In recent days Ed Husain, full name Mohammed Mahbub Husain, has been busy doing the rounds of the right wing media houses and organisations to promote his book titled “Among the Mosques: A journey across Muslim Britain”. He started this by providing advanced copies to all known anti migrant, anti minority and anti Muslim outlets. This is not surprising as his target readers aren’t Muslims but anti Muslim crowd and Western governments. Extracts from his book were published by Daily Mail and the Times. While he says they took things out of context but by providing copies to these publications, known for their anti Muslim history, he knew they would generate publicity in the desired circles.
Ed Husain has now
written an article titled “The evolution of British Muslim society will shape
the Uk’s future” in the Jewish Chronicle. The headline is similar to the far-right
tactics of population replacement conspiracy theories. By the way it is not the
first time he has written for the magazine. Last year he wrote an article
titled “British Jews should stop attacking Netanyahu”. In which he argued that
Britain should not intervene to stop the annexation of the West Bank by Israel.
He asserted that attacking Israel would result in Jews again expelled from the Middle
East. He clearly used emotive language to scare Jewish community to unconditionally
support Israel and ignore breaches of the International law and human rights.
In that article he at
least said something truthful that historically Muslims had provided
sanctuaries to the Jewish people. It is a fact that Muslims recognise both Jews
and Christians as people of book and has lived with them side by side in peace in
the Middle East and other parts of the world. Any friction that developed was
by the interferences of the West, from crusades to colonialism to recent wars. Ed
Husain uses Muslim belief of respecting Abrahamic religions and prophets to twist
into claim that early Muslims had recognised that Judea and Jerusalem belonged
to the Jews. We know that the Zionist community doesn’t agree with his former
statement that Muslims provided sanctuary to Jewish people. Instead they allege
that Muslims committed atrocities against Jews and Netanyahu even blamed Mufti
of Jerusalem for the holocaust committed by the Nazis.
In his latest article
in the Jewish Chronicle Ed Husain again says that “Who will explain to the Muslim firebrands that today’s Israel
is a fulfilment of the Quranic command” He provides no evidence for his
assertion. These views are similar to those of the Evangelical Christian
Zionists, who also say Israeli state is fulfilment of Biblical prophesies.
Maybe that’s why he and all other self proclaimed reformers/ moderates e.g.
Maajid Nawaz, Zuhdi Jassar, Qanta Ahmed, Rakib Ehsan, Wasiq, Fiyaz Mughal, Husain Haqqani, etc.are unconditional supporters of Israel and its far right leadership.
Ed Husain says that “French historian Gilles
Kepel documents the influences of the Nazis on the Muslim Brotherhood”. He adds
Moderate Muslims and Jews feel unsafe in parts of Britain today because we have
a common enemy in those who seek to destroy our inheritance of nation states in
Britain and Israel, but also remove Arab governments and create disorder in the
Middle East. This crisis is much bigger than Israel. There is no appeasing it.
The Red-Green alliance seeks to advance Iran’s radical allies of Hamas,
Hezbollah, the Brotherhood and others. Firstly,
Kepel is not a historian but a political scientist and Arabist whatever that
means, secondly, His views are based on Western supremacy and French colonial
history in Algeria, Africa, where French committed Nazi like atrocities long
after Nazis had been defeated. In other words Ed and Kepel are both in the same
field as both made careers by talking about Muslims in the West.
Their aim is twofold; firstly, spread fear and suspicion in
the mainstream white communities of alien presence and secondly, to talk about failures
of integration to help authorities and right wing politicians to introduce
measures of surveillance control. No wonder Ed is a supporter of Macron’s far
right style curbs on freedoms of religion and personal freedoms of French
Muslims. The reality is that this kind of restraints on freedoms in so called
free societies results in more alienation, discrimination, etc. These state
sponsored discriminatory measures are designed to suppress chances of
progression of the minority communities, in particular their participation in
the mainstream life and politics where they could raise concerns and influence
policies which is contrary to their narrative of promoting integration.
