Salaam
Another update
A good news story
Just to reaffirm
Oh and this
Printable View
Salaam
Another update
A good news story
Just to reaffirm
Oh and this
Salaam
Another update, this man could become Prime Minister of the UK.
Hah
More on prevent, this time in the USA.
Salaam
Another update
A Shared Future’ report ignores state failures and panders to counter-terrorism sector
The report’s uncritical appraisal of PREVENT and its unwillingness to challenge the prevailing views on counter-terrorism fatally undermines its credibility.
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) released its report ‘A Shared Future: Preventing hateful extremism and promoting social cohesion commission’ last week. The aims of the report included, among others, developing a response to “hateful extremism”.
The authors of the report develop their own definition of “hateful extremism”, by connecting the Manchester Arena bombing and the subsequent spike in “hate crimes”. For them, both are polar opposites on a continuum. They both threaten social cohesion and they must therefore be dealt with in the same way.
What this does, however, is ignore the specific causes and political developments that have led to both.
In the context of Manchester, the report evades questions that have emerged regarding British intelligence’s role and relationship with bomber Salman Abedi. In the context of “hate crime” the reports ignores the role that the state has had in enabling a far-right resurgence, of which ‘hate crime’ spikes are a symptom. Instead the report uses this pretext as an opportunity to further entrench counter-extremism apparatus and divert attention away from government failings.
Calls for public funding are valid but misplaced
The report raises pertinent issues about the importance of increasing public funding for services in society. But it takes the damaging decision to articulate these demands for investment through the lens of combating ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’.
This process – withdrawing public funds under austerity measures and bringing them back in under the guise of counter-extremism – has been a defining feature of PREVENT since 2011. It is the means through which the government has widened the scope of surveillance. In taking the politically comfortable option of appealing to the sensibilities of counter-terrorism to make their demands, the report writers legitimise the framework of securitisation from which PREVENT stems, and which has undermined society and civil liberties.
This is aided further by the conflations between ‘hate crime’, ‘extremism’ and ‘social cohesion’ that underpin the report.
As such, the report comes across like a business case pitched haphazardly to the counter-extremism industry.
Safeguarding is used to legitimise PREVENT, when it is everything but this
More damningly, the report unquestioningly accepts the notion that PREVENT is a tool of ‘safeguarding’, lends support to its expansion. To justify this, the authors include a number of case studies that are presented as ‘successful’ instances of PREVENT intervention. It is at this point that the report descends into a favourable PR exercise, taking pains to defend the programme.
It also dismisses concerns about it as simply malicious misinformation.
The pernicious myth that PREVENT is safeguarding is little more than state propaganda that masks its inherently coercive nature. Safeguarding processes long preceded PREVENT and, tellingly, it was not marketed as such for the first decade of its existence. The rebranding of PREVENT as safeguarding has served to justify its targeting of children, which has skyrocketed since the introduction of the statutory Prevent duty in 2015.
CAGE has recorded a number of cases of such interventions and the extremely traumatising ward of court family proceedings resulting from them.
Social services should have acted, rather than cases being handed over to PREVENT
The attached case studies included in the report speak more to the erosion of front-line social services than the success of PREVENT. Rather than attribute these cases to any ‘success’ of PREVENT, they should have warranted the intervention of social service in the first place rather than the full gamut of the counter-terrorism apparatus.
Driven by an unclear mix of rationales, sloppy theoretical underpinnings and at-times questionable methodology, the Shared Future report outlines the clear limitations of mainstream responses to PREVENT and counter-extremism.
Any robust and critical approach must begin from the understanding that PREVENT has, by design and in execution, planted the roots of securitisation deep in society through its most crucial sectors – social services, health and education. As a result it has had a deeply detrimental effect on those targeted, and the the fabric of society.
The authors, most importantly, should engage those negatively impacted by PREVENT in good faith. It should listen to their criticisms, not hold them in contempt as either ignorant individuals or, worse, purveyors of deception.
https://www.cage.ngo/a-shared-future-report-ignores-state-failures-and-panders-to-counter-terrorism-sector
Salaam
This is clever, check out the new hasbra strategy from the Guardian, normalising the settler state among many other things.
The Islamic school that ensures its boys understand the Israeli point of view
The private Abrar Academy is pioneering a groundbreaking method of teaching the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict
More than 550,000 students took GCSE history this summer, says Michael Davies, a history teacher at Lancaster Royal Grammar, a selective state boys’ school in Lancashire. “Of those, only 2,200 had studied Israel and Palestine. In comparison, 70,000 had studied the history of the American West.”
At Abrar Academy, a private Muslim boys’ school based in a former Methodist church in Preston, this year’s GCSE cohort did not take the Israel/Palestine option. Like so many schools of all dominations, they studied the first world war instead.
It’s not that the boys aren’t interested, says Suhayl Hafiz, curriculum manager, during the eerily quiet lunch break: “Palestine is the third holiest site in Islam, and the conflict is something all the boys have heard about, whether at the mosque or at home or in school.”
It was their history teacher’s decision, he says, as a group of boys in long white tunics play barefoot football downstairs where the pews used to be. “They weren’t really confident at that time.” It’s something Davies has often heard: “Teachers are scared of it. It’s a hot potato. They are worried about upsetting parents or the kids saying something which will be reported to the authorities, and so they teach the Tudors instead.”
Yet towards the end of Abrar’s summer term, Hafiz accepted an offer from Davies to teach a class on one of the most divisive conflicts in the modern world. It was a big moment for Davies, who has set up a project called Parallel Histories, which teaches Israel/Palestine from both sides rather than “twisting competing perspectives into a single, compromised narrative”.
In June he organised an event at the House of Lords to discuss why so few schools dare to teach this difficult and often very emotional topic. None of the 20 or so Muslim schools he invited came. A few Jewish institutions did, encouraged by Samantha Benson, director of education at the Partnership for Jewish Schools.
It was disappointing but not a surprise. “Muslim schools are acutely aware of the potential for bad publicity after the Trojan Horse affair,” says Davies, referring to a scandal in some Birmingham schools in 2013 and 2014 when hardline Muslims were accused of conspiring to take over local schools and running them according to strict Islamic principles.
“The downside of tackling Israel and Palestine in front of outsiders is obvious – Muslim students care passionately about it and the story of Palestinian oppression feeds into a broader narrative of Muslims as victims of western aggression, and that’s not an area where most teachers want to go with observers in the classroom,” says Davies.
At the Abrar academy, a warning bell sounds out across the school. It is still the middle of a lesson but the bell tells the boys that they have 15 minutes before their afternoon prayer. At the anointed time, they will kneel down in neat rows and press their skullcap-clad heads to the ground in worship before it is time for the last secular class of the day. Afternoons are devoted to secular studies; the morning is set aside for Islamic study: Qur’anic recitation and translation, Arabic lessons and Islamic theology. In 2016, Ofsted found the school “requires improvement”, saying teaching in secular subjects did not help pupils to learn as well as in Islamic lessons.
