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.

Paris Tragedy, Clichés and Cycle of Backlash

Two weeks ago Paris was hit by the massacre of its inhabitants who were enjoying the start of weekend. A total of 130 people lost their lives and hundreds were injured. The loss of innocent life said to be the highest since the world war. Most of us were in a shock and were trying to get our heads round the extent of the tragedy and feeling sorry for the friends and families of the victims. A group of people, however, could not wait for the blood of the victims to dry and started to exploit the tragedy for their twisted agendas. They were firing up tweets, blogs and rants on the media, generally spouting hate. Their behaviour was against all human values of sympathy and respect for the dead. Following is a sample of their tweets:

Barefoot Syrian refugees with
her 3 young children in Europe

 The target of these tweets, refugees fleeing war zone of Syria and other conflict zones. These people have been criticising European Governments for allowing Brown Muslim Refugees into the white Judeo- Christian West. These hate preachers and fear mongers have been opposing the policies of the European Union, in particular the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Threy cheered countries like Hungry for putting obstacles in the miserably hard journey of refugees, which has taken lives of thousands. This exploitation of Paris tragedy shows the depravity of these people. Despite their hateful views, they are the respectable face of the racism/ Islamophbia. In fact some of them are part of a network of Islamophobic industry including the Gatestone Institute and their subsidiaries like the Henry Jackson society and supporters of sub-subsidiaries such as the Quilliam foundation. These are the respectable faces of the hate mongering fraternity. Together they inspire, incite and radicalise ordinary people who don’t just tweet vile abusive and threatening tweets but put that in practice. The inflammatory language used by our media and Politicians doesn't help. The use of words like hoards, swarms and swamping doesn’t help.

When something like Paris tragedy happens clichés such as “they hate the West“ are banded about. However, no one explains that why the large parts of the West like, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, etc are spared of such attacks. Why only countries involved in the conflicts have been targeted by these people? Of course there are other clichés like “they hate our values”, “they hate our lifestyle” and “they love death while we love life”. This message is reinforced with “they are barbarians and savages”. This language stems from the feelings of superiority and racist attitudes that are prevalent on both sides of the Atlantic. The attitudes which have been responsible for deaths of unarmed black people in the US and gave rise to the black lives matter movement. This kind of language is also designed to cover up the failures to integrate generations of descendants of migrants who are the main culprits in Paris like tragedies. Furthermore, it is easier to blame people far away for the atrocities than accept the circumstances leading to the enfranchisement of own citizens.

Denial seems to be the name of the game when comes to wars and its consequences. It has been used by the Pentagon after bombing weddings and hospitals etc. Denial of the motives of attacks on the westerners and on the western soil is also part of the same strategy. Recently, Ken Livingston made remarks about 7/7 bombers on a tv programme, saying that they (bombers) gave their life because of a political cause and our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blair supporter Matt Forde, who was also a panelist on the same programme, tried to shut Ken Livingston by claiming that it was offenssive to the victims of 7/7 bombing. It is this kind of bullying which is keeping us from discussing the real issues, which are keeping us in a cycle of unending violence. The reality is that only one of the mass murderers of Paris was known for his IS supporting activities. The rest were not known to be religious or known for any extremist tendencies. Some of them ran a bar which was closed for illegal activities, couple of months before the atrocity. It seems that they had become radicalised within that short period of time. Furthermore, at the time of their murderous activity they were high on drugs, not on any kind of religious fervour.      

It is the people like Maajid Nawaz and the sponsors of Quilliam Foundation with their rhetoric of ideology, who have been spreading fear of Islam and Muslims. Then they turn around and claim that there is no such thing as Islamophobia. Over the years, they have been casting increasingly wider net to label all Muslims as Islamists, non violent extremists, etc. The reality is that apart from a cultish group of approx. 200 to 300, which doesn’t believe in the democratic society, the vast majority of Muslims have always taken part in the democratic processes. There have been Muslim councillors and lord mayors going as far back as 1970s and 1980s. There are number of Muslim MPs and ministers in the cabinet and shadow cabinets. The reality is that Quilliam, their sponsors and so called prevent programme is doing real damage to the active participation of Muslims in Politics, Education, Employment, Media, etc. Maybe that is the goal of their sponsors; to undermine, disenfranchise, and suppress the voice of the Muslim community.  

