UK Conservative MP calls for Inquiry into “Islamophobia”

The British Conservative party has become increasingly concerned about “Islamophobia.” Party leader David Cameron has even said that he wants to see “British Muslim all across government, in positions of leadership and authority.” (See my article here.) Conservative MP PAul Goodman is now calling for a parliamentary inquiry into “Islamophobia.” He cites neo-Nazis, UKIP, and the EDL as proof of “Islamophobia,” but suggests that “If the Jamaat e Islami [which has alleged terrorist links] or the Muslim Brotherhood [which gave birth to Hamas and al-Qaeada among others] wanted to make representations [at such an inquiry], they should be allowed to do so.” Why?

From Conservative Home. By Paul Goodman MP.

I have in front of me as I write a meticulously-compiled document from the Community Security Trust – its “Antisemitic Incidents Report 2009”.

The report details such incidents, breaks them down into different types, and reports trends within those categories. There’s an active All-Party Group on Anti-Semitism in Parliament. The Government has an inter-departmental working group to combat the prejudice. Ministers can be held to account in relation to it during an annual Parliamentary debate.

There are no comparable figures for incidents relating to Islamophobia or the hatred of Muslims. (The two are not quite the same – a point that I’ll return to later.) Perhaps this is because there is no Muslim equivalent of the Community Security Trust to collect and order data. Certainly, there’s no All-Party Group on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim prejudice to date, no similar Government working group, no annual Parliamentary debate.

To suggest that anti-semitism and Islamophobia/hatred of Muslims are equivalent is controversial. There are obvious differences. One is based primarily on race (though containing a religious element); the other is based mainly on religion (though containing a racial element – often a very significant one). Comparing and contrasting can take one round in loops and get one nowhere.
So instead, Islamophobia/hatred of Muslims should be examined in its own terms. Although, as I say, there’s a comparative shortage of data, there seem to be three broad trends.

• There’s neo-nazi activity aimed at Muslims as well as Jews, as well as members of ethnic minorities generally. Last November, Terence Garvan, a BNP gold member, was jailed after an arsenal of weapons was found at his home. Last July, Neil Lewington, a white supremacist, was imprisoned for preparing acts of terrorism: he had written of “targeting and attacking Pakis”. During the same month, charges were brought after a network of extremists was arrested with access to 300 weapons and 80 bombs. In 2008, Martyn Gilleard was jailed for bomb-making. He had written: “I am so sick and tired of hearing nationalists talk of killing Muslims, of blowing up mosques, of fighting back, only to see these acts of resistance fail to appear. The time has come to stop the talk and start to act.”

• There are what could be called, to borrow the terminology of the CST, anti-Muslim incidents – violence, assault, the damage and desecration of property, threats, abusive behaviour. As I say, there’s a relative shortage of data, but reports of incidents are available. Last December, part of a Dudley mosque was burnt to the ground. Last November, Muslim graves were vandalised in Manchester for the third time in two months. During the same month, a Muslim student in Leicester was beaten by youths shouting: “Where is your Allah now?” Earlier in the month, an Asian man suffered a fractured eye socket while returning home after mosque prayers. In September, a man suffered head injuries as he left a mosque in Tooting, London. A fatal attack on Ekram Haque, a 67 year old man, took place outside the same mosque in August.

• There are Islamophobic and anti-Muslim marches – or riots – and anti-mosque petitions and protests. In December, UKIP, which had recently elected a new leader, called for an outright ban on the burka and the niqab. Earlier that month, a group called Stop the Islamification of Europe unfurled banners outside Harrow Mosque. In the same month, some 500 English Defence League members marched through Nottingham, some chanting “Allah, Allah, who the f**k is Allah?” On the eve of September 11, violence erupted after an English Defence League and Stop the Islamification of Europe protest near Harrow mosque. A few days earlier, gangs of youths hurled bottles at each other during an English Defence League rally in Birmingham.

All these examples save one are drawn from within the last calendar year. So what if anything is to be done? Again, there are three important points to make.

• There’s a difference between Islamophobia and the hatred of Muslims – although the two are indisputably linked. The target of the first is a religion. The target of the second is people. There’s a crucial distinction between the two – one vital if the free society’s to be preserved. If a person hates a religious faith, the law should be drawn very widely, if at all. If he hates religious people, it must be framed more tightly. In short, hatred of Islam, like (say) hatred of Christianity, shouldn’t be a matter for the law (though I believe very strongly that it should be deplored); but the hatred of Muslims – like the hatred of Christians – should be such a matter, and laws against incitement should be in place.

• In general, Britain has been a warm home to Muslims, as it has been to Jews, and to those of other minority faiths. Although polls and studies can point in many different directions, a recent survey finding by the IPPR is worth bearing in mind. It discovered that more than a million Muslims have migrated to Britain because it is more sympathetic towards Islam than other European countries. This finding helps to put the alarming incidents described above in their full context. The non-Muslim majority has no reason to beat itself up in a frenzy of liberal guilt.

• For some Islamist organisations, Islamophobia is less a testing problem than a rhetorical device to delegitimise criticism – a shield behind which to advance on Ministerial patronage, taxpayers’ money, and legal concessions. Let’s be clear. When David Cameron said that the Cordoba Foundation shouldn’t get taxpayers’ money, he wasn’t being Islamophobic. Nor was Michael Gove when he argued that Hizb-ut-Tahrir shouldn’t control schools. Nor was Pauline Neville-Jones when she called for Ministers to review Tablighi Jamaat’s plans for a mega-mosque in East London. Exposure of such Islamist groups as the Islamic Forum of Europe – often voiced by mainstream Muslims themselves, who are Islamism’s main targets – is legitimate and necessary. Islamophobia/anti-Muslim hatred is too important a problem to be left for extreme groups to manipulate for their own ends.