Around 120 boys aged 11 to 21 study at Abrar, which was set up in 2009 by Hadhrat Shaikh Maulana Fazlehaq Wadee, a scholar of the Deobandi strand of Sunni Islam. Day pupils pay £1,300 a year – boarders £2,500 (Lancaster Royal Grammar charges £11,181 per year for boarders, considered to be at the bargain basement end of the market).
Although the Deobandis have a reputation for hardline puritanism (the Taliban are its most notorious proponents), the teaching at Abrar is quite liberal, insists Hafiz, an alumnus of a Preston state school. “We think of ourselves as British so we are quite liberal in that sense.” He points to link projects with nearby Lowton high school, including a visit by their pupils who tried on Islamic dress and experienced Muslim education for a day.
People make the wrong assumptions about us, says a 15-year-old boarder from Newcastle. “My parents wanted me to go to a secular school but it was me that pushed to come here.” Some of the boys change into jeans and T-shirts as soon as school is out: others prefer Islamic dress seven days a week. A good proportion of the boys aspire to be an imam or a Muslim scholar, perhaps after pursing a secular degree.
All of Abrar’s teachers are male and when female students visit the school and take extracurricular lessons on the balcony, they are shielded by fabric and room dividers. Nonetheless the boys do not seem fazed by the arrival of a blond female reporter with bare arms and uncovered hair, and are curious about the Guardian’s interest in their school.
Davies is excited about the lesson he has planned on the Balfour declaration, a hotly contested document signed by the British in 1917 which promised the land of Palestine to the Zionist Federation, a recently established political movement whose goal was the creation of a Jewish state.
The boys, aged 14 to 19, have already been split into two groups to prepare for a debate. Half were disappointed to be told they must argue that the British should be praised for the declaration – an opinion held by very few Muslims.
Two boys are appointed judges and mark their classmates on content and presentation, totting up the scores to declare the Palestinian side winners, though only by a whisker.
Abdul, 15, on the Israel team, says his side had to work harder: “I told the team, swallow your pride, just do it. Even after hours and hours of research we thought Palestine had a stronger argument, so to find an argument for Israel and the Jews to have this thing was really difficult.
“But we did find it, we found small things to pick out and expand on, and we were very close to actually winning. I was more on the other side but now I’ve got a bit more understanding and think Israel does have a point. In this school especially we are trying to become Muslim scholars but we have to go out there and we need to be aware of what’s going on – this is Britain, we need to understand British values. All of this will help us understand tolerance, etc. If we are biased to one opinion by ignorance then it’s not fair. No matter if they are Jews or whatever, they are still human. We have to respect them.”
Earlier this year, Davies split his Lancaster Grammar students into two groups. One was taught the Israeli view, the other the Palestinian. Afterwards, they were surveyed on the Balfour declaration and if the British should have signed it. Their answers were influenced by what they had been taught. Almost 60% of those taught the Jewish side said the British should be praised, while almost 50% of those taught the Palestinian narrative said the British should be criticised.
After the Abrar lesson, just two boys say that they still believe Israel does not have a right to exist.
“Obviously you have to look at it with a sympathetic view when you are dealing with the Jewish part of things because they came out of the holocaust and needed a land of their own and Palestine did have a bit of space,” says Mohammed, 19.
“But what makes me say that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist is the fundamentals of what it was built on and how they deal with Palestine right now.”
Davies asks if he would distinguish between “right to exist” and “be heavily criticised”. “I wouldn’t say it should be eliminated right now but the basis on which Israel was built was wrong,” says the boy. “I don’t think it should be removed now that it exists.”
https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...stine-conflict
Salaam
Another update
Hah!
More seriously this is disturbing.
Pressure on British Muslim parents to counter extremism is damaging
Pressure on British Muslim parents to counter extremism in their own families is having a detrimental effect, according to new research by Manchester academic Madeline-Sophie Abbas.
Young Muslims have come under intense public scrutiny due to their perceived vulnerability to radicalisation. The Prevent counter-terrorism strategy has placed increased responsibility on parents to police their children, including removing their passports if suspected of travelling to join IS.
The security agenda has also crept into Muslim households through government-sponsored initiatives such as Families Against Stress and Trauma (FAST) and the #MakingAStand campaign, which work with Muslim women - particularly mothers - to counter terrorist recruitment.
The role of Muslim families in countering radicalisation is a pressing policy concern, but the new study has found that there is a failure to address the detrimental effects that such measures have on Muslim family relations as well as broader relations between Muslim families and the state, and the non-Muslim community in Britain. It demonstrates the need to understand how counter-terrorism measures pervade all Muslim families and communities - not just those under official suspicion.
“My research is motivated by my personal background, as someone of Iraqi and Muslim heritage on my father’s side,” said Madeline. “I decided to embark on the research because of the significant focus placed on British Muslims as ‘suspect’, in order to examine the potentially detrimental impact that these representations have had on communities and families.”
As well as conducting interviews with Muslims in West Yorkshire, Madeline joined local community organisations and attended events in order to make connections and to understand the situation in greater detail. She discovered that government and media debates about countering extremism within the Muslim community caused tensions within families, with fears about their children being targeted by the state, leading to them worry when they wear Islamic clothing or grow beards.
It is important to note that adopting Islamic markers does not mean that Islamic principles are being followed or that Muslims embracing Islamic dress or the beard are extremists. By viewing behaviour typical of young people as they discover themselves through the lens of extremism, Muslim parents risk perpetuating conceptions of young Muslims’ vulnerability to being radicalised.
Madeline-Sophie Abbas
Counter-extremism policy is currently based on the demonstration of British values. For example, the current definition of extremism is ‘vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’. This means that restrictions are placed on young Muslims to perform their Islamic identities without fear of being labelled as extremist. Within the family sphere, Muslim parents fear talking to their children about terrorism in case they are referred under Prevent.
“The scope for young Muslims to discuss their beliefs has closed down, and thus the spaces in which counter-extremist narratives can be engaged with are also impacted. Policy that is sensitive to a range of Islamic identities is required to enable young Muslims to feel that they are not suspect but instead, have equal rights to belong in Britain.”
"I grew a beard and my dad flipped out!’ Co-option of British Muslim parents in countering extremism within their families in Bradford and Leeds" by Madeline-Sophie Abbas is published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (University of Manchester, Department of Sociology).
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discove...uslim-parents/
Salaam
The people who run 'anti extremism' bodies themselves peddle 'extremism'.
More on the Niqaab
Salaam
An alternative view, He's downplays the prejudice Muslims receive, and downplays the weaponisation of antisemitism but he's one the right lines regarding the marginalisation of Christianity. Thought provoking article nevertheless.
