Are moderate Muslims refusing to take responsibility for rooting out extremists
within their communities? Or is the Government ignoring the advice of Muslim
leaders about how to deal with extremists and assuage alienation? It was unfortunate
for both sides that this week's spat between Tony Blair and Muslim leaders
should break out on the same day as the publication of the Times/Populus poll
on Muslims in Britain. For the poll reveals how out of touch with reality
are both sides in the debate - and how dangerous are the assumptions common
to both sides.
The starting point in any discussion about terrorism and extremism seems to
be that Muslims constitute a community with a distinct set of views and beliefs,
and that, for them, real political authority must come from within their community.
Mainstream politicians, so the argument goes, are incapable of engaging with
them; only authentic Muslim leaders can. So there has to be a bargain: the
Government acknowledges Muslim leaders as crucial partners in the task of
rooting out terrorism and building a fairer society; in return Muslim leaders
agree to keep their own house in order. The argument this week was really
about who was, or was not, keeping their side of the bargain.
But the trouble is the bargain itself. Not only is it rooted in a picture
of the Muslim community and its relationship with the wider British society
that is false, but also the cosy relationship between the Government and Muslim
leaders exacerbates the problem it was meant to solve.
At first sight the results of the poll may seem to confirm the picture of
a Muslim community set apart from the rest of society: 7 per cent of Muslims
approve of suicide bombings in Britain; 2 per cent would be proud if a family
member joined al-Qaeda; more than one in ten believes that the cause, if not
the actions, of the 7/7 bombers was legitimate.
A more careful reading of the poll, however, tells a different story. For
a start, it reveals that Muslims and non-Muslims share a surprising number
of attitudes. Three quarters of non-Muslims think Muslims should do more to
integrate; so do two thirds of Muslims. Virtually the same proportion of Muslims
and non-Muslims are offended by public drunkenness and by women wearing revealing
clothes. A third of the general population has close friends who are Muslims
- a high figure given that they make up less than 4 per cent of the population.
Nearly nine out of ten Muslims have close non-Muslim personal friends.
Not only are there common attitudes across communities but Muslims themselves
are, unsprisingly, divided on many issues. They cannot agree, for instance,
for instance whether the police should be allowed to monitor mosques, whether
the 7/7 bombers should be regarded as martyrs or whether public displays of
affection are offensive.
The poll suggests that both Muslims and non-Muslims believe that Britain is
a deeply Islamophobic society, but it also suggests that this perception is
unwarranted. More than half the general population understands why Muslims
might feel offended by people getting anxious about Muslims carrying large
bags on the Tube or the buses - a higher figure than the proportion of Muslims
who feel offended by this. Almost a third of non-Muslims object to the police
monitoring imams. Nearly 60 per cent think that Muslims have made a valuable
contribution to British life.
This is not a picture of a nation in thrall to Islamophobia. Nor is it a picture
of a uniform Muslim population that responds in the same way to all questions
and whose primary, or only, loyalty is to Islam. Few policy-makers have, I
suspect, an image of Muslim communities as identical but the stereotype of
homogeneity is what animates current policy towards Muslims.
The Government has long since abandoned its responsibility for engaging directly
with Muslim communities. Instead it has effectively subcontracted its responsibilities
to so-called community leaders. When the Prime Minister wants to find out
what Muslims think about a particular issue he invites the Muslim Council
of Britain to No 10. When the Home Secretary wants to get a message out to
the Muslim community, he visits a mosque. Rather than appealing to Muslims
as British citizens and attempting to draw them into the mainstream political
process, politicians of all hues prefer to see them as people whose primarily
loyalty is to their faith and who can be politically engaged only by other
Muslims.
The consequences of this approach are hugely damaging. 'Why should a British
citizen who happens to be Muslim have to rely on clerics and other leaders
of the religious community to communicate with the Prime Minister?', asks
Amartya Sen, the Nobel prize-winning economist, in his new book Identity
and Violence. Far from promoting integration, government policy encourages
Muslims to see themselves as semi-detached Britons. After all, if the Prime
Minister believes that he can engage with them only by appealing to their
faith, rather than their wider political or national affiliations, who are
Muslims to disagree? If politicians abdicate their responsibility for engaging
with ordinary Muslims, is it surprising that those Muslims should feel disenchanted
with the political process? Or that disenchantment should take a radical religious
form?
The policy of subcontracting political responsibility allows politicians to
wash their hands of the alienation of sections of the Muslim community. And
it allows self-appointed community leaders with no democratic mandate to gain
power both within Muslim communities and the wider society. But it does the
rest of us - Muslim and non-Muslim - no favours. It is time that politicians
dropped the pretence that there is a single Muslim community and started taking
seriously the issue of political engagement with their constituents, whatever
their religious faith.