Freedom of Speech and the Rhetoric of Blasphemy

Since the Charlie Hebdo Murders, freedom of speech has become the mantra of the phobic community. To add Muslim angle to the mantra and to stay on course for inciting hatred against Muslims, Blasphemy has been added into the mix. Maajid Nawaz even presented a motion for free speech and right to blaspheme, at the Liberal Democrat spring conference. Being a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Liberal Democrats, he should have known that UK abolished the blasphemy law in 2008. Furthermore, the freedom of expression is enshrined in the law. Not surprisingly, Maajid’s motion and its adoption by the Liberal Democrat conference received praise from people like Nick Cohen .    

Anyone who has some knowledge of their faith or faiths in general knows that, no faith or faith scriptures mention blasphemy. Furthermore, all faiths support freedom of thought and speech because that's how faiths spread. So where does this term and idea comes from, if not from religion or faith. As far as I know the blasphemy was first constructed and introduced by the Christian or cannon law. In the UK it was adopted into the common law in the 17^th century and was only abolished in 2008. It was mainly introduced in common law to maintain the supremacy of the Church of England over other factions of Christianity.

A different form of blasphemy law was introduced in the colonies by Britain. The purpose of this law was more administrative than religious. As colonial rule expanded, it brought previously independent Hindu, Christian and Muslim areas under colonial administration. Furthermore, Britain needed to give protection to the missionary work by her clergy and newly converted subjects. So the aim of this legislation was to maintain order and to prevent communal violence. To date it remains on the statute books of these former colonies.

The reason such laws remained on the statuette books is that the newly independent countries were based on newly created borders which didn’t exist before the colonial rule. Furthermore, these new borders contained diverse communities, thus the need for this administrative tool to protect minorities not the majority religions. The prime example of this is the states of India and Pakistan. The laws in both countries protects, although not successfully, all religions not just the majority religions.

UK has abolished the blasphemy law, which mainly protected Christianity but it enacted new legislation with a view to protect minorities. The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, is similar to the version introduced in the former colonies and is an administration tool. The act also preserves the right to freedom of speech/ freedom of expression but outlaws hate speech. Similar laws can be found on statute books of most European countries. Even France, the bastion of secularism, maintains laws for freedom of religion and against hate speech. It is another thing that such laws are rarely enforced and are flouted by the Far Right and “New” Atheists or anti-theists, secularists, humanists, etc.

As well as introducing the motion at the Lib Dem conference, Maajid Nawaz has also written an essay on the topic of Blasphemy. He starts his essay with the claim that the religious Prophets had blasphemed against the prevailing social constructs of that time. In other words when prophet Muhammad (pbuh) told people that burying daughters alive was wrong or Jesus spoke against money changers for profiteering from misery or Moses preached against pharaohs brutal rule, they all committed blasphemy. By that logic, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and today Palestinians, etc are blasphemers against the oppressive apartheid systems.

Maajid Nawaz’s convoluted arguments of cultural relativism, neo- oriental liberalism, can be summarised in few simple words. Western liberal society is monolithic and has no room for other cultures, identities, values or rights to equality. This attitude clearly ignores the fact that Majority of Muslim and other minorities in this country are born and bred here and regards themselves as British. When they go on holiday to Europe, North America, East or West they introduce themselves as British. Its people like him and other phobes and racists who want to give them the labels of their heritage. Hypocritically, Maajid Nawaz and co get on their high horse, when talking about other countries and protection of rights of minorities and cultures. Lecturing them to protect their religion, rights and cultures while doing the opposite here.

His position seems to be that minorities fighting for equality and maintaining their identity is a bad thing. On the other hand he claims, without providing any evidence, that there are minorities within the Muslim Minority who are experiencing victimisation. The fact is that himself and the so called ex-Muslims have aligned themselves with the powerful fascists, racists, New Atheists etc. They are deliberately provoking and attacking the Muslims and minorities. He includes himself in those minorities and hypocritically plays the victim card while criticising UK minorities for playing victim card. As usual he maintains that the majority of Muslims are extremists and are trying to impose Sharia and blasphemy on the liberal society. He is not interested in the socioeconomic situation and the attitude of some in the host community towards the minority communities, which has ghettoised some communities. Instead he claims that far right is profiting from the feeling of victimisation of the majority community. His attitude towards the orient and globalisation of the world ignores the fact that orient didn’t just provide the spices, silk, tea wealth; it also influenced and shaped the so called western values.

He talks about reformation but forgets that so called reformation came from within the Christian community not from outside. It is not the job of the so called ex-Muslims, Atheists or Quilliam to tell Muslims what to do. Muslims, for centuries both under Muslim rule and non Muslim rule co existed with various sects, cultures and religions. There were and still are inter religion, race, and sect marriages all around the world. There are no elected religious political parties anywhere in Muslim majority countries. Only countries where religiously influenced parties or persons are in power are India, Israel and the USA. People like Ayaan H Ali are not bothered by the election of fundamentalist religious party being in power in India. They are not bothered by the persecution of the low cast Hindus or religious minorities. They ignore the role of religion in Judicial and political systems in Israel or US.

As usual Maajid Nawaz is providing cover to his friends, who are involved in the racism, islamophobia and bigotry. The people, who have made a career out of their fascist activity by creating divisions and hate preaching. These people include Tommy Robinson, Sam Harris, Douglas Murray and Ayaan H Ali. Maajid and his friends use the rhetoric of freedom of speech to voice their bigoted views about the Muslim minorities in the west. They play the divisive games by praising some minorities while criticising the others. For example, Tommy Robinson would tweet praise about Sikh and Jewish minorities, while continuing his vile rhetoric against the Muslim minority. Recently Tommy Robinson tweeted guidance about recognising Sikhs by their turbans and to respect them. What this means is that everyone else of brown skin such as Sri Lankans, Arabs, South Americans, Indians, etc whether Christian, Hindu, Non Muslim, are a fair game. However, differentiating the Sikh women from Muslim women isn’t that simple so they remain open to the misogynistic attacks by his followers.  
  