Forget burkas - Christianity's the faith that is really under siege
How we love fretting about the wrong thing. While the country convulses itself about Islamic face veils, a truly disturbing event, affecting our freedom and our future, goes almost unobserved.
This is the creepy and totalitarian treatment of a Christian nurse, Sarah Kuteh, sacked from an NHS hospital for daring to suggest that a patient she was treating might like to go to church and (horror of horrors) ‘inappropriately gave a Bible to a patient’.
The good news is that Ms Kuteh, whose abilities as a nurse have never once been questioned, has now been allowed back to work by the political commissars who increasingly control our country. But the price of this is a humiliating process of self- criticism, of the sort once usual in communist states. Typically, the whole thing is conducted in a hideous mangled form of English which makes a supermarket checkout robot sound like Shakespeare.
To regain the favour of the commissars, she has had to write a ‘reflective’ screed in which she ‘incorporated your obligations in relation to having clear professional boundaries and not expressing your personal beliefs in an inappropriate way’ and ‘set out the steps you have taken to address the deficiencies highlighted in your practice. You have addressed how you would act differently in the future.’ In other words, she has confessed her thought-crime and promised not to repeat it.
Well, that is modern Britain, a slimy, squelchy totalitarian state in which unemployment, rather than the gulag, is used to threaten people into conformism and force them to keep their deepest, beloved beliefs a personal secret while they are on state premises.
How absurd. Christianity is pretty much the origin of modern nursing. I am glad my beloved Aunt Ena, a nurse of extraordinary courage and devotion, and an exemplary Christian in thought, word and deed, did not live to see this era.
But the cultural revolution has a special loathing for Christianity, perhaps precisely because it was until so recently the idea which ruled all our hearts.
And I doubt the same horrible process would have been imposed on a nurse who suggested her patients attended a mosque, or gave them a copy of the Koran. For while the British State loathes Christianity, it fears Islam. So do lots of other people.
It is this fear that has driven much of the stupid frenzy which followed Alexander ‘Boris’ Johnson’s not especially funny or original remarks about niqabs, burkas and letterboxes.
Here’s a simple point about both these great religions. If you don’t believe in them, and to some extent even if you do, both faiths are a set of political and social opinions, chosen by those who hold them.
People are quite entitled to disagree with and mock them, as they would with any other manifesto and party. I’m against personal rudeness and deliberate offence, such as the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. But I’m all in favour of reasoned criticism, and some humour, and I’m weary of foolish people calling this ‘Islamophobia’ as if it was some sort of disease.
Being critical of Islam is not the same thing as the Judophobia which is such a big issue in the Labour Party. Judophobes dislike Jews for being who they unalterably are, not because of what they happen to think at the moment.
For example, the Nazis murdered the distinguished German Christian theologian and Roman Catholic nun, Edith Stein, because she had Jewish ancestors. They went to some trouble to hunt her down in her Dutch convent and drag her to Auschwitz so they could kill her. That’s a phobia in action.
As it happens, I have quite a lot of sympathy with some bits of Islam. On a visit to Iran I was much impressed by a beautiful and highly intelligent young woman, a schoolteacher, who made out a powerful case for modesty in dress, and clearly had not been forced by her husband (very much her equal) into the night-black robes she wore.
I’ve come across similar views in Turkey and Egypt. Forced veiling is another matter, but I cannot see that state bans or public jeering are going to make much difference to that.
We have Muslim fellow-citizens among us, for good or ill. They are our neighbours. We’re going to have to work out a civilised relationship, in which we can talk frankly to each other. I’ve never found any of them upset by serious argument. Many are saddened by much of what they see around them. So am I. Many wish this country was more Christian. So do I.
One of the supreme achievements of a free civilisation is the ability to disagree without hating your opponent. We need to relearn it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6050819/PETER-HITCHENS-Forget-burkas-Christianitys-faith-really-siege.html
Salaam
Ah seems the powers that be want to create more 'moderate' Muslims.
The Home Affairs Department is behind a clandestine scheme to recruit ‘Good Muslims’ to promote a uniform government line within their communities. By Shakira Hussein.
Dutton’s secret propaganda unit
The email from Mustafa was friendly, cheerful and littered with signifiers of our shared Muslim identity.
Opening with “Salam Alukum Shakira”, Mustafa introduced himself as the influence manager at Breakthrough Media, “a communications agency that prides itself on telling great stories to help address complex social issues”. Breakthrough, he told me, was planning to hold a Twitter training initiative in Sydney for “a diverse group of Australians, in particular Australian Muslims”.
This event was “based on requests from members of the Australian Muslim community, who have advised us that a program that builds up the capacity of emerging and established leaders, especially on a platform such as Twitter, is a necessity in today’s political climate”. Given my “excellent academic background” and Twitter profile – “I’m one of your many Twitter followers hehe” – I was regarded as a “perfect fit” for this initiative. And not to worry, Breakthrough would pay for my flights from Melbourne.
At first glance, Mustafa’s invitation sounded routine enough. However, Breakthrough Media is far from a routine presence on the landscape of Muslim community politics in Australia. The communications company’s relationship with the British Home Office has been the subject of lengthy investigative reports in The Guardian and by the advocacy organisation Cage, but its Australian branch has attracted little scrutiny since it was established in 2016.
In deflecting attention away from critical voices and towards a supposed consensus of contentment, it serves a clear propaganda purpose.
In Britain, The Guardian’s 2016 report noted that the Home Office used Breakthrough Media to “promote a reconciled British Muslim identity” while keeping its involvement hidden, as “any content or messaging attributed to the state are highly unlikely to have any credibility among these audiences”. The work was described as a series of “clandestine propaganda campaigns”. Young Muslims were commissioned to run a government line, without ever knowing it was the government commissioning them.
My invitation to Breakthrough Media’s Twitter training event did not disclose any similar relationship with the Australian government. However, concealed in the eight-page registration survey Mustafa asked me to fill in, among the questions about dietary requirements and social media use, was a line saying the project was “a partnership between State and Federal governments, the Australian government’s Department of Home Affairs and the Office of the eSafety Commissioner”. Deep in the forms, it noted that the Countering Violent Extremism Sub-Committee, under the Australian New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee, “funds this project”.
The survey asked respondents to confirm we were prepared to meet a list of expectations for participants in the “Voice Accelerator Workshop”, including that we were willing to be active on Twitter and attend the workshop, that we were “willing to assess opportunities, supported by Breakthrough, to participate in online discussions that align with your interests”, and that we share “the values of the project, which are: Courage, Participation, Diversity, Respect, Connection, Expression, Accuracy”. It asked that we “respect Breakthrough’s need to be politically neutral, while we respect everyone’s right to express their political opinion”. Wondering whether anyone would actually self-identify as being opposed to motherhood values such as courage and respect, I ticked “yes”.
