How to fight anti-Muslim prejudice
By Mike Rowley
The racist rhetoric of the 2005 election is already leading to violent attacks. Devon and Cornwall police have made a public statement about "election-related racism" inspired by far-right parties.
The far right in Britain are concentrating their bile on people of Muslim background. The BNP's party political broadcast was shown by the BBC last week, despite its explicit incitement to racism against "Iraqis and Afghans". Meanwhile, the presence of a National Front candidate in Bicester has led to physical harassment of local black and Asian people by fascist canvassers bussed in from different parts of the country.
The problem of "Islamophobia" is not a new one, although it undoubtedly received a boost from the reaction of western governments to the September 11th atrocities. As early as 1997, the anti-racist Runnymede Trust produced a report on anti-Muslim prejudice.
This report recommended, among other things, the redefinition of criminal prejudice: "A legal term such as ˜religious and racial violence' is needed. ˜Racial violence' is no longer adequate on its own." The report also called for state funding for Muslim schools and the inclusion of a question about religion in the census, both of which have now been adopted. A Bill containing a new offence of "incitement to religious hatred" has been tabled, but there was no time to debate it in the last Parliament.
This is the wrong approach to fighting racism. The line of policy recommended by the Runnymede Trust and adopted by the Government encourages the people to feel divided and compartmentalised into various "communities" according to what religious beliefs they have or their ancestors had. It is a policy which seems to accept, or at least shrinks from fighting, the racist "clash of civilisations" idea which the Runnymede Trust so much deplore in the report quoted above.
This is particularly the case in education. In places with significant minority communities, to set up a "Christian" and a "Muslim" school is effectively to set up white and Asian schools by different names. Children do not meet people of other cultures in their formative years, except in the occasional cursory "multicultural" lesson, and inevitable a "them and us" mentality develops.
The approach could lead all the way to the fascist's dream of a society completely divided: white anti-Asian racists, Asian anti-Jewish racists, Jewish anti-Arab racists.
The pressure of racist politicians, racist media and racist religious groups is already promoting the divisions, to an increasing number of attacks on mosques, synagogues and minority community centres.
The problem is one of racism and racists, and no amount of legislative redefinition will change that. What do we need instead?
Serious anti-racist action at all levels of government and society. Mal Hussain, the Asian shopkeeper who suffered fourteen years of racist abuse and violent attacks in Lancaster, said recently that "I feel betrayed and failed by the institutions who are supposed to protect those who suffer in the hands of racists". Mal Hussain was attacked for being "Asian", for being "Muslim", for being "black", and for having a white partner.
We need a government that is prepared to defend the victims of racism at all costs, that will cut at the roots of racism - inequality, social separation and exploitation. To get that government first we must organise the labour movement to fight in defence of the victims (if necessary by organising physical self-defence), and against the social roots of racism.
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Nice to see the AWL accepting
Nice to see the AWL accepting that there is something called Islamophobia. About time really. Bit late though.
Our policy on prejudice and d
Our policy on prejudice and discrimation of any kind is quite simple and actually, should anyone chose to look beyond the prejudicial simplification of it by others on the left, absolutely consistent.
We are against phyical and verbal abuse and discrimin tion of any kind for any reason against anyone. There is anti-Muslim prejudice. As a matter of fact we have written about this in our paper: for instance I wrote about the treatment of people by the police under the new anti-Terror legislation for instanc e.
But there is also an ongoing debate about the nature of "Islamaphobia" and, like most issues, it is a complex one, which many on the left chose not to recognise, for their own reasons. This is not just a debate which white leftists are concerned about by the way.
Again, to put it as simply as I can, some on the left would rather go along with definitions of Islamaphobia which owe less to socialist principles and more to cultural relativism. The Runneymede Trust for instance — has used a definition of "Islamophobia" which implies that anyone who would condemn Muslim fundamentalism is saying that all Muslims are fundamentalists.
Recently my partner and I had a very irate lefty come up to us on a demonstration accusing the AWL of precisely that — sayin g all Muslims are fundamentalists. (I am sure this has happened many time to many AWLers.) It is usually followed by an equally hysterical account of what we say, "You never condemn what the Zionists do".
I asked this guy if he had ever properly read any of our material? But he carried on in the same hysterical vain, jabbing his finger etc... I tried to put it in simple terms for him... That there was a minority stream of politics in the Muslim world — political Islam — to which all socialists should be opposed and should be very concerned about, because it is gaining ground.
