Erasmus | Islam, the West and the far right

Finding a new equilibrium after Christchurch won’t be easy

For many Muslims, the far right isn’t the main problem

By ERASMUS | BIRMINGHAM

THERE IS AN optimistic way of reading the international reaction to the massacre at a New Zealand mosque on March 15th which goes something like this. Appalled by the bloodbath, decent people all over the Western world came together to support their Muslim compatriots, and vowed to step up the fight against ultra-rightist and white-supremacist terror, a threat which had been underestimated. Muslims were grateful for this solidarity, and this duly helped to avoid the breakdown of social peace which is the purpose of most terrorists.

If there is any place where that description holds water, it might be in New Zealand itself, where Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, has been reaching out to traumatised Muslims in the name of democratic decency.

Elsewhere in the Western world, there was certainly great sympathy for the victims and all those affected by the tragedy, but worryingly little sign of consensus between Muslims and their fellow citizens over how diverse democracies should respond in the longer term.

Western Muslim commentators insisted that the rampage in New Zealand simply marked the far end of a spectrum of anti-Islamic feeling which they experience every day. A group called the “Collective against Islamophobia in France” happened to publish its annual report on the day of the Antipodean massacre. It said that from 2017 to 2018 the number of hostile incidents suffered by French Muslims (ranging from physical attacks or abuse to instances of discrimination) had jumped by more than half to 676. In 70% of cases the victims were female. The group pointedly chooses March 15th as the date for its annual assessment because that was the day in 2004 when headscarves and other religious symbols were banned from French schools in the name of secularism.

In Germany, police recorded 578 hate crimes against Muslims between January and September of 2018, resulting in 40 injuries, up from 27 injuries in the same period of 2017. Although the total number of incidents and anti-Muslim demonstrations in Germany has slipped downwards since the peak of the migrant crisis in 2015 and 2016, the level of violence seems to be rising. And in England and Wales, just over half the 5,680 “religious hate” incidents recorded in the year ended March 2018 concerned victims whose “perceived religion” was Islam.

In response to all this, Muslim representatives frequently stress that the problem of Islamophobia (a term that remains contentious in many countries) is by no means confined to a far-rightist fringe. They insist that an anti-Muslim climate has been created by politicians much closer to the respectable centre-right, or in the French case by zealous advocates of the century-old doctrine of laïcité,or strict secularism.

At Birmingham Central Mosque, one of the leading places of Islamic worship in Britain, the initial reaction to New Zealand’s horror was one of inter-faith solidarity. Representatives of all local creeds gathered to offer sympathy and support. But mosque leaders say their people live daily with abuse, spitting, jostling and in the case of women, attempts to grab their scarves. Nassar Mahmood, a mosque trustee, says social peace in the city is challenged on many fronts. Reduced levels of policing (because of budget cuts) lead to a rise in petty crime that, he fears, may be blamed on Muslims. “We could very easily face attacks similar to those in New Zealand that would destabilise our social harmony,” he says. In the early hours of March 21st, five mosques in Birmingham were attacked with sledgehammers.

Salma Yaqoob, a local politician of the left who may be Birmingham’s best-known Muslim woman, has been adamant that the problem goes far beyond an extremist white-nationalist fringe. Her response to the New Zealand massacre was to “call out” mainstream Tory politicians who in her view played to the gallery with anti-Muslim innuendos.

The British government’s Prevent programme, designed to nip in the bud any individuals tempted by extremism, has always been presented as an even-handed initiative to curb radical tendencies of all kinds, whether Islamist or white-supremacist. But among Muslim activists like Ms Yaqoob, the programme has been excoriated both as anti-Muslim in its emphasis and fundamentally flawed in other ways, on grounds that it gives teachers and university lecturers, among others, a police-like role.

It follows that any move by the authorities to redress the balance by applying more resources to fighting ultra-rightists will still fail to satisfy Prevent’s critics. Feelings run high in Birmingham because identity politics, as played out in the city, present such a kaleidoscope. An attempt by conservative Muslim families to stop gay-friendly lessons in primary schools was praised by one of the country’s far-right leaders, Nick Griffin. He said he wished other parents were as brave. (Ms Yaqoob has tweeted in response that Muslims should not be tempted into regarding people like Mr Griffin as a friend; it says something about the strangeness of Britain’s culture wars that she feels the need to say that.)

In an ideal world, the Christchurch horror would be galvanising people in every democracy, across a broad political, ideological and cultural spectrum, to defend common values, including tolerance, freedom, mutual respect and the rule of law. To some extent this is happening. But neither before or after Christchurch has there been much sign of a clear consensus over what exactly those values are. Nor is there much agreement over how those values should be acted out by society’s representatives, be they police officers, judges or teachers. Sadly, the image of a respectable, democratic mainstream fighting a violent fringe is too simple.

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