The other thing Maajid and others say is that they have the right to offend. The question is what is the motive behind the offensive activity i.e. cartoons. Is it freedom of speech/ expression or there is sinister politics behind such cartoons. When Chris Moos and his partner appeared on a BBC programme and displayed their t-shirts bearing cartoons, what message were they relaying? Prior to their appearance on BBC Chris Moos and his partner had worn the same t-shirts at a university, during fresher’s week.  They had a stall purporting to promote atheism but their t-shirts had nothing to do with promotion of atheism. You don’t promote something by offending people, you antagonise them. If they wanted to promote the message of humanism and atheism then why didn’t they wear the t-shirts Richard Dawkins sells in his shops? Clearly their intentions were not about promotion of their ideology but to create divisions among students. Dawkins was so impressed by Chris Moos and his partner’s actions that he awarded him the humanist of the year award, but ignored his brown partner.

The fact is that such actions have nothing to do with freedom of expression. Neither are they satirical, as claimed by Richard Dawkins. They are deliberate attempts to stigmatise and dehumanise Muslim and minority communities. They are a copy of the Israeli rhetoric to dehumanise Palestinians by spreading lies i.e. Palestinians use their children as human shield. As it happens all of these groups and individuals are open supporters of Israel and her policies of suppressing the Palestinians. Sam Harris and Ayaan H Ali have openly agreed with IDF propaganda that Palestinians use human shields. Whether it is Tommy Robinson, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Ayaan H Ali, Nick Cohen, Douglas Murray or Maajid Nawaz, they are all working with a clear political agenda. They give legitimacy to the war on terror which to date has claimed more than 2 million lives. Their role is to distract the populations of the West from what is happening around the world and keep them in a state of paranoia and fear.
     
A cursory look at the twitter activity of these people will tell you that neither of the above activity do anything to further their cause or belief. Instead you will find a common thread in their tweets. You won’t find Quilliam and Maajid addressing the Muslim youth with counter extremist message or Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris preaching atheism. You will not find Nick Cohen criticising Israel or Douglas Murray writing anything other than demonising of the Muslims and other minority communities and accusing them of anti-Semitism and homophobia. You won’t find Ayaan H Ali making civilised conversation about her rhetoric of reformation but inciting violence and supporting suppression of Muslims and minorities. You don’t even need to look at Tommy Robinson tweets to know his vile views, yet he has received admiration from all of the aforementioned.

Don’t be bamboozled by the rhetoric and sound bites by polished performers, always look beyond the glossy exterior and you may find the ugly truth of bigotry, Xenophobia, racism,Islamophobia, etc

Pushing Back Boundaries but, ....

In the Wrong Direction

Not a day goes by when a section of the British society is not in the news headlines. Even if there was a serious tragedy in the world affecting 100s, it would not trump the action / perceived actions of an individual from this community. Such coverage is deliberately normalising the issues which were made taboo by decades of struggle. This continuous highlighting of issues affecting the community is pushing back the boundaries but in the wrong direction. This is happening because every action and inaction of the community, is being looked through the tainted glass of prejudice. This prejudice is affecting more than the community in question.

Recently Channel Four broadcasted a documentary, presented by Trevor Phillips, a former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The documentary titled “Things We Won’t Say About Race That Are True”, seems to be based on the old stereotypes. However, he failured to acknowledge, that the old stereotypes had in the past, given rise to hatred, violence and atrocities rarely seen in the human history. Therefore, it is important to fight old and the new stereotypes to prevent this happening again. While the documentry has been criticised by activists like Lee Jasper , it was welcomed by the right wing media such as the Daily Mail, which published this, incorporating his article. It is not surprising that only people they found to agree with him were couple of Tory MPs. The Mail, which is not a fan of the Equality or Human Rights, couldn’t help to have a dig on Trevor Phillips himself, stating that he received salary of £112,000 for 3.5 days work.

                                                           Cartoon by Operation Black Vote

Trevor Phillips’s only achievement was to merge the various branches of the Equality into one. I personally don’t think that this achieved the goals previously set by the various independent commissions. As the head of the EHRC, Trevor Phillips had started from the complacent belief that the equality, especially in the field of race had been achieved. His actions to merge various branches of equality commission were more to do with empire building than reality on the Ground. Since then we have seen case after case revealing institutionalised racism and discrimination not only in the field of race but also of gender, disability and the under privileged. The Rotherham case is as much, if not more, of institutionalised discrimination against the under privileged white community who’s complaints were ignored, of groomers being from a certain section of community. This is supported by the Oxford council’s admission, that their failures to investigate such cases properly had nothing to do with any political correctness.

Unfortunately, Trevor Phillips has allowed himself to fall into the trap of increasingly blurred lines made possible by the continuous headlines and reckless media coverage using inflammatory language. The mainstream media and the Politicians have muddled the equality issue with stereo types. It is now normal to hear Xenophobic language when discussing immigration, racism when discussing Islamophobia, macho attitudes when discussing sexism, derogatory remarks when discussing disability, label of anti-semitism when discussing Israel/ Palestine conflict and rhetoric of freedom of speech, while inciting hatred against Muslims.

The social media has also played a role in this normalisation of pushing boundaries in the wrong direction. People think that they can get away with typing their inner most dark thoughts in the anonymity of the Internet. We have seen threats of rape and violence against women, blatant lies and stereotypes to spread religious, racial and other forms of hatred. Unfortunately, the bigots take comfort in the knowledge that they have the support of respectable figures on the internet and in mainstream media. The trends on the twittersfield become headlines for the 24 hour media, hungry for more and more headline fillers. So tweets about halal/ kosher food become national headlines.