A few weeks later, I arrived at a harbour-side conference venue in Woolloomooloo. The 30-odd participants were seated at designated tables of four or five as Mustafa – a young man, smartly dressed in a suit and tie – introduced himself as our MC. He told us that others in the room included Muslim and non-Muslim sportspeople, academics and people who worked in the business and tech sectors, from Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney – all potential positive influencers. Mustafa was “a bit of an influencer” having built up a large Twitter following, posting about his favourite football team. He loved football, pasta, curry and sunsets on the beach. All food served on the day would of course be halal and prayer space was available.
The overall theme of the day was that “divisive commentators” were having a negative effect on Australian society, that Muslims were bearing the brunt of this, and that it was important for voices like “ours” to be heard. With no mention of the fact the government funded this program, we were informed: “We know that Muslim communities are often the most overlooked or misrepresented in the online space. Governments alone cannot redirect these narratives, but they can support those who do so.”
I recognised several familiar faces among the participants – Muslim academics, postgraduate students and community leaders. I was seated at a table with a middle-aged male Muslim academic and a young Muslim man wearing a football jersey. We had been told that we might be photographed or filmed at the workshop, and photographers and camera crews were discreetly visible in the background.
In itself, most of the content presented at the workshop would not have been contentious for most Muslims living in Australia. Aside from a session from the adviser to the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, the various presentations were led by external private providers and were probably similar to those provided to their corporate clients on media diversity, Twitter training, and resilience training. Yet I was left feeling deeply concerned by the workshop and by Breakthrough’s shadowy role in Australian public discourse.
Just as the disclosure about the workshop’s funding had been hidden deep in the pre-workshop survey, we were also fleetingly told that “a representative of the federal government” was attending the workshop, without being told the name of the department concerned. After directly asking Breakthrough staff for more information, I was told that the representative – Fiona Crawford of the Department of Home Affairs – would be happy to answer my questions. Crawford is a former executive producer for ABC News, a former Liberal National Party staffer in Peter Dutton’s home state of Queensland and an unsuccessful LNP Queensland Senate candidate in the 2016 federal election. Her presence at the Voice Accelerator workshop and her background in media made me wonder just how closely Dutton’s Home Affairs department was working with Breakthrough in shaping its “positive social impact through communications”.
Breakthrough’s work in both Australia and Britain forms part of the campaign to “counter violent extremism” – a contentious strategy that seeks to enlist community organisations, educational institutions, service providers and individuals in promoting a model of good citizenship to Muslims and isolating not only those individuals and organisations who are suspected of undertaking a criminal offence, but also those who are regarded as “at risk” of radicalisation and whose ideology is seen as aligning with extremism.
One of Breakthrough’s most visible Australian projects is the social media channel RAPT. RAPT describes itself as “a social news channel that explores, discovers and celebrates the stories of young Australians from mainstream and multicultural communities”. The channel is produced by Breakthrough Media and says it “is built on successful partnerships between the Australian government, communities, civil society groups and individuals, taking a grassroots approach in assisting people to tell their stories, celebrate their achievements, and speak out against violence”.
I realised when researching Breakthrough that several videos and memes from RAPT had appeared in my Facebook feed after being shared by friends who almost certainly were unaware of any connection to the Home Affairs Department. The content is lighthearted and feel-good and does not have any obvious political agenda. And yet in deflecting attention away from critical voices and towards a supposed consensus of contentment, it serves a clear propaganda purpose.
One video features Yassmin Abdel-Magied talking about how to combat unconscious bias and “hustle a job”. It was made shortly before her appearance on ABC TV’s Q&A and the Anzac Day tweet that made her, in her own words, “the most hated Muslim in Australia”. Abdel-Magied confirms that Breakthrough approached her to produce the video but did not disclose its relationship with government.
“They initially emailed and as they’d been given my name through someone I knew, I thought there was no harm in getting involved,” she told me. “I didn’t know that they were funded by government at all actually – they simply said they were ‘a social news channel that celebrates the diversity of the next generations of Australians and has a particular focus on strengthening the ties between Muslim and non-Muslim Australians’.
“I was intrigued, but didn’t ask too many questions … They seemed nice, a bit vague about how they’d started or who they were, but seemed to have good intentions, which gave me some level of comfort. I don’t recall someone from government being there – at least, there was no one introduced like that.”
Mustafa closed the day by telling us we could drop our lanyards into a bucket, to signal that we were willing to accept weekly packages of information in our various areas of interest. These areas were broken down as news and current affairs, sport, arts and culture, science and technology. The idea was that we would share this weekly information on social media and help to push out positive messages. Those messages, I now understand, would be the government line for Muslims. The ’80s power anthem “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” blasted through the speakers as we were sent out into the world to make our voices heard – or rather, to make Breakthrough’s voice heard.
I chose “news and current affairs” as the topic for my information package. The first two weeks of content were remarkably apolitical. The focus of the first package was Ramadan, with a series of tweets from Muslims around the world, followed by a package on the British royal wedding and then a notification of the pending appearance by Randa Abdel-Fattah on that week’s episode of Q&A – which, we were reminded, was an important time of the week for any aspiring “influencers” to be online. The list of likely topics for discussion did not mention the United States embassy’s move to Jerusalem or the killing of Palestinian protesters in Gaza.
The workshop participants were repeatedly assured that our participation was voluntary, that we could withdraw at any point, and that we were under no obligation to share material unless we thought that it was worth endorsing. These reassurances seemed odd. It would not have occurred to me that I was under any obligation to share content from an organisation that was not employing me and with whom I had never had any contractual relationship.
Of course, sharing this content is the point. As in Britain, Peter Dutton’s department is hoping to shape a unified voice for Good Muslims. This unified voice is propaganda.
The Department of Home Affairs did not respond to The Saturday Paper’s questions about Breakthrough or the risk that concealing this contract poses to relations between the government and the Muslim community. A spokeswoman for the department offered a question rather than an answer: “When’s your absolute deadline?”
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2018/06/09/duttons-secret-propaganda-unit/15284664006349
Salaam
Another update
The story of British Pakistani men, told by a native informant
BBC's 'Lost Boys?' is a lazy reproduction of racist, culturally essentialist stereotypes approved by an 'insider'.
Two nights ago I found myself gripped by BBC Two's new, "Lost Boys? What's Going Wrong for Asian Men?" presented by Mehreen Baig. I was initially dubious that a one-hour documentary would be able to dissect the identity "Asian men" with much nuance, or to address them as multifaceted beings. I was also concerned about Mehreen's positionality as a presenter who gained her name through appearing in the reality show "Muslims Like Us", rather than for being an investigative journalist. But I was gripped because what I saw was much more disappointing than merely unnuanced or unrigorous, Lost Boys? was a lazy reproduction of racist, culturally essentialist stereotypes approved by an "insider".
