Disengage if the engagement is one-sided.
For all the talk of multi-culturalism and social inclusion, let’s face it - we’re excluded. We can organise our communities as we wish at local level; we can aspire to and even obtain high positions in public life and we can be honoured and knighted with the best of them. We can even be the Muslim name in lower echelons of Government plagiarising documents to prove a false case for war or arguing that there is a legal basis to launch a military blitz. But when it comes to down to brass tacks and our aspirations that the evolving nature of British society should be reflected in definitions of national interest and foreign policy, we are as far away as seeing this become reality as Britain’s case for its attack on Iraq is legal. The interview with Home Secretary David Blunkett, seen in the context of the House of Commons debate reflects this. The UK’s Terrorism 2000 Act defines Terrorism as ‘the use (by Muslims) of threat for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, of action which involves serious violence against a person or serious damage to property…’ OK, so there aren’t the words ‘by Muslims’ in parenthesis in the actual Act, but from what Home Secretary David Blunkett says they might as well be. Whilst he gives lip service to the notion that the Act is not directed at any particular faith, the fact that he has failed to act to proscribe Hindu and Jewish groups, which support terrorism, demonstrates this (unless he proves otherwise). Instead there is ‘an understanding’, dare one say world-wide, that groups that ‘threaten and/or commit violence in pursuit of political, religious or ideological causes’ that are other than Muslim, are merely ‘dissident’, ‘separatist’ or ‘militant’, but never ‘terrorist’. The terminology ‘terrorist’ is to be used and applied solely to Muslims whether they are actually anti-imperialist freedom fighters or resistance movements such as those operating in Chechnya, Kashmir or Palestine or elsewhere. This anomaly, along with the racist application of foreign policy - contrast the treatment of Karadzic/Milosevic with that of Saddam Hussain, or the unimplemented or enforced resolutions against Israel - shows that at its base, Britain’s national interest is implicitly racist and Islamophobic. The interview with David Blunkett is also disappointing because he indicates but little remorse on the way in which police raids on mosques were carried out. The sanctity of mosques have been violated in ways which have never been countenanced where churches are concerned. Though he, as good as admitted, that the West Midlands mosque raid to deport the Ahmadi family was mishandled by the Police, there is no indication that these matters will be conducted any better in the future. It is up to Muslim leaders to lobby and challenge the Government and their Police Authority contacts to ensure that they act with greater sensitivity to the Muslim Community - whether it is in relation to individual suspects or institutions or organisations. They need to be prepared to use some sort of sanction, such as disengagement if the engagement continues to be proved one-sided. More positively, Blunkett conceded that there is a problem over the way in which the Bradford ‘rioters’ were treated in terms of sentences which were not only harsh in themselves but also in comparison with those committed by white rioters in similar circumstances. It was refreshing to hear him say that he could not defend variations and variability in sentencing, but he does not say what he would do to iron out any institutional Islamophobia in the criminal justice system. Again, there is a role here for Muslim leaders and legal monitoring bodies to initiate discussion on these matters. There is also a need to get our act together to ensure there is legislation to end religious discrimination and incitement to religious hatred, both of which Blunkett is ready to legislate against- something needed in these times more than others.
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