The recent attacks on me

At the Scotland United Against Terror rally I was heckled by someone in the crowd. Nothing new in that, happens quite a bit, par for the course.

Caught a glimpse of the bloke near the front, just looked like the normal vagrant, possibly drunk, but definitely looking a complete state. He disappeared shortly after - possibly he'd been taken away by the police. He'd actually been pulled up by one of the other attendees to whom he retorted he was an academic and therefore was under the impression that he was above everyone else and allowed to act like a berk. Then he was pulled up by another academic who was on hand.

I've just been told that the vagrant in question was actually Tom Gallagher. He had approached one of the organisers beforehand and asked if I was going to be speaking. He was also upset that no one from the Sufi Muslim Council was on the platform.

He's followed up his Open Democracy piece with articles in the Spectator and the Herald. Former Conservative MSP Brian Monteith has also joined in. Their basic proposition is that Alex Salmond and the SNP are getting it wrong on terror and the Muslim community, and both namecheck me as being central to the problem.

It's a strange feeling, as obviously over the last few years we've seen other very balanced Muslim figures lampooned by people in the press. It was in some sense bound to be my turn at some stage. But did it really have to happen? Gallagher and Monteith only seem to be aping the pointless witchhunts that take place in England. I'm not sure whether a response is really required, but lest anyone says I've stayed silent on the issue, here goes.

In his Spectator article, Gallagher criticises Salmond's visit to Glasgow Central Mosque the day after the airport attack, because the First Minister did not "disavow the attacks on free speech which revived when Salman Rushdie was knighted". I couldn't imagine a more bizarre statement that the First Minister could have made in the immediacy of that national emergency situation. Gallagher really in the heat of it all, wanted the FM to come to the mosque and talk about Salman Rushdie. I doubt even Tony Blair, Ruth Kelly or John Reid in their pomp would have done that. There can be surely no more stretching the totem that Rushdie is for those who want to attack the Muslim community. Rushdie's as useful to them as he is to those who would characterise the West as totally anti-Islam.

The most galling thing from this article though is his description of the Kriss Donald's murderers as "Muslim hoodlums". Baldy and Crazy were a lot of things, but their religion had nothing to do with their crimes. Some people wrongly tried to make a race issue in the aftermath. It says a lot about Gallagher's motivations that he is the only person to date to try and Islamise the issue.

He chose to ignore the university research that shows that young Scottish Muslims feel more Scottish than the country as a whole. Without even attempting to make a case for there being a problem with young Scottish Muslims, he patronisingly trots out the line that assistance is needed for "young Muslims to come to terms with life in a secular and individualistic Britain".

This "assistance" he says is reading the works of David Hume. One theme in the attacks on Muslims in the last few years has been the damning by association - and often very weak associations at that. X knows Y who's related to Z who's a member of Muslim Sisterhood and who once said yada yada yada. You can't take the respectable things Muslim people say at face value because of these very dangerous connections. But imagine you apply the same to Hume - who Gallagher directly admires in his article. Hume once wrote:

I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites.

So by Gallagher's logic, this renders the Enlightenment null and void, and also means that he is a racist.

Continued

Comments

[Yakoub Islam]

***assistance is needed for "young Muslims to come to terms with life in a secular and individualistic Britain"***

I loathed all forms of nationalism and nationalist sentiment before I was a Muslim, and as a Muslim, I see my faith as only reaffirming those internationalist, humanist values. I thus feel no inclination to affirm my Britishness to allay suspicions stirred up by right-wing bigots.

[Robert Browne]

Although Professor Gallagher was in this instance talking specifically about the SNP and Islamist support, he has also managed to highlight the dangers of a second issue, that of political leaders of any description attempting to garner support through religious issues.

SNP and Islamism.

Mr. Saeed’s involvement in the SNP must be seen within the context of his position within the Muslim Association of Britain, The Muslim Brotherhood’s avatar in the UK.

As Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi has said: ”The (islamic) conquest of Rome means that Islam will return to Europe. I think that this conquest would not be by the sword or armies, but by preaching and ideology. Europe will see that it suffers from materialistic culture, and will seek an alternative, it will seek a way out, it will seek a lifeboat. It will find no lifesaver but the message of Islam the message of the muezzin who gives it religion but does not deny it this world, brings it to Heaven, but does not uproot it from Earth. Allah willing, Islam will return to Europe and the Europeans will convert to Islam.”

Saeed’s political aspirations therefore can’t be seen as limited to Scottish independence but a greater goal - the resurrection and expansion of the caliphate. To achieve this through the democratic process is perfectly acceptable as long as we all realize that the object of this exercise is for The Koran and The Sunnah to become our Constitution and Bill of Rights. As Quardawi himself has said, in the UK this is probably about 70 to 100 years in the future, but useful work is being applied by Islamist politicians like Mr Saeed in the UK of benefit to the Ummah elsewhere in the world.

With that in mind it is easy to see how policies such the break up of the UK, withdrawal from NATO, closing Faslane, the ending of US munitions flights to Israel and the creation of state funded Muslim schools would appeal to someone with an Islamist agenda.

Whilst there is little doubt that Mr. Salmond’s belief in such policies are an end in themselves, Mr. Saeed’s are a means to an end. As The Muslim Brotherhood’s own charter says, the members should strive to achieve political power: “By putting political programs for Islamising government in different countries and establishing these programs through the convenient ways which do not conflict with Islam.”

The dangers of faith based voting.

In the case above, this requires mobilizing ‘the muslim vote’ and that is where Mr. Saeed steps in. It is a tactic the SNP have used in the past albeit with a different religious identity.

In conjunction with The Scottish Sun they attempted to secure the catholic vote (and newspaper purchasing power) in the west of Scotland by raising the act of succession (and the attendant ban on the possibility of a catholic monarch) as an issue. The Sun came out in support of the SNP while simultaneously producing pro-Celtic and anti-Rangers stories in their attempt to secure circulation. This pact was thankfully short lived.

Sometime in the 1980s the UK stopped voting along ideological lines and began electing managers. Should the SNP carry on the track of religious based support they could trigger a reaction from those who regard themselves as ‘other’. Voting based on class was bad enough: religion however has a capacity to trigger irrational behaviour on a grand scale. The belief system that lies underneath protestantism is not that far beneath the surface (and currently only shows face at derby matches) but I suspect it is dormant, not dead. The last Orange Order march I saw in Edinburgh consisted of about 50 people. I don’t want to see it become 50,000 again and playing with faith based voting could bring that about. We would do well to remember law of unintended consequences.

Gallagher is correct that Islamist involvement with the SNP is worthy of discussion. Mr. Saeed’s response which included referring to Prof Gallagher as “a drunk”, “a vagrant” and repeating the untruth that Gallagher had been “arrested by the police” did Mr Saeed no favours.

After all, The Prophet did say:" Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should talk what is good or keep quiet, and whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should not hurt (or insult) his neighbour."

Voting along religious lines is insane. It turns democracy into tribalism. More importantly once started, it may not stop where you want it to. The ugliness of this tribal/religious mix is only surpassed its stupidity and surrealism: anyone who thinks the Israeli Palestinian issue has nothing to do with Scottish sectarianism would do well to remember recent Old Firm matches where Scottish protestants, themselves descended from 7th century Irish immigrants sung songs about how wonderful a Dutch prince was whilst waving Israeli flags at a bunch of Scottish catholics descendants of 19th century Irish immigrants themselves waving Palestinian flags whilst singing songs about a German Pope (who lives in Italy).

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Finally, in anticipation of the Islamist McCarthyism Mr. Saeed is so prone to: No Mr. Saeed, I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Islamophobe Party. I just don’t trust politicians, especially those who think they are doing God’s work. That makes me a Theocraphobe and proud of it. Perhaps you could get your friends at The Musselburgh Popular Front to start up Theocraphobe-Watch.com.

