Why Not Be a Muslim for a Day, Mr Nick Cohen

When an outspoken Muslim gains some prominence, sooner or later they find themselves targeted by a campaign to discredit and undermine them. We have seen it time and time again. The list includes Journalists Mehdi Hasan, journalists and editorial staff of the Guardian and most recently Assed Baig of the Channel 4 News. Muslim Politicians and elected officials like Mayor of Tower Hamlet, MPs and Members of the House of Lords, etc also come under attack. Currently London's mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan MP is in the firing line from the opponents including the Prime Minister. Prime Minister used the parliamentary privilege to attack Sadiq Khan, the leader of the opposition and made unsubstantiated claims of extremism against an Imam Suliman Gani.

Then there are the Muslim student bodies which come under sustained attack. So when we see attacks on Malia Bauattia, newly elected president of the Student Union, it is neither shocking nor surprising. Furthermore, Muslim groups and individuals highlighting injustices, raising concerns about inequality and discrimination are constantly targeted in the mainstream and social media. Even Muslim children and their education doesn’t escape the scrutiny. Parents Teachers and school governing bodies have all come under attack on the whim of zealot officials and sensationalist media.

You don't need to say or do anything to be subjected to this scrutiny, just need to declare you are a Muslim. However, if you happen to be outspoken Muslim or in the public eye, you will be targeted by certain people to who would devote time and resources to find something incriminating, no matter how old or irrelvat. A recent example of this is the case of a 20 year old Muslim councillor, Aysegul Gurbaz, who may have posted 3-4 tweets between the age of 14 and 18. Another recent example was the attack on Assed Baig, again for 3- 4 tweets 2-5 year old and tweeted long before his employment with the Channel 4 News. In the first case the incriminating discovery was made by the campaign against anti-Semitism and in the second case by Guido Fauks, a right wing political blog. Both cases then appeared in the Daily Mail.

I am certain that I will be branded anti-Semite and not anti fascist for what I am about to say. In all of the above cases two things are prominent Israel lobby along with the right wing establishment supporting media. The question is why deploy resources, both human and in monitory terms, to try to dig dirt on Muslim individuals and organisations. They do not deploy these resources on every Journalist, politician, student body, education establishment, etc. Talking of students and educational bodies, when so called Trojan Horse story was in the news we saw helicopters flying around taking pictures of schools, teachers, governors, parents and pupils. The same situation occurred in the case of the Iqra school. There was no privacy and no concerns about the safety of the people being filmed. Compare that to the recent story of missing boys and the illegal and unsafe schools of the Jewish community. The reporters were prohibited from identifying students, teachers and the locations of schools. There was no interrogation of Jewish leaders instead the BBC Newsnight presenter had a very civilised almost jovial conversation with various Jewish leaders, politicians and educationalists. There was no outrage at their support for such schools.

Incidentally all these people who attack Muslims call themselves "liberals" but what does it really mean. One definition I found says "willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own". These so called liberals have closed minds and are not open to discussion and debate. They have scripted rhetoric and ideas which they want to enforce on others. They not only abuse and misuse the term liberal they also abuse other terms like moderate and medieval. To be moderate is to be average, modest and ordinary but these individuals have extreme views about monitoring activities of Muslims from birth to death, labelling them from Islamist to extremist and demonising them in a way that it restricts their opportunities.

As far as the term medieval is concerned, historically it refers to the era between year 500 to 1500 after the loss of Roman Empire. Everything related to this term relates to history of disarray in the European continent. It has nothing to do with the rest of the world's civilisation, culture, trade and inventions. Basically people are judging rest of the world with their own bad history. Their limited knowledge of the rest of the world and historyis not based on reality but tainted by own experiences.

Recently Nick Cohen wrote a piece titled Why I am becoming a Jew and Why you should, too . This piece is an attack on the left in particular the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn, Muslims of the West and alleged rise in the anti-Semitism. This is not the first time he has written on this subject, in fact the article is a rehash of his article written in 2009. There is a common thread in both articles warning left to stay away from Muslims in Europe and that Muslims and dark skinned people are the new fascists of Europe.

The Article doesn't mention of the modern day white far right and neo Nazi groups sweeping through Europe. This is probably because they have been persuaded that presence of the dark skinned minorities/ Muslims is the only threat to the Judeo-Christian Europe. Jist of the argument, in both articles, is the same, only thing which has changed is that Nick is no longer a member of the Labour party and there is more emphasis on the left in particular attacks on the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn. Could it be that the party embraces true liberal principles and it is on the side of the ordinary people that provides minorities including Muslims; support and opportunity to participate in the democratic political process.