The recent example is the Clarkson fracas with an Irish producer, which turned out to be a serious unprovoked physical and verbal racial attack. For few days it looked that, like many times before, Clarkson would survive the latest mess of his own making. BBC did everything possible to keep Clarkson on their books but as more and more witnesses came forward, they had no choice but to ignore the tank carrying one million signature petition. The petition is the perfect indictment of the prevailing attitude in sections of the society. Despite the tragedy in the French Alps, BBC gave prominence to its decision to not to renew contract with Clarkson. BBC journalists gave his sacking disproportionate air time. They made arguments about his value, for bringing 50 million pounds, and made light of the physical assault, describing it as 30 second incident. It is this kind of attitude that minimises the gravity of similar actions against minorities.

The common thread, in majority of Clarkson's misdemeanours, is the race including the latest incident that included remarks about the victim being Irish. Although, he has been equally vile towards, women, disabled, etc. he receives admiration for not being PC, as though this is something to admire. Astonishingly, he received support from high profile people including our Prime Minister. It is this kind of support which normalises, racism, sexism, Islamophobia and victimisation of other disadvantaged groups, sick and the poor working classes. Such racism also affects the unity of the United Kingdom, as throw away remarks are made about the Scots, Welsh and the Irish for political gains.

I am not an expert on any of the issues listed above but as a member of ethnic minority group with migrant and Muslim heritage, I have views on these topics. We are witnessing the erosion of minority rights earned after long and hard struggles. I say earned as it took decades of fight with the overt, covert and institutionalised racism and discrimination. The equality Acts of 1977 did not work because of the reluctance of the establishment to implement them. This resulted in demonstrations, which were classified as riots despite it being reaction to provocation of discrimination and attacks by organisations like National Front and combat 18. Only after these “riots” and the Lord Scarman’s report, things started to improve. So from the passing of the Act in 1977, it took another decade to see changes especially in the public sector and the public services.  

Fast forward to the second decade of the 21st century and we find that all those prejudices, we thought had been left behind, have resurfaced. Only this time the problem has returned in a respectable form, in our politics, media and in the literati. It has spread like a virus from mainstream politics to the gutters of racist EDL and Britain First. An example of muddle alliances is Tommy Robinson, who still supports EDL, Pagida, Britain First and UKIP but is friends with the Islamophobic new Left, LibDem PPC Maajid Nawaz, and the disgraced Tory PPC Afzal Amin. He openly tweets Islamophobic and racist material on the internet but somehow keeps friendship with this diverse group of people. Maybe he is the new symbol of diversity.

The racist and fascist organisations always had the backing of powerful and influential people. It’s not different today as powerful members of the media, politics and literati, supporting the racist and Islamophobic individuals and groups. They are helping to undermine the progress in the equality field, by spreading fear through the xenophobic rhetoric of immigration and Islam. They cleverly use, all encompassing Islamophobic narrative, that includes all the traits of the Far right. It includes immigration, racism and misogyny . No wonder that people like Richard Dawkins, his followers and the organisations under his patronage claim that no such thing as Islamophobia. The same view expressed by others like Sam Harris and lately by Maajid Nawaz who even issued a Fatwa stating that there is no such thing as Islamophobia. If anyone thinks that the Islamophobia doesn’t affect others, they should read this SAALT report by the US Asian community highlighting the diversity of communities affected by Islamophobic attacks.    

Trevor Phillips, in his article attacked the idea of multiculturalism, and said that in multicultural Britain Muslim children may have a narrow view of the world. At the same time he blames France’s non multiculturalist system for the murder of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. He can’t have both ways. Like many others he doesn’t want to acknowledge that children of migrants have a greater knowledge of the world than their white counterparts. There is a high chance that they are bilingual, they have visited developing countries of their  parents/ grandparents heritage. They probably have the first hand knowledge of struggles of people around the world. They are more likely to have a wider world view through the international media.

Trevor Phillips also talked about the young girls who had gone to the war torn Syria. Again his views seem to have been based on stereotypes rather than facts. It is clear that these girls had normal family life and were happy at school and were A grade students. The question to ask is about their experiences outside of school and home. What I have learnt from two groups of girls interviewed by the BBC News and BBC Newsnight. The first group interviewed was hijab wearing and they said that they had experienced racist, Islamophobic and Misogynistic attacks, because they way they dressed. The second group was interviewed by Evan Davis for Newsnight. They weren’t hijabis and they also said that they also feel that the society doesn’t accept them because of their colour and race. When they said they understood why girls would leave their comfortable life for a warzone, Evan Davis said that their comments could be interpreted as apology for terrorism. Not surprised that the BBC did not release these videos, while other videos like the interview with Ayaan H Ali were released immediately after the broadcast.

There are some people who have spoken out against the Islamophbia but not enough. In a recent appearance on the BBC Question Time, broadcasted on 18^th March, Will Self said that his students overwhelmingly think, that the Muslims are the most oppressed minority in the UK today. In the same week Matthew Parris wrote an article, in the Spectator, titled "Anti Muslim Prejudice is Real and Scary" . Unfortunately his lone voice is drowned by Douglas Murray’s weekly articles in the Spectator, who also wrote this and his other prejudicial gems include this vile article and this . 

It has become respectable to have Islamophobic prejudice and thanks to the false scandals such as Trojan Horse and the Cathy Neman tweets, it has spread from the mainstream media to the school playgrounds. Our universities are being monitored by the new humanists and the Henry Jackson Society supported group Student Rights. Their activity is not dissimilar to that of Hitler’s Nazi Youth. If we want to have a fair and equal society then we must confront this last respectable prejudice. Our failures to do so will have wider implications for all.  

2014 The Year When, .....

Islamophobia became Institutionalised

2014 is the year in which world experienced both natural and manmade disasters. There is very little you can do to prevent natural disasters but prevention of manmade disasters like wars, is entirely feasible. However, they require courage determination and will to understand and change. It requires ability to learn lessons from past mistakes and history. It requires ability to resist the pressures by self interest groups and to stand up to the agitators. Unfortunately our political leaders and masters lack such courage, determination, understanding and ability to learn the lessons.  

