No,
we don't want to conquer the world
The abusive tirades against Muslims and
Islam in the mainstream media are not only wrong, but also profoundly dangerous
Anas Altikriti
Thursday August 5, 2004
The Guardian
The ferocity of recent attacks on Muslims and Islam in the mainstream British
media has led many to question what is driving these attempts to incite hatred
and fear of our community. Anyone reading the British press over the past few
weeks might be excused for imagining that the country is threatened by hoards of
Muslims living within its borders, determined to subvert British values and
convert its people to Islam, by hook or by crook.
Take the Sunday Telegraph,
whose newly discovered columnist Will Cummins warned of Islam's "black
heart", which he said should be the focus of our fear, rather than its
"black face". He also claimed that "all Muslims, like all dogs,
share certain characteristics" - among which is the desire to eradicate,
one way or another, all those who do not share their faith. Substitute any other
religion and ethnic or religious minority for "Muslims" and
"Islam" to get a sense of the full implications of what the Sunday
Telegraph has seen fit to publish. The Guardian Diary has, meanwhile, been told
that Will Cummins and the British Council press officer Harry Cummins are the
same person. Harry - who so far denies being Will - has been suspended on full
pay while his employers investigate the evidence. It would be doubly disturbing
if the man who likes to compare Muslims to dogs is indeed the press officer,
considering the British Council's job of promoting Britain as a country, culture
and heritage to the world, particularly Arab and Muslim countries.
In a flagrantly misleading and tendentious
report last week, the Times launched a front-page attack on two of Britain's
most respected Islamic educational institutes, attempting to link them with
terrorism. Meanwhile, the Mail on Sunday carried the absurd allegation, again
splashed across its front page, that some Muslim doctors were refusing to
treat patients with sexually transmitted diseases because they believed they
were a "punishment from God". What has baffled many of us is that all
these slurs and attacks on our community are made under the banner of
defending freedom of speech, expression and choice. Evidently, the argument
that it is necessary to kill to save lives, imprison to protect freedoms and
wage war to achieve peace, is gaining ground. British Muslims have always welcomed open
debate in an attempt to defeat the fatalist notion of an inevitable
"clash of civilisations". Sheikh al-Qaradawi's recent visit to
Britain would have been a useful chance to discuss how to promote common
understanding. More importantly, such an effort would have offered a more
favourable image of Britain to the 1.3 billion Arabs and Muslims around the
world, who now think of our country more for its aggression and blunders in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, the right within politics and the media worked
tirelessly to scupper this opportunity and to demonise hundreds of thousands
of British Muslims who adhere to their faith and hold the likes of al-Qaradawi
in high regard. The attempt to force the overwhelming
majority of moderate Muslims into the tiny space occupied by the minority
extremist element is nothing short of wicked. These latest media attacks
appear to be part of a concerted attempt not only to do that, but also to
tarnish the remarkable history of Muslims in this country and the role they
have played in the shaping of our nation. Muslims do not want to conquer the
world - on the contrary, it is their lands that are being conquered bit by bit
at the hands of western forces. Of course we believe that we have a set of
values and ideas which could bring peace, prosperity and justice to the world
- as do followers of other faiths and ideologies - and we will continue to
advocate and promote those in pursuit of what we believe is best. Muslims in Britain have the added
responsibility of acting as a bridge between the Muslim world and the west.
The active participation of British Muslims in the anti-war movement and the
key role of Muslim voters in the European elections and recent byelections
have demonstrated their capability and potential influence. These developments perhaps help to provide
a clue to the timing of the spate of Islamophobic tirades that have been
directed against Muslims in the weeks since. There exist two trends within
"active" or "political" Islam. One, widely acknowledged to
represent mainstream Muslims, urges and embraces open dialogue with the rest
of humanity on an equal basis and sees the prosperity of our world as a shared
responsibility of those who inhabit it, based on justice. There is no
alternative but to initiate a serious dialogue with this trend if relations
between the west and Islam are to move in the right direction. The other trend, albeit still a minority,
has emerged as a product of despotic regimes, oppressive and unethical
policies and a cocktail of socio-economic factors. It sees no other option but
for Islam to fight back physically, and sees no hope in debate, peaceful
dialogue or integration. Islam and Muslims will not disappear into thin air.
The right's attempts to smear and demonise those who strive for justice,
openness and the building of bridges of friendship is foolish, to say the very
least - and could be of catastrophic consequence for us all. · Anas Altikriti is a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain Back
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