While Mr Cohen continuously talks about anti-Semitism, which by the way is more to do with his affinity with the state of Israel, he denies the existence of Islamophobia. He regularly criticises Muslims, Islam and Palestinians but says nothing about the excessive persecution and suppression of Palestinians. He doesn’t criticise the fundamentalist religious coalition which is in power in Israel and their two tier justice system. The fact that the state of Israel governs over as many Jews as Arab and Palestinians with Muslim and Christian faith, criticism of Israel can not be considered anti-Semitic. Only way it could be regarded as anti-Semitic if Israel is considered solely religious Jewish state which will be contrary to the position of her and her supporters that Israel is a modern democratic state.

Whether he admit or not Nick Cohen not only promotes a certain rhetoric which can only be described as racist Islamophobia. Furthermore, time and time again he comes to the defence of others involved in the same activity. A classic example is this article in the Spectator. The headline states that “Richard Dawkins attacks Christian bigots as well as Muslim”. But when you read the article he doesn't provide any example of attacks on Christians. Nick Cohen uses the classic form of defence by attacking Muslims and in a convoluted way he justifies Richard Dawkins racist and Islamophobic activity. He talks about Nahla Mehmoud and how she had suffered in Sudan. Would he do the same for Malia Bauattia, who had fled terror in Algeria, only to find herself facing racism, discrimination and accused of anti-Semitism and being supporter of terrorism. Would he criticise this article by Hannah Weisfeld which belittles NUS motion against anti-Semitism, passed with the support of Malia Bauattia

In the above article Hanna Weisfeld provides the clue to the Islamophbic rhetoric coming out of these people. She says that 93% of UK Jews say that Israel is part of their identity and have an afinity with Israelis. There is nothing wrong with that except when, it becomes obsessive as this tweet by Toby Young suggests, it becomes dangrous. In contrast poll after poll of British Muslims show that they have 80+% feel loyalty to Britain. Furthermore, despite being migrants, refugees or descendants of migrats and refugees and having relatives abroad, they show no such afinity with other countries. Yet their loyalty is questioned again and again, just because they want to voice an opinion about wars and devastation it brings to the lives of ordinary people. 

Nick Cohen, an atheist, has seen the light and has accepted that he is a Jew and want others to be the same. He is not alone to show such sentiment about his religeon. The reality is that New atheism is all about religion and most of its figure heads have affinity with their or their parents. Be it Richard Dawkins who has more than soft spot for Christianity or Sam Harris who supports Israel because of his Jewish roots.

For a Jewish man to become a Jew is not really a big step, and it hasn't made a slight bit of difference to his rhetoric. Nick Cohen should try to be a Muslim for a week or just for one day, may be then he would realise how hateful and hurtful his rhetoric really is.

Don't Talk About It, Its Not the Right Time

The appalling murders in France have rightly started the debate about the freedom of speech. However, at the same time people are being told that it is not the time to talk about the issues which are absolute relevant to the unity of the communities and are vital to stop such incidents happening again. This happens everytime such incidents happen and it is never discussed and addressed. Instead narratives are developed to create divisions, stereo types and prejudices, which can only lead to discrimination and feelings of not belonging. These feelings are then exploited and cause some people to act in a manner which is not conducive to a cohesive society.

The solidarity march in Paris today was to promote unity and inclusiveness for all. The impressive and historic attendance was a spectacle to hold with people of all faiths, colours and nationalities attending in large numbers. There were lot of moments to remember, like a Muslim Mayor of a Town who had come with his Jewish Businessman friend. Both were wearing placards, the Mayor’s placard said I am a Muslim and I love Jews and the Jewish friend was wearing placard saying I am a Jew and I love Muslims. The Jewish businessman spoke better English and said that the Muslim mayor had started a programme for teenage children from different races faiths and backgrounds to meet and learn about each other. Then there there was a Muslim man who gave white roses of peace to passer bys Jews and others. There was a Jewish woman who had moved from Israel to France, 20 years ago, and she was there with her Muslim friend but both also expressed their fears for the future. People were there with their children and elderly relatives with messages of peace and desire to live in peace and harmony. There were lot of young people whose parents / grandparents had moved to the country. Its this unity of young generation of descents of migrants and young white French that gives hope for a more tolerant future. 

