| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
18 Oct 2006 02:45:26 AM |
| Object: |
=?iso-8859-1?q?OT:_Der_St=FCrmer?= |
If this onslaught was about Jews, I would be looking for my passport
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1924677,00.html
Politicians and media have turned a debate about integration into an
ugly drumbeat of hysteria against British Muslims
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday October 18, 2006
The Guardian
I've been trying to imagine what it must be like to be a Muslim in
Britain. I guess there's a sense of dread about switching on the radio
or television, even about walking into a newsagents. What will they be
saying about us today? Will we be under assault for the way we dress?
Or the schools we go to, or the mosques we build? Who will be on the
front page: a terror suspect, a woman in a veil or, the best of both
worlds, a veiled terror suspect.
"Der St=FCrmer" OR "Der Stuermer"
http://news.google.com/news?num=3D100&hl=3Den&lr=3D&safe=3Doff&q=3D%22Der%2=
0St%C3%BCrmer%22%20OR%20%22Der%20Stuermer%22&btnG=3DSearch&sa=3DN&tab=3Dgn
http://www.google.com/search?num=3D100&hl=3Den&lr=3D&q=3D%22Der+St%C3%BCrme=
r%22+OR+%22Der+Stuermer%22&ie=3DUTF-8&sa=3DN&tab=3Dnw
http://www.google.com/search?q=3D%22Der+St%C3%BCrmer%22+OR+%22Der+Stuermer%=
22&btnG=3DSearch+Directory&hl=3Den&cat=3Dgwd%2FTop
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=3Den&q=3D%22Der+St%C3%BCrmer%22+=
OR+%22Der+Stuermer%22&btnG=3DSearch+Blogs
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=3D%22Der+St%C3%BCrmer%22+OR+%22Der+Stuerm=
er%22&start=3D0&scoring=3Dd&num=3D100&hl=3Den&lr=3D&safe=3Doff&
.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Der Stürmer |
23 Oct 2006 12:28:55 PM |
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On 18 Oct 2006 00:45:26 -0700, "maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote in
alt.atheism
If this onslaught was about Jews, I would be looking for my passport
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1924677,00.html
Politicians and media have turned a debate about integration into an
ugly drumbeat of hysteria against British Muslims
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday October 18, 2006
The Guardian
I've been trying to imagine what it must be like to be a Muslim in
Britain. I guess there's a sense of dread about switching on the radio
or television, even about walking into a newsagents. What will they be
saying about us today? Will we be under assault for the way we dress?
Or the schools we go to, or the mosques we build? Who will be on the
front page: a terror suspect, a woman in a veil or, the best of both
worlds, a veiled terror suspect.
Don't laugh. Last week the Times splashed on "Suspect in terror hunt
used veil to evade arrest". That sat alongside yesterday's lead in the
Daily Express: "Veil should be banned say 98%". Nearly all those who
rang the Express agreed that "a restriction would help to safeguard
racial harmony and improve communication". At the weekend the Sunday
Telegraph led on "Tories accuse Muslims of 'creating apartheid by
shutting themselves off' ".
That's how it's been almost every day since Jack Straw raised the matter
of the veil nearly two weeks ago. Even before, Muslims could barely open
a paper without seeing themselves on the front of it. David Cameron's
speech to the Tories a week earlier was trailed in advance as an appeal
for Muslims to open up their single-faith schools: "Ban Muslim ghettos"
was one headline.
Taken alone, each one of these topics could be the topic of a
thoughtful, nuanced debate. The veil, for example, has found feminists
among both its champions and critics, proving that it's no
straightforward matter. There should be nothing automatically
anti-Muslim about raising the subject, not least since many Muslim women
question the niqab themselves.
Similarly, Ruth Kelly was hardly out of line in suggesting, as she did
last week, that the government needs to be careful about which Muslim
groups it funds and with whom it engages, ensuring it leans towards
those who are actively "tackling extremism". Other things being equal,
that was a perfectly sensible thing to say.
Except other things are not equal. Each one of these perfectly rational
subjects, taken together, has created a perfectly irrational mood: a
kind of drumbeat of hysteria in which both politicians and media have
turned again and again on a single, small minority, first prodding them,
then pounding them as if they represented the single biggest problem in
national life.