It is shameful that in the year that marked 100^th anniversary of the start of the First World War, we had to remember millions more deaths through wars, along with the lives lost in that war. To keep the populations on side, all wars require propaganda and disinformation to justify the sacrifices in blood and treasure. Especially, when politicians use the rhetoric of fight for decades, they need to have a scapegoat. Our politicians tread a fine line they don’t want unrest at home, so they play lip service to the minority communities while their actions give clear signal to the agitators to continue to spread hate. It seems that the politicians think its a price worth paying.

The mainstream media like the BBC plays its part as government’s mouth piece for propaganda. After all it is dependent on the government funding along with the licence fees, a tax we all must bear. Foreign and Commonwealth office uses BBC to spread propaganda throughout the world stoking fires of conflict, which create refugees. At the same time it continues to spread propaganda against the migrants, asylum seekers and minorities. Furthermore, BBC remains one of the major employers of asylum seekers to spread propaganda in their former home countries. As far as the minorities at home are concerned BBC fails to employ/ promote black and minority ethnic communities. The problem is so deep that comedian Lenny Henry openly came out to criticise BBC, Mainstream Media, and the entertainment industry of institutionalised racism.

The BBC Board and the Executive Board remains almost exclusively white and from the elite classes. BBC entertainment programmes remain exclusively for the majority community. It has failed to interests of the minority communities, not only the migrant communities but also the Celtic minorities of Scotland, Wales and Ireland and the regional communities of England. Despite moving some of its operations to the Manchester, the management stranglehold of the South and the privileged communities remains. It has failed to promote the role models for the minority communities instead it propagates caricatures of ridicule and sides with the hate preachers.  Despite remaining the public and taxpayer funded organisation BBC is exempted from the Freedom of Information Act. You might say that because of its secretive policies, procedures and agendas, BBC is the North Korea of the Main Stream Broadcast Media.  

The BBC kick started the Islamophobic year, by allowing Nicky Campbell to conspire with so called Humanists and probably also with the Chair of the Quilliam Foundation, Maajid Nawaz, to start the cartoon controversy. Since then it has conspired with the outside agencies and individuals to ban the voices of reason. It has bowed to the social media and twitter campaigns to block mainstream Muslim voices from appearing on TV. Social media campaigns have targeted many of the mainstream Muslims speakers commentators and writers. The campaign also targeted the various scholars in an attempt to pave the way for Quilliam Foundation to claim to be the only authoritative voice on Muslim issues.   

After the cartoon controversy media attention shifted towards the conflict in Syria and a sudden turn by the media from portraying British Muslims, who had gone to help refugees and support the fight against the regime, from humanitarians to branding them Jihadist, terrorists and threat to the UK security. There was very little investigative or probing journalism or efforts by the Media, the Government and her contractors, to assess or investigate the factors behind the attraction or reasons for the young teeage Muslims boys and some girls taking such drastic and life changing action. Instead a campaign to demonise the whole of the community commenced giving excuses to frame new regulations and creating new powers which will affect not only the minority community but the whole UK population.

Then came the so called Trojan Horse story based on a fake letter. The story ran and ran culminating in the ofstead inspections and reports. At that point institutionalisation of Islamophobia started to become clear. Despite the protests from the teaching community, pupils, the parents and the governing bodies, schools were downgraded and some put in special measures. These actions were contradictory to the Education Secretary, Michael Gove’s stated position of parental choice and free schools. It seemed a deliberate attempt to deny minority communities, the same choices available to others. Instead of offering solutions, such as support and training for the governing bodies the government’s actions seemed designed to stop minority communities from gaining the position of authority or having a say in the education of their children. We have seen this kind of attacks on Muslim authority figures in the Met and on an elected Mayor in London. 

In between we had the so called anti Halalification campaign on the media and social media. There was opposition to the Law Society’ guidelines on drawing up Islam compliant wills, now withdrawn. There were continuous efforts to link FGM, forced marriages, and honour killings with Islam. Also any criminal activity by a Muslim was disproportionately highlighted and linked to religion. There was a campaign to remove Islamic books and literature from schools. Although, books and literature regarding colonialism, slavery, etc remains available. We seem to be on a dangerous road to eliminate diversity of knowledge to having a monolithic state provided knowledge (similar to the system in the China and North Korea). It is dangerous because we now live in a global village and we need knowledge good and bad to interact with our neighbours.

Then we had the grooming cases and the reports which highlighted the failures of the care system, police and local authorities but the media remained fixated on the colour, race, ethnic heritage and religion of the offenders. In the year when well known faces mainly celebrities connected to the media in general and BBC in particular have been prosecuted and convicted of sexual offences and paedophile activity of the powerful and ruling classes is being investigated , it seemed convenient deflection  to highlight  minority and Muslim offenders. Then we have the Maajid Nawaz’s friend Tommy Robinson who continues to tweet his bigoted views against Muslims. His recent appearance at the Oxford Union clearly brought out the ugly side of Islamophobia and even those who campaigned for Tommy to appear at the Oxford Union seemed disappointed. However, the Islamophobes and some bloggers seem still willing to give him benefit of doubt and tweet and retweet his vile propaganda.

With the rise of the UKIP and the immigration debate, some individuals and organisations have started to move the debate of immigration towards Muslim migrants. Especially towards the settled communities and second and third generations who are born and bred in the western culture and are oblivions of the culture of the countries of their forefathers. This is where the xenophobia and racism meets Islamophobia and the racism of Islamophobes starts to come through.

Any Islamophbic review of the year can not be complete without the mention of the chief Richard Dawkins and his friends. As usual Mr Dawkins continued his Islamophobic tweets claiming it to be satire. He also continued to retweet stuff clearly recognised as bigoted by others. Here is an Article by Tom Owolade . Dakins friend Sam Harris continued on the mission of spreading Hate. His appearance on the Bill Maher show, where he was confronted by the actor Ben Affleck for his bigotory, made international headlines. Sam Harris found support from the obvious quarters but even he didn’t expect support from the Chair Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation. Maajid Nawaz made few dollars in the process. After his failure to make any real money out of his encounter with the “ex-EDL” Tommy Robinson, Maajid Nawaz intend to make more money from this new relationship by writing a book about his encounter with Sam Harris.