Coming back to the Paris tragedy, there was an immediate backlash from the French in the form of bombing of the alleged capital of Daesh, Raqqa. Bearing in mind that France is already bombing in Syria, why didn't they bomb Raqqa before? Is it because the risk to the civilian population is greater in Raqqa than in other places? If that is the case then how bombing Raqqa civilians will improve their security? Now France has asked UK to join them in the bombing campaign over Syria, where risk of killing civilian population is greater. Although our Government has made an unconvincing case to join France in the bombing campaign in Syria, they may still get approval from the parliament. There is however a concern about the alleged remarks attributed to the PM David Cameron, that people opposing the proposed action in Syria are terrorist sympthisers. This unfortunately confirms that debate is suppressed at the highest level.

After the Paris attacks media talked about backlash against the Muslim citizens of the West. It was an odd prediction as they had nothing to do with what had happened in Paris. However, the backlash has happened, mainly due to the media rhetoric and headlines like in the Sun below. We must not forget the wide spread incitement and abuse on the social media.

The results are painfully clear to the victims of Islamophobic/ racist attacks. Although victims of such abuse are people of all ages, often it is the women who bear the brunt of this hate crime. Most victims are targeted because of their obvious visibility as Arabic/ Asian appearance and this sometimes results in attacks on other brown coloured non Muslim communities too. Women are targeted for such abuse as they are doubly visible as Muslims because of their colour and dress/ hijab and because, like the terrorists, they are probably considered a soft target.

Politicians are no better in addressing the problem. Only the Labour MPs have raised the issue in the Parliament. Shadow equalities minister Kate Green MP raised her concerns about the staggering 300% increase in, already high, Islamophobic attacks. As far as the Government is concerned, they have been busy enacting/ introducing annual instalments of counter terrorism/ extremism legislation / regulations. The Prime Minister has been making major speeches on the prevention strategy. PM and his minister's strong statements and so called prevent programme, has created an atmosphere of suspicion affecting whole of the Muslim community. The role of this approach in the increasing number of Islamophobic attacks and discrimination, affecting daily life from education, employment, public service to charitable activities, can not be denied. Government's reliance on selected individuals and organisations for advice and consultation and not the mainstream communities is responsible for some of its ill thought policies. Unfortunately some of the advisors are motivated by their own agendas. This became clear in the saga of the Cage UK, an organisation named by the Prime Minister in one of his speeches. As it happens the courts disagreed with the assessments made by the people advising him and attacking the charitable status of the organisation.

During the debate on Syria, conservative MP Rahman Chishti raised his concerns about the use of the words Islamic State, which have been abandoned by the UN, US, EU, France and many more, in favour of the Arabic name Daesh.  He said to the PM that the using Islamic State instead of Daesh was giving rise to Islamophobia. PM David Cameron’s response was that dropping Islamic State in favour of Daesh would risk losing the public. Obviously what he was more concerned about losing public support to extend bombing strikes in Syria. Furthermore, he was probably worried about the loss of support from the right wing press and organisations. This supports the idea that such terms are often used for political purposes which is a reckless attitude as it has devastating consequences.

 PM has at many times said that the UK government operates strong anti extremism policies, which he says are the toughest in the world (even Gatestone Institute calls it draconian). However, it seems the government has failed to conduct a thorough impact assessment. Apart from paying lip service, the government has shown no enthusiasm to tackle the scourge of Islamophbia. During the attack on Gaza in 2014, criticism of Israel was described as anti-semitic, by people like Douglas Murray. This is not to say that their weren’t anti-Semitic incidents, there were. This resulted in a robust response by the government to reassure the Jewish community and a parliamentary report on the issue was published.

