Algeria hostage crisis and 'knee jerk Islamophobia'

It would seem events in Mali and Algeria have stirred Islamophobic sentiments at home among those who use any and every opportunity to rehearse their deep seated prejudices against Islam and Muslims.

Melanie Phillips in her column in yesterday’s Daily Mail weaved a confused narrative linking the hostage crisis in Algeria, in a “seamless connection between jihadi movements abroad” to “the blind eyes turned to polygamy or the oppression of Muslim women in the UK, and debacles such as the failure to extradite Abu Qatada.”

The crisis is, in her view, “a war of religion being conducted against the free world in order to destroy it”. Seeing the tentacles of this “seamless connection” everywhere, Phillips argues it is manifest in Egypt, which “increasingly appears committed to holy war against the West,” and Iran, where “fruitless negotiations and slow-burning sanctions” have given the country “time to build its nuclear bomb with which it hopes to finish off the West”.

She goes on, “This is demonstrated not just in the military sphere, but in the way in which it has allowed the radical Islamist agenda to make inroads into its own societies, courtesy of the perversities of human rights culture and the craven willingness to silence all such concerns on the grounds that they are ‘Islamophobic’

The answer, she claims, lies in Britain “abandon[ing] its current incoherence. That means holding the line against Sharia law in Britain, and tearing up human rights law in order to deal properly with the human wrongs of Islamic terrorists.”

Forget that shari’ah tribunals in the UK are mandated by English law, the same law that permits the work of Jewish Beth Din courts. Or the fact that human rights law has proved itself instrumental in challenging the state’s abuse of power.

Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of The Sun, in his article “Yes Africa is a terror hotbed, but fanatics are here too”, carries on about the “hundreds of thousands of Malians, Iraqis, Syrians, Somalis, Kenyans, Nigerians, Yemenis and Pakistanis” living in the UK, not all of whom are “grateful” and many of whom “are becoming outspokenly defiant”.

Rob Ford, of Manchester University, in his riposte on the New Statesman’s blogs, answers: “We are not told what they are supposed to be grateful for, or what they are defiant of, which complicates any effort to analyze this bizarre claim, but how about this for starters: Do Muslims identify with Britain? Are they proud of British democracy and institutions? Are they integrated into British political and social life? Yes, yes, and yes.”

But facts won’t stand in the way of Kavanagh’s hyperbole. He goes on to illustrate the perfidy of British Muslims claiming that “Some have colonised suburbs in major cities. One London borough is so staunchly Muslim it has become known as the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets.

“Last week, hooded gangs of self-appointed religious police roamed Muslim- populated suburbs ordering women to cover up and confiscating liquor.”

It is not clear what exactly Kavanagh means by the claim that Tower Hamlets is “staunchly Muslim”. According to data captured in the 2011 Census, Muslims make up 34% of the population of Tower Hamlets – just over a third.

It is more likely that Kavanagh alludes to popular prejudice against the political leadership in Tower Hamlets. A prejudice shared by Melanie Phillips. But as Dave Hill has argued of the “vituperative anti-Rahman campaign” that has been waged in recent months, “Tower Hamlets is not an “Islamic republic” and to so label it is irresponsible”.

Ford criticizes Kavanagh’s writing as “irresponsible rabble-rousing of the worst kind.

“This kind of evidence-free, stereotype-laden assault on the British Muslim community has got to stop. In an era when all the relevant evidence is available at the click of a mouse, it is not acceptable for a senior journalist at the nation’s most read paper to make demonstrably false claims about one of its largest minority communities.”

Sir Brian Leveson in his report noted that “…there are enough examples of careless or reckless reporting to conclude that discriminatory, sensational or unbalanced reporting in relation to ethnic minorities, immigrants and/or asylum seekers is a feature of journalistic practice in parts of the press, rather than an aberration.”

And yet, among contentions raised by newspaper editors is an unwillingness to adopt one of Leveson’s key recommendations to challenge this sort of ‘knee-jerk Islamophobia’ – a third party complaints clause.