Quilliam also provided one of the funny moment of the year by issuing a Fatwa against travel  to Syria. As though these young men knew the meaning of a Fatwa and what it stands for. Majority of the young teenagers who had gone to Syria did'nt have any deep religious beliefs or upbringing. By issuing a Fatwa, Maajid Nawaz and Quilliam exposed themselves to be an organisation without a clear idea how to relate, understand and tackle issues of young Muslims growing up with continuous demonisation and dehumanisation.of Muslims. This year Maajid Nawaz and Quilliam has moved the goal post again. They started with radicalised to extremist to Islamist to current position that anyone who believes in Islamic scriptures is a threat. This evolution reflects Maajid Nawaz’s journey from Hizbe Tehrir to the ideology of the ex muslims, atheists, humanist and now partnership with Sam Harris.   

The most worrying development in 2014 has been the Institutionalisation of Islamophbia by the government through its actions. After the spat with Mr Gove the Home Secretary, Theresa May started to act tough in her words and deeds. This year new legislation and regulations have been introduced, which have been framed to frame individuals leaving them no option but to plead guilty. In other cases the prosecuting authorities doesn’t need to prove anything except that the individuals had travelled to Turkey and possibly to Syria. This has already resulted in youngsters being jailed for unreasonably lengthy times.

Theresa May, who has ambitions to be the leader of the conservative party, made a dramatic announcement at the Party conference in September, to introduce Extremism Disruption Orders which would prohibit individuals considered to be extremist and hate speakers from appearing on Radio, TV, Protests and posting messages on the social media, without permission. Its telling that the opposition to the proposals came, not from the Muslim community but the Islamophobe community who felt that their hateful activities would come under scrutiny. People like Maajid Nawaz, secularists, atheists and humanists who had been demanding ban on Muslim speakers and those who had made career out of spreading hate and fear, suddenly became supporters of free speech. These people never raised a voice about loss of liberty and freedom of people on the bases of suspicion, alleged and perceived extremist activity and not actual crime. Suddenly they remembered the value of free speech.

On 26^th November the Home Secretary Theresa May introduced the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill. The Bill is being fast tracked and could become law at the beginning of 2015. In summary the bill will powers to seize passports of people suspected of travelling to Syria etc, could exclude citizens from the country (It has a serious potential of abuse), move people from their hometown to another place. It would stop insurance companies from paying ransom payments. It would place statutory duty on the public institutions, including Schools, Colleges and Universities, to stop people from becoming radicalised. Even Nurseries for 2 Year Olds feel they will have obligations under the bill. The Bill directly contradicts the 1986 Education Act , which places a duty on the Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges to ensure freedom of speech. Furthermore, the Bill includes extensive powers regarding monitoring of social media and other communications. 

We musnt forget the assault on the Muslim operated charities. Charity is one of the main pillers of Islam and every Muslim must pay a certain amount from his/her income and assets to help those in need. Muslim charities are involved projects to provide safe water, sponsoring orphans, education and development projects all over the world including at home. They help refugees and victims of conflict from Palestine to Syria, Syria Sudan and Yemen. Because of their humanitarian work in the conflict zones, and pressures from the Israeli lobbies, they are being put under suspicion.     

So we welcome the New Year with new definition for the British Values which restricts right to freely speak, travel and communicate. Furthermore, the big society means, Employers and Landlords checking your immigration status and Educational and other Institutions restricting freedom of discussion, debate and learning. The Young Muslims are already facing an uphill struggle to obtain employment due to the stigmatisation by the hateful rhetoric and crude language used by the Mainstream and Social Media and now their travel, holiday plans will also be affected by the new powers of seizing passports and exclusion orders.

Happy New Year     

The Rise of the Ignorant Intellectuals

What the H**k is Cultural Relativism?

 You are well educated, good with words and regard yourself a bit of intellectual. So what you do with your talent? Do you explore variety of things, spread positivity through your talents or do you limit your talents to spread poison and hatred. Unfortunately some people do limit their talents to attacking everything, which doesn’t fit into their small minded view of the world. They use their talent to attack and bully people who have a wider perspective, principals and opinions based on their experiences.  

 One such person writes and tweets anonymously under the name of Unrepentant Jacobin, thereafter referred to as UJ. We don’t know if the person is a she, he or it (an alien). This person's blog is headed “Poison Pamphleteer”. UJ's main subjects include Islam, Multiculturalism (mainly related to Muslims) & criticism of mainstream left (for opposing Islamophobia).The twitter profile of UJ states, I defend the West including Israel. Previously UJ's profile included Zionist, although UJ says he is non Jewish. UJ doesn't clarify, what does defending West mean and from what?. However, its clear that UJ's form of defence is to attack.

 On 9th January 2014, I spotted UJ attacking someone from The Feminist wire, on twitter. UJ had tagged in couple of people for reinforcement or to show off, just like a bully in playground. As usual some troll accounts joined in too. I am not saying UJ was a bully at school; chances are he was a victim of bullying. It’s not unusual to come across such behaviour by UJ and his twitter buddies. I rarely intervene as more often than not UJ and co would try to shut people down, by labelling and name calling. However, on this occasion I did and was immediately labelled “racist”.

 As I said it’s not uncommon for UJ and co. to attack and ridicule people who have a differing point of view, particularly on issues to do with Muslims/ Islam and Islamophobia. I remember the tirade of abuse from UJ and Clique, against Victoria Coren, for writing  "My veil epiphany"  .Then there was Priyamvada Gopal for writing  this article criticising the activities of "Student Rights" an offshoot of Henry Jackson Society. Another victim of their attack was the Writers of Colour for publishing Shohana Khan's article on their website. Then there was attack on Laurie Penny for writing this article .This is just a sample of their victims but what is concerning is that, they not only target people who stand against Islamophobia.

