LONDON, 11 July 2004 — Just as one problem with race relations and religious discrimination was being addressed in Britain, up popped another one.
Last week Tony Blair was asked about the increasing number of Asians being arrested as a result of new stop-and-search laws introduced in Britain. Blair told the House of Commons Liaisons Committee “we need to give publicity to the fact that the vast majority of Muslim leaders are responsible people who have a positive effect on their local communities.” He added that although many disagree that faith schools have not helped the situation, if Catholic and Church of England schools were allowed then it would be wrong to outlaw Muslim and Jewish schools. He assured the country that race relations had improved “in some ways” in the last three years.
To many Asians and Muslims who had long been suspicious of the Blair government this assurance was warmly welcomed and listened to attentively; and after the humiliating defeat Labor suffered at last month’s local elections, Tony Blair was scoring points with a side of the electorate that he thought he had lost forever.
And then almost as if he had planned it, a controversial Islamic scholar enters the country — allowed by the Blair government, “truly welcomed” by the Labor mayor for London and adamantly shunned by almost everyone else. If Labor had lost the local elections because of the missing Muslim vote, then the Home Office decision to let Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi enter Britain has brought Labor back on route to saving its place in next year’s general election.
On Wednesdays Prime Minister’s Questions, Tory leader Michael Howard questioned Blair on letting someone who “backs child suicide bombings and is banned from the US because of his alleged terrorist links” into the country.
What strikes me here at first is the use of the word “alleged”. It appears to have come to mean more than it should. An America that is guilty of abusive foreign policy and frightened of revenge has changed the meaning of the word “alleged” to imply certainty. “Alleged” is now “confirmed”.
So 600 people with “alleged” terrorist connections have been held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly three years without access to lawyers. “Alleged” terrorist connections in Iraq paved the way for war last year, not to mention “alleged” weapons of mass destruction. Each time the use of the word has proven to be misused. “Alleged” links between terrorists and British resident cleric Abu Hamza triggered a call by the US to Britain to have Abu Hamza extradited to America and not Yemen, where his case was originally investigated.
The second thing that struck me with Michael Howard’s question was how it is no longer Tony Blair that is jumping onto the Bush-bandwagon, but the Tory leader. Why does Britain have to do everything America does? Since when did we become the “United States of America and Great Britain?” I like to think that we have an independent state, with a fair immigration system, good lawyers and a satisfactory prosecution system. If they all find that our guest has indeed got terrorist connections, or is a threat to Britain, or is inciting hatred, I’m sure they can do something about getting rid of him.
If I recall correctly, some people here in Britain warmly welcomed Le Pen just a few months ago. He’s a racist who incites hatred but he still had a lovely black-tie dinner set out for him when he visited England in April earlier this year. But here we have Qaradawi, being greeted by two rabbis but somehow this is still insufficient to prove that he does not incite hatred toward Jews.
On Thursday night Qaradawi defended suicide killings on BBC’s Newsnight in an exclusive interview saying that the Israeli woman victim of such killings “is not like women in our societies, because she is a soldier.” Though this may have offended a lot of people I fail to see why an Israeli female soldier is any different than an Israeli male soldier.
Apart from the obvious physical differences, a soldier is a soldier and war is war. If two states are at war, (as Israel and Palestinian have been for the past 56 years) soldiers on both sides serving their countries should be ready to die for their country. In war, distinctions are not made between soldiers; between pilot and general; male and female. Any distinction is between soldier and civilian.
These days our focus has moved to issues that I believe are completely irrelevant. We are spending more time debating the treatment of male and female soldiers and are paying less attention on our behavior toward innocent civilians.