The "Asian men" the documentary focused on were specifically those of the Kashmiri, or "Mirpuri", diaspora in Bradford. This is a diaspora which has been historically demonised in the British media, as my family, based in Bradford for fifty-five years, well know. From representations of the 1988 "Rushdie affair" which internationally portrayed Bradford's Pakistani men as militant, fundamentalist and "backwards", to the 2001 riots blamed on their gang mentality, and post-7/7 narratives around Yorkshire's so-called "parallel communities" being linked to terrorism, Pakistani men in Bradford are a demographic consistently disparaged and demonised. To my mind, documenting them for TV would require a sensitive approach taking account of the history and context of their lives. However, the production team behind Lost Boys? appear to have thought otherwise.
Indeed, the central problem with the documentary is that throughout an entire hour focused on a racialised, largely working-class, Muslim minority; questions of race, racism or class were never explicitly mentioned or interrogated in a structural way. Instead, a narrative was spun that approached the men as if they lived lives devoid of context. They were derided as "princelings" who were not business-minded enough to get very far in life - as contrasted with one random Gujerati family from Uganda who Mehreen has a pint with (proof they, as compared with the "Mirpuris", are better assimilated, by the way).
I sat, awestruck that this laughable narrative was framed as an explanation for the challenges in "Asian men's" lives. There was no comment on the effects of structural disadvantage and racism in the employment market, racism and being "written off" at school, or the deindustrialisation of Bradford which has harmed employment for multiple generations. There was no mention of austerity having removed social services and support from young people's lives. No hint that intergenerational cycles of poverty may play a role. In fact, there was no appreciation that to compare the Ugandan-Gujerati diaspora with the Mirpuri diaspora is to disingenuously homogenise "Asians" and make a false comparison.
Ugandan-Gujeratis largely migrated from different class backgrounds with more social capital than migrants from Kashmir who came to the UK specifically due to the colonial link and the metropole's calls for unskilled industrial labourers after the second world war. If this had been a rigorous investigation Swann Productions could have included these factors and further explored the fascinating pattern of resource divestment from young Pakistani boys since 2003 as part of the government's counterterrorism strategy which instead (bizarrely) funnelled money to Muslim/Asian girls (conflated in policy) on the assumption they were neglected. All of these factors were absent from the documentary in favour of an easy narrative of victim-blaming. In fact, Mehreen's reflections throughout the show insinuated that the solution to problems facing "Asian men" seemed to lie in making it down to the local pub more often and just thinking as if they had more social capital.
What is perhaps even more frustrating than this absurdly reductive analysis, is that the documentary was evidently made with a hypothesis to be proved, not tested. After I tweeted about my frustrations with the show I received responses from two separate men who informed me that they had been filmed extensively for the production - only to find out recently that they had been dropped because, as the producers told them, their lives reflected "what's going right", not "what's going wrong".
Salaam
Continued
These experiences reveal the human side of the selective narrative Lost Boys? presented. Far from being rigorous, it was an investigation presenting an argument, not findings. By erasing stories of financial success, educational attainment or defeating the structural odds, participants were disrespected and a selective story was told which is lazy at best, and exploitative at worst - bringing me to my final grievance.
The topic of how Mehreen conducted her investigation was the issue of most frustration to the hundreds who liked and retweeted my critique online. She distances herself as much as possible from other British-Pakistanis, particularly the working-class Mirpuris she finds in Bradford - whose terraced housing she incredulously comments on as "so close together" - positioning herself as someone with less proximity to the community she is investigating, and more to a middle-class, white voyeur.
This explains the often patronising anthropological tone she uses in the documentary which is reminiscent of ethnographers exploring "native" subjects 150 years ago. Crucially though, while occupying this "outsider" position makes her relatable to an audience with no personal experience of being Pakistani in Bradford, Mehreen simultaneously reaps the rewards of being an ethnic "insider". She gains the trust of participants and viewers because of this, making her findings - which reproduce racist, classist tropes vilifying Pakistani men - appear valid to a wider audience. In colonial times, people positioned in this way were known as "native informants" - used to validate the dehumanising views the coloniser already held. In this case, Mehreen's positionality helps bolster liberal racism and Islamophobic tropes about Pakistani men as lazy and uniquely misogynistic (she repeatedly asks whether the women in these men's lives cook for them to the point that one would assume non-Pakistani men in England must never benefit from patriarchal norms and women's domestic labour).
By the end of the show, it was not the boys who were lost, but me. I cannot fathom what the documentary achieved other than to consolidate racist, victim-blaming accounts of Pakistani men in Yorkshire. Such an outcome is not only disappointing but actually harmful since those very tropes are ones used to justify the maltreatment of Pakistani and Muslim men in the justice system, demonise them in the media, and even inform the "science" behind the government's radicalisation thesis which rests on culturalist assumptions that have been deemed barely valid by the psychologists who wrote the study themselves. And yet, it is the mass belief in tropes such as this documentary put out that keep the stigma, racism and Islamophobia, going.
This documentary should have been presented as the opinion piece of an uninformed outsider arriving to Bradford with only the knowledge of media tropes as reference. A rigorous insight would actually give the mic to "Asian boys" to speak on their own terms, accept contradictory viewpoints, investigate the context and history, and question the role of masculinity among young men more generally. But unfortunately, yet again, Bradford's boys have been spoken over, tokenised and disparaged in the name of giving a green light to white liberals that racism, cultural essentialism and stereotyping have been thumbed-up by an "insider".
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/story-british-pakistani-men-told-native-informant-180816085534623.html
Salaam
Another update on Tariq Ramadans situation.
More generally
Some humour
Some good news
Salaam
How predictable, British elites using the feminism as a trojan horse to influence, remake Muslim institutions, dictate how we can and cannot believe. Also note this article is saturated with liberal/feminists buzzwords.
Muslim women call for more equality in running UK mosques
Activists challenge lack of prayer spaces and exclusion from management roles
Muslim women in Scotland are campaigning to be given more equal facilities for praying and to be involved in running mosques.
Scottish Mosques For All was set up to highlight the importance of including women in decision-making. More than a quarter of mosques in the UK have no facilities for women and, in the remainder, access is often restricted and the space they are given inadequate.
The organisation said: “It is unfortunate that many mosques fail to provide basic access for Muslim women to use the facility to pray or the quality of the space can often be inadequate and not suitable. It is also unfortunate that many mosques have limited or no women present at mosque trustee or managerial level, either intentionally preventing women from taking up these roles or not sufficiently providing a welcoming atmosphere where women feel comfortable to get involved.”
