(Muslims put faith in written word to fight prejudice, A mosque in Finsbury Park confronts Islamophobia head on, The Guardian, August 9, 2004.)
Hard to imagine Islamophobia
Maryam Namazie
August 12, 2004
Imagine at a synagogue somewhere in London, Jews are working together to send out £1m worth of books, DVDs and videos about Judaism and the Torah as an act of ‘self-defence’ against anti-Semitism and ‘Judaism-phobia’.
Or imagine black South Africans during Apartheid sending out mass mailings of Steve Biko’s books on Black Nationalism in order to combat racism, Apartheid and ‘Black Nationalism-phobia’.
Or imagine the Stephen Lawrence Campaign sending out Bibles in order to combat his racist killing and Christianity-phobia.
Hard to imagine? Of course it is hard to imagine such responses because we know they are irrelevant to fighting racism, discrimination, and racist killings. That is of course unless you’re a ‘Muslim’. In that case, then, Vikram Dodd can matter-of-factly state in The Guardian that volunteers are working together at a Finsbury Park mosque packing the first of £1m worth of books, DVDs and videos about Islam to send to 300 public libraries across the country as an act of self-defence and to combat racism and prejudice! (Muslims put faith in written word to fight prejudice, A mosque in Finsbury Park confronts Islamophobia head on, The Guardian, August 9, 2004.)
Someone should inform Vikram Dodd (though this is well-known to the volunteers at Finsbury Park mosque) that he and many like him have been duped into thinking there is actually a connection between handing out books on Islam and fighting racism.
The fight against racism and discrimination has always and rightly focused on the causes and reasons behind the racism and not on the victims’ beliefs. This is because the victims’ beliefs are irrelevant when combating racism or discrimination. When The Scotsman reports on the terrifying racist attack on Runbi Musunhe and Nonkululeko Khawula, it doesn’t delve into their beliefs and it shouldn’t. When two asylum seekers hang themselves as a result of state racism towards asylum seekers in the UK, their beliefs aren’t discussed. When the BBC reports on a black man losing his sight in one eye after being attacked by a schoolboy gang in a racist attack in Rotherhithe, south-east London, it does not delve into the victim’s beliefs. Because it is irrelevant what the victim believes, what s/he thinks, whether you agree with her or him or not. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that human beings have been attacked or targeted by racism and responding to that means targeting the cause of the racism whether it’s institutionalised racism or by ensuring that those who commit racist acts and killings are prosecuted or by promoting a society in which the human being is sacred and is treated equally as a citizen with universal rights and is not forever a minority with different rights or or or.
I don’t think though that one of the responses of the ‘Defend Runbi Musunhe and Nonkululeko Khawula Campaign’, if there were one, would be to send out Bibles and Korans if relevant and if not, then maybe books on Mugabe and Zimbabwe since one of the women was originally born there! You have to agree that it would be ridiculous to do so.
Another problem with this response is that it assumes that everyone attributed to a group have the same beliefs, which is racist in itself given that beliefs attributed to the entire group are often that of the dominant class and the most reactionary segment of it. People are more complex than that.
And most importantly, this sort of response equates racism against human beings as one and the same with a critique of or opposition to belief systems. Come on, Vikram Dodd, you know this is not the case, don’t you? Criticising Islam is not racism just as a criticism of FGM is not racism against women and girls who have been mutilated and ‘believe’ in mutilation; just as a critique and opposition to child smacking is not racism against parents who smack their children out of a belief that it is an act of love; just as a critique or opposition to Zionism is not anti-Semitism... You cannot be racist against an idea or belief or ideology. Racism is distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin of individuals - of human beings.
Of course the Finsbury Park mosque wants us to think otherwise. Fadi Itani, an organiser of the project says in the Guardian article: “There is a real sense of our communities being under attack.” “The attack is on everything, our institutions, scholars, individuals, and the religion itself.” Itani and his cohorts put an attack on beliefs and institutions on a par with an attack on individuals by deeming it all equally racist.
They do this because they want us to stop criticising their ‘institutions’ - the likes of the Muslim Association of Britain, which by the way is linked to the reactionary political Islamic Muslim Brotherhood tradition with the stated aim of “the widespread implementation of Islam as a way of life; no longer to be sidelined as merely a religion”. They want us to sit quietly by when Ken Livingston invites their ‘scholars’ - the likes of Al Qaradawi who by the way is a misogynist homophobe. They want us to believe that a criticism of Al Qaradawi’s beliefs is an attack on his person or racism. They want us to stop critiquing ‘the religion itself’ - Islam, which like all religions is anti-woman, anti-human and calls for the death of apostates and non-believers with one important difference - that it is a religion in power or vying for power in this century. They do this by calling it racism!
