UK's Labour Party accused of aiding extremists by its focus on Muslim issues

The political and media onslaught on Muslims is already fuelling physical attacks on the streets

Daud Abdullah
Tuesday October 17, 2006
The Guardian

Where is this political opportunism taking us? Into the dark tunnel of national strife. The corrosive effect of the political and media onslaught against British Muslims is having its impact on all sections of society. What is claimed to be an assertion of free speech and democratic rights is rapidly becoming the demonisation of a community. Once they are dehumanised, who cares for their democratic, civil or human rights?

Since John Reid demanded that Muslim "bullies" must be faced down and Jack Straw declared the veil a "statement of separation", ministers have fallen over themselves to make increasingly unbridled attacks on Muslims. The shadow home secretary, David Davis, has accused our communities of creating a "voluntary apartheid" and colleges have taken action against veiled teachers and students. The tabloid press has declared open season on Muslims with one hostile front-page story after another.

In practice this has amounted to incitement to violence. In recent weeks verbal and physical attacks on Muslims have surged alarmingly. Women have had their scarves ripped off. Mosques and Islamic centres in Preston and Falkirk have been attacked by mobs and firebombed.

Not only is it is dangerous for the media to vilify and demonise an entire community, even if they are only 3% of the population as British Muslims are; so too it is pure brinkmanship for ministers to fan these flames. By their nature politicians are an opportunistic breed. Yet they must have a sense of when to pull back from the abyss. If they claim that Muslim extremists are the source of all the ills in British society, then let them recognise that secular extremism is not the solution. Two extremisms would only tear us apart.

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Leader
Tuesday October 17, 2006
The Guardian

Sticks and stones do break bones but words can hurt too. Just a week after Jack Straw's remarks about the niqab, a clamour now arises from politicians joining the debate with their own concerns about Islam. Where Mr Straw was precise and careful with his language, the risk is that anxiety is being aired without clarity either as to the problems or the solutions.

Few Muslims feel comfortable about becoming the chief political preoccupation of the day, but that is how many will feel that they are seen after the past week. Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman and Tessa Jowell all went out of their way to give vocal support to Mr Straw's original comments, giving the impression that the government attaches disproportionate importance to the veil. Yesterday's trumpeted plans to map out extremist Islamic hotspots came alongside the announcement of reforms to the admission rules for religious schools that ministers must have known would be seen primarily in the context of Islam. This followed a weekend where minister Phil Woolas demanded a teaching assistant be "sacked" for wearing a veil at work, second-guessing an employment tribunal that must decide on whether or not her dress is hampering her work, where the facts seem to be disputed. Tory home affairs spokesman David Davis has piled in too, warning that British Muslims risked falling into "voluntary apartheid". Perhaps afraid of being called racist, the Conservatives had said little on these issues, but now Labour has given them cover.

Taken singly, many of these might be reasonable interventions; others, like Mr Woolas's remarks, are just unconstructive. But viewed together - especially through the distorting lens of tabloid coverage - they can easily seem to imply a general problem with the Muslim community en bloc. That impression is unfair. Issues are distinct, and apply to relatively small numbers of people. Politicians would do well to untangle and tackle problems separately.

The first is not with Muslims themselves, but with non-Muslim Britons: the problem of Islamaphobia. The Guardian's recent poll showed, encouragingly, that this is not as widespread as feared, but it does exist and needs to be faced. Over recent days the background noise may have exacerbated it. Last week one woman was reportedly forcibly unveiled, and, as Zaiba Malik's reports in G2 today, wearing the niqab for just one day in London is sufficient to run into hostility. A second concern is the development of parallel communities, whose lack of contact damages wider society. Mr Straw argued the niqab contributed to this problem, and it may. But it is far from the only cause, with the poverty of some Muslim communities being a big barrier. Even if the niqab is felt to be a problem, we should be mindful of those women unkindly caught between the two millstones of cultural pressure at home and public hostility in the street.

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Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Tuesday October 17, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

The prime minister today took sides in the debate over Muslim women's right to wear the veil, saying he backed the school which suspended a teacher for refusing to take off her niqab.

Mr Blair also described the veil as "mark of separation" which made people from outside the Muslim community "uncomfortable".

Speaking at his monthly press conference in Downing Street, the PM refused to be drawn on the detail of the row in Dewsbury, but said he backed the school and the local education authority's handling of the case - which saw them suspend Aishah Azmi.

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Tony Blair has said the wearing of full face veils by Muslim women is a "mark of separation" in society.

The prime minister also backed a local education authority which suspended a Muslim classroom assistant for refusing to remove her full face veil at school.

His comments will add to the row started two weeks ago when Jack Straw said he asked women to remove veils when they visited his office.

The PM said a veil made some "outside the community feel uncomfortable".

He added that the issue showed the need for a wider debate about community integration while allowing people to develop their "distinctive identity".

He said he "fully supported" the way the authority dealt with Aishah Azmi at Headfield Church of England Junior School, in Dewsbury, by suspending her.

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