There are calls at present for an all-party enquiry into Islamophobia– mirroring the previous all-party enquiry into anti-semitism. I doubt whether the comparison holds. As I wrote earlier, there’s no Muslim equivalent of the Community Security Trust. This is doubtless because Britain’s Jewish and Muslim communities are very different: the national background, ethnicity, languages, and theological approach of the latter vary enormously. It’s hard to envisage an All-Party Group on Islamophobia representing the interests of all Britain’s diverse Muslim communities. It’s easy to imagine such Islamist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood or the Jamaat e Islami infiltrating such a group for their own purposes.

For this reason and others, some will want either to declare that Islamophobia/anti-Muslim hatred aren’t real problems at all, or that government and Parliament have no role in tackling either. I disagree with this view. There’s evidence – like that cited earlier – that the hatred of Muslims and anti-Muslim violence are serious problems . Something should be done.

I suggest a proper Select Committee inquiry to take place during the next Parliament. The most suitable vehicle would be the DCLG Select Committee, since the DCLG deals with community cohesion. It would collect written submissions, take oral evidence, issue a report, make recommendations.

It should take evidence as widely as possible. If the Jamaat e Islami or the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to make representations, they should be allowed to do so. So should think-tanks specialising in counter-extremism, such as the Quilliam Foundation or Centri. So should the police. So should those who believe (wrongly, in my view) that Islamophobia is an imaginary construct, and doesn’t exist at all.

Could such an enquiry be exploited by Islamists? Yes. Is that a good reason for not having it? No. Why? Because the problem of the hatred of Muslims and anti-Muslim violence, in particular, is grave. It’s a wound that can only fester. Parliament has a role to play in drawing the poison.

6 Replies to “UK Conservative MP calls for Inquiry into “Islamophobia””

  1. Party leader David Cameron has even said that he wants to see “British Muslim all across government, in positions of leadership and authority.”

    If the Brits vote him into office, are they going to get a British version of Buraq Hussein? Probably. Just as Boris Johnson once used to be pro-Israel and these days urges non-mahoundians to starve themselves to death for a day a year during the mahoundian fasting-madness fest known as retardan, to “better understand” the hordes of inbred bedouin savage tapeworms that want the UK under sharia law, David Cameron might as well just continue down NuLabour’s own route of cultural suicide.

  2. I’d also like to see an inquiry into Islamphobia-who knows, maybe the truth behind this lark created by and for Islamists will be uncovered.

  3. I am absolutely fed up with the globalist ideology, the multicultural nightmare and political correctness from our polititians. FACE THE TRUTH.
    What is not mentioned in that article above is the need to explore the reasons & concerns behind the rise of an Islamaphobic attitude amongst English people and whether their concerns are legitimate or not.
    Eg. Should we be concerned about the governments acceptance of Sharia Law or Sharia Bonds in England?
    Should we be concerned that our English norms are not being upheld and our English Culture is being diluted?
    It is now apparent that UNLABELLED halal meat is being secretly served up in English Schools, Hospitals and Prisons – without an honest clear choice AND halal products including meat are being sold UNLABELLED in all English mainstream supermarkets, other than Morrisons; also many other food outlets like KFC, Dominos Pizza & McDonalds to name only a few.
    Many good people fought for years for humane slaughter practices in England and they won… but that victory was short lived… Halal, a cruel 7th century peasant method of cutting the throat of a conscious animal and letting it die in agony, as its life-blood drains from its body, is becoming the norm in English slaughterhouses now with millions of animals suffering needlessly. Why?
    I, along with most of our secular/Christian/athiest population, do not want to be unwittingly buying or consuming meat that has been killed during a religious ritual. This is our right – not to partake in religious food, but the fact that we are not being given a clear choice, via English Labels, is against the law…. but this is conveniently ignored.
    Why are we adopting 7th Century Islamic customs in 21st Century Britain?
    Why is meat slaughtered in this barbaric way not labelled as such?
    Why have I been put in a situation where I have been unwittingly buying halal meat in Tesco & Lidl & including New Zealand Lamb which I have discovered is ALL halal now (because when we went into the EU, NZ had to find & cater for alternative markets!) ???
    This is aside from the ever present threat of terrorist attacks and the audacity of pre-arranged mobs of muslims with placards of hatred that greet our Troops on their return to England! Are they arrested? NO!
    Many ordinary English people are becoming aware that Islam is NOT just another next-door religion, but a totalitarian political cult-like ideology, which compels its followers into blind obedience, teaches intolerance, brutality and locks all – Muslims and non-Muslims in a struggle deriving directly from the 7th century nomadic, predatory, Bedouin culture.
    Should we be worried about the complacency of our government when it comes to upholding British Traditions and Christian Values? YES
    Especially when our views regarding unfettered immigration and our concerns listed above are being ignored AND we are expected to keep quiet & be politically correct or be labelled Islamophobic!
    The difference between the Jews & the Muslims is clear… the Jews want to live in peace here… whereas the Islamic Koran calls for Jihad and Islam has a bloody history and tradition of subjugating nations in the most horrific way eg. Lebanon, Bosnia, Syria to name only a few.
    The Jews want to kill animals according to their religious traditions for themselves – solely for their consumption, whereas Islam demands that halal is the only clean way and there is a push towards making us ALL eat their ritually slaughtered meat in ALL our food outlets.
    The Jews recognise they are in a foreign land and live by our Laws and Rules, whereas muslims want us to adopt their Sharia Law.
    WAKE UP!!!