Now that the parliament has voted to extend the bombing campaign into Syria, there is a risk that any negative implications will undoubtedly result in backlash against the Muslims. Therefore, it is imparitive that the Government reassures the community by acknowledging the existence of the problem of Islamophobia and take steps to reassure the community. Furthermore, it should consult mainstream Muslims to develop strategy to counter and safeguard Muslim citizens. This is important as anti-Muslim hate crime can only lead to disenfranchisement, which is believed to be a major factor in so called radicalisation. 

Dying to be Safe, The Refugee Crisis

Since I wrote this piece the migrant/ refugee story has escalated into a serious crisis. Thousands of refugees are taking a risky journey on overcrowded boats which are not designed for this purpose.  They fled their homes due to the wars, death and destruction to unsafe, overcrowded and badly funded refugee camps. So flee again in search of stable safe and secure life. They have paid their life savings to smugglers  to get them to safety. The tragedies of hundreds of deaths, in the sea and on the European soil, including babies, children, men women and the infirm are piling up. However, this doesn’t deter desperate people as what they left behind is worse than perceived peaceful existence ahead. Instead what they are finding is razor wired fences, army/ police patrols, helicopters, baton charges and tear gas, etc. Thousands are being held in inhumane conditions in camps reminiscent of camps in the early 20^th century. Thousands are sleeping in the fields after Hungry closed her border. 

While the European leaders were concentrating on the hazardous sea journeys between Libya and Italy and the British were preoccupied by the migrants living in the “Jungle”, humanitarian crisis were developing in Greece. War wary refugees were landing in their thousands at the shores of Greece islands. Recession hit Greece but no one came to their help, they hired Ferries to move these people to land. These people then walked hundreds of miles on foot with their children, pregnant women, old and the infirm. However, one European country decided took upon itself to be the Guardian of the European Law and the Christian culture of Europe and decided to block their passage.

Only European leader who kept her head and showed compassion is the German Leader Angela Merkel. It is not the first time Merkel has shown leadership as she is the only European leader who has spoken out against neo Nazi hate groups such as Pagida and other anti immigrant and anti Muslim hate groups. On Wednesday 2^nd September came the news of drowning of a young Kurdish Syrian family including 2 year old Aylan Kurdi hit our TV screens and front pages. However, If there wasn’t a striking picture of the two year old Aylan’s body washing up on shore, this incident would have remained another one of those non important drowning of migrants. How insensitive it might seem to be but the image awakened the humanity which has been lacking for years. The problem has been the brainwashing of our population by our media which has been portraying migrants as spongers and benefit and health tourists. This propaganda continued unabated, despite clear evidence that the migration, recent and historic, has been good for the economy and helped UK and other European economies.

The treatment of refugees in Hungry and other Eastern European countries shows a clear divide between old EU and the new EU countries. In their desire to expand the European and US influence in these countries and to expand their influence in countries bordering Russia, they were fast tracked into the European Union and the NATO. No one considered that these countries, which had been separated from the European civilisation by not only walls of the cold war era but also the development of civilised society. And that they were clinging onto the old historic events with deep held prejudices.

Our politicians and journalists, who lecture their minority communities about integration and values of Europe, failed to educate new comer nations about the values of humanity, human rights and other European values. While old European Union allowed new Europeans to travel freely and showered them with Billions of dollars of aid, it took eye of the important issues and let the scourge of far right develop and spread through partnerships throughout Europe. These partnerships not only developed previous rhetoric of anti-Semitism and racism, it added Islamophobic  rhetoric to their hate programme.

