Has political participation failed Muslims?

I took part in a debate last week organised by the Cordoba Foundation on "Has political participation failed Muslims?".

Apparently the event caused a bit of controversy in the East End of London because one of the panelists was the head of Hizb-ut-Tahrir Britain, Abdul Wahid. Indeed, David Cameron has since picked up on this, claiming that somehow HT were set to financially benefit from this event, which is complete nonsense.

Anyway, I was blown away by the level of cynicism about the political process from the audience. I thought these kind of debates had been put to bed years ago - we need to be involved. Maybe it's a geographical thing - certainly Lord Nazir Ahmed who was my fellow opponent of the motion, thought things would be different in Rotherham too. In the end, the motion was passed 78% to 14%. I didn't demand a recount.

The whole debate ended up being about the narrow issue of voting rather than political participation in the general sense. Even HT now accept campaigning and lobbying are legitimate forms of activities. This is progress given that just five years ago, rather than protesting against the Iraq war, they were protesting against the protesters.

On voting, people were most vehement in their disappointment at the Muslim MPs. I've blogged before about how people should stop looking at them as saviours of the Islamic spirit. They are not Muslim MPs, they are MPs that happen to be Muslims. They are elected by their constituents and owe the opportunity to their political party. Muslims across the country were not going to lifted out of poverty on their election and suddenly better educated. Nor were they single handedly going to defeat Islamophobia and give the country a more enlightened outlook on Muslims.

Muslim causes are always going to be better served by Muslim organisations, pressure groups and lobbies. If you want to move forward on these issues join one of the myriad groups that already exist. Let the MPs get on with their careers, though it may help them if they stopped bumbling in on these issues from time to time for populist effect.

People in audience asked what voting had achieved. You could ask this about anything. Would not voting achieve anything? Its not an either/or issue. And it's certainly not an excuse to sit on your bum - what has that ever achieved?

I left the event quite troubled at some of the isolationist messages I'd heard. But as I reflected in my hotel room, it occurred that how many people in this country have that much faith in their politicians anyway? Cynicism abounds. If I was voting in England, I'd probably be pretty depressed myself. Maybe some Muslims express their despondency in a different way to the public as a whole, but their attitude towards Westminster underlines what a broken system the Parliamentary bubble is.

Comments

[thabet]

Did the debate consider similar views across the country, across class and ethnicity?

[Tauseef Zahid]

Fact is that there are many other ways to bring a change than just voting for political parties. Muslims as a community need to be political. Muslims need to know what is happening in the country and how decisions are made. How British foreign policy is responsible for the murders of fellow Muslims around the world and how they can stop this right here in London through political work.

How can British government claim to be friends of Muslims when they bomb, kill and occupy Muslims. How can they claim to be friends of the Muslims when they support tyrants and dictators in the Muslim world? How can they claim to be friends of Muslims when they support illegal states like Israel.

Things are changing – since 911 Muslims are waking up and the future is only bright!!

[Yunus]

Ken Livingstone wrote a book - I haven't read it, but I gather it was about his political career up to the Thatcher's decision to abolish the GLC - called, "If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It"!

[Osama]

Salaam,

Thabet, no it didn't really

Tauseef, one of the aspects of this debate is that no one is saying that solely voting will bring about changeOn the evening, it was presented in this binary fashion, and indeed it would be absurd to say don't do anything except vote. We need engagement with all aspects of public work.

Yunus, I'm sure that won't be Ken's slogan int he lead up to May's election!

[Fed up non-Muslim]

Osama,

Maybe Muslims are under-represented politically - but so are Pentecostal Christians, Sikhs, Latter-day Saints, Jews, Zoroastrians, etc. You think each of these groups has it easy?

Why is Islam a special case? Why do the concerns of your community always have to be the concern of our political leadership? Why should Muslims be "more politicised", than, for the sake of the argument, Mormons?

Why is it that your community is the only one that feels so hard done to? There's no "stop Presbytarianaphobia coalition"; no campaign to defend the rights of Pagans. Why are Muslims a special case?

I'm a baptised member of the Church of Scotland, and I put up, every day, with banter and comments from non-Christian friends that venture on the blasphemous. Do I complain? No! Do I feel persecuted every time the BBC runs Rikki Fulton and his anti-CoS “Rev. I. M. Jolly” sketch? Of course not! Why is this different from the Prophet Mohammed cartoons that triggered such an outrageous reaction from the Muslim community?

