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06th October 2006

We are repeating the mistakes of the past

Extra police have been drafted into Windsor after several nights of clashes between white and Asian youths outside an Asian-owned dairy, apparently over plans to build a mosque on the site. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has ordered an inquiry into reports that a Muslim officer had successfully asked to be excused from guarding the Israeli Embassy. And Jack Straw, the former Foreign Secretary, has disclosed in an article for a local paper that he asks women to remove their veils at his constituency surgery.

Such episodes afford glimpses of the tensions that - regrettably - accompany the sort of social change that is in train in Britain today. It is unfortunate that such tensions exist, and it is shocking that they should erupt into public vilification or violence. But to suggest that what we are seeing today is of quite a different order from anything this country has experienced before is to forget some of the less edifying chapters of the past.

The shameful aspect is that we are repeating our mistakes, in standing by while certain ethnic or religious minorities - in this case, Muslims - are demonised. Britain may be seen abroad as having managed the transition to a multicultural society more successfully than some, but as a nation we have not overcome the tendency to suspect, even fear "the other".

Where Islam is concerned, those fears and suspicions have undoubtedly been amplified by last year's London bombings. But the notion that Muslims represent a potential threat is as unreasonable, as it is unjust. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in Britain are peaceful and responsible members of society. A new mosque should be judged by precisely the same criteria as an application for other public buildings.

This must be one of the ground rules. Another must be that Muslim owned properties and places of worship are accorded the same level of protection as other properties. In Windsor, at least, this seems to be happening. As for Muslim officers in any branch of the police, of course they must be prepared to fulfil their contractual obligations. But there must also be a place - as there should be in any organisation - for the exercise of discretion by senior officers. This was a special request made in particular personal circumstances. It is quite wrong to call into question the loyalty of every Muslim police officer - yet, scandalously, this is the implication that has been widely drawn.

That Britain is undergoing a period of profound social change is evident from the study just released by the Office for National Statistics, which uses information extrapolated from the Census of 2001. While trends are hard to chart - because this was the first year a question on religious allegiance had been included - one conclusion eclipses almost all the others. Britain's Muslims are at the bottom of the pile according to practically every social indicator that is chosen.

Black African Muslims had the highest unemployment rates of any group in the country. Young black people, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis were more than twice as likely as white Britons to be unemployed, even if they were born in Britain. And Muslim households with dependent children were the most likely of all to contain no working adult.

All the figures in the report relate to 2001, and it must be hoped that the next Census will show that the population of Britain's Muslims has improved. In the meantime, the lesson should be clear. If Britain's Muslims present a problem, it is that constitute easily the most deprived communities in Britain - and this is the reason for positive action, not fear.

Source: The Independent

Source: The Journal

Source: The BBC