I was invited to a conference to launch the Alternative Leveson Inquiry into Islamophobia in the media on the 9th of January 2012.

An “alternative Leveson inquiry” is being set up by an Islamic TV channel in order to investigate the way in which British media report on Muslim and Islamic affairs.

The Islam Channel is planning to appoint a judge with an independent panel of assessors – just like Leveson – to carry out the inquiry.

Its springboard was a public opinion poll which found that people believe the media are responsible for “whipping up a climate of fear of Islam in the UK.” The poll, by ComRes, was published in July, the month in which the Leveson inquiry was instituted. According to its findings, people are twice as likely to say the media is to blame for Islamophobia (29%) than far-right groups (13%), or Muslims themselves, whether abroad (14%) or in the UK (11%).

The Alternative Leveson will examine the possible causal effect between media coverage and social attitudes towards Muslims. It will also assess any links between media coverage and subsequent government policy. It will ask editors and journalists to give evidence along with people who believe they have been victims of prejudiced media coverage.

One reporter who might well be asked to appear is Richard Peppiatt who told the Leveson inquiry that his former paper, the Daily Star, published anti-Muslim propaganda.

An initial meeting to discuss the establishment of a panel will be held on Monday afternoon at the Islam channel’s headquarters in the City of London .

The channel, launched in 2004 is broadcast in English by satellite (channel 813) and broadcasts across Europe, the Middle East and north Africa. It is owned by Mohamed Ali Harrath, a refugee from Tunisia who, following the Arab spring, returned to his country for a visit in February after 21 years in exile.

Today’s Guardian brings us a gem from Patrick Strudwick, described recently on Twitter as a ‘warrior for gay rights’. The article, ‘The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Choice is Beyond Belief’ claims that

After supporting several gay equality cases, the EHRC now believes the rights of religious people are not being upheld. It stated: “Judges have interpreted the law too narrowly in religion or belief discrimination claims,” leading to insufficient protection for freedom of religion or belief. It continued: “It is possible to accommodate expression of religion alongside the rights of people who are not religious and the needs of business.”

To rectify this supposed shortfall in religious protection, the EHRC will now push for a new legal principle of “reasonable accommodations” so that believers can negotiate the boundaries of their contract with employers.

Strudwick then uses this decision to argue that the Commission will uphold the right of homophobic individuals to use their religion as a basis to discriminate against gay people. He cites the example of “Lillian Ladele, the Christian registrar who refused to perform civil partnerships and so was disciplined. And that of Gary McFarlane, the Christian relationship counsellor who was sacked for refusing to counsel gay couples,” claiming that “the EHRC has decided to back these people in the name of ‘reasonable’ compromise.”

Let us return to what the EHRC actually says about the rights of religious people: As quoted by Strudwick, the Commission pledges to attempt to accommodate their needs alongside the needs of others. It does not say that the rights of the religious cancel out or render obsolete those of gay people or anyone else. There are a number of problems with Strudwick’s line of argumentation based as it appears, as he himself says, on “even the most cursory of analyses” of the EHRC’s proposal. In fact it appears that Strudwick didn’t read the EHRC’s statement at all or, more accurately, that he read what he wanted to into it in the interests, once again, of pitting the discriminated against each other. This is a continuation of the same logic so beloved of Peter Tatchell whose mouthings-off about “some cultures that are inferior to others” I had the misfortune to have to listen to a couple of years ago.

Problem 1: Nowhere has the EHRC said that it will uphold the right of religious homophobes to abuse their position to discriminate against gay people. If the ruling were to be used by a religious person to discriminate against a gay person, it would evaluate the case on an individual basis to establish whose rights were being infringed upon more. In the case of a registrar who refuses to perform a civil partnership ceremony, clearly the issue could be easily resolved by having another registrar who does not have homophobic views conduct the ceremony (and frankly, why would you want a homophobe to officiate over your special day!). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone the views of someone like Lilian Ladele and find her and others who use religion, or any other world view, to excuse their homophobia abhorrent. However, the problem with Strudwick’s article is that it is making the claim that such despicable views would now legally be made prevail over gay people who they oppose morally. I do not find anything in the EHRC’s decision that would lead to this being the case. Read it for yourselves.

Problem 2: Strudwick makes the breathtaking assertion that the EHRC “will champion those who choose their minority status – people of faith – over those with no choice over theirs – gay people.” Beyond what social constructionists would have to say about the ‘choice’ to be gay, the fact is that, for some people, the issue of choice is as bogus for those of a particular faith than for those discriminated against for their sexual orientation. To make the claim that being gay is something you can do nothing about while belonging to a particular religious group is purely a matter of choice, is to completely ignore the way in which members of certain religious groups are viewed in European societies. In particular, people identified as Muslim, in the aftermath of 9/11, are labelled so whether or not they adhere to that religion. Since 2001 it is fair to say that Islam (a religion) has been racialised with people who may come from a Muslim background but in no way adhering to that faith, being labelled Muslim and by association seen as threatening whether or not this forms part of their self-identification. In essence, brown people today are often assumed to be Muslim, especially as many will testify while travelling, and stereotyped as fundamentalist, backward, violent, patriarchal, etc. on the basis of their outwards appearance alone.

