This is a guest post by Amjad Khan
Following on from the piece I wrote last week about the nefarious attempts by Islamists to deliberately confuse anti-Muslim bigotry with criticism of Islamist politics as represented by them, I wish to highlight the way in which much of the tensions we see in the UK today between Muslims and non-Muslims and the accompanying anti-Muslim bigotry are actually the direct result of Islamist activism. Note, my avoidance of the term ‘Islamophobia’: please see this piece by the National Secular Society which encapsulates my thinking on that issue.
Ever since the Rushdie affair, individuals and groups allied to the Jamaat-e-Islami and Muslim Brotherhood, have sought to promote Islamic Ummah Identity politics. This involves encouraging Muslims to assert a politicised and counter-cultural form of Muslim identity that condemns all others, creates a siege victimhood mentality and sees bizarre Jewish/Western conspiracies everywhere. Islamists cajole, coerce, and pressure Muslims and non Muslims into viewing Muslims as one undifferentiated mass, with narrow identities and narrow objectives. They also encourage Muslims to aggressively seek special privileges for Muslims and Islam, since their understanding of Islam is supremacist and they believe that Britain is easy to dupe.
Muslims are encouraged to dress in an ‘arab’ style and to look as distinct as possible from mainstream society. Books by leading Islamist ideologues, such as Mawdudi and Syed Qutb, are reproduced and distributed far and wide, fostering mistrust of Western culture. This in turn feeds separatism and drives a wedge between Muslims and the rest of British society. This separatism involves seeking to incorporate elements of Shariah into British society by setting up separate courts for Muslims. At every turn Muslims are encouraged to view themselves as a distinct homogenous bloc whose aspirations are so different from that of their fellow citizens. They are encouraged to connect themselves solely with what are defined as Muslim causes around the world, whilst ignoring causes that don’t involve fellow Muslims. Moderate Muslims are dismissed as ‘Zionist stooges’ , whilst ‘useful idiots’ are paraded at their events in a vain attempt to create the myth of mainstream acceptance.
Having done that, to make matters a lot worse, they then claim to be ‘representative’ of British Muslims. This is a particularly damaging claim since if those claiming to represent British Muslims are so supremacist and disdainful of British society, then what kind of message does that send out to non-Muslims. Essentially, Islamists have been successful in the UK where they have failed elsewhere. They have duped the establishment into thinking that they represent Muslims and Islam, all the while using that as a guise to promote divisive and potentially explosive identity politics. Their job has, of course, been made easier by soft deluded “liberal” multiculturalists who are in fact guilty of the racism of lower expectation and who don’t apply universal norms to the ‘exotic’ others who we can’t expect to behave like us.
All of the above has been a dream come true for the likes of the British National Party. They have been peddling the lie, for years, that Muslims are incompatible with Britain. How is that different from the message of the Islamists? They have provided so much fodder for white supremacists you could be forgiven for thinking that they work directly for them.
Let’s make no mistake here. Neo Nazis will do whatever it takes to whip up hatred against minorities. They’re determined to see conflict between the different cultural groups who make up the population of the United Kingdom. However, that’s precisely the aim of Islamist politicians, as well. Yet, Islamists continue present themselves as champions of Islam by claiming to fight ‘Islamophobia’. As I argued in my last article, that is a mere guise for more infiltration into mainstream British politics with view to furthering divisive Islamist goals.