Well I am sorry but no can do.
You cannot attribute human qualities to a belief system and institutions in order to rule out and deem racist any opposition or critique. You cannot take advantage of a strong anti-racist movement in the West to strengthen your political power here in the West. The Finsbury Park mosque, the Muslim Association of Britain, Al Qaradawi and Islam itself are part and parcel of a reactionary movement that has wreaked havoc in the Middle East and North Africa and aims to do so here as well.
We, its first hand victims, have been pushing it back for years in Iran now. Fortunately for the West and civilised humanity, and unfortunately for the likes of the Finsbury Park mosque, we will do the same here as well.
Maryam Namazie
August 12, 2004
Imagine at a synagogue somewhere in London, Jews are working together to send out £1m worth of books, DVDs and videos about Judaism and the Torah as an act of ‘self-defence’ against anti-Semitism and ‘Judaism-phobia’.
Or imagine black South Africans during Apartheid sending out mass mailings of Steve Biko’s books on Black Nationalism in order to combat racism, Apartheid and ‘Black Nationalism-phobia’.
Or imagine the Stephen Lawrence Campaign sending out Bibles in order to combat his racist killing and Christianity-phobia.
Hard to imagine? Of course it is hard to imagine such responses because we know they are irrelevant to fighting racism, discrimination, and racist killings. That is of course unless you’re a ‘Muslim’. In that case, then, Vikram Dodd can matter-of-factly state in The Guardian that volunteers are working together at a Finsbury Park mosque packing the first of £1m worth of books, DVDs and videos about Islam to send to 300 public libraries across the country as an act of self-defence and to combat racism and prejudice! (Muslims put faith in written word to fight prejudice, A mosque in Finsbury Park confronts Islamophobia head on, The Guardian, August 9, 2004.)
Someone should inform Vikram Dodd (though this is well-known to the volunteers at Finsbury Park mosque) that he and many like him have been duped into thinking there is actually a connection between handing out books on Islam and fighting racism.
The fight against racism and discrimination has always and rightly focused on the causes and reasons behind the racism and not on the victims’ beliefs. This is because the victims’ beliefs are irrelevant when combating racism or discrimination. When The Scotsman reports on the terrifying racist attack on Runbi Musunhe and Nonkululeko Khawula, it doesn’t delve into their beliefs and it shouldn’t. When two asylum seekers hang themselves as a result of state racism towards asylum seekers in the UK, their beliefs aren’t discussed. When the BBC reports on a black man losing his sight in one eye after being attacked by a schoolboy gang in a racist attack in Rotherhithe, south-east London, it does not delve into the victim’s beliefs. Because it is irrelevant what the victim believes, what s/he thinks, whether you agree with her or him or not. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that human beings have been attacked or targeted by racism and responding to that means targeting the cause of the racism whether it’s institutionalised racism or by ensuring that those who commit racist acts and killings are prosecuted or by promoting a society in which the human being is sacred and is treated equally as a citizen with universal rights and is not forever a minority with different rights or or or.
I don’t think though that one of the responses of the ‘Defend Runbi Musunhe and Nonkululeko Khawula Campaign’, if there were one, would be to send out Bibles and Korans if relevant and if not, then maybe books on Mugabe and Zimbabwe since one of the women was originally born there! You have to agree that it would be ridiculous to do so.
Another problem with this response is that it assumes that everyone attributed to a group have the same beliefs, which is racist in itself given that beliefs attributed to the entire group are often that of the dominant class and the most reactionary segment of it. People are more complex than that.
And most importantly, this sort of response equates racism against human beings as one and the same with a critique of or opposition to belief systems. Come on, Vikram Dodd, you know this is not the case, don’t you? Criticising Islam is not racism just as a criticism of FGM is not racism against women and girls who have been mutilated and ‘believe’ in mutilation; just as a critique and opposition to child smacking is not racism against parents who smack their children out of a belief that it is an act of love; just as a critique or opposition to Zionism is not anti-Semitism... You cannot be racist against an idea or belief or ideology. Racism is distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin of individuals - of human beings.
Of course the Finsbury Park mosque wants us to think otherwise. Fadi Itani, an organiser of the project says in the Guardian article: “There is a real sense of our communities being under attack.” “The attack is on everything, our institutions, scholars, individuals, and the religion itself.” Itani and his cohorts put an attack on beliefs and institutions on a par with an attack on individuals by deeming it all equally racist.
