Martin Bright is full of praise for Ruth Kelly's recent speeches about Muslims. He even claims that she was influenced by his pamphlet. He isn't so sure about Blair, Brown and Reid's ability to take on Muslims though:
There is no doubt that Blair understood the threat of Islamist ideology earlier than most in the government. But his stubborn refusal to recognise that British and American foreign policy has fuelled radicalisation, particularly through the war in Iraq, raises the suspicion that he is using the argument over Islamism as a smokescreen. Brown, meanwhile, has yet to engage his formidable mind with the problem.
It was only in June that the Chancellor spoke on a joint platform with the MCB celebrating the benefits of Islamic banking - just as his cabinet colleague at the DCLG was coming to the conclusion that she could not work with the organisation in its present incarnation. Reid is working closely with Kelly to develop the new approach. But it is difficult to see how a man who has questioned Britain's commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and the prohibition of torture can be seen to share "the values we all hold dear".
Kelly's calm reassertion of her position after an angry response from the MCB to her speech shows she has not come to her position lightly. I am told that she spent recent months reading widely on the history of modern political Islam and that she has become fascinated by the subject.
One publication she has read is a short pamphlet I wrote for the think-tank Policy Exchange, When Progressives Treat With Reactionaries. I argued that the government has spent too long engaging with the representatives of an austere form of political Islam forged in the sectarian politics of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The three most widely publicised works on Islam this year were by Bright, Michael Gove, and Melanie Phillips. We must question the authority with which these people write though. If similarly placed Arabs had written about the West with the kind of expertise and experience these people carry about Islam, they would be quite rightly dismissed.
It is though well overdue that we had weighty pieces of scholarship and indeed shorter pamphlets explaining what Muslims are all about, and what the vision is going forward. No doubt they are as influential as Bright claims. The shame is that it is a struggle to think what can be dished out to give the countervailing argument.
The one who doesn't write is no better than the one who can't write.
Martin Bright's pamphlet is such palpable nonsense. His division of Sufi and Islamist is simply inaccurate (Many Islamists have been influenced by Sufism), and he completely fails to recognise that most Islamists have moved to more democratic and peaceful methods during the last decade, which is what makes Bin Laden and associates such an anachronism. He is utterly selective in his evidence to give the apparance of intellectual veracity, but with people like Olivier Roy reported to be advising the government, can they really be taking Bright seriously? It seems, with Kelly's support for the SMC, they might be.
Wasalaam
TMA
Posted by: Yakoub/Julaybib | 29 October 2006 at 06:36 PM
wasalaam
Posted by: Abu Sahajj | 30 October 2006 at 05:18 AM
Asalaamun Alaykum, br. Osama:
Thank you very much for writing this -- a few weeks ago, I'd written something similar on my blog aimed at a North American audience, looking to your example and others like you in the UK for inspiration. May you be rewarded for your efforts.
Best regards,
Abdiel
Posted by: Abdiel | 31 October 2006 at 06:08 PM
Abu Sahajj, blogs especially count!
Abdiel, keep up the good work and let's keep each other in our prayers as well.
Posted by: Osama | 01 November 2006 at 04:57 PM
check out this article - 'We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=411846&in_page_id=1770
Posted by: Yasmin | 01 November 2006 at 09:19 PM