation uncritically, and in support of his wider theological argument (a very questionable one at that) about the fundamental difference in Christian and Islamic views of the rationality of God's actions.

It took the Israeli military veteran and peace activist Uri Avnery, a self-described Jewish atheist, to take the Pope to task as follows:

"Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

The story about 'spreading the faith by the sword' is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims--the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of 'Islamofascism' and the 'Global War on Terrorism'--when 'terrorism' has become a synonym for Muslims."

More recently, Tory Party leader and Prime Minister-wannabe David Cameron declared his brave plans to break up Muslim ghettos in British cities. That's right folks, Muslim ghettos: another big problem that Muslims pose to Britain, encapsulated in the phenomenon of (in Cameron's words): "Immigrant families who only ever meet people with the same country of origin. We need to find ways to avoid this."

Without even attempting to offer serious policy options to deal with the institutional discrimination and massive social deprivation behind the creation of "Muslim ghettos", Cameron suggested instead that "Islamic schools should in future admit a quarter of their pupils from other faiths", as if Islamic schools are actually a significant part of the problem. He didn't pause to wonder whether any Muslim schools in the UK had ever officially banned or prevented non-Muslims from attending (certainly not to my knowledge), or whether indeed non-Muslims might even be vaguely interested in attending a Muslim faith school, enough to fulfil his quota.

So Straw's remarks should not by any means be viewed in isolation. They are part of an inexorably growing western trend of problematizing Muslims, a phenomenon that is conjoined to concerted practices of western-backed imperial violence against largely (though not exclusively) Muslim populations in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Occupied Territories, Lebanon and elsewhere, practices which are fast converging on an impending imperial onslaught against Iran. The casualty figures in dead and seriously injured from these extant military interventions is more than several million, mostly Muslim, civilians. Such processes actively facilitated by our governments in the Middle East and Central Asia cannot be compartmentalized away from processes of problematization of Muslim communities at home, where in the UK for example more than a thousand Muslims have been indefinitely detained under the Terrorism Act, out of which only half a dozen have been convicted. These external and internal processes are products of the same system, the same imperial social configurations.

As the 2005 report of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) on ‘Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims in the EU’ has documented, attacks on Muslims in western Europe have increased dramatically. Across western Europe, such attacks have accompanied an unprecedented escalation in

"... widespread negative attitudes toward Muslims; unbalanced and stereotypical media reports portraying Muslims as 'alien' to EU societies and as 'an enemy within'; verbal and physical attacks on Muslims and Muslim institutions and property; discrimination against Muslims in employment and other areas; aggressive political rhetoric used by right-populist parties to target Muslims;and security and immigration measures contributing to public perceptions of Muslims as a 'fifth column'."

One of the most authoritative studies of discrimination against Muslims in Britain was undertaken recently by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) in London, where I used to work as a researcher years ago. The IHRC survey has been described by the leading peer-reviewed Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, as providing “rich information from a large sample [whose research findings] are unparalleled in their focus and detail on a subject that has largely been overlooked and understudied.” The findings are rather shocking: overall, about 80 per cent of respondents reported experiences of discrimination because they were Muslim. In the face of this, the widespread feelings of discontent and victimization amongst Muslims is not only understandable, they are to some extent a perfectly rational reaction to an extremely disturbing national and international trend of hostility towards Muslims, expressed in forms of cultural, political and economic violence.

German social scientist Dr. Wolfram Richter, a professor of economics at the University of Dortmund, expressed his resulting concern as follows: “I am afraid we have not learned from our history. My main fear is that what we did to Jews we may now do to Muslims. The next holocaust would be against Muslims.” What we have been seeing over the past few months is the tail-end of a process that has continued since 9/11; a concerted political and cultural campaign the effect of which has been to portray Muslims as a dangerous, unpredictable group of 'others' who pose a problem to western civilization -- a problem that requires a "solution"; perhaps even a "final solution", if Dr. Richter's well-researched fears might suggest. It would be easy to dismiss Dr. Richter's comment as merely a groundless exaggeration. And while it may indeed be exaggerated, it is, unfortunately, not groundless.

Nafeez Ahmed

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

demonising Muslims

10.10.2006 17:37

It is an unfortunate fact of life that [conspiracy theories notwithstanding] almost all the hijackings of aircraft over the last twenty years have been by carried out by Muslims in pursuit of one cause or another. This has led to incredibly frustrating security checks at airports. Now, you might think that the people that might be singled out for patting down might be those who fit the profiles of hijackers. Now, you can't tell a person's religion at a glance, but the profile might be that of a male in their twenties. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of many hijackings where this was not the case. So, I'm at Stansted, in a very long, slowmoving queue. People are taken aside, apparently at random, for 'patting down'. I saw two people being patted down. One was an old lady - perhaps in her 70s - who fitted the popular image of an absentminded academic to a T. She submitted with a good grace. The other was a white male who was probably in his late 50s. Why? I have no idea. DO they fit any profile? Can you find me a hijacker who was white, female, and in her 70s? But if the airport staff do target males in the twenties of Asian appearance, this is 'racial profiling' and hence a 'bad thing'.