One of the reasons Zionists including Muslim Zionists rile
against the left is that people like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders encourage
grass root minorities to participate in politics. They are responsible for new,
fearless, young and vocal faces like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Dawn
Butler, Zarah Sultana,etc.. These people would have had no chance in the established
systems that only promotes chosen and vetted people from minority communities
and who don’t rebel against injustices and curbs against minorities. Their fear
of sharing power with minorities is greater than the left’s support for the
Palestinian cause. That’s the reason for Ed Husain and far-right’s fear
mongering rhetoric of population growth of Muslims/ minorities and possible
influence on policy.
There can’t be any other explanation for Ed Husain’s claims
that 40% mosques in UK are controlled by Deobandi extremists. He has previously
written about Sunni, Shia and Salafi extremists, which basically means all
Muslims are extremists. He doesn’t pick up these sects by accident, this
happens after far right Islamophobic organisations like Henry Jackson Society
and Gatestone Institute, who happen to be Israeli supporters, publish false and
manufactured information about various sects based on their views about Israel
Palestine Kashmir etc. Then people like Ed Husain pick up those lines to
legitimise their rhetoric including projected population growth of Muslims/ non
white minorities without comparing it with growth of population as a whole.
When Ed Husain says
that he feels unsafe in Derby and Doncaster than in Delhi and Dubai because he
is a moderate Muslim, he is legitimising views of the far-right Islamophobes/
racists of no go areas. Reality is 99.999..% of Muslims in Britain probably don’t
know his name let alone his face. He says that he does not fear far-right
racists but Muslims whom he calls racist bigots and Islamic supremacists. If he
thinks that he would be spared by racists who attack mosques and recently
killed 3 generations of a family just because they were brown and Muslim, he is
mistaken.
As far as Ed Husain
feeling safer in Delhi and Dubai than Derby and Doncaster is concerned, he
probably couldn’t find a city to rhyme with in Israel so he opted for Dubai. He
is either oblivious to the fact that India is currently ruled by a fascist
Hindutva ideologists. Hindutva is an ideology which was definitely influenced
Nazi ideology as explained in this research articles by Paul Marshal of the Hudson Institute. The current
Indian regime persecutes minority communities of Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and
Dalits. This regime has put 10 million Muslims of Kashmir under lockdown,
enforced by 900k army, for nearly three years. There are daily lynchings of Muslims in India and in one incident in Delhi a Muslim neighbourhood was attacked and nearly 50 Muslims were killed and their homes and mosque destroyed.
His claims of not
feeling safe in Muslim communities are contradicted by his own statements that
Muslims welcomed him in their homes and mosques. He visited many cities and
towns but no one attacked him or chased him away from the mosque or the areas
he visited for “research”. Research, consisted of casual conversations with
some individuals that included a taxi driver, a man in the street/ mosque, an
anonymous council worker and a white man sitting on a wall etc. And like the
Trojan Horse saga, proven to be an elaborate hoax, he claims to have spotted an
odd book in a shop or a mosque or seeing a sign saying sharia department to
label people extremists and accuse them of running a parallel legal system. He
tries to link Manchester bomber with Didsbury mosque while ignoring the Libyan
link and 9 years of deadly chaos.
His language about Syrian
refugees is appalling. He uses a conversation with an anonymous council worker
to suggest young refugees from war torn Syria are loud, prone to violence and
possibly future terrorists. He shows no sympathy with possible mental scars
they are carrying from their experiences of war. It is not clear whether Ed
supports Asad regime in Syria or those who tried to overthrow the regime. You
expect better than this from a professor then again when you start your journey
with results and readership in mind you will come to the conclusions to suit
that.
With regard to the
recent demonstrations against Israeli attacks on Gaza and barbarity in the
occupied Palestinian territories Ed Husain says “I can only imagine the fear in Jewish families from the rise
of this militant Muslim supremacy. It pains me to hear the chilling refrain of
bags being ready for an escape”. It is the rhetoric developed by the Zionists
to scare Jews to continue the programme of illegal settlements in Israel.
Zionists consider Palestinian flag and talk of Palestinian freedom struggle
anti-Semitic. Ed Husain not only agrees with them but goes further by calling
Muslims in the demonstrations supremacists
This rhetoric from Ed
Husain and other Zionists is similar to the rhetoric and tactics used by far-right/
right wing media to neutralise voices raising concerns about racism, bigotry
and white supremacy. They call Anti-fascist, fascists and Marxists and Black
lives Matter supporters are also called racists, etc. Now Muslims raising
concerns about racism, Islamophobia, or atrocities against Palestinians,
Kashmiris etc are subjected to the same abuse. What is interesting is that
those labelling Antifa and Black lives matter are also supporters of Israel.