 I was shocked to be labelled racist by UJ so I decided to check what was going on between him and the Feminist wire. I learned that the Feminist Wire is a multi ethnic and inclusive website . Here is an extract from their Mission statement:

 "The mission of The Feminist Wire is to provide socio-political and cultural critique of anti-feminist, racist, and imperialist politics pervasive in all forms and spaces of private and public lives of individuals globally". 

 It turns out that some 21 months ago in April 2012 Adele Wilde-Blavatsky had a written an article titled 'To be Anti-Racist is to Feminist: The Hoodie and the Hijab are not Equals'. The article was published on the Feminist Wire website. Adele had written the article in response to the united protest held, under the banner of ‘1 million Hoodie and Hijab March’ held across America. The protest was held to show solidarity with the victims of allegedly racially and islamophobic murders of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old African American boy and Shamim Alawadi and Iraqi American woman.

 Adele's article proved to be controversial and received criticism from a wide ranging feminist community and attracted abusive comments from the readership. After careful consideration and consultation, the Feminist wire decided to remove Adele's article and also decided to part with Adele. I should point out that the Feminist wire is run by a collective of writers who voluntarily donate their time on part time basis.

Let us examine what was so controversial about the article that nearly 80 feminists wrote a joint letter criticising the article.

 The article was written and published when emotions were running high and black and white Americans were united against the alleged racial and Islamophobic motives behind the murders. Adele wrote:

A `One Million Hoodies' march was organised to demand justice for Martin.  As Brendan O'Neill argued, this use of the hoodie is questionable enough.  The wearing of `One million hijabs' to show public solidarity and outrage at the murder of Alawadi? I cannot think of anything more ironic and counter-productive.

 I searched, without success, for the above quote attributed to of Brandan O’Neill. I did, however, find this article . The article was criticised by Ophilia Benson who wrote  Vile Brandan O'Neill. However, the same Ophilia Benson later came out in support of Adele.

Adele also wrote:

What I take issue with here is the equating of the hoodie and the hijab as sources of ethnic identity and pride. The hijab, which is discriminatory and rooted in men's desire to control women's appearance and sexuality, is not a choice for the majority of women who wear it. The hoodie, on the other hand, is a choice for everyone who wears it. The history and origin of these two items of clothing and what they represent could not be more different; like comparing the crippling footbindings of Chinese women with a `Made in China' Nike trainer.

 Adele’s comparison of a harmless piece of clothing to footbindings in ancient china, is this the kind of exaggerated analogy we should expect from today’s intellectuals. Despite the evidence to the contrary, even if you accept her premise that hijab is mainly worn by women, because of men’s desire to control women, aren’t those women entitled to protection from violence. Is it wrong to show solidarity with those who suffer abuse, threats and violence because they wear hijab.  Adel's understanding of both the Hoodie and Hijab is nothing more than stereotypical prejudice. 

 She doesn’t  know that the origins of both forms of head gear are in Africa and the Middle East. She doesn’t understand that headgear is worn by men and women all around the world. As well as being practical and religious, headwear is a symbol of fashion, status and prosperity. It is also part of culture and is symbol of national dress and pride of many nations.

 The point is neither the hoodie is exclusively worn by black Americans nor is hijab an exclusive head wear of Muslims. It’s all about other people's perceptions. Question is why hoodie has become symbol of black men and why Hijab has become symbol of pride of Muslim women. In my view the answer lies in the wrong perceptions of wider society to link hoodies and black men crime and disorder. Similarly, hijab is maliciously being symbolised as oppression. The fact is that Muslim girls and women are making it a symbol of their identity and respect for their beliefs. They are standing up to the false propaganda that they are oppressed by their fathers, brothers and sons. They have the confidence to stand up to the bigots and say, we are Muslim, we are here, deal with it.  

 Why do some feminists feel they can ignore views of Muslim feminists like Camillia Khan who wrote this The 'Segregation' Debate and Muslim Female Empowerment |.  Why do they generalise that hijab is forced on women but offer no evidence to support their claims. The findings of a study survey report on the opinions of people in seven, predominantly Muslim countries can be found here . The survey shows 85% support for hijab across a sample made up of men and women. These are just two examples of differing view ignored by feminists like Adele Wilde-Balavatsky and UJ and co. They forget that most young women of today, both in the west and the east, are better educated than their mothers. They make their own choices and they do not need someone else telling them how to live their lives.  

On the issue of race hate crimes Adele wrote:

Racism is not skin-deep: white vs. non-white. If that were the case, then Why has there been centuries of caste discrimination and violence in countries like India? Why are Muslim women beaten and murdered by Muslim men for refusing to wear the hijab? How did both these deaths occur in a country that is led by a black male President? How does it explain the fact that about 150 black men are killed every week in the U.S. - and 94 percent of them by other black men?

UJ's explanation of the above is:

 What was needed, she argued, was a reframing of the whole conversation about the defence of women's rights and the need for a feminism that was, if not blind to cultural difference, then at least not subordinate to it.

 Neither the above extract from Adele Wilde-Blawatsky's piece nor the explanation of UJ makes makes any sense. Are they saying that victims of caste system, women murdered by men and black on black violence, while there is a black president, are all victims of racism.If that is what they are saying then in one swoop they have  changed the definition of racism and racist violence. The other explanation could be that, all of the above violence is cultural. In other words non white races are culturally prone to violence. I, however,  fail to see the connection between black male president and Murders of Martin Trayvon and Shamim Alawadi. 

 It seems to me that this is an attempt to link violent, race hate and ani-muslim crimes to culture of minorities and not real factors. To dismiss these crimes as result of patriarchal power, is ignoring the real factors. It’s an attempt to exempt western societies from any culpability. It suggests that if minorities do not wish to suffer racial violence, they should change and accept western culture/  dress, this race hate will stop. Therefore, it implies, that minorities should not protest as their problems are of their own making.

In light of the above, I am not surprised that the Feminist Wire collective made an entirely rational decision to remove Adele’s article and abusive comments from their website. They had no choice but to part company with her, they could not afford to associate with someone who was judgemental, exaggerator and who acted against unity and sowed seeds of division. Their side of story can be found here . 