There has been much discussion on the subject of Muslim women wearing the veil. I shudder to think what might happen if such a woman were asked if she minded being 'patted down' by airport security.

sceptic


Hey guys,

10.10.2006 20:07

Good article, though I've skimmed through it.

I was thinking of writing something like that showing the increasing subtle propaganda war against islam/foreigners.

If I've I'm inclined to conspiracy theories ( which I am), is that politicians are setting up distrust, and phobia towards islamic culture to further create a lack of emathy to the US/UK spearheaded takeover of the middle east, and the casualties that will result.

Hey Sceptic,

I personally believe that the searches are (like arresting peaceful protestors) simply a way of getting people used to the increasing police state. Far too many people I speak to praise the 'big brother' presence of police/security, and abuse of power. If that seems too far fetched (the idea that the governemnt and police what to control us) why do they arrest and harass peaceful protestors?

And also if there is no propadanda war agaisnt Islam why wasn't this a breaking story?...

 http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=4708&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

grammatoncleric
- Homepage: http://www.prisonplanet.com


Actually, Neo-Fascism and Zionist Extremism Poses A Real Threat

11.10.2006 05:28

This type of Hate Literature has been getting spammed throughout the IMC network. Here's one I culled from (and addressed) on another site. I think it'll suffice to cover this one, since it basically disseminates the same attrocious Ideology, and I just don't feel like wasting my time on it.

Reminds me of something Hitler would have said about the Jews, and sends a chill down my spine. So sad that it's come to this, but pay attention to who's spreading this BS, the real, credible threat to the world ...

Oh, and what's the source? These articles seemingly never get posted with a link, as most of them come from notorious Hate Sites.

"Should we refer to those Nazis who operated concentration camps as ‘radical Nazis’ and the rest as ‘moderates’?"

No, but I still refer to Zionist Extremists as such, because I correspond with several Israelis who consider themselves Zionists, even though they support the Palestinians, and oppose the Extremists running Israel today.

"How about racial supremacist theory?"

You mean like Zionism, which believes it is alright to steal from and murder Arabs, because to them, these people are only "beasts walking on two legs"?

"In the same vein, apologists for Islam (including non-Muslim multiculturalists) insist that terrorists are merely radicals who have hijacked a peaceful religion."

When in reality, the small groups I would consider "terrorists" only use religion as a disguise, just like Bush and the Zionists, while the majority of the groups you're referring to are Resistance Movements, legitimized by US, British, Israeli Aggression, and their religion means little, except that it makes it easier for Hatemongers like this author to generalize them, as the Nazis did to the Jews.

"But no one is losing their heads to fanatics of other faiths these days."

Sure they are, and worse. The Zionist fanatics and "Christian" fundamentalists are butchering innocent people by the hundreds of thousands. Just because the media doesn't show the effects of US, British, Israeli missile strikes, doesn't erase what they do.

"So, what really accounts for the violence coming out of the Islamic world and the astonishing indifference of most Muslims toward it?"

Mainly, the premeditated, systematic Aggression directed at it by the Zionist fanatics and their few allies and like-minded Ideologues in Washington, London, Ottawa, etc.

"It is that Islam, like racism, is a supremacist ideology."

Not at all.

"In Islam, people are categorized into one of two very distinct groups: believers and infidels."

As is the case with any religion. To Jews, non-Jews are categorized as "Goyim", and to the Zionist Extremists, lower creatures.

"On top of this, the Qur’an is also littered with explicit references to the sort of abuse that awaits non-Muslims in the afterlife."

Just as in every other religion, since all religions come from the same source. That's why I value spirituality, and the core of the great religions, over the rigid structure and varied interpretations of organized religion.

"If Allah hates Christians, Hindus, and others ..."

He doesn't. This is a misinterpreatation, a creation of Man when he divided the religions, as cultures diverged and splintered. Allah/God/Jehovah wants believers, period, more for what believing means to their conduct and guiding beliefs, than adherence to Himself.

"Liberals in the West, who otherwise reject supremacist theory and (are) "horrified" by policies such as relegating African-Americans to the back of the bus, really need to take a hard look at the ideology and disturbing practices of Islam"

The Informed Majority Opposition to Neo-Fascism, which Useful Idiots like the author refer to as "Liberals", in order to Distract, misrepresent their Opposition and its diversity and purpose, have done this.

That's why they're less inclined to fall for ignorant Hatemongering BS disseminated by the Neo-Fascists and the Extremists amongst their ranks.

Who wrote this? What is your source? What little Hate Site did you cull this sh*t from, Plant?

For more on the Supremacist Cult of the author:

Parallels between Nazism, Zionists striking
www.marwenmedia.com/articles_images/Parallels.html

You can also read the many Academic studies and essays on the parallels between the Neo-Fascists in DC and their few allies, and Hitler's Regime.

How is it relevant in a discussion about the link between Propaganda and misinterpreatations of our role in the unwinnable US war in Afghanistan?

This Level Of Hatred Denotes Fear, Desperation