Day by day the atmosphere and undercurrent of resentment and mistrust is getting more pronounced for the Muslim community in the UK, writes Tariq Drabu.
As a UK born and raised Muslim professional I personally am growing uneasy. My faith and the questioning of my loyalty to this country is making me look over my shoulder.
After the Charlie Hebdo incident I actually turned around and started asking some of my work colleagues whether seeing what so-called Muslims have done in the name of my religion made them view me any differently.
They reassured me that it didn’t. When the Germanwings plane came down and crashed into a mountain my first thought was “please God don’t let it be a Muslim who caused this.”
The undercurrent in the media that Muslims represent a “fifth column” in this country disturbs me as I feel that I am included in that and that my loyalties to my home are being called into question.
The ill-feeling towards people like me that was once fringe chatter is now becoming mainstream.
2015 election
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However, the election of 2015 is an opportunity for British Muslims to mobilise and exercise their right to vote.
In Bradford George Galloway has done us all a favour by blowing away the pathetic misogynistic ignorance of tribal Pakistani politics and their block votes.
Muslims must engage with the political process from within in order to effect change that will improve both their lives and the lives of those communities that engage with them.
Groups are seeking to mobilise the Muslim vote in order to make it more effective in areas where there are substantial Muslim populations. I see no problem with this; after all Nigel Farage is standing in South Thanet where he thinks he can get elected due to the demographics of that constituency.
If UKIP can do this and it is acceptable then so can the Muslims.
One such organisation leading this mobilisation is MEND. MEND stands for Muslim Engagement and Development. It is fronted by Sufyan Ismail, a man who I met in his previous life as a financial advisor.
I had and have no particular fondness for either Mr Ismail or his schemes and did not sign up for any of them. However when I saw his engagement with MEND I felt that it was a positive move – an educated articulate if somewhat flamboyant figurehead trying to engage local Muslims in the democratic process and move things forward.
MEND have been holding engagement events at mosques up and down the country led by professionals such as doctors encouraging Muslim participation in the electoral process.
Political participation
However, now there are two diametrically opposed dissenting voices that have come together as strange bedfellows and are looking to deliberately sabotage the engagement of any open-minded Muslims in any form within the political process.
The first is the predictable Anjem Choudary, the bête noir of both mainstream Muslims and the British establishment. Last week he was doing the rounds telling Muslims that it was strictly against Islam to vote in elections.
This type of crazed argument I can live with because Mr Choudary is so off-the-scale that whatever he says is of no consequence to me and the thousands of people like me.
However, there is a darker and more sinister figure chipping away at any form of Muslim engagement in the political process. That figure is journalist Andrew Gilligan.
His agenda is very simple. Bankrolled by his paymasters at Telegraph newspapers, his job is to do carefully-worded hatchet jobs (masquerading as journalism) at all aspects of Muslims engaging in UK public life.
Reading between the lines of his articles his messages are very clear – behind any Muslim organisation – whether it be charity, political action group, government advisor or faith school – you just have to scratch the surface and underneath the cosy exterior lies an infestation of snake-like radicals who seek to infect our democracy and society and impose their extremist ideology upon us all.
These articles full of innuendo are lapped up by both right-wing media and far-right organisations as gospel truth. Some of his most recent articles in the Telegraph have been:
“Warsi and the Islamic ‘radicals’ at the heart of Whitehall”
“The baroness, Islamic extremists and a question of free speech”
“Muslim group with links to extremists boasts of influencing election”
Mr Gilligan’s agenda is clear here. No Muslims are to be trusted. Every Muslim organisation seeking political engagement is a front for radicals and jihadists bent on a sharia takeover of the UK.
He carefully treads the line between innuendo and outright libel – presumably having his articles proof-read by lawyers so that he can accuse Muslims of treason by inference rather than saying so directly.
For example in his article on “radicals at the heart of Whitehall” he says “Other members include Iftikhar Awan, a former trustee of Islamic Relief, a charity with links to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and Sarah Joseph, a former spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), with which the current and previous governments have broken ties over its links to Islamism.”
To most if not all in the Muslim community Iftikhar Awan and Sara Joseph are two of the most mild-mannered, forward-thinking and enlightened representatives that we have.
If they are considered as radicals there is no hope for anybody.
No hope
And this is what Anjem Choudary and Andrew Gilligan want and what they both have in common – they actively want to give the Muslims no hope.
Anjem Choudary spouts hateful vitriol that Muslims are different and have no hope and no future in western democracy which is their enemy and must be overthrown at all costs.
Andrew Gilligan’s message of “no hope for Muslims” is far more insidious and frightening because his innuendo and half-truths masquerade as informed and intelligent comment read and lapped up by the mainstream.
His message is clear – whatever the Muslim community tries to do to advance itself politically, socially and economically I will be there to put you down and make sure that you are excluded.
Perhaps it is time for him to pause, reflect on his words and actions and wake up to the fear that he is putting in the hearts of ordinary Muslims, instead of stigmatising and spreading fear and hatred.
Tariq Drabu is a British born dentist of Kashmiri heritage based in Manchester