If the left could all agree on one simple point — political Islam very bad — then perhaps we could discuss the best way to stop it. Unfortunately the majority left is dominated by the politics of the SWP who have opportunistically chosen to forget everything they know about political Islam.
Part of the answer is to undercut these ideas by fighting racism and oppression and arguing for socialism. And part of the answer is to fight the cultural relativism which has invaded the left and which stops us from criticising the politics of some in oppressed communities.
cathy nugentt
Well I have a difficulty here
Well I have a difficulty here firstly with the notion of 'cultural relativism'. Philosophical dictionaries will tell you this is an incoherent and unsustainable position. I know few people who are cultural relativists in this sense. There are however people (including myself) who reject the notion of a hierarchy of cultures as a basis for discussions of politics. In other words whilst I believe in a hierarchy of modes of production I don't see how the notion of a hierarchy of cultures has anything to do with Marxism. Importantly the notion of a hierarchy of cultures lies at the centre of right wing and racist ideology today. I am therefore very suspicious as well of the way some AWL members echo 'liberal' critiques of 'multiculturalism'. Behind this is the idea that racism is the product of the failure to assimilate (the question of what to assimilate into is rarely raised in this kind of talk). The point was neatly put by Gilbert Achar recently. In France people in Hijab are acceptable if they are cleaning your toilets or serving you food. But in a realm of equality like a school its unacceptable. If they are managers equally it raises hackles. There is clearly much more going on here then simply 'secularism' (and lets not forget that this is the secularism of the murderers of the Paris Commune, this is the secularism which refused to allow Islam to be recognised under the secular code for one hundred years etc). The way in which some AWL comrades ignore all this is disturbing. Clearly there are theoretical differences between someone like me (you can guess) and the AWL on the nature of imperialism, Zionism whathaveyou. But I think the easy way in which right wing slogans about cultural relativism and secularism roll off on this site with no critical awareness of the social meaning of these terms in contemporary politics is a serious problem. Of course I anticipate all kinds of misreadings of what I have just said. But this is why these leftists get annoyed with you.
condemning political Islam?
I would just like to add that I would not condemn political Islam in all its forms unless it was explained to me exactly what kind of political Islam was being discussed. I would have an exactly similar position on political Catholicism etc. Hindu Nationalism of the BJP I condemn. Gandhi's version of political Hinduism I don't agree with but would not condemn in the same way. This may seem a nitpicking point. The disgraceful obsession the AWL has with Tariq Ramadan (drawing apparently on a feminist organisation in France which engages in muslim baiting which I have personally witnessed at the ESF) is quite simply Islamophobic pure and simple. The charge against him boils down to the fact that he is a believing Muslim who believes that Islam offers things to people concerned about the modern world. As with Gandhi I don't agree with him (I do not agree for instance that Muslims should work hard to integrate into western society to prevent Islamophobia: a concession to racism it seems to me which suggests that Islamophobia is caused by Muslims rather then by those who oppress them) but the AWL's hysterical distortions of his thought are based on nothing but bigotry of the most revolting kind. A kind of popular front against Islam which is so wrong headed as to be baffling. I enclose a link of the discussion which ensued when the AWL tried to get him banned from the ESF which contains an absolute refutation of the AWL's position and at the same time clear evidence of Islamophobia on the part of the AWL. These are very serious questions and deserve to be fully debated.
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:sLlu2ZOlvzUJ:www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Politics/Ramadan.html+workers+liberty+how+not+to+fight+islamophobia&hl=en
...and finally
Here a leading French feminist has to write a protest before the ESF headed "Tariq Ramadan has a place in the ESF" and makes the very good point that the article published in workers liberty by the French Feminist Collective is both islamophobic and slanderous. It is in other words a racist leaflet. In my view the language utilizes the same logic as late 19th century anti-semitism. Again, this is very serious, and AWL members should do more then throw accusations of 'cultural relativism' borrowed from the late unlamented Alan Bloom and other right wing figures from US culture wars (who of course are racists themselves). This is as serious a question as anti-semitism was in the first half of this century and needs to be addressed with due care and attention. Its incredible that a left wing organisation has adopted an argument which would effectively ban all religous muslims from speaking at progressive events. Its clear incidently that the French feminist is much more liberal then I am. In fact I would describe her position as consistant liberalism. I'm not a liberal. But judge for yourself:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:wbtYD0SDRGoJ:www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Politics/Samary.html+workers+liberty+how+not+to+fight+islamophobia&hl=en