 Adele seems to be unable to comprehend the reasons for the removal of her article and her removal from the collective. The matter continues to cloud her judgements and she has failed to see the motives of people, like UJ and Maryam Namazie, who are using her to pursue their own agenda. Furthermore, Two weeks after her removal from the TFW collective she wrote, an article titled "When Anti-Racism becomes Anti-Women: The 'Privileging' of Race above Gender, which you can read it here .

 If Adele and UJ wish to promote unity among feminists then why continue to write about it. Some 21 months later Adele wrote, 'Stop bashing White Women in the name of Beyonce': We need unity not division' . You can read this  here . Both articles show her inability to forget the incident with feminist wire and to move on.

She wrote:

Sadly, this is not the first time I have come across such a 'white women bashing' message from women in the media. Last year, the Feminist Wire collective published an article I wrote on the burqa and hijab in the wake of the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin: 'To Be Anti-Racist Is To Be Feminist: The Hoodie and the Hijab Are Not Equals'. The FW collective then backtracked after a backlash from their readership and after publishing a letter signed by over 80 feminists denouncing it. I subsequently published a follow up to the article 'When Anti-Racism becomes Anti-Woman'. I and other women who tried to defend the article online (including women of colour from Third World countries) were attacked as either white imperialist racists or suffering from false consciousness. The clear message was that if you're white you cannot criticise anything that is done or said by non-white people unless it follows a certain kind of left liberal 'post-colonial' strain of thought. In any case, white women cannot win on this issue. As Swati Parahsar stated in 'Where are the feminists to defend Indian women?' if white women do not speak up about the oppression of women of colour they are accused of white indifference, if they do they are accused of white imperialism. We're damned if we do damned if we don't.

  Note the absence of mention of Shamim Alawadi’s murder. It is true that some seven month after her death, her husband was arrested in connection with the matter. However, at the time of her death everyone believed it to be a racist and Islamophobic murder. Even if the murder was not a hate crime, Shamim Alawadi was still a victim of heinous crime. As a feminist shouldn’t Adele be concerned about the number of women killed by their partners in the United States. Has Shamim Alawadi death just become a statistic, which is not worth commenting. Shouldn’t feminists like Adele be concerned about the high number of women killed in US by their partners, the figure could be as high as 1000 a year, and highlighting it in their writings? May be they don’t want to acknowledge that the anti women violence is as prevalent in the global north as it is in the global south.

 What I found particularly distasteful was, after learning about the arrest of Shamim's huband in connection of her murder, the smugness and gloating in the exchange of tweets between Adele and her supporters.

 When Adel says that she received support from women of colour, from third world countries, she is actually talking about women mainly resident in the west. She doesn’t know that in today’s global world terms like “third world” are offensive and are not used. Furthermore, all of these supporters seem to belong to one organisation with a specific agenda. One of the people who supported her is Maryam Namazie. One of the "feminists" listed in his article is Maryam Namazie. Her identity is really confusing as she wears so many hats:

1.    Humanist; 2.    Human rights worker; 3.    Secularist; 4.    Liberal; 5.    Communist; 6.    Head of One law for all; 7.    Head of Ex-Muslims; 8.    Editor of Fitna; 9.    Editor of free thoughts website; 10. Women living under Islamic Law; 11. Atheist; 12. Immigration Advisor;

 I am sure I missed a few. She is either a control freak or it's just a one women show. She recently published a report titled "Political and Legal Status of Apostates in Islam". The report is supported and sponsored by none other than Richard Dawkins, once a man of reason and science, who noadys spends his time tweeting news about criminal acts in far flung countries and links them to Islam. He also considers himself a satrist. The report by Maryam Namazie researched laws and prosecutions for apostasy in 29 Muslim majority countries. It did not find a single case of prosecution under so called apostasy law. However, this didn’t stop the author from inferring that, because these countries were Islamic and regarded Islamic law as superior, any one leaving Islam in all 29 countries faced death penalty. This shows that people like Maryam Namazie, Richard Dawkins and their fellow Islamophobes will not let facts stop their hateful propaganda. A recently declared ex-Muslim, summed up motives behind such reports as muslimphobic propaganda. You can read her tweet below:

 

Layla Murad Tweet

 I can understand why Unrepentant Jacobin decided to exploit the dispute between the Feminist Wire and Adele Wilde-Blavatsky and wrote this article titled "Racism, Censorship, Disunity, on the hounding of Adele Wilde-Blavatsky".   It fits neatly into the narrow narrative he and his clique are pursuing. The article has been hailed as an intellectual piece by his clique but I will leave that others to judge.

 Unrepentant Jacobin picked up the baton from Adele and questions the very definition of racism. UJ feels that the minority communities, living in the west, have been exempted from the norms of the western behaviour/ culture. He quotes the following from a speech by Martin Luther King :

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

 First of all I am surprised that UJ, as an atheist, quoted something which contains the word “created”. Secondly, UJ doesn’t  believe that Muslims are equal to the westerners unless they have an x before their belief. Thirdly, a question, why the anti Muslim community (Islamophobia is not recognised by UJ and co) feel, they have the right to use these symbols and icons, of the civil rights, human rights and anti-apartheid movements, as tools of oppression of the minorities in the west. Furthermore, what right they have to argue that the minority communities should be denied rights under the equality, diversity and human rights legislation. They forget that it was the minority groups including Muslims who had campaigned and fought to get these legislation enacted. To deny people rights is akin to fascism than freedom and democracy.

 While I agree with UJ that humans of all colours and creed are capable of being racists, but to say that power and supremacy ideologies do not play a role is just denying the historic facts. Take slavery, why is it that the westerners only took Africans as slaves, why not Europeans. It’s not that there was no rivalry between European countries or that there a shortage of people in Europe. This trend continues today, as modern slavery and human trafficking mainly targets non Europeans. This superiority complex of some westerners is still the cause of racism at home and abroad. When was the last time you heard stories of non westerners waving their passports abroad and saying they can’t be touched. Same people readily flout and criticise local laws, while advocating that western laws should apply everywhere in the world. They abduct people from their homes, rendition them, torture them and keep them in interned camps, without charge or trial. 

