Transcription
So the gloves have finally come off! I was reading the Daily Telegraph today. This is a hugely popular, influential broadsheet in the Anglo-sphere, read by many, many people, and I came across, uh, this article in the paper. Here it is.
"Islam has been a problem in Britain for a long time. It's time to face up to that. It's late in the day. Westminster must shake off its complacency," by this guy, Paul Goodman. Now, he says in the article that he was a Conservative MP for many years, uh, no longer. I'm also told that Paul Goodman, uh, was born the son of Jewish parents in London and converted to Roman Catholicism in his mid-20s.
Now, this is a step change. I mean, the Telegraph is always producing articles, drip, drip, drip, complaining about this preacher or that group of people or this, this Palestinian march. But to my knowledge, this may be a first, actually, in the British press, where they're actually targeting Islam itself. And they're not even calling it Islamists or extremists. It's now Islam itself is the problem. And this is why I think this is, uh, the gloves are off.
Now, now I'm not going to go through the whole article. It goes through the usual litany of issues that concern, uh, uh, many people on the right. Um, and some of the concerns, uh, are well-known. And, for example, there's a lot of, of black propaganda here. He refers here to Giorgia Meloni. She's the Prime Minister of Italy. Um, you know, banning various organizations and so on. And he says social media is awash with clips of the latter. This is inciting violence from British mosques. Prosecutions are required. Really? I've never seen, uh, an imam in, in a UK mosque inciting violence. And if they had been, that they would, uh, I'm sure they would have been, uh, arrested by now. And he's attacking, uh, pro-Palestinian supporters within the NHS. Of course, he calls for the recommendations of William Shawcross's, uh, review of Prevent to be implemented in full. The draconian message. And he says, "People have a right to protest publicly against the government of Israel, but they don't have a right to do so whenever they like." So that has to be carefully controlled. It already is. Um, so this is, uh, a nasty article, um, fingering, uh, a whole, a whole community of British citizens in the UK.
Now, the temperature is rising here in the UK. I'm not intending to be alarmist, but things are bit by bit, day by day, month by month, you can see the temperature increasing. You can see the rhetoric becoming more, uh, explicit, more targeted against Muslims. You can see no longer are they pretending to talk about Islamists or so. They're talking about Islam itself is the problem. And this Muslims, uh, are obviously increasingly concerned about this, and rightly so. And others are concerned about it too, not just Muslims, because this threatens the safety and stability and security of millions of British citizens, this rhetoric. Um, so I think one of the things I just want to point out a few basic facts. And I know this is common sense to many people, but it gets lost in the Telegraph rhetoric and the Tommy Robinson propaganda.
See, Muslims, nearly all Muslims are just ordinary people. They have children. They, they like everyone else, other British citizens. They want good schools for their children. They, they are law and order is very important to them. Social services. The NHS is very important to them. Muslims are disproportionately generous contributors to national charities. The stats have always shown this, and very generous. And these are not charities just for Muslim causes, but for everyone's, uh, benefit. So, Muslims are very generous as part of, uh, the faith, of course. Um, but we also care very much about world events. Um, and Muslims were not really allowed to, we're not allowed to care about what happens in Palestine with the, the genocide and the increasing, uh, rhetoric against Muslims globally. We care about that, but somehow that seemed to be controversial and illegitimate when it shouldn't be. We care about the Ukrainians, after all. They've been invaded by the Russians, and we have no problems in waving Ukrainian flags, putting Ukrainian flags on government buildings and all over the place in people's front windows. But when it comes to the Palestinian flag, um, just scrolling down here, this is a problem here for him. And he says, you know, why, why are people putting up, uh, flags, uh, you know, in public for sectarian reasons? This is not sectarian. This is caring, uh, about the people who are suffering an unjust, targeted genocide by, uh, the Israelis, of course.
So, you know, what can, what can we do about this? I think Muslims need to get together. We need to talk. We need to organize. Um, we need to strategize and we need to push back. Now, this is, this is a very delicate thing to do because we don't want, in my humble opinion, we don't want to feed into the narrative of civil war because that's what the far-right, Tommy Robinson and others, Telegram groups, it's all over the place. We don't want to simply be the mirror image of that. They say we're heading to civil war. We say, well, we're going to, you know, contribute to this, uh, toxic paradigm. No, we don't want that. What we want is justice and harmony and coexistence between the various groups of British people. So we mustn't, uh, in my, in my view, trigger, um, the far-right or trigger ideas in people's minds that makes them see us, see Muslims as a problem, as a minority that needs to be surveilled or, you know, kicked out of the country or whatever. Well, so this is a delicate and difficult diplomatic operation, but we must do it. We must. And also, we have allies. We're not on our own. Uh, there are groups and people and, and statesmen, so on, who, who are supporting us. I mean, Jeremy Corbyn, of course, and there are a handful of MPs and others who, who are decent people of goodwill who do, uh, offer their voices, uh, against oppression and discrimination and Islamophobia.
Talking of Islamophobia, in this article here, he just dismisses, uh, the whole idea. He says, "The very concept of Islamophobia, I'll just highlight it, which threatens free expression, must be resisted. Must be resisted." So, you know, that basically people must have absolute freedom to say whatever they like about Islam and Muslims. When it comes to, you know, his parents' faith, when it comes to Judaism, when it comes to Israel, then of course it's full of caveats and, and potential problems, and we mustn't demonstrate here, and you mustn't say this, and you can't say that. So, it's very much a lopsided, one-sided, uh, agenda he has, and it's, it's, it's very, very transparent.
