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
newsagent’s. 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.
(Conservative leader) 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 (communities secretary) 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
onto 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 8.10 a.m. slot to the radical
Omar Brooks, whose sole qualification was his heckling of (home secretary)
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 one per cent and two per cent. Not good, but less than the 20 per
cent 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 (October 17) 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.
