Lindsey German
‘When all other arguments fail, racist scapegoating becomes the order of the day’
There is a lot of talk about Muslims integrating into society and accepting European and British values. They have to do things on our terms, the argument goes. Many Muslims could be forgiven for feeling, however, that it is precisely when they do this that they come under the strongest attack. What could be more integrated than standing for election as London Mayor, or as president of NUS? Yet the fact that a Muslim woman has won the NUS presidency, and that Sadiq Khan is favourite to win the mayoralty as the Labour candidate, has unleashed a torrent of Islamophobic abuse.
The abuse has trickled down from the top. Whatever the levels of individual islamophobia facing Muslims in the street, on transport and at work, none of their attackers have had the platform afforded David Cameron, using parliamentary privilege to attack a London imam from a mosque in Khan’s south London constituency. His attack on Khan for association with Suleiman Ghani has backfired. Far from being a supporter of ISIS he is publicly on record as speaking at a meeting against them. And his contacts with politicians include not just Khan but local Tory MPs.
Ghani has been a prominent campaigner in support of Guantanamo detainee Shaker Aamer, and has been involved in various other campaigns. Meeting him or speaking on a platform with him does not imply any support for his views, just as my sharing a platform with a Tory MP does not in any way imply agreement with theirs.
But, of course, David Cameron doesn’t need to be told that. His actions are those of a desperate man who sees his government facing growing unpopularity and his candidate for mayor, the hapless Zac Goldsmith, falling behind in the polls. When all other arguments fail, racist scapegoating becomes the order of the day.
Guilt by association is a common form of scapegoating. The US writer Lillian Hellman described McCarthyism, which demanded to know are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party, as ‘scoundrel time’. Anyone remotely associated with the Communist Party, or connected to anyone so associated, was scapegoated and hounded, sometimes forced out of jobs and into exile.
A similar process is now going on with Muslims who are told that they have to retract, disavow and deny contacts with ‘extremists’ (a term extremely widely defined) rather than being judged on their own politics.
That Khan, who has made plenty of compromises with the status quo and who projects himself as a ‘moderate’, defending the City of London and distancing himself from Jeremy Corbyn, is under such attack tells you how insidious this process is.
As insidious has been the response to the election of Malia Bouattia as president of NUS, narrowly beating the incumbent and triggering a wave of protests and threats of disaffiliation from students from Cambridge and elsewhere. There is a questioning of the system of election in the NUS, even though it is the one which has been used for decades. Apparently it is OK until a young Muslim woman wins by it.
Instead of a widespread welcoming of the first black woman president, there have been accusations of both extremism and anti-Semitism. The basis for this is two remarks Bouattia made: one describing Birmingham university (which she attended) as a ‘Zionist outpost’; and the other where she described ‘Zionist-led media outlets’. On the face of it I don’t see either of those as anti-Semitic: they are criticising the politic project of Zionism, not the religion of Jews.
There has to be a distinction between these two. Many Jews are Zionists, but so are Christians and atheists (look at the US neocons for example). Many Jews are not Zionists, at the same time, and are highly critical of many of the actions of the state of Israel.
To abandon this distinction is to say that there can be no criticism of Israel, and that because it purports to speak for all Jews any attack on it must be anti-Semitic. This is a line which has been pushed by the Israeli government and which seems to be accepted more and more, even by liberal news outlets such as the Guardian.
Is this seriously to say that there can be no criticism of daily bombing, as in Operation Cast Lead in 2009? No criticism of illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories? No criticism of the continuing shocking discrimination against the Palestinians? Or the siege of Gaza?
That cannot be allowed to happen, but it is precisely what the Israeli government and its allies want to happen. We have had huge pro-Palestine and anti-war movements in this country and we can’t let such protest be criminalised by governments who have been so responsible for condoning and taking part in wars.
Muslims have been at the centre of such protests – not extremists, not terrorists, but a range of people who have joined with non-Muslims to stand up against war and injustice. They are now facing a backlash from a government which is acting in a shameful fashion to cover its own failings.
It is the responsibility of us all, whatever our political differences, to stand up against this Islamophobia. To do anything else is to weaken us all.
Lindsey German is the Convenor of Stop the War Coalition