And I think also I want to stress another thing in my little rant, rambling rant here, is that if you study Islam in depth, and, and I try and understand the faith, I read the Quran, I try and read books and educate myself, blogging theology, talking to Islamic scholars, the more, the more one looks into it, the more what one finds, it is an immensely civilizing faith. It's immensely civilizing. It believes in human dignity, that the dignity of the individual, um, particularly the dignity of women. This is something that is not often appreciated in the West. The women are held in high esteem and have rights and responsibilities which are very enabling, actually. Um, it, it contri, Islam has contributed incredibly to world civilization through scientific advance, uh, through scholarship, um, through, uh, a whole range of things, mainly in the past, big time, but now it's, it's re-coming back again in many places in the Muslim world. Um, so it's contributed hugely to, to civilization. Um, and there's much richness and beauty that could be appreciated by, uh, English people without having to convert, but nevertheless, they could have a healthy respect and appreciation, uh, for it. At the moment, that's not really happening. Uh, and the reasons for it are complicated. Um, but we must be proud of our, um, and what it has achieved in the past and can and will, inshallah, achieve again. Uh, as I've said before, the Ummah will not always be divided into, at least these little nation-statelets. It will not, it, it will unify, and when it is strong, it can then afford to be generous, and it can protect Muslims, uh, from invasion and attack, uh, from other powers, of course, and, and renew the faith of millions of Muslims globally.
So, this, this is a worrying headline. Um, it, it suggests a step change in the rhetoric. The fact the Telegraph is promoting this toxic headline that Islam itself is the problem. And, and then, if you inevitably, if you scroll down to the comments, yeah. Um, you know, so if I have a look at, uh, most liked comment, just so we can, uh, see what people are saying. Uh, anyway, I'll just read some of the things out. This is at random. "The British public have known this is an issue for decades and we've looked on in astonishment, disbeliever, as the British state continues to gaslight us, giving preferential treatment." So Muslims have preferential treatment. This is always, this is absolute rubbish. "Islam has been a problem wherever it is rubbed up against any other religion. Inherent of Islam are never happy until they take complete control." This is completely wrong. Um, as we know in the Middle East, um, in Palestine, before the rise of Zionism, Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived together for centuries, most of the time in peace. It wasn't a problem. It was a means to coexistence. Islam was, Islam is pluralistic. Something many people don't appreciate. In its very DNA, it recognizes Christians and Jews as people of the book. Um, just, uh, scrolling down here. "Islam is not just a religion. It's a vile ideology." I mean, I'm not going to read, there's nothing here, uh, that's positive, uh, at all. Uh, really, it's, uh, very, very, uh, nasty. Um, I did do this earlier on, and I looked at the most liked, and it was quite, quite worrying. Oh, here we go. So this is the most liked one. 326 likes. "Islam is incompatible Western culture. Full stop. But although most Muslims get on with their lives peaceably, it's the numbers that's the problem. Uh, thousands are on terror watch lists." Yeah. Are they guilty of any crime? Have they actually committed any crime? Then they will be prosecuted. Uh, nearly all are anti-Semitic and homophobic. Most are on benefits. And I mean, this is just rubbish. Most Muslims are not on benefits. Vast majority of Muslims are hardworking people. Um, tens of thousands on watch list. This is an issue. If that were true, are they, are they on watch list because they're outspoken in support of Palestine? And are there, are there IDF supporters? IDF, of course, is the military organization that has been slaughtering Palestinians, men, women, and children. Are any of those supporters on terror watch list? Maybe they should. Maybe this is very one-sided. "Islam is incompatible Western culture." Islam helped form Western culture. It helped to trigger the Renaissance, uh, Islamic Spain, Islamic Andalusia, uh, the, what was, uh, the jewel in, in European civilization for many, many centuries while the rest of Christian Europe was in the dark ages. So this is just sheer ignorance, ignorance of history, ignorance of the facts. Um, so this is, but I, I mentioned this tweet or this comment by this guy, Holay, simply to show you, uh, the kind of rhetoric that this article is, uh, stirring up. It's stirring up emotions and hatred and Islamophobia. Islamophobia exists. By the way, this guy Paul Goodman dismisses it, but it's real. It is a, it is the way Muslims are discriminated against simply by because of their Muslim look, women wearing hijab, men having beards, and so on, that there, there can be negative attitudes should just based on those facts alone. This is Islamophobia, and for him to dismiss it completely, uh, of course, robs us of an analytical tool. Well, it doesn't really, but he would like us to rob us of an analytical tool to push back against these, uh, uh, phobic and unjust discriminatory practices which are increasingly widespread throughout Europe as well, not just here.
So, um, as I'm not going to go through this whole thing, it's just a tirade of rant of tropes and lies and, and other things mixed in with one or two facts, but it's heavily, heavily biased. Uh, that this particular MP, as he was, was a very well-known pro-Zionist activist, uh, supporting Israel in all its policies, and this is, this is, uh, you know, the context I think we're looking at here, someone who, uh, very much has a one-sided view, who supports one particular cause, and thus, uh, he's made an enemy in his eyes of Muslims. So he is importing, in some ways, or he is articulating a sectarian impulse by giving vent to his Zionist prejudices against Muslims. Um, which is very ironic, but that is the way it is at the moment. Anyway, this article is behind a paywall, so you can't access it, uh, unless you pay, of course. I don't particularly recommend you do pay, really. Um, but, uh, you know, this has made me angry. We need to organize. We need maybe have a conference. We need to gather together influencers and, and activists and people who care about what we should do as Muslims in the future of the UK. How should we respond to this propaganda? Hopefully, we would do so wisely, intelligently, strategically, uh, rather than knee-jerk reactions which simply play into the far-right's, uh, attitudes to us in terms of provoking a negative response. So, we have to be better than them at strategizing. This can be done. It's not rocket science, but I think that's what we need to do, inshallah. Till next time.