The Manchester Council of Mosques (MCOM) have issued a statement today addressing the inherent problems with Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech on tackling extremism delivered earlier this week.
The following statement was released earlier today:
“The MCOM have been eagerly awaiting the Prime Minsters new measures to deal with all forms of hatred and bigotry.
Qadir Ahmad Chohan Chair of Manchester Council of Mosques states: “MCOM along with partner organisations has and will continually challenge all forms of violence. MCOM has regularly been proactive in challenging ISIL and its equivalent organisations. We have issued several press releases and made several high profile press conferences where we have condemned the terrorist attacks on Paris and Tunisia and also marked the ten year anniversary of 7/7.
It was only last week the world remembered Srebrenica and Bosnia when some 200,000 Muslims were ‘’cleansed’’ and some 50,000 women raped for being Muslim. They were killed by ultra nationalists with a warped interpretation of Christianity and yet we as a society appear to reserve terms like ‘’extremist’’ and ‘’terrorist” to those who self identify themselves as Muslims who engage in violence.
The Prime Minister’s speech is disappointing, as it is narrow in its analysis of why some turn to violence and appears to have been focused on Muslims and Muslim based violence.
Despite the fact that Britain has some 2.7 million Muslims, we have noted with despair that some 500 or so have reported joined ISIL which we believe is 500 too many. We have further noted that states with an appalling human rights record remain trading partners of the UK military arms industry. The vast majority of Muslims as well as our our fellow citizens have no time or traction with ISIL or any other terrorist group or state. Muslims on the whole like everyone are peace loving Britons who are trying to make their life and the lives of their families better like everyone else.
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We urge a proper analysis of putting violence into context. Violence including violence committed by states and groups is largely a product of a deep international crisis caused by decades of dictatorships, brutal groups, occupation and foreign interventions. It is naive to say that foreign policy is not one of the possible drivers of terrorism when evidence from various sources including Parliamentary Select Committees and academic research counters this. There are of course many other drivers, including a warped misrepresentation of Islam or what research has called “Islam for Dummies”. But quite often a misinterpretation of religion is used to justify a terrorist act rather than inspires and initiates the act of terror itself. Terrorist acts are closely associated to achieving political goals a point often overlooked.
What is very hurtful and harmful is that yet again there is no real connection or consultation with the Muslim communities or grass roots organisations which can help those in authority to understand why some may turn to violence and be at the fore of any solution to reduce violence. This point has been made on numerous occasions but sadly this lesson has not been learnt. Baroness Warsi wrote in a recent article and said ‘’we all need to be part of team and one family’’. Unfortunately, Muslims appear to be treated as the “other” by the Prime Minister and by policy makers.
Having listened to the Prime Minister’s speech where just like his Munich and Bratislava speeches, he appears to suggest that Muslims are primarily responsible for the collapse of multiculturalism, increase in ‘extremism’ and calls on the Muslim community to do more to tackle terrorists. And yet we have seen recent terrorist activity in Northern Ireland aimed at killing police personnel, in England the prosecution of Zack Davies targeting someone he thought was a Muslim or on an international level the terrorist attack in Charlestown on an American Church by a far right terrorist. Those responsible for such terrorism came from a multitude of backgrounds and religions and were not all Muslim. And yet the Prime Ministers’ speech is worrying as it centres and focuses on Muslims yet again.
For our part we will continue to play our role in condemning all acts of terrorism. We will also provide a proper analysis of the causes of terrorism and steer our society and those in authority towards measures which will work to reduce violence and bring about social cohesion’’.
Qadir Chohan also added: “Many Muslim groups work to tackle all forms of bigotry and violence and many hope they will not continue to do so on their own. Our government continues to ignore any overtures to engage constructively with grass roots organisations and a wide spectrum of Muslim groups. It has been a very depressing week to find that once again our own Prime Minister has so publicly made Muslims the focus of our failures and sadly comes up short in analysing why a tiny few turn to violence failing to give any credence to the notion that foreign policy often plays a part in the ‘’radicalisation process’’.
“Moreover, many Muslims are greatly concerned that new measures passed and those contemplated based on tackling so called ‘’non-violent extremism’’ will only make matters worse. They will in many Muslim’s view not be effective to reduce violence and instead be counter-productive in building confidence between citizens and institutions like the police service, the Charity Commission, Ofcom, Children’s services, schools and universities all of which are meant to serve all members of the society including its Muslim citizens. Many Muslims are gravely concerned that in tackling ‘’non violent extremism’’ those tasked to identify “extremism” will conflate being religious or critical of government policy with being ‘’a non violent extremist’’. Many Muslims are also seriously concerned at specific measures which have the potential to censor the media, close down places of worship, change the management of charities, restrict the liberty to criticise and ban groups for economic rather than security reasons’’.
The MCOM represent over 70 mosques in Manchester with a combined congregation of over 80,000 people. MCOM aims to work for Manchester and beyond to be a great place to worship, Iive, work and prosper in.
The MCOM regularly issues statements and press releases to mosques and the wider society to build a just and harmonious society.