However Mr. Saeed, are you now, or have you ever been a member of Al-Ikhwan?”

[Osama]

Mr Browne, no. What the MB, Qaradawi et al say is their business and I'd thank you for not ascribing the views of others to me. You wouldn't like it if I did that to you, as you've just stated.

Briefly, I don't believe the religious communities are the vote pullers you and many others think they are. I believe public policy should be set on the basis of putting forward arguments and the strongest one winning. There's no space for saying, I'm a Muslim, I'm a Catholic, or I'm a secularist, and this is how it's got to be because that's what I believe.

[Robert Browne]

Thank you for replying to my post.

In response I would like to say that I must apologise for ascribing others support for the caliphate to you. What I should have done is quoted your own support for that institution from your article in The Guardian entitled “The Return of The Caliphate” where you outlined your support for the restoration and said:

“Instead of a president or a commission, there might be what is called a caliph. It's not the names but what the institutions do - and how they are accountable - that matters. …. There is no point in comparing the political form a caliphate might take to those in centuries past ….. A restored caliphate is entirely compatible with democratically accountable institutions.”

You must agree, this is a view very close to official MB policy.

My questioning of your allegiance with The Muslim Brotherhood is based on your support for exceptionally similar ideals. Additional support to the hypothesis comes from:

1. The fact that the MAB was founded by Kamal Al-Helbawy, the official spokesman for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in Europe
2. The fact that The Muslim Brotherhood’s Charter appeared until very recently on the MAB website.
3. The role of Azzam Al-Tamimi in both organizations.

Regarding religious voting, you replied to my point by saying: “Briefly, I don't believe the religious communities are the vote pullers you and many others think they are.”

Perhaps I should have made it clearer that it was yourself that made me aware of the phenomenon by warning political leaders in the UK of changing allegiances in your community.

In an article, once again in The Guardian, you said: “Where once we voted Labour instinctively, our vote is now there for any party to win.” What particularly caught my eye was your use if the singular: ‘our vote’, not ‘our votes’.

You went on to say: “In the general election, expected next year, many Labour MPs will be heavily affected by the Muslim vote.” There is that singular again, but this time with a more specific meaning.

On one hand you think religious communities are not the vote pullers I think they are yet you clearly regard them as vote pullers yourself, or more accurately from your use of the singular, vote poollers. Again from your article in The Guardian: “With large regions, low voter turnout and a PR system to work with, we are likely to see the Muslim vote making a huge impact at the Euro polls.”

Which one is it Mr. Saeed? Or do you simply want us to hold two contradictory ideas in our heads at the same time, and believe both? I believe it is called doublethink, and it goes together with News-Speak where by controlling language, one can control thought.

Now where have I heard that before….

[Osama]

You seem to be more in tune with MB policy than me. By the same token, your own views are very in line with Islamophobic ones, but you would take great exception to them being called so. In fact, you fall exactly into the trap in the paragraph I wrote above before the quote from Hume.

As I said in my last comment, engage with the ideas. Are they right or wrong? You seem to be taking exception of democratic reform and in the Muslim world. Why? If it makes you feel better, call the caliph a president. Would Muslim countries be wrong in cooperating with each other like we have in Europe?

WRT to the issue of the power of the religious vote, you quote from an article from three years ago. If there was a contradiction, it would be of the u-turn variety, not double-think. In any case, that article was in the Guardian, talking about the UK-wide scene, this thread at hand is talking about Scottish politics. The community here is 50,000 strong and even in the most densely populated area is a minority by some way. I don't believe that Alex Salmond and the SNP are close to Muslims for electoral gain. Especially when, returning to the UK scene, the Labour Party in the last few years since I wrote that article has given scant regard to the Muslim vote - despite being key populations in a number of English seats - in favour of garnering votes from actually being seen to be distant from Muslims.