They do this because they want us to stop criticising their ‘institutions’ - the likes of the Muslim Association of Britain, which by the way is linked to the reactionary political Islamic Muslim Brotherhood tradition with the stated aim of “the widespread implementation of Islam as a way of life; no longer to be sidelined as merely a religion”. They want us to sit quietly by when Ken Livingston invites their ‘scholars’ - the likes of Al Qaradawi who by the way is a misogynist homophobe. They want us to believe that a criticism of Al Qaradawi’s beliefs is an attack on his person or racism. They want us to stop critiquing ‘the religion itself’ - Islam, which like all religions is anti-woman, anti-human and calls for the death of apostates and non-believers with one important difference - that it is a religion in power or vying for power in this century. They do this by calling it racism!
Well I am sorry but no can do.
You cannot attribute human qualities to a belief system and institutions in order to rule out and deem racist any opposition or critique. You cannot take advantage of a strong anti-racist movement in the West to strengthen your political power here in the West. The Finsbury Park mosque, the Muslim Association of Britain, Al Qaradawi and Islam itself are part and parcel of a reactionary movement that has wreaked havoc in the Middle East and North Africa and aims to do so here as well.
We, its first hand victims, have been pushing it back for years in Iran now. Fortunately for the West and civilised humanity, and unfortunately for the likes of the Finsbury Park mosque, we will do the same here as well.
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one question
16.08.2004 12:25
can you point me in the direction of your articles attacking other religions please?
type
Don't give them room to wriggle out of it
17.08.2004 14:33
In support of these excuses, journalists and commentators 'critical' of Islam can now say they are definitely not Will Cummins. His articles in The Telegraph were a step beyond legitimate criticism - we’re all agreed on that. Talking about the ‘black heart of Islam’ and claiming ‘Muslims, like all dogs, share similar characteristics’ is not fair comment. Like naughty little boys and girls, they can now point a jammy finger at half-witted Willy as the real culprit.
Some Muslims argue that, were the word 'Islam' substituted for 'black', much of what passes for legitimate criticism would be a matter for the law. This is a mistake. Islamophobia is not racism. The definition of Islamophobia put forward by the Runnymede Trust lists a number of factors indicative of prejudice against Muslims - viewing Islam as a monolith and Muslims as an inferior 'other', a faith motivated primarily by politics, manipulative and secretive. Anthony Browne's 'The Muslims are coming’ could arguably fall within such a definition, but in my view that would be missing the point.
The distortion inherent in Browne's article stems from his feeble understanding of Islam and the British Muslim community, not bigotry. Talking about a Muslim take-over looks daft the minute you know the majority of British Muslims are still aligned with a version of Islam known as Ahl as-Sunnah wa-Jamaat. This is a quietist approach to Islam, long associated with the urban poor and closely linked to Sufism. In short, most British Muslims follow a version of Islam that is profoundly apolitical. Anas Altikriti dismissing Browne's writings as “breaking new Islamophobic ground” conveniently overlooks this fact – but then Anas belongs to a political organisation and speaks on their behalf, not mine.
The focus of our response to Islam's erstwhile critics should be on their ignorance, and the fact they think this level of ignorance is nothing to worry about. Anyone writing about British Parliament with the level of sophistication apparent in Browne's analysis of Islam would be fired out of journalism tomorrow. Forget Islamophobia - the logical outcome of demonizing those who demonize us has already been reached. The Islamic Human Rights Commission, heckled on by some sections of the Muslim press and Muslim media-watch groups, recently sought to vilify a rather unlikely figure – Polly Toynbee, awarding her the mock accolade ‘Islamophobic Media Personality of the Year.’ So Muslims hate Polly Toynbee, do they? A lot of good that will do.
If British Muslim groups like the MAB and IHRC are going to be taken seriously, they need to broaden their tactics beyond media-savvy mud slinging. There is no doubt that when it comes to the heinous tabloids, Islam is the latest bogey man. But amongst the educated readership in the UK, journalists and editors can still claim that reporting on Islam is balanced. The pseudonymous Will Cummins has seen his articles rubbished by Jenny McCartney in the Telegraph; the Times was running a long series of excellent articles about British Muslims written by Buhran Wazir when it published its attacks; The New Statesman has featured extracts from a book by Muslim intellectual Ziauddin Sardar.
This is a specious argument and by harking on about Islamophobia, we are allowing them to get away with it. Informed versus ignorant is not balanced, its editorial incompetence. Bad reporting, sometimes spurred on by genuine concerns about terrorism, no doubt cynically exploiting popular fears in other instances, is helping to construct an image of British Muslims as 'other', associated primarily with a threat to national security. The Times should not be getting it so badly wrong. The Spectator should not be writing from a perspective of such pitiful ignorance. They have a duty as professional journalists to get it right.
Let's stop giving them excuses to wriggle out of their responsibilities.
Yakoub Islam
Tasneem Project
Yakoub Islam
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yakoub@bayyinat.org.uk
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