Liberal democratic values are under increasing threat, at home and abroad, from radical Islamism. Yet many so-called ‘liberals’ – some deliberately, others unwittingly – are complicit with those seeking to destroy those values. Some are still asleep; some naively surrendered through ultra-political correctness; while others, such as London’s former Mayor Ken Livingstone and MP George Galloway, despite their prominent support for gay and women’s rights, have formed bizarre alliances with people who would stone adulterers, execute homosexuals and advocate suicide bombing. Now it is time for all who care about liberty and tolerance, on the left and the right in mainstream politics, to unite in the face of this challenge.
As part of the response, it is time to ask some tough questions. Inter-faith dialogue and multi-culturalism sound good in principle. But when they result, respectively, in concessions and tip-toeing around difficult or contentious issues, or treading on eggshells and ghetto-isation, they can be more harmful than helpful. A frank, honest, open dialogue, with Muslims is what is needed.
In my job as a human rights campaigner and as a journalist (and I worked full-time as a journalist for the first six years of my career), asking questions is a central aspect of my work. On this subject of Islamism, I have some questions for our Muslim friends – for Muslims on all sides of the spectrum, democrat and extremist, progressive and Islamist. These are not grenades to be lobbed, but rather honest, simple questions requiring honest answers, in a spirit of inquiry. Doubtless many Muslims will have questions about the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of Western liberal democracies, misunderstandings about Christianity and concerns about secularism and materialism. On some of these themes, we may find common ground with Muslims. And I would welcome questions about Christianity or Judeo-Christian values from Muslims, or any non-Christian. There would be some I could attempt to answer, others I would be unable to answer, and some which would trouble me as much as they trouble the questioner. The point is, I would welcome the questions as part of an honest dialogue and inquiry. But there need to be some honest answers. And so, for our Muslim friends, here are ten questions to start with (there are many more to ask), asked in a spirit of honest enquiry and friendship:
1. Reciprocity: If Muslims can build mosques in Britain, and increasingly demand more mosques and the right to sound the call to prayer, why are there no churches in Saudi Arabia? If non-Christians are welcome to visit Rome, Jerusalem and the great cathedrals of Christendom, why are non-Muslims threatened with death if they set foot in Mecca?
2. Blasphemy: Given that, even though hardly a day passes without some insults against Christianity in our media or daily conversations, Christians seldom even complain, why are remarks deemed insulting to Islam, often even without that intent, often met with blood-curdling threats?
3. Apostasy: Why should someone who gives up Islam, for another faith or no belief, be killed or mistreated, when the Koran says that "there is no compulsion in religion"?
4. What about taqiyya, ‘deception’? Do Muslims believe it’s acceptable to lie? When they present a moderate image, is it genuine or is it a strategy to deceive?
5. What about the principle of abrogation, meaning that so-called "Surahs of the Sword" in the Koran – advocating violent jihad – supercede the "Surahs of Peace"? Sayyid Qutb, godfather of Islamism and author of Milestones, the Islamists’ Mein Kampf, writes that "the command to refrain from fighting during the Meccan period was a temporary stage in a long journey" and that Islam "has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions". When God restrained Muslims from violent jihad, Qutb adds, "it was a question of strategy rather than principle". Is that why so many British Muslims have stayed silent? Are they following strategy rather than principle? If not, let them speak out, unconditionally and loudly, against violence and hate, and in favour of liberal democracy.
6. Is it true that in many mosques, Muslims pray a ‘cursing prayer’ against non-Muslims, sometimes over the loud-speakers to intimidate their non-Muslim neighbours?
7. Why do Muslims make such a noise about Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya, but seldom campaign against Muslim-on-Muslim abuse, such as the genocide in Darfur, and are almost silent on human rights violations in non-Muslim lands, such as Burma or North Korea or Zimbabwe? Daveed Gartenstein-Ross – a former convert to Islam who joined a Wahhabi charity that funded al-Qaeda – recalls in his book My Year in Radical Islam a fellow-Muslim dismissing accounts of the Taliban’s record in Afghanistan as "Western media hype". Gartenstein-Ross writes: "The lack of women’s rights, the slaughter of Shias, the complete suppression of freedoms – all of this was being written off as hype? But at the time, it seemed that nobody else noticed this. Not the teachers, not the students." Instead, he claims, his co-workers went on the offensive. "In every area where Islam was criticised, they tried to show that the West was worse." Why?
8. Honour crimes: Although honour crimes are not limited to the Muslim community, they are particularly prevalent in the Muslim world. Why, if Islam is a religion of peace, do Muslim parents beat or kill their daughters for actions that would be accepted in almost any other community in the civilised world?
9. Women: why is a woman’s evidence worth half that of a man in court? Under Pakistan's Hudood Ordinances, for example, a woman who has been raped has to produce four male Muslim witnesses – otherwise she is charged with adultery and jailed.