The march was also attended by some leaders and high officials of the world. Some leaders tried to make political capital out of it and others were grateful to be invited. British Prime Minister was talking about security and measures to limit our freedoms further. Despite being told to stay away Netanyahu turned up, he used the well rehersed rhetoric of fighting Muslim extremists (Palestinians) and rise of anti-Semitism. He offered safe sanctuary to Jews in Israel, not surprising as more than 30% of Israelis want to leave the country for better careers and futures. One of the considred views of humanity and unity of all races, colours and beliefs and non belief came from an Italian Prince. Unfortunately he doesn’t have any power to bring about changes he was talking about. One Sky commentator and his guest agreed that this kind of unity procession was a better way to create cohesion, integration and unity than the proposed legislations limiting our freedoms.

Despite the positives of the march, one must ask questions whether the crowd represented all of the French communities. Was it just a gathering of the great and the good and middle classes and what efforts were made to include the marginalised and deprived communities where these murderers had come from. The neighbours of the culprits had nothing to say about these men except good things like they held doors, they helped people to carry shopping, they helped the disabled, they were quite and polite, etc. Even the person at the print warehouse, where they were finally killed spoke about their humanity. We now know that the brothers who carried out the Charlie Ebdo massacre were orphans, one of them was homeless the other had committed string of petty offences. They were born and bred in France and didn’t have any particular roots abroad. Yet they felt the need to travel abroad and make contacts with people with extreme views.

One person interviewed on the BBC said that there was abject poverty in the ghettos of Paris. Children were literally starving and young girls were prostituting themselves to survive. Another person who owned a restaurant said there was wide spread discrimination against the  descendants of the migrants from North African and Arab countries. He said while he had employees from various racial backgrounds such as Mali, Ethiopia, etc, there were no go areas for these young people and majority of restaurants will not employ young people from minorities like Arabs and Africans. One Muslim said that there are restrictions on the liberties of people with regard to expression of religion, clothing and even food. There is also the problem of increasing attacks on Muslims and their places of worship both before and after the murders at the Charlie Ebdo. There is no legal protection against Islamophobia anywhere in Europe.

Slowly it is becoming clear that the Charlie Ebdo wasn’t just a satirist magazine, it allegedly also promoted xenophobia, racial and religious hatred. It has also emerged that the Magazine had sacked one of its employees for anti-Semitic activity, but not for racial hatred or Islamophobic. It is clear that Charlie Ebdo wasn’t a popular magazine in any sense with only 60,000 copy print. The magazine mainly catered for the high society, which influence the opinions and policies of the government. It would be interesting to see if the proposed government funded million copies will contain similar material as alleged above.

While the France was preparing for the solidarity march, a debate was being held at the BBC studios for the programme the Big Question, with main topic of incident in Paris. The host of the programme is well known for his prejudice and collaboration with the Islamophobic community. This was reflected with the choice of guests disproportionally in favour of his views.  It was like having a match where the referee was in cahoots with one team. He failed to give enough time for reply to Raza Nadim of MPAC. It is becoming a norm for the BBC to give platform to people like Douglas Murray of the Henry Jackson Society and the Gatestone Institute and Quilliam’s front man Maajid Nawaz, to spread the narrative of division, fear and hate while gradually dropping the voices of reason. Douglas Murray said that it wasn’t the time to discuss the alleged inflammatory material and editorial of the Magazine. He made the laughable claims that Muslims were trying to enforce Sharia on the mainstream community and that the Islam was to blame for the actions of the perpetrators. Maajid Nawaz’s rhetoric is well known and is not  worth repeating. Nabila Ramdani a French Algerian Journalist puts it better in her Guardian artcle why French Muslims shouldnt be blamed. For that matter we need to get away from blaming whole of the Muslim communities for the crimes of the few and start confronting those who are creating mischief of this kind for own goals.    

To say it is not the time to discuss these issues is to ignore the real causes of disconnect, frustration and helplessness, which are leading to people acting out of character and committing acts of violence. The solidarity message need to be filtered through to the above mentioned deprived communities which exist in all of our societies. In reality they exist in all countries accross the world developed, developing, Western, Eastern, Muslim and Non Muslim. The lazy rhetoric to ask Muslims to do more, blaming the religion and rhetoric of back door sharia and the harsh language by politicians has been tried, tested and has failed. These people who carried out atrocities were born and bred in France. They were the product of French society. Therefore, to blame any other society, culture or religion is farcical and we are all to blame for our failings not just the one community.

Its time pay attention to the above mentioned deprived and discriminated communities. They include people of all races religion and colour. We need to provide comfort, assurance and support to these communities before someone else does and exploit them for their own agenda. Don’t just blame the religion and ask communities to do more as it reinforces the idea of separation not cohesion. We all have a responsibility to our young; don’t treat them as foreigners as their roots are here, treat them as citizens. Dont let people with extreme dark agendas of creating divisions and hatered talk and listen to the voices of reason in all communities.