In recent weeks an unnecessary schism has been created between government and British Islamists.
First, government failure to condemn Israel in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead exposed a bias towards Israel and an ambivalence towards the value of Palestinian lives that angered British Islamists. Next, the government’s new counter-terrorism strategy (“Contest Two”) served to amplify pre-existing British Islamist concerns at being treated as “fifth columnists”. Then, along came Hazel Blears with an ill-judged assault on Daud Abdullah and the Muslim Council of Britain. Taken together these incidents reinforce concerns that British Islamists are uniquely held out for political attack, and illustrate the power of key anti-Islamist lobbying groups. The result is a feeling that the government holds Islamists to a different political standard based on a Bush-ite principle of “either you are with us or against us”, where the “us” is clearly not Muslim.
According to the Oxford Dictionary of Islam, “Islamist” describes an Islamic political or social activist. Over the last year we have been interviewing Islamists in Britain. While all of them fit this dictionary definition, none match the negative caricatures provided by UK thinktanks such as the Quilliam Foundation and Policy Exchange. Ironically enough, all of our interviewees do appear to resemble Britain’s first Islamist, Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932) who was himself critical of imperial British foreign policy in the Middle East in much the same way that his modern day descendents are critical of the Blair and Brown governments’ policies in the same region. In Quilliam’s day, however, it was difficult for British Muslims to be politically engaged.
Happily, in today’s pluralistic Britain, Islamists are able to work in partnership with mainstream (though by no means centrist) politicians like Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn to present their concerns about UK foreign policy to a wider public. While British Islamists are as diverse as British socialists, the interviews do reveal important unifying characteristics, most notably a devotion to social justice and a concern for community needs over individual or corporate ambitions. British Islamists are typified by a sense of moral obligation to confront injustice, and they strive, in their own ways, to try to make the world a better place. These are messages which have more power than ever in modern Britain.
Our interviews with British Islamists have demonstrated a sense of an Islamic imperative that is strikingly similar to Tony Benn’s interpretation of Jesus’ call to active citizenship on behalf of the politically oppressed. This interpretation isn’t necessarily universal or representative – both Islam and Christianity have powerful advocates who oppose this view and believe in religion without politics. It follows that mainstream British Islamist organisations, like the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain, the British Muslim Initiative, Islamic Forum Europe and many more, do not represent the entirety of British Muslim opinion, any more than Methodists represent all of Protestantism. More quietist strands of Muslim practice prefer to keep their religion in the private sphere, just like many British Christians. However, the lack of “complete representation” of an entire political community doesn’t seem to cause the government to call for the resignation or exclusion of representatives of trade unions or the 1922 Committee, both of which campaign strongly for their political views – yet neither can claim to be representative of the majority or entirety of political opinions in Britain. So, British Islamists wonder, why the double standard?
Mainstream British Islamists are simultaneously under attack by extremist Muslim groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir and Islam For The UK, an off-shoot from al-Muhaijoun. These fringes claim that British Islamists have sold out by working within British democracy.
They also attack British Islamists for working harmoniously with a wide range of secular activists including gay people and feminists, most notably in campaigns such as the Stop The War coalition. Which is why it’s a gross misrepresentation to conflate mainstream British Islamists with Hizb ut-Tahrir, and entirely disingenuous to suggest they serve as a conveyor belt for terrorist movements like al-Qaida. On the contrary, some of the most effective voices against al-Qaida influence are British Islamists.
Now British Islamists find themselves under constant scrutiny in Britain: from Islamophobes who call for any form of Islamically-inspired political behaviour to be controlled and condemned, and from fringe groups who believe that Muslim democratic political engagement in Britain is inherently sinful. This all-encompassing scrutiny has recently played out in the allegations against the Muslim Council of Britain’s deputy secretary general, Daud Abdullah. On the one hand he is accused of being disloyal to Britain, on the other unIslamic for being politically engaged. It is reasonable that policy makers would want to investigate the first accusation. In so doing, however, they need to keep a strong sense of perspective.
Daud Abdullah is a mainstream British Islamist who, like so many of our interviewees, has demonstrated his loyalty to Britain regularly over a long period often in demanding circumstances, and despite extremist Muslim criticism. His participation in British politics is a bulwark against those seeking to disengage and potentially those who seek to promote violence. Daud Abdullah, typical of mainstream British Islamists, shows a sense of resolve, commitment and heart in withstanding a constant battering from formidable opponents on both flanks.
In the months ahead, democratic and peaceful political Islamist activism in Britain will continue to focus on the injustices suffered by Palestinians at the hands of Israel, and call for Hamas to be treated on an equal footing to Israel. It urgently needs to be recognised that, in so doing, British Islamists demonstrate their appetite for British politics and their distance from the sectarian and alienating tendencies of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the violent and millenarian views of al-Qaida, and the exclusionary and reactionary views of the Quilliam Foundation.
No, British Islamists aren’t the only Muslim political voice in modern Britain, but they don’t deserve the attacks they are enduring, and by the rules of our political system they don’t deserve to be excluded. Let’s hope that the government stops listening to the fringes, and recognises the variety of mainstream Muslim political voices before it’s too late.