10. Melanie Phillips has said that according to studies and polls, Britain is the least Islamophobic country in Europe, and yet it is the host-country most hated by its Muslim citizens. Why?
Peter Riddell, an Australian specialist in Islam who writes for Kairos Journal, has categorised the British Muslim population into three principle groupings, from poll data collected between 2001 and 2006.
The first group, which he terms "participatory assimilationist", amounts to ten per cent of the British Muslim population, and refers to Muslims whose mindset is to participate in the democratic process, condemn terrorism, oppose Shari’ah law, and educate their children in secular or church schools. They are not very different from most other average British people.
The second group, "separatist radicals", amount to 8.5% of the British Muslim population, and represent the extremists. They are people who are radicalised, possibly participating in or supporting terrorism, refuse to vote because they regard our parliamentary democracy as illegitimate, desire the introduction of Shari’ah, watch Muslim television, consider Jews and apostates legitimate targets, and feel loyalty to the ‘Ummah’ rather than Britain.
The third, and largest group, according to Dr Riddell, is what he calls "participatory Islamists", amounting to 40% of the British Muslim population. These are people who are willing to participate up to a point, sending their children to State schools, urging Muslims to vote, and adopting a joint British-Muslim identity, but when the opportunity presents itself, they seek Islamisation of their societies. When they have the numbers, they want Muslim schools, Muslim television, Shari’ah law, and are suspicious of Jews and apostates. They blame the West, particularly the UK and the US, for the rise in terror, more than the terrorists themselves.
If Dr Riddell’s statistics are correct, true Muslim democrats who accept liberal democracy in Britain on its own terms are a minority – as are the fully-fledged radical Islamists. A significant minority – 40 per cent – is suspicious of our democracy, but wishes to participate in and, over time, to Islamise it. Of course, Dr Riddell’s figures do not total one hundred per cent, and so the big question for British Muslims, then, is which of these descriptions fits – and where are the remaining 41.5 per cent?
In defending liberal democracy, we need to do three things: ask the tough questions, cease the one-sided concessions, and defend freedom, at home and abroad. Muslims need to know not just that we are challenging them, but that as human beings we are not against them, we are against the hate-filled ideology of Islamism. A clear starting point in tackling Islamism, therefore, is to promote the values of democracy and human rights – for while Islamists milk the theme of oppression for their own ends, the two ideologies – Islamism and liberal democracy – are mutually exclusive. It is incumbent upon all of us who are democrats to do more to champion the universal values of human rights in the Islamic world.
That means those of us living in freedom, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, should be speaking out for persecuted Muslims around the world. Otherwise, their plight is hijacked by Islamists and used as a rallying cry. We have to address, in a balanced way, human rights in Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya – it is morally right to do so, and it is strategically essential. It is a myth, however, to believe that these issues create Islamists – they are, rather, an opportunity for Islamists to pedal their ideology more successfully. Why hand them such an opportunity by ignoring the suffering in these lands?
But we should not focus solely on Palestine and Kashmir, the causes celebres. There are areas where the oppression of Muslims is little known and largely ignored, by non-Muslim and Muslim worlds alike. I think, for example, of the Rohingya people of Burma. Their mosques are destroyed, their movement restricted, they are harassed, imprisoned, enslaved, raped and tortured by Burma’s military regime. They are treated as non-citizens, denied education and refused permission to marry. They are a stateless people, persecuted by the military regime in Burma and side-lined by Burma’s democracy movement. Some of my Rohingya friends say they feel they have no friends in the world – and that makes them vulnerable to radicalisation. We should be speaking out for the Rohingya because it is morally right in itself – they desperately need help. But we should also provide a voice for them, to save them falling into the hands of Islamists.
In her book Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West, published after her assassination, Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto rightly criticises the West’s inconsistency. If dictatorship is bad, Bhutto contends, "then dictators are bad" – full stop. Western statements about human rights in the past, she argues, have been "more platitude than policy", and the West has actively "undermined democratic institutions, democratic movements and democratically elected governments in countries that the West considered critical to other policy objectives". The West’s support of Pakistan’s dictators Zia ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf is a case in point. It is in our own interests to promote freedom and liberal institutions. "Democracies do not go to war with democracies. Democracies do not become state sponsors of terrorism," she argues. The West should promote democracy in the Islamic world "as a matter of national security policy," to "isolate and marginalise the extremists and fanatics".
Democracy is all about questioning, dialogue and debate. By asking questions, being clear what we stand for, and defending Muslims who are genuinely suffering, we might begin to win the 41.5% of Britain Muslims unaccounted for – and thereby make progress in the battle for freedom at home and abroad. A meaningful process of questioning has yet to begin, but it is an essential component of the struggle against Islamist terror and hatred. I await the answers to my ten questions with interest.