The fact is that both Muslims and Jews have more to fear from rising Far-right
fascists and white supremacists than each other. History shows that Jews,
minorities/ Muslims have jointly fought against the far-right before and they
will face it together again.
However, Ed Husain doesn’t like people to unite
and promotes divisive rhetoric as he said in the article that “as always, the
Jewish people are the canaries in the coalmine” and “the footsoldiers (Muslims)
who seek to attack Jews also see others as inferior: women, Hindus, Sikhs, gay
people and moderate, peace-loving Muslims”. He adds “If after education and
opportunities to integrate, radical Muslims don’t like our free nation and its
citizens they should leave Britain. Shamima Begum did. Until we say “you are
not welcome here, leave,” we will be seen as weak. Once we muster the courage
to defend civilisation, we will begin to win. This is not about Jews: it’s
about the future of Britain”. He’s not the only one saying to Muslims to leave his
fellow "Muslim Zionists" have also said that at one time or another.
His outburst against Muslims suggests that its not the Jews
who are canaries in the coalmine, it is the Muslims. We know that and apart
from the Zionists, Jewish people also know that there are no statutory controls
and restrictions on the freedoms of the Jewish people. They are not
continuously subjected to the rhetoric of othering by states and the media. No
one questions their loyalty despite the fact that some people put Israel before
their home state. They are free to send their children to Israel to spend two
years in Israeli army. No one questions what that does to their mentality, as
they participate in violent suppression of Palestinians and maintain racist
apartheid systems, and how they behave on their return. People like Melanie
Phillips use youtube channels to pump out hateful propaganda against Muslims
and minorities to Israel and US while maintaining respectable position in the
mainstream media, Times, BBC, Sky etc.
Ed Husain questions Muslim community’s loyalty by saying there
are no British flags in the mosques but there are flags in the synagogues. Firstly,
I am sure he’s been in mosques all over the Muslim world & would have noticed that there aren’t any national flags in the mosques, secondly, if synagogues have union jack they also have Israeli flags. Imagine if mosques in the UK would have flags of other
countries, he would be the first to question the loyalty of worshippers. He says Muslims are living a separate life from British society, I would say its not the Muslims but Ed Husain who is living a separate life from mainstream Muslims. He has no idea what's going on in Muslim communities up & down the country and he's still trading with rhetoric of 15/ 20 years ago.
Ed Husain’s book is not
a scholarly work but something Tommy Robinson would write, I mean have it
written for him. No wonder its reviewers are not his peers from the teaching
fraternity but peers from the anti Muslim anti minority and anti immigrant
community. These reviewers include Sajid Javid who is member of the
conservative friends of Israel. Times of Israel says Sajid Javid, in an address
to a meeting of World Jewish Congress in 2017 said “to apologise for the
Balfour declaration would be to apologise for the existence of Israel”. Javid
had also said that if he had to go and live in the Middle East, hr wouldn’t go
to the birth place of the holy prophet but Israel where my family would feel
warm embrace of freedom and liberty. Don’t forget that Sajid Javid made Shamima
Begum stateless.
The other reviewer is
Tom Holland, a fiction writer who made an Islamophobic documentary which BBC
refused to air but on the back of that he now calls himself a historian. He is
an English nationalist and a Christian who supports Israel but I am not sure if
he is Evangelical Zionist.
Then we have David
Goodhart who made a career out of being anti immigration, In 2004 Chair of the
Commission for Racial Equality called his views similar to those of Enoch
Powell. The chair was Trevor Phillips, who was suspended by the Labour Party
for Islamophobic comments, and seem to hold similar views as Goodhart, how
times have changed. Talking of change Trevor Phillips under New Labour
disbanded Commission for Racial Equality and created Equality and Human rights
commission and David Goodhart is now one of its commissioners despite saying we
need to maintain hostile environment that resulted in Windrush scandal.
Another reviewer is mysterious
Jawad Iqbal of Times. Don’t know much about him except he writes for the Times
a paper with history of anti Muslim campaigns.