 The undeniable fact is that racism in the west mainly affects the minority and non white communities. To deny this is to deny the Lord Scarman's report and findings and every subsequent report confirming the existence of institutional racism.

 If there is doubt then I suggest UJ and Adele should read this article in the Independent, which shows that children of minority communities, experience racism and racial & Islamophobic abuse at an early age. We are all aware of the increase in anti Muslim hate crimes in the UK, including Murder and arson, as shown in this report in the Guardian . Increasing trends in anti Muslim attacks are highlighted in this report  published by  the FBI , the report shows 50% increase in anti muslim attacks in the US. This Al-Jazeerah report show disturbing trends of attacks on people who look like a Muslims. In other words people who may not be Muslims but they fit the stereo typical image, because of their Asian and Arab descent. If this doesn’t show link between racism and Islamophobia then I don’t know what will.  

 While I agree with both UJ and Adele that feminists, black or white, on the left or the right , should be able to raise issues affecting women both in the global north & global south. What I don’t agree with is, that there is an hierarchy of violence against women and children based on who is doing it or who the victims are. Victims of violence whether in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Palestine, Syria, Iraqi etc. are all victims. Violence through arms and ammunition is as bad as violent rape on a Delhi bus. Furthermore, violence against women is not just a global South Issue, it is global North issue too. There may be different factors, causes and forms in the global North than global south but outcomes are the same.

 Challenging so called crimes of passion and child sex abuse and paedophilia in the global North is as important as child marriages, honour killings in the global south. We need to challenge sexual abuse associated with the cult of celebrity in the global north as much as feudalism in the global south. Bonded labour is as bad as human trafficking for sex industry. Tackling gun and gang crime (in the last ten years more lives have been lost in the US through gun crime than terrorism and soldiers killed in action together) is as important as tackling terrorism. It is a shameful day when you see 4 grandees of British media appearing in the court, all on the same day, on charges of sexual abuse and sexual harassment. At the same time two senior politicians were suspended from their Political Party for alleged sexual misconduct. This doesn’t bode well for advances in tackling sexual harassment in our society.

 Feminists shouldn’t just highlight the problems, they should also look at the causes and possible solutions and strategies to tackle . Lack of education,  poverty, suppression by powerful and culture, all play their part. Wars often affects education, increases poverty and dependency on the powerful which leads to exploitation. Government policies such as one child policy in China and forced sterilisation in India has also lead to the gap in male female ration in these countries. Recently, media and feminists have been making a big hoo-ha,, without any substantive evidence, about foetus selection and abortions in the UK. The media and feminists, however, have failed to criticise these practices prevalent in India. Instead what we find is that they are demonising minority communities with pre-formed prejudices.  

 Intellect and intelligent are closely linked, you can’t be a great thinker and producer of reasoned arguments without the intelligence. You also need to be well informed and be able to process the information available and use facts to support your arguments. If you don’t have the information then you must seek it, before commenting and making ignorant remarks. However, modern intellectuals seem to think that because they are famous, they don’t need to follow this rule. They feel that their opinion, no matter how flawed, be accepted as intellectually reasoned statement.

 This, flawed 21^st century phenomenon, is not limited to certain academics, it has spread to the Journalistic, Political and other sectors. It has become the bases of creating so called think tanks, institutes and various other organisations. These organisations have names which are opposite to their activity, e.g. Centre for Community Cohesion, Human Rights Watch, Foundation for Science and Reason, Quilliam Foundation, English Defence League, Free Thoughts, Student Rights, etc. You might wonder why I have included EDL in the list, well it is to show the depravity of intellectual claims by these organisations. Most of them have the same Islamophobic and  ignorant views and a shared agenda. They use the same arguments, same thread in their tweets and retweets. They have the same message with the same aims and impact. 

We must expose such ignorance, wherever it exists, and restore the integrity of real intellectuals.

 I admit that I do not understand in what context these people are using the phrase "cultural relativism". So what is culture? As there are no written rules which defines culture and because it is ever changing, we need to use our imagination. Although from time to there is revival of culture, as we have seen it on British Isles. especially in Wales. Different people interpret culture differently, however, in my humble opinion culture is all about life, living and lifestyle. It encompasses food, clothing, fashion, art, language, literature, music, sport, pastimes, relationships, to list the few items which may come under culture. As humanity develops and grows culture develop and evolve too. In today's global world cultures are global too. As we travel and emigrate our culture travels with us but it doesn't stay the same. For example Tea drinking was important tradition in ancient china but today it is linked to the English Culture. However, with the invasion of American coffee firms, this is under threat.

 Sometimes, however, custom and Prentice and tradition is mistaken as culture. While culture continues to evolve, customs and traditional practices developed over long periods remain static. Therefore, opponents of the concept of multiculturalism should reflect on their position. While culture often travels with people, custom and traditional practises are often left behind. People also try to link culture to the belief systems when nothing could be further from the truth. However, this topic is for another day. 

 As far as the UK is concerned, Multi culturalism means understanding and celebrating diversity, which not only includes racial minorities but also other minority groups. These groups include Travellers, mainland European communities, Disabled and LGBT.  Even before the arrival of the minority communities from the non white countries, the United Kingdom was a diverse and multi cultural country. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had their own cultures, values and languages. Furthermore, there were regional variation within England and other parts.  Cultural festivals celebrating this diversity continue to be held. Only difference is that such cultural events are now enhanced with colour, spice, music, different foods and tastes of new comers.

To suggest that the non white communities should absorb themselves fully and become invisible is a laughable idea. Non white communities will always remain visible to racists and bigots.

 Those opposing the multiculturalism are mainly Islamophobic and Racist groups. It will be a great shame if they succeed in creating divisions because of their narrow minded views of the world and humanity.