In a similar vein, it is no accident that the photograph accompanying Strudwick’s article is of Lilian Ladele, a black African woman whose admittedly despicable homophobic views rightly raises our warrior’s ire. Now scroll to the comments below the article to understand the full import of the associations that can so easily be made. ‘Roman 78′ writes,

The elephant in the room is once again avoided. Immigration from “less developed” nations has brought with it a steady influx of people with often “less developed” views of gay, lesbian and transgender minorities. Hence the steady increase in homophobic attacks in recent years, which goes against the grain of British society.

The assumption is that crazy immigrants are responsible for bringing Britain back to the days of pre-gay rights and that the EHRC is pandering to the rights of people with no real legitimacy to be in Britain rather than to its ‘homegrown’ gay community. The problems here are manifold. Firstly, it assumes that white British Christians are less likely to be homophobic than their immigrant counterparts. Secondly, it suggests that, were it not for the perceived need to accommodate the rights of ‘other minorities’, homophobia would be a thing of the past in Britain. Just like the argument mobilised by homonationalists to the effect that gay rights have been secured in the West and that the western mission is now to ‘save’ gay people worldwide, the type of argument that Strudwick’s article lends itself to is that homophobia would be a thing of the past if it weren’t for the damn immigrants and religious nuts. This is to forget completely the recentness of the repeal of Section 28 and the unfortunate persistence of institutionalised and everyday homophobia across British society. The Soho nail bomber wasn’t an immigrant, or a religious fanatic, just a plain white British right-wing homophobe who was as opposed to migrants as he was to gays. Which leads me to problem 3.

Problem 3: Strudwick represents a growing problem for progressives – he is part of a prominent gang of western liberals intent on driving a wedge between discriminated groups. Just as the Soho nail bomber hated gays, blacks and Muslims, the antiracist movement and the gay rights movement have little to oppose each other on, and indeed many work together to highlight and oppose the commonalities across the discrimination they face. Despite the attempts by people such as Strudwick’s disgraced friend, Johann Hari, currently undergoing investigation for plagiarism by his newspaper the Independent, to blame Muslims for homophobia, the picture becomes more complex when we note the rejection of the homophobic views of some by prominent Muslim voices.

Problem 4: Strudwick’s schema allows little room for those who are religious and gay, or for those who attempt to combat homophobia within minority communities such as UK organisations Imaan and the Safra Project who have spoken out against the East London Gay Pride March cancelled after it was revealed that its organiser had close ties to the racist English Defence League. Is there no room for being both gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender and a Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, etc. or are the only gay people whose rights are worth protecting are those who follow the doctrine of Richard Dawkins and use their own dogma – liberalism – to dump all over anyone not deemed as enlightened or as free (because clearly all LGBT people in the UK are free) as them?

So where does this leave us? Yet again, a facile unresearched gut reaction from a second-rate journalist like Strudwick has liberals everywhere bleating about the unfairness of it all, about how gay people are always bottom of the pile, and how political correctness ‘gone mad’ has allowed a cabal of black people and religious nutters to stomp willy-nilly all over our inalienable human rights. This approach is the one that wins out because it is so much easier than thinking about how we could work together to bridge the divides between individuals and communities who seem to be coming from such different places. For every homophobe who denies the right of a gay couple to a civil partnership and for every Patrick Strudwick who appears to think that being religious is akin to having a mental illness, there are countless ordinary individuals who can see that, despite their differences, the fact of being discriminated against means that there are potential commonalties that can be built upon to overcome racism, homophobia and distasteful views against religious people. But reporting on this would go against the sensationalism of us against them that the cheerleaders of sexual democracy relentlessly peddle. It’s up to us to relentlessly expose them.

The funeral of Marwa Sherwini

This article is also published on Multiculturality

The funeral of Marwa Sherbini was held in Alexandria on Monday July 6, 2009. 32 year old Marwa, who was three months pregnant, was stabbed eighteen times in thirty seconds by Axel W, a 28 year old German man in a court in Dresden in front of her husband and 3-year old son among countless others. While stabbing Marwa, Axel W shouted “you have no right to live.” Her husband was also injured when he was shot in the leg by a German security officer while he was trying to protect his wife.

