I was surprised to find that my blog had been listed by the UK government as the 8th most influential “pro-Islamic blog”. The Telegraph pointed out that this research was compiled in 2008 and my blog is now mainstream and concentrates on wind farms, high speed rail and Trident.
I think this says it all really about where I am. At the turn of the decade a few months ago I had cause to reflect on the last ten years. I’m coming to the end of my twenties, a period I have spent more in the public eye than most my age.
I attended one of the British Council’s Our Shared Europe debates in Brussels last November. On the journey there and back I managed to read Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It tells the story of a Pakistani lawyer in New York, seemingly secular and irreligious, but who after 9/11 and the Afghanistan war finds conflict within himself which eventually leads him back to Pakistan where he organises anti-US protests.
It gave me cause to reflect what would have become of my life if 9/11 hadn’t happened. I did my first media interviews back then in 2001, providing Muslim condemnation for Al-Qaeda atrocities. At each terrorist outrage since – Madrid, 7/7, Glasgow Airport – I was wheeled into studios to do the same, and building bridges of understanding between Muslims and others became vital and ongoing work.
I cut my campaigning teeth in the lead up to the Iraq war. This wasn’t of course a “Muslim issue” and united people from all walks of life. When faith enters the public sphere, arguments and issues should be dealt with on their merits rather than with some form of faith exceptionalism or favouritism. If the invasion of Iraq was wrong, it wasn’t because it was a Muslim country. If there needs to be an end to the occupation of Palestine, it isn’t because there are Muslims there, it’s because it is the right thing to do. If faiths want more family friendly policies, how does this benefit society?
When it comes to Islam and Muslims most people occupy the centreground and here’s what people, both Muslim and not, agree on. Muslims are like any other faith group. They have a right to practice their faith, and to propagate it if they wish. Others have a right to disagree with Muslims about their faith, in the same way that Christians and all other faiths receive criticism. In the same way as other faiths, Muslims can organise. This is not an Islamist threat to the country, any more that the churches pose an existential threat of something called ‘Christianism’.
Despite this, you’ll get the neocon right still gnashing their teeth about it. Having been a disinterested observer for a while though, watching the same old people get het up about it, you quickly see this is an obsession of a strange bunch.
At that debate on “Europe and Islam: Whose Identity Crisis?” in Brussels, Douglas Murray from the rightwing Centre for Social Cohesion was on the panel. It was fascinating watching him get so animated while others on the panel with whom he disagreed with were speaking. I listened attentively to the discussion, and even agreed with much of Murray’s utterances. But even the bits I disagreed with, I was struggling to get worked up about it. I just found I wasn’t bothered, in a way perhaps a few years ago I would have been.
The truth is that it isn’t just Muslims whose lives were affected by 9/11 and the ensuing ‘war on terror’. There has been an entire industry of self-styled experts and pundits whose lives and notorieties depend on it. If I thought Murray was lively, this video of obsessive neocon Harry’s Place blogger David Toube is just astounding. Myself, I’m not interested in being about these issues and most sane people aren't either.
There are big things happening in the world today. We’re still on the precipice of major economic collapse. Jobs and services have to be protected. Financial architecture has to be restructured. Climate catastrophe has to be averted. Poverty and home and abroad has to be eliminated. These are the issues that drive me.
As the years go on, Muslims will get more involved in the mainstream of society, not because they are Muslims, but in a process of normalisation. I am not standing for election as a Muslim MP, just simply as an MP. I may happen to be Muslim, but we do not speak of Christian MPs and Jewish MPs. Similarly, while identities such as ‘Scottish Muslim’ and ‘British Muslim’ are seen as positive, other faith groups do not mix their nationality in this way. When talking about nationality, they are Scottish, while in the context of faith, they are Christian, Jewish or whatever else.
I am Scottish. My faith is a private devotional matter. That doesn’t stop me practising it though. There is an ease with faith issues in this country that perhaps doesn’t exist in large parts of the European continent. This is despite the wailing of some on the right in this country for many years. Long may sanity prevail.
Going back to Mohsin Hamid’s book, I was involved and interested in mainstream politics before 9/11 and would have been active if it hadn’t happened. I have gone through much during these 'war on terror' years, but they don't define me.