It added: “The place and role of women in mosques is in real crisis in the UK and elsewhere and this status quo must change.”
In an online survey by Scottish Mosques For All, two-thirds of respondents said their mosque did not adequately cater for women, involve them in the management or make them feel welcome.
The campaign is asking women to tell them if their mosque has a women’s prayer area or creche, whether they have access to the imam and whether he speaks about issues of concern to women.
Many mosques in the UK and elsewhere encourage women to pray at home. Where women’s sections exist, they are often small, uninviting and accessed through back entrances. Mosques are traditionally seen as places where men gather for collective prayer and discussion.
There are growing calls from women to be included in mosques’ activity. Anita Nayyar, who launched Open My Mosque in February, told the online magazine Khouj Women: “My right as a religious minority is protected in the workplace, but how is my right as a woman protected when mosques are turning me away?
“We need bodies like the Charity Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission to challenge how these mosques govern their spaces. As British Muslims, the only way for us to move forward is a commitment to equal rights.”
In Bradford, the Muslim Women’s Council is raising funds for a mosque led and governed by women and “based on the principles of openness, inclusivity, social justice and sanctuary”. An audit of mosques in the city found that many had poor access for women and women were not represented on governing bodies.
The women’s mosque “will represent what is possible when the potential of girls and women is nurtured, rather than locked away,” the women’s council said.
Shaista Gohir, chair of the Muslim Women’s Network UK, said Muslim women were increasingly empowered and vocal. “There are still barriers within the community, but women have the confidence to say we want access. But pressure needs to grow,” she said. “They can dismiss a few voices but if it is consistent and regular, they’ll have no choice but to respond.”
The Charities Commission should be ensuring that mosques with charitable status were serving all of their community, and planning authorities should only give permission for new mosques to be built if they provided good quality space and access for women, she said.
In the US, the Muslim Women’s Alliance is campaigning for women to be given space and made welcome at mosques. The alliance aims “to empower Muslim women by helping them become leaders, make positive impacts in their communities and enhance their own lives”. It says its core values of integrity, generosity, compassion and leadership “are defined by our Islamic ideals … As individuals we have our own strengths but as a united sisters’ alliance, we are even stronger and more capable together.”
The first female-led mosque in Scandinavia opened in Copenhagen two years ago, with two female imams leading prayers. Sherin Khankan, one of the two, said she wanted “to challenge patriarchal structures within religious institutions and “patriarchal interpretations” of the Qur’an.
Scottish Mosques For All declined a request to be interviewed by the Observer, but a message on its Facebook page last week stressed that it aimed “to work together with mosques to highlight the excellent work they do and support them to improve in other areas, in particular facilities and services for women”.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...uality-mosques
Of course in a sane world the elites and its bootlickers could leave people alone to sort out their own problems, but we cant have that now can we?
The first female-led mosque in Scandinavia opened in Copenhagen two years ago, with two female imams leading prayers. Sherin Khankan, one of the two, said she wanted “to challenge patriarchal structures within religious institutions and “patriarchal interpretations” of the Qur’an.
Again good strategy pollute Islam with the cancer of feminism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-AHLibO2rQ
Interesting comment
stackedhippiechick
Traits possessed by men in greater percentage than women: dominance, independence, intelligence, rationale, analytical thinking Traits possessed by women in greater percentage than men: submissiveness, dependence, emotional nature, faster intuition, cooperative sharing
The idea of “gender equality” is a myth that has no scientific basis. Pushing for it is detrimental to both sexes because it minimizes their innate strengths and maximizes their weaknesses, decreasing their overall chances of reproduction, survival, and even happiness, especially in an environment that is constrained with resources.
Salaam
Another update on the Niqaab debate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHkqAir8vmY
Salaam
The dilemmas of being a liberal atheist. . . . . . .
Guardian columinst Polly Toynbee faced a dilemma as the row blew up over Boris Johnsons comments on Muslims womens dress: how could she indulge her long loathing of the Tory MP while maintaining her equally long standing dislike of religious garb?
'Are you for the niqab or for Boris Racism?' Thats a preposterous choice,' she thundered on 14 August, before a diatribe against the 'dehumanising' effects of the niqaab and burqa, insisting that 'the few women who are educated, liberated nad free to choose the niqaab as a religious symbol of an extreme fundamentalist creed are almost certainly in a minority'.
Twitter users swiftly lined up to accuse Toynbee of Islamophobia (although worse others such as Nadine Dorries quote her approvingly). But Toynbee certainly cannot be accused of failing to practice what she, er, preaches. Guardian editor Kaath Viner has on at least one occasion had to apologise to a Muslim member of the papers staff after Toynbee embarked on a lengthy lecture about religious dress in an editorial meeting.
PE No 1477
To add
Salaam
Another update, perceptive article.
Are the ties between British Muslims and the Left sustainable?
Amidst rising Islamophobia, British leftists have been outspoken in support of Muslims. In the recent election, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour gained significant support in constituencies with large Muslim populations. But just how solid is this alliance?
In Emily Bronte’s novel, Wuthering Heights, the two central characters, Heathcliff and Catherine, perceive themselves as having a deep, common bond. Catherine argues at one point that there is actually no difference between them. She is unable to marry Heathcliff, however, and ultimately conforms to prevailing social norms of the day, a choice Heathcliff views as betrayal. As a result, what begins as a deep initial affinity eventually leads to mutual destruction.
Likewise, several leading British Muslim thinkers have argued that, despite sharing ideals such as resisting oppression, the impact of Muslims’ consociation with the Marxist left could render the values of the former with a fate similar to the protagonists in Bronte’s 19th century classic: weakened, confused and, ultimately, lifeless.
There are a number of differences between the teachings of Marxist socialism and Islam: attitudes on homosexuality, on whether society should primarily be defined through the lens of social class, and perhaps most important, on the very purpose of life.
Yet these debates are taking place just as British politics is providing Muslims with a long-awaited breath of fresh air. For the first time since September 11, one of the two major political parties is being led by someone who is not fundamentally hostile towards them: Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn has been leading the Labour Party in opposition to the Conservative government since 2015, and may go on to become prime minister.
Corbyn is working to re-introduce socialist principles into Labour’s policies, which have been dominated by former Labour leader Tony Blair’s neoliberal political agenda, throughout the late nineties and noughties. The ideological shift under Blair contributed to him leading Britain into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Partly as a result of these wars and their offshoots, Muslims in Britain have suffered increasing Islamophobia from various elements of society, including from successive governments which have continued to enforce controversial and widely discredited counterterror policies that many view as marginalising Muslims.
Corbyn has repeatedly spoken out against such security-centric policies, Islamophobia and wars in Muslim countries, and has praised Islam and built strong links within the British Muslim community.