The result is turning ugly and has, predictably, spilled on to the
streets. Muslim organisations report a surge in physical and verbal
attacks on Muslims; women have had their head coverings removed by
force. A mosque in Falkirk was firebombed while another in Preston was
attacked by a gang throwing bricks and concrete blocks.
Of course, such violence would be condemned by any politician asked
about it. But a climate is developing here and every time a politician
raises a question that would, on its own and in the quiet of the seminar
room, be legitimate for debate, they are adding to it. They should feel
shame for their reckless spraying of petrol on a growing blaze. Instead
they applaud themselves, and are applauded in the press, for their
bravery in daring to say what needs to be said.
In fact, the courageous politician would refuse to join this open season
on Muslims and seek to cool things down - beginning with an explanation
of how we got here. The elements include many of those that feature in
any build-up of hostility to a single, derided group, here or across the
world.
The foundation is fear. Many Britons have since 9/11, and especially
since July 7, come to fear their Muslim neighbours: they worry that the
young man next to them on the train might have more than an extra
sweater in his backpack. Next comes ignorance, a simple lack of
knowledge about Muslim life which leaves non-Muslims open to all kinds
of misconceptions. That feeds into a simple discomfort, personified, in
its most extreme form, by a woman whose face we cannot see.
What's more, the set of issues that Islam raises for Britain are ones
that do not break down on the usual ideological lines, allowing liberals
and traditional anti-racists reflexively to line up alongside Muslims.
The veil, and the queasiness it stirs in many feminists, is one example.
Faith schools are another, prompting the ardent secularist to feel a
sympathy for the government position that ordinarily would come more
slowly. The result is that the Muslim community finds itself suddenly
friendless. When it came to opposing the war in Iraq, British Muslims
had no shortage of allies, but they face the latest bombardment
virtually alone.
Muslims are not entirely passive in this drama. For one thing, the tiny
handful of Islamist groups such as al-Ghurabaa or the Saviour Sect tend
to confirm the wildest prejudices of those who fear Islam: they glorify
those who kill civilians, they show contempt for democracy and declare
that, yes, they are indeed determined to transform Britain into an
Islamic state. Every time they open their mouths, life for Muslims in
Britain gets harder. (Which is why the Today programme had no business
giving over the prestigious 8.10am slot to Omar Brooks, whose sole
qualification was his heckling of John Reid the previous day.)
The majority of British Muslims could have done themselves a favour if
they had found a way to show just how unrepresentative Brooks and his
ilk are. How powerful it would have been if, after 7/7, hundreds of
thousands of British Muslims had taken to the streets to repudiate
utterly the four bombers who had killed in the name of Islam. The model
might have been the 2000 Basque march in Bilbao in protest against ETA
violence. Or perhaps the 1992 funeral of an assassinated anti-mafia
judge in Palermo, which turned into a rally of Sicilians against the
crime organisation. The slogan for the British Muslim equivalent would
have been obvious: Not in our name.
But Muslims would be right to reply that they should be under no more
obligation to distance themselves from the 7/7 bombers than Britain's
Irish community were expected to denounce the IRA in the 1970s and
1980s. And this, too, is a prime task for politicians and media alike -
to distinguish between radical, violent Islamism and mainstream British
Islam. Too often, the line between the two gets blurred, lazily and
casually. Helpfully, the 1990 Trust yesterday published a survey which
deserves wide dissemination. They found that the number of Muslims who
believed acts of terrorism against civilians in the UK were justified
was between 1% and 2%. Not good, but less than the 20% or higher found
by some newspaper polls. The trust reckons those earlier polls asked a
loaded question - and got a highly charged answer.
Politicians and media need to be similarly careful when discussing
multiculturalism, refusing to play to those who believe it means a
licence to secession and Balkanisation. It doesn't. Multiculturalism
means allowing every group its own distinct identity and, at the same
time, seeking an integrated Britishness we all share. Tony Blair was
correct yesterday to say that the goal, never easy, is "getting the
balance right".
Right now, we're getting it badly wrong - bombarding Muslims with
pressure and prejudice, laying one social problem after another at their
door. I try to imagine how I would feel if this rainstorm of headlines
substituted the word "Jew" for "Muslim": Jews creating apartheid, Jews
whose strange customs and costume should be banned. I wouldn't just feel
frightened. I would be looking for my passport.
freedland@guardian.co.uk
/end
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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