No political movement can hope to win arguments if it turns the best and bravest into its foes. For the most courageous British Muslims, the Labour government and wider liberal society already seem slippery and hypocritical. Soon, they will be irredeemably tainted.
Take Ansar Ullah, a Bengali leftist from the old school. Like many secularists of his generation, his life has been dominated by the struggle against Jamaat-e-Islami. The party's name is rarely mentioned in our public life, although its supporters in the Muslim Council of Britain and the Islamic Foundation are on the radio almost daily. The Bengali equivalents of British Observer readers know it all too well. They regard Jamaat as we regard the BNP: the sworn and potentially deadly enemy of all their best principles.
Read more @ The Guardian
While I disagree with the conclusions, the articles does mention quite a few thinking points. IMO.
Many of the older generation of Muslim leaders cut their political teeth in orgs such as Jamaat e Islami and Muslim Brotherhood. They used this experience to organise when they came to Britain. Given that they were organised and claimed to speak for Muslims, the gov thought that it could reach out to Muslims through these leaders to deal with extremism.
But these leaders have very limited and fluid constituencies. Very often their base is mosque-based. Given that most Muslims don't attend mosques these leaders can't speak for all Muslims. So, the gov's engagement with these orgs is limited to debates based around the ideological world-view of Jamaat and MB.
Meanwhile, extremist groups are recruiting away from mosques and have nothing to do with these leaders because they are "sell-outs", "munaafiq" and "kufaar".
It's understandable that "liberals" like Ed Hussein, Majid Nawaz and Shazad Maher would want Muslims to move away from the Jamaat and MB. But they also want Muslims to move away from politics. And they want the PVE so they can bring about this depoliticisation.
Dealing with the extremists requires intelligence and police work. Not social engineering.
PVE?
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
PVE is a gov funding programme. It stands for Preventing Violent Extremism.
Muslim community organisations can apply for the money from their local authorities to carry out projects that will deal with issues of extremism. The more Muslims in a local authority the more money that is allocated for PVE to that local authority by the gov.
It's come in for criticism because it appears to blame Muslim communities for extremism, it may be a ruse through which to gain intelligence and the money is allocated by local authorities with very little oversight.
Are all three of those people a part of the Quilliam foundation?
If thney don't think Muslims (or is it Islam?) should take part in Politics, who exactly should?
I also cannot believe that the author of the top article is a big fan of Hazel Blears.
From the above article:
Why does he want a leaning towards the left? The left does seem to be allies with Muslims most of the time, but is that not just a marriage of convenience?
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
Shazad Mahar isn't.
They probably want Muslims to set their religion aside when entering the political arena. The only medium for you to express your views should be political parties and organisations. Forming a political org on the basis on common views and a common religion is out.
Those people who are Jamaa-e-Islami and MB influenced often team up with people on the left for political campaigns. When this started people thought the left was going to get influenced by "Muslim radicalism". But the opposite has been the case. Many people who were once "radical" have come to adopt the left's liberal and tolerant stances on social issues.
That Ed Husain is miffed about the left is because his views are better received by Daily Mail readers.
You make his views sound ridiculously naive. Which they may very well be.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
We can boil this down to caricatures to help us understand where this fits in with the left and right of British politics. For this you must forgive my reckless generalisations (this will even make me feel dirty).
Ed Hussein and other liberal Muslims are of the view that religion should be a private matter that should not be apparent in your politics. You should not seek to advance your identity as a Muslim in you political engagement. You should engage as a concerned citizen. If this requires you to act against your religious convictions then so be it. Because you should be acting in the best interest of those around you and not in your own interests or the interest of your religion.
The MB/JeI influenced view is that you should engage in politics so as to advance the cause of Islam. Your politics should be directly influenced by Islam and you should seek to impose Islamic rulings on the society around you or at least promote these Islamic rulings. Whatever political system you find yourself in you should see it as only temporary. You are not answerable to the system but to God and God want you to change the system to his liking. Moreover, you political opinions are not your opinions but God's will. Anyone who disagrees with you disagrees with God.
The left is generally sympathetic towards immigrants. It likes immigrants' lovely dresses, their exotic food and their colourful expressions of culture. It doesn't ask too many questions and is willing to accept people for who they are. They are concerned at restrictive cultural practices and attitudes regarding women but they often don't air these views for fear of causing offence. The left is also quietly miffed at immigrants' views on homosexuality.
The right is afraid of immigrants with their strange dresses, funny food and weird culture. It wants immigrants to be like them - have Anglo-Saxon blood, celebrate St George's Day and collect plates with portraits of the Royal Family. But then colour gets in the way. Most people on the right however are willing to forgive colour if immigrants behave like good former British subjects should.
So, that's the stereotyping out of the way. Now to explain how it all relates.
Liberal Muslims' view that Muslims should put aside their religious and cultural baggage appeals to the right. The right doesn't have to make concessions to Muslims and their un-British view of the world because Muslims will engage as blank slates ready to be painted red, white and blue (and grey) by whatever the editorial in the Daily Mail demands.
The left on the other hand is willing to campaign alongside Muslims because they have a shared dislike of America and both want to get rid of dictators in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the younger generation of British MB/JeI Muslims are asking themselves questions which cannot be answered by the writings of Maududi and Qutb - like how do I deal with the gay guy at the office? For answers to questions like these fellow marchers on the left are only too willing to help their oppressed brethren open their minds.
There are other complicating factors of course. But essentially the take home message is that Muslims are merely pawns in a bigger game being fought out by people who eat Muesli whilst reading the Guardian and people who eat Quaker Oats whilst grunting over the Daily Mail.
Now to take a shower.
This is a rebuttal of the above Nick Cohen article:
- Fact-checking Nick Cohen