“Ms Sherbini had sued her killer after he called her a “terrorist” because of her headscarf… Axel W and Ms Sherbini and family were in court for his appeal against a fine of 750 euros ($1,050) for insulting her in 2008, apparently because she was wearing the Muslim headscarf or Hijab.” (BBC News)

As reported here, Axel W also called Marwa Sherbini “islamist” and “bitch” when she asked him to make room for her son to play on swings at a local park.As the BBC reports, “the case has attracted much attention in Egypt and the Muslim world.” No doubt, for Egypt and the Muslim world the stand Ms Sherbini took against Axel W for insulting her for wearing the headscarf was seen as a courageous one in the face of western hostility to the Islamic hijab, hostility that has only been exacerbated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent outbursts on the burkha. However, for ever growing numbers of western commentators, many of them far from willing to endorse violent acts such as that committed against Marwa Sherbini, her case against Axel W will not have been viewed as favourably. Indeed, the fact that Sherbini won damages against Axel W for associating her wearing of the hijab with terrorism or islamism (leaving aside the hackneyed old gendered slander: ‘bitch’) would have stuck in the throat of many liberal commentators throughout Europe. This is because it has now become standard for liberals to conflate the religious symbols of Islam, the wearing of the hijab in particular, as at best a visible sign of separation and a rejection of national/European/western ‘values’ and, at worst, as tacit support for the actions of Islamist terrorists. Whereas these upstanding commentators would no doubt abhor the murder of Marwa Sherbini, some of their linguistic associations – hijab=terrorist – do not stray far from those originally made by Axel W.

Among those who call themselves liberal, something odd appears to be happening since September 11 2001. The word ‘liberal’ is increasingly being used as a synonym for ‘western’ or indeed coupled, as in the phrase “liberal, western values…” Thus, on the one hand, ‘liberal values’, which broadly speaking are said to be things like democracy, tolerance, freedom of speech, and respect for the rule of law, are upheld as standards that should be universally respected. On the other hand, however, no sooner have they been delcared universal are they said to be something that is unique to the west which those of other ‘cultures’ are almost innately unable to understand never mind uphold.

This of course depends on who the non-western target of the discourse is. Educated and apparently ‘westernised’ students in Iran, perhaps because of their knowledge of English or their penchant for the niceties of western consumer culture, can be included within a universalistic vision of liberalism. The fact that all Iranian women wear the headscarf is excused on the basis of the belief, whether this is actually the case or not, that they would remove it at the drop of a hat if they could.

In contrast, hijab wearing women in Europe itself, recent migrants or long-standing citizens alike, are less tolerated. Despite the fact that, as citizens or residents of European countries, it would be expected that their choice to wear the hijab could be seen as just one among any number of ‘choices’ open to those living in democractic, egalitarian, liberal societies, they are singled-out as throw-backs to a dangerous pre-modern age, the apparent antithesis of everthing that Europe struggled to rid itself of.

Christopher Caldwell’s ‘The Revolution in Europe: Can Europe be the Same with Different People in it?’

Among these liberals, there is genuine distaste for the fact that many European Muslims have not seamlessly assimilated European ‘values’ and have appeared, as Christopher Caldwell claims, to have retained “the habits and cultures of southern villages, clans, marketplaces, and mosques.” But where this has been the case, because it is is far from being universally true, there has been little effort made to explain why there has not been a relinquishing of tradition. Western liberals are unable to explain this because they are so utterly convinced of the superiority of their own culture which, because they believe in its ultimate universal applicability, are incredulous is being rejected.

What this view fails to see of course is that firstly, what appears as traditionalism can often be a conscious, political rejection of western ways of life that appear contradictory and hypocritical, particularly in light of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. Secondly, it ignores that universalism is in itself culturally specific and cannot, as the French philosopher Etienne Balibar reminds us, be disassociated from the particular trajectory of European racism and nationalism, a trajectory which was ultimately based upon the project of defining the ideal (male) subject.

Thirdly, universalist liberalism is far from having been instilled in the West itself. There appears to be a wholesale confusion between the apparent choice afforded us by capitalism and real freedom. When Islam is contrasted with western values, particularly in the citizenship policies of the various European states that have introduced citizenship testing, integration programmes, and community cohesion agendas, what is actually happening is that two culturally specific ways of doing things are being pitted against each other. The fact that it is impossible to definitively flesh out what either ‘national values’ or ‘Islam’ actually entail matters little. For liberal commentators, policy-makers, and Muslim community leaders alike, they must nevertheless be adhered to.

This is particularly pernicious when the integration of a set of ill-defined, or indeed indefinable, values is being made contingent for acceptance within society, as is the case in most European countries today. Unable either to define the values to be assimilated or to conclusively state what would constitute a completed integration process, outward symbols such as the hijab, the turban or the beard are being taken as proof that an individual has integrated inadequately whether or not the wearing of such symbols actually bears any relationship to the individual wearer’s attitude to their country, or indeed to the more problematic elements of his/her religion.

If anything, the stance Marwa Sherbini took against Axel W in taking him to court for incitement demonstrates that she had indeed assimilated some of the values that, it is