Speaking to Muslims after a far-right terror attack outside a London mosque in June, for instance, he said: “At its core Islam is a religion of peace, it is a religion of support, it is a religion of charity. I want to thank the Muslim community for the fantastic contribution you’ve made ... to our community across the country.”
Common ground over economic issues
But as Corbyn and his left-wing socialist support base play a more influential role in British politics, will it be the differences or the similarities between Islam and socialism which become more apparent? And just how widely is concern about these differences reflected in the diverse British Muslim community?
Joao Silva Jordao is a twenty nine year old Portuguese convert to Islam, currently studying for a PhD in urban planning. He splits his time between London and Lisbon and is engaged in British politics as a leftist activist. Because Corbyn is “against economic inequality and support for the poor is central to Islam, as is helping the oppressed,” he says, the Labour leader stands out against the current conservative prime minister, Theresa May.
For Jordao, though, Corbyn represents a dwindling element of the Marxist left that is being replaced by a new “narrow minded” generation of leftists who, he feels, have been sucked into a vortex of identity politics, specifically regarding homosexuality and transgender issues, which, for him, distracts from what he views as bigger economic and social issues, such as welfare provision and free healthcare.
Recently in Britain there have been demands for universities to stop referring to students as male or female, in order to avoid discriminating against those who feel they are “gender fluid,” spearheaded by left leaning student groups.
“I fear that the new Left generation has begun to lose the plot,” he states. “I am finding it increasingly hard to work in Left activist groups and I imagine many Muslims are finding the same.”
“Sometimes it seems as though they adopt positions only on the basis of it being the opposite of what they consider to be 'conservative' or 'old-fashioned' and thus crave to be opposed to whatever Christians believe,” he asserts. “This naturally puts them at odds with Islam as well.”
The Scotland-based writer and activist Yvonne Ridley takes a largely positive view of the achievements of the alliance between leftists and Muslims to date and believes her socialist principles are mostly in line with her Islamic faith.
“I was born in a coal mining town; Stanley in County Durham. It was very much a working-class environment,” Ridley, aged in her mid-50s, says, explaining how her experiences in north-east England in the seventies and eighties shaped her perspective.
Under sweeping policies from successive Conservative governments, this period saw the coal mining, steelmaking and shipbuilding industries being largely destroyed.
“This brought about a demise of the traditional working class communities and I saw, with my own eyes, families, villages and towns suffer. I thought the best antidote to this was socialism,” Ridley says. “The one thing that did shine through was solidarity and comradeship among the working classes and trade union movement.”
Helping fight Islamophobia
Ridley converted to Islam in the early 2000s. She was captured by the Taliban in 2001 while working as a journalist for British media. The Taliban encouraged her to convert. She replied that, as a then-Christian, she couldn’t make that decision overnight, but told the Taliban if they let her go she would promise to read the Quran. They released her and she kept her promise, embracing Islam a year later.
She found the focus on “fairness and justice; helping the majority of people, not just the few” meant Islam and socialism were compatible, despite the secular outlook of the latter. For her, protesting Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq went a long way towards breaking down the barriers between her faith and her political views.
“By the time I became Muslim, the anti-war movement in Britain was quite strong and because the coalition in the Stop the War movement was so broad, it embraced a lot of Muslims,” she says. “For the first time, many people who thought they had nothing in common were coming together.”
She believes the greatest achievement of this alliance is that the Marxist left, often viewed as being anti-religious, has, in the past sixteen years, played a large role in defending the right of Muslims to practise their faith without stigmatisation.
“Many non-Muslims have been exposed to Islam as a result of resisting the war in Iraq,” she says. “The two million strong march in 2003 in London saw a lot of mosques opening their doors in the early hours of the morning because people were bused in from all over the UK.”
This, she feels, has helped prevent Islamophobia from being even more widespread than it currently is.
“The impact of all this has manifested itself in the aftermath of these horrible terrorist attacks we’ve had [referring to several attacks that have taken place in London and Manchester since 2005]. Many non-Muslims say they know this is not Islam. They work to silence the very vocal minority in Britain who try and promote the narrative that all Muslims are terrorists.”
For Ridley, despite the differences between the two, the Marxist value of solidarity fits well — for the most part — with the Islamic value of plurality.
“When the early Muslim community was under threat, they went and lived in Abyssinia, now Ethiopia, and lived under the protection of a Christian king. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, reached out to non-Muslims.”
Fundamental moral differences
The London businessman Mams Uddin agrees with Ridley on this synergy and supports it, but explains that he believes Muslims can never fully support a materialist political ideology for a key reason: “Islam does not [recognise] any kind of disseverment between religion and life.
Born in Bangladesh and raised in south London, he once owned an urban music and lifestyle TV channel broadcasting on Sky cable.
“I was very capitalist at the time. Just before my daughter was born I decided to make changes in my life,” he says, explaining how he was inspired by a desire to be a positive role model for his newborn.
“I gave up the TV channel as well as many other things,” he says, and has since focused on investing in the development of an education institute in east London, providing courses in both traditional Islamic jurisprudence and western political philosophy and finance.
Now in his forties, Uddin is a Corbyn supporter who describes himself as a “conservative socialist.” He has a pluralist outlook and accepts that morality in a liberal, secular society will be mostly subjective and therefore diverse. However, while he is willing to coexist with other people’s moral codes, he feels not all are willing to accept the values he and his co-religionists share. His response to this is earnest: “I will not compromise my faith.”
He thinks his community is under pressure from elements of the left essentially attempting to undermine Muslims’ integrity.
But the same could be said about some socialists feeling they have to compromise their principles to accommodate the demands of Muslims such as using taxpayer money to maintain the 28 state-funded Islamic faith schools. While the Marxist left has largely been hospitable to the religious beliefs of Muslims, at least since Islamophobia cascaded in 2001, a minority have condemned attempts to draw parallels between their political outlook and Islam.
For Uddin, like many Muslims, there is a particular thorny issue of difference. They feel that left-wing advocates such as Peter Tatchell are attempting to obfuscate what, to them, are clear Quranic teachings on the prohibition of homosexual activity in an attempt to gain acceptability for something that is predominantly viewed in the Muslim community as immoral. Tatchell has also been widely criticised by Muslims and non-Muslims alike (many themselves on the left) for equating religious opinion on homosexual acts with homophobic hate preaching, though he has argued he is simply against those who incite violence against gay people. He has also defended himself by pointing to his record of standing up for Muslims against false terrorism charges and Islamophobia.
“I have been working with progressive Muslim theologians and scholars for over three decades,” Tatchell, a non-Muslim, tells TRT World. “They and I believe that Islamic orthodoxy regarding homosexuality is often based on a misreading of the Quran and that it reflects cultural, not religious, traditions.”
For the likes of Uddin, this holds no weight.