It is this failure, to integrate and educate new members about European values, which is undermining the European unity, culture, and values, resulting in the human rights abuses. While Hungry, currently ruled by a far right party, is taking the lead in demonising Syrian refugees, other Eastern European countries like Poland, Check republic, etc are also refusing to settle some of these refugees in their countries. UK is also refusing to help these refugees, already on the European soil. Europe is clearly going backwards not forward. Only Angela Merkel is upholding the European values but her decision to accommodated hundreds of thousands refugees may also prove to be the most pragmatic.

The same people, who often complain about the economic power of Germans, are attacking her decision to give refuge to these often young, educated and ambitious people. They question her statements about Germany’s ability to absorb Hundreds of thousands refugees and to say Syrian refugees were welcome. Journalists ask Germans silly questions, such as are you welcoming migrants because of the guilt of what happened in the past. They can not comprehend the genuine humanity and compassion.  

The open racism of the Hungarian government, which Nigel Farage described as moderate, shouldn’t be a surprise as 64% of Hungarians hold anti-Semitic views. Now it has become clear that they also hold serious Islamophobic views too. Nigel Farage and Hungarian Ministers say that these refugees aren’t destitute and are from the middle classes, as though only poor classes are affected by wars. Yes these people seems to have the means to pay the people smugglers to reach place of safety but that shouldn’t detract us from the fact that they are fleeing war and struggles they are enduring to reach place of safety. Because these refugees are educated, middle class, UKIP is unable to use the rhetoric of spongers and attraction of the Benefit systems, so they resort to attacking them for being middle class and false claims that it would dilute Christian culture. The reality is that even if 250,000 are accepted in Europe it will only add 0.05% to the existing 3.5% Muslim population of Europe.

People like Nick Cohen and other Eutsonites, Maajid Nawaz, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and other so called Liberal Left, should be pleased that their Islamophobic rhetoric has much in common with the Far right Anti-Semitic Hungary and other Eastern Europeans. They also have a commonality with the hate spreading messages of Douglas Murray of the Henry Jackson Society and the Gatestone institute. It seems that these champions of Human Rights, Freedoms including Freedom of Speech, Secularism, etc agree that 0.05% addition to the population of Europe threaten European culture and values. I must add that these people, from time to time write about the misery faced by the refugees/ migrants but then go on to support the Government line on this issue. The media including BBC uses suspect surveys to show that majority of the public is against helping the refugees/migrants

Another “liberal left” journalist David Aaronovitch has written about the plight of the Syrian refugees but then he uses this crisis/ tragedy to make a case for intervention. One thing for sure that he is a consistent in his warmongering agenda. He talks about 200,000 deaths in Syria conflict but fails to admit that half of them are caused by the forces opposed to the Assad regime. Furthermore, further military intervention will not only increase the death toll, refugee crisis, it will turn Syria into Libya like lawless country. The only solution is a negotiated settlement but these warmongers don’t want any role by Turkey, Iran and Russia. They previously opposed and undermined UN’s efforts to find a negotiated settlement through Ban Ki Moon’s envoys, Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi.

The right wing media and people like Nick Cohen, Maajid Nawaz, etc use red herrings such as why aren’t Gulf states taking in the refugees. The same rhetoric was repeated by the English Democrats leader, who was given platform by the BBC’s Andrew Neil, on the daily politics show. These are the same people who constantly attack these states for alleged human rights abuses but, because these refugees happen to be Muslim, it is ok for them to go there. In any case majority of Syrian, Afghan and other Muslim refugees are being hosted by the neighbouring Muslim countries. In any case these refugees have spent years in warzones and refugee camps where lives have been stood still. Their children’s education has stalled and often these children are forced to work to earn to put food on table.

Soon headlines and breaking news about refugees will disappear from the front pages and our screens. It is paramount that we keep telling our main stream politicians and governments to show humanity and to put in practice the values they like to talk about. They should show leadership and, as Jeremy Corbyn said, stand up to the menace of far right, hidden right in the cloak of Liberalism and racism and find a European solution to these humanitarian crises on the European land. They should also work to find a peaceful negotiated settlement of the conflicts and they will find many of these refugees will return to rebuild their country.              

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.