Islamaphobia

If this onslaught was about Jews, I would be looking for my passport
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday October 18, 2006
The Guardian
http://www.guardian .co.uk/comment/ story/0,, 1924677,00. html

Politicians and media have turned a debate about integration into an ugly
drumbeat of hysteria against British Muslims

I've been trying to imagine what it must be like to be a Muslim in Britain.
I guess there's a sense of dread about switching on the radio or television,
even about walking into a newsagents. What will they be saying about us
today? Will we be under assault for the way we dress? Or the schools we go
to, or the mosques we build? Who will be on the front page: a terror
suspect, a woman in a veil or, the best of both worlds, a veiled terror
suspect.

Don't laugh. Last week the Times splashed on "Suspect in terror hunt used
veil to evade arrest". That sat alongside yesterday's lead in the Daily
Express: "Veil should be banned say 98%". Nearly all those who rang the
Express agreed that "a restriction would help to safeguard racial harmony
and improve communication" . At the weekend the Sunday Telegraph led on
"Tories accuse Muslims of 'creating apartheid by shutting themselves off' ".

That's how it's been almost every day since Jack Straw raised the matter of
the veil nearly two weeks ago. Even before, Muslims could barely open a
paper without seeing themselves on the front of it. David Cameron's speech
to the Tories a week earlier was trailed in advance as an appeal for Muslims
to open up their single-faith schools: "Ban Muslim ghettos" was one
headline.

Taken alone, each one of these topics could be the topic of a thoughtful,
nuanced debate. The veil, for example, has found feminists among both its
champions and critics, proving that it's no straightforward matter. There
should be nothing automatically anti-Muslim about raising the subject, not
least since many Muslim women question the niqab themselves.

Similarly, Ruth Kelly was hardly out of line in suggesting, as she did last
week, that the government needs to be careful about which Muslim groups it
funds and with whom it engages, ensuring it leans towards those who are
actively "tackling extremism". Other things being equal, that was a
perfectly sensible thing to say.

Except other things are not equal. Each one of these perfectly rational
subjects, taken together, has created a perfectly irrational mood: a kind of
drumbeat of hysteria in which both politicians and media have turned again
and again on a single, small minority, first prodding them, then pounding
them as if they represented the single biggest problem in national life.

The result is turning ugly and has, predictably, spilled on to the streets.
Muslim organisations report a surge in physical and verbal attacks on
Muslims; women have had their head coverings removed by force. A mosque in
Falkirk was firebombed while another in Preston was attacked by a gang
throwing bricks and concrete blocks.

Of course, such violence would be condemned by any politician asked about
it. But a climate is developing here and every time a politician raises a
question that would, on its own and in the quiet of the seminar room, be
legitimate for debate, they are adding to it. They should feel shame for
their reckless spraying of petrol on a growing blaze. Instead they applaud
themselves, and are applauded in the press, for their bravery in daring to
say what needs to be said.

In fact, the courageous politician would refuse to join this open season on
Muslims and seek to cool things down - beginning with an explanation of how
we got here. The elements include many of those that feature in any build-up
of hostility to a single, derided group, here or across the world.

The foundation is fear. Many Britons have since 9/11, and especially since
July 7, come to fear their Muslim neighbours: they worry that the young man
next to them on the train might have more than an extra sweater in his
backpack. Next comes ignorance, a simple lack of knowledge about Muslim life
which leaves non-Muslims open to all kinds of misconceptions. That feeds
into a simple discomfort, personified, in its most extreme form, by a woman
whose face we cannot see.

What's more, the set of issues that Islam raises for Britain are ones that
do not break down on the usual ideological lines, allowing liberals and
traditional anti-racists reflexively to line up alongside Muslims. The veil,
and the queasiness it stirs in many feminists, is one example. Faith schools
are another, prompting the ardent secularist to feel a sympathy for the
government position that ordinarily would come more slowly. The result is
that the Muslim community finds itself suddenly friendless. When it came to
opposing the war in Iraq, British Muslims had no shortage of allies, but
they face the latest bombardment virtually alone.

Muslims are not entirely passive in this drama. For one thing, the tiny
handful of Islamist groups such as al-Ghurabaa or the Saviour Sect tend to
confirm the wildest prejudices of those who fear Islam: they glorify those
who kill civilians, they show contempt for democracy and declare that, yes,
they are indeed determined to transform Britain into an Islamic state. Every
time they open their mouths, life for Muslims in Britain gets harder. (Which
is why the Today programme had no business giving over the prestigious
8.10am slot to Omar Brooks, whose sole qualification was his heckling of
John Reid the previous day.)

The majority of British Muslims could have done themselves a favour if they
had found a way to show just how unrepresentative Brooks and his ilk are.
How powerful it would have been if, after 7/7, hundreds of thousands of
British Muslims had taken to the streets to repudiate utterly the four
bombers who had killed in the name of Islam. The model might have been the
2000 Basque march in Bilbao in protest against ETA violence. Or perhaps the
1992 funeral of an assassinated anti-mafia judge in Palermo, which turned
into a rally of Sicilians against the crime organisation. The slogan for the
British Muslim equivalent would have been obvious: Not in our name.

But Muslims would be right to reply that they should be under no more
obligation to distance themselves from the 7/7 bombers than Britain's Irish
community were expected to denounce the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s. And
this, too, is a prime task for politicians and media alike - to distinguish
between radical, violent Islamism and mainstream British Islam. Too often,
the line between the two gets blurred, lazily and casually. Helpfully, the
1990 Trust yesterday published a survey which deserves wide dissemination.
They found that the number of Muslims who believed acts of terrorism against
civilians in the UK were justified was between 1% and 2%. Not good, but less
than the 20% or higher found by some newspaper polls. The trust reckons
those earlier polls asked a loaded question - and got a highly charged
answer.

Politicians and media need to be similarly careful when discussing
multiculturalism, refusing to play to those who believe it means a licence
to secession and Balkanisation. It doesn't. Multiculturalism means allowing
every group its own distinct identity and, at the same time, seeking an
integrated Britishness we all share. Tony Blair was correct yesterday to say
that the goal, never easy, is "getting the balance right".

Right now, we're getting it badly wrong - bombarding Muslims with pressure
and prejudice, laying one social problem after another at their door. I try
to imagine how I would feel if this rainstorm of headlines substituted the
word "Jew" for "Muslim": Jews creating apartheid, Jews whose strange customs
and costume should be banned. I wouldn't just feel frightened. I would be
looking for my passport.

freedland@guardian. co.uk

As a english born muslim I dread opening my papers or reading the news for what they are saying about us. I do not recognise half of what they are saying . I do not deny that we have problems in our community like any other community but do not tar us all with the same brush. Most muslims I know are intergretated into the community .

As for the Nirab (issue) very few women actually wear it and it is not an requirement of Islam that one should wear it . I do not wear it and I beleive that if sisters want to wear it is their choice; but I beleive that in some areas it would have the opposite effect and would draw attention to you .