I work in retail, and recently I had to accept a (not insignificant) cut in my pay because, as a Christian, I wanted to stop working on a Sunday. I didn’t protest that this was somehow unfair, and it never would have occurred to me to sue my employer. It certainly would never have occurred to me to sue my employer.*

This is, I admit, a bit of a ramble, but as a Scot, I’m becoming increasingly fed up with the victim complex that your community seems to have. Why do you feel so hard-done-to? And why is it my problem?

* http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23420030-details/Hairdresser+sued+for+religious+discrimination/article.do

[Ted Harvey]

If there are any naive Muslims out there with regard to UK politics and politicians, they could learn much from the experience of the indigenous Scottish working class over most of the last century about politicians and the appropriateness of being very cynical about them.

The consequence of huge political activism and endeavor by the Scottish working class ended them up with nothing more than some of the worse poverty and ill-health in Europe alongside of the obscenity of the wealth of ‘their’ MPs like Michael Martin and Tommy McAvoy who have presided for decades over their fiefdoms of poverty and ill-health.

And Osama that all leaves me feeling very uncomfortable about your comment that:

“Muslim causes are always going to be better served by Muslim organisations, pressure groups and lobbies”.

That kind of selfish divisiveness will serve neither Muslims nor other sector of UK society any good over the longer term. It also sounds very like the line spouted by Labour MPs over almost a century to the Scottish working class; while all the while their organisations were benefiting the politicians rather than their ‘client’ groups (re again Michael Martin and Tommy McAvoy). Frankly, I already have discerned a number of Muslim ‘representatives’ who practice that hypocritical and self-serving line.

And on your jib that Muslims should:

“Let the MPs get on with their careers”

That sounds like some self-rightous and self-justifying statement that comes from the political classes in the UK that seem incapable of perceiving just how far they have cut themselves off from any respect from all other sectors of British society with their intellectual dishonesty, utter lack of ethics and self-betterment.

Please beware lest you are assimilating into those political classes – we Muslims and non-Muslims alike need our outsiders like you!

[Osama]

Fedup non-muslim, that's just a rant that bears little relation to my posting. Hope you feel better having got that off your chest. FYI the CoS has more people employed to do political lobbying than the Muslim community. They have every right to do that without anyone asking silly questions like "what makes them think they're a special case" etc. Also FYI loads of Muslims have to work through the time for Friday prayer, they don't sue either.

Ted, you make a number of points and I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at. Agree there are parallels with the Scots working class. Talking about Muslim lobbying is not divisive any more than saying an environmental pressure group like Greenpeace is selfish. It puts forward issues that it decides are important and it's up to our elected law makers to determine what's good and what's not. Where Muslims can join with others in civic society, they should e.g. the Stop the War movement.

If you're thinking I was saying that Muslim groups should back politicians, I wasn't. As far as the Muslim MPs are concerned, I was simply saying they were elected by mostly non-Muslim constituents and have a duty to their political parties. If they slavishly follow a Muslim line as people at this event were wanting them to, they will be tabloid fodder and will be swiftly deselected or lose at the next poll.

[Ted]

You're right to say there is a general disillusionment with politics and politicians in general. I think, though, you have a rather naive belief that this is an 'English problem' - only half the electorate voted in the last Holyrood elections.

I am slightly disturbed at your perception that Muslims are angry because MP"s aren't serving 'their community'. As you say, they're elected to serve everyone not select groups. This kind of tribalism is unhealthy in politics but it's not unique to Muslims - the Roman Catholic/Labour party tie-in in Scotland, for example - with different groups thinking it's 'their man' and he should do their bidding.

I'm not sure it's tied to any system. Perhaps it's just human nature. People seem to start off with good intentions but these get lost along the way - as anyone who's ever been involved in trade unions will tell you.

[thabet]

I have to agree with Ted, Osama.

I don't think a "Muslim lobby" will work or is good for Muslims in Britain.

We need to form cross-cultural/political alliances. Look at City Circle. They are opposing the increase in the 28-day limit by teaming up with Liberal Conspiracy and OurKingdom.

Why can't MCB, MAB, MPACUK do the same? The so-called "Muslim issues" (anti-terrorism laws, detention without trial, ID cards, arms being sold to violent tyrants etc.) do not, infact, affect Muslims only.

Plus, the exclusion of class, ethnicity and other social factors from discussions about is extremely misleading. We don't live in a bubble.