“The political left are a fork-tongued entity,” Uddin argues. “On the one hand, they actively support Muslims against Islamophobia, but without fully understanding Islam they pressure Muslims to accept same sex marriage as an integral part of the Muslim community, despite it being contradictory to Islam.”
“We must be allowed to practise our religion without pressure or oppression. Otherwise, how are they different to the far-right?”
He explains why, in his view, this attitude is neither homophobic nor unique to same-sex relations:
“Muslims do not have a problem with individuals who are sexually attracted to people of the same sex. We acknowledge that while Islamic law prohibits pre- and extramarital [relations], as well as same-sex sexual activity, it does not attempt to curtail natural feelings, emotions or urges but only certain actions resulting from them.”
“We encourage all people to fight their urges outside the sanctity of lawful marriage. The LGBT advocates need to understand that Muslims cannot cherry-pick aspects of their faith and create a tailored version of Islam to suit our needs,” he says. “We have to obey the rules we have agreed to abide by.”
There are a number of Muslims who take a different view from Uddin. Rabbil Sikdar, a recent international relations graduate from east London, thinks LGBT rights should be placed at the centre of Islam in the 21st century.
“I’ve campaigned alongside gay people on the left-wing who, at great personal risk, work tirelessly to defend Islam and Muslims. Why can’t we return the favour?”
He believes Muslims were more tolerant at the time of the Prophet Muhammad than many in contemporary times are.
“I think we need to adopt that past inclusivity for groups that are being mistreated today, in the same way Muslims are.”
But wouldn’t that mean tampering with divine authority, as laid out in the Quran? Not necessarily, according to Sikdar. He’d like to see interpretations of the holy book adjusted to suit today’s challenges, rather than what he considers to be fabrications introduced which distort the wording of divine revelation.
Social and gender justice
Diana Alghoul, a 25-year-old British Palestinian journalist from north London, subscribes to feminist socialism and finds it compatible with Islam. She believes Muslims can benefit from some of the ideas of the former to better apply core but often-ignored Islamic values, such as gender justice.
“I get a lot of people criticising me, saying I cannot be a feminist and a Muslim at the same time. To those who say ‘Islam gives women rights so you don’t need to be a feminist’, I say ‘Yes, Islam gives rights but unfortunately our males within the Muslim community don’t give us our rights, and we need an organised movement to fight for them’.”
Growing up in a politically conservative household where “divisive elitist ideas” of what she calls “the myth of social mobility” and migrants being a social burden dominated, her adoption of socialism was a gradual process.
“I guess the more I read and the older I got, the more I deconstructed the ideas I grew up with,” she says. Crucial books which influenced her include George Orwell’s 1984; Edward Said’s Orientalism; Ghassan Kanafani’s Palestinian Literature of Resistance Under Occupation; and Feminism Is For Everybody by Bell Hooks.
For her, as with Ridley, Jordao and Uddin, Islam and socialism share the core value of social justice achieved through the redistribution of wealth.
“It’s all about the principle of fairness. Islam has the principle of zakat which is in itself a tax and a pillar of Islam,” she says, referring to the giving of alms to the poor.
“Also, we as Muslims will be questioned on the Day of Judgement if we left a human who was sick and could not afford health care [without offering help] and we knew that we could afford to help them.”
She is cautious, however, about moulding her faith to fit her socio-political outlook, or vice-versa:
“I’d be wary of marrying the two, because one is a belief system and one is an actual religion. I wouldn’t say Islam is socialist but there are qualities in Islam that match socialist morals. I wouldn’t exclusively match the two together, because if God himself doesn’t do that, what gives me the right to do so?”
“Islam is definitely not the ‘opiate’ of the people,” she says, referring to the famous quote by Karl Marx often used by Marxists to argue that in their view, the poor in feudal or capitalist societies turn to religion for comfort.
“No social or socio-economic group can best represent Islam,” she says. “The Left may have fought against Islamophobia with us, but that doesn’t mean they represent Muslims.”
From her perspective, independent, critical analyses of issues in the Muslim ummah, or whole community of Muslims, risk being thwarted by aspects of the Left’s political peer pressure.
“There is a lot of Islamophobia in leftist circles. I think the Left do a brilliant job of critiquing and countering Islamophobic rhetoric that comes from many right-wing politicians such as us not assimilating into society, or Muslim refugees harbouring terrorists.”
Yet once Muslims diverge from the Left’s political discourse, she argues, they tend to be Islamophobic and ostracise them.
“I’ve had some people accuse me of being an ISIS (Daesh) supporter because I don’t support Assad. Or they see me as some sort of imperialist ‘Wahhabi’ terrorist because I don’t buy the discourse that Assad is an anti-imperialist and I expose his crimes as a brutal dictator.”
She believes this attitude from elements of the Left “is a lot more dangerous than having Tommy Robinson [the co-founder of the far-right English Defence League] talking about Islam being evil.”
The similarities and differences in values between Islam and the Left will continue to be both celebrated and debated, as both groups play an increasingly visible and vocal role in society. Labour gains in Muslim areas at the recent general election suggest that, for now, many are overlooking moral differences, but the question is whether or not that will continue.
In a rapidly changing world, are the differences going to make the relationship unsustainable? As Catherine in Wuthering Heights found out, bending to social norms may prove to be a regrettable decision. Yet, as Heathcliff realised, ending up alone as a result of wanting your own way can be just as painful.
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/ar...ainable--10630
Salaam
Meet the new 'moderate' Muslims.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=yeSAscMk10c
British ruling classes are pushing that fraud Taj Hargey to represent Muslims.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRUOgwLpFFQ
comment
Abdullah
the so-called "imaam" geezer Taj Hargey is someone who lives in my home town, Oxford. my father has been in countless arguments with this guy before and he clearly has some major issues, he set up a mixed mosque with a female imaam and a gay mosque in Cape town. Frankly, his beliefs are totally messed up, don't take anything he says seriously. Shame on him for his conduct with sister Sahar, and may Allah bless sister Sahar for her patience, I may do a reaction video of my own soon seeing as I know him personally, people like Taj and Usama Hassan (whom my father has had multiple arguments with too, especially with regards to him stating that we should not fast full days in Ramadan due to the days being very long and other completely false statements regarding islamic rulings) are misleading muslims, may Allah guide us all.
So the governments version of a 'moderate' Muslim is someone who is not a Muslim, good to know.
You must be a c.i.a agent or something. Don't you have anything better to do? Fear allah
Salaam
https://www.islamicboard.com/images/...8/260524-1.png
Instead of making inane comments, why don't you contribute to the discussion?
Are you able to form an opinion on the subject presented in this thread? Or is that beyond your capabilities?
Salaam
Another update on Tariq Ramadans situation.
Salaam
Another update.
You can make a difference.
More on the stupidity of Prevent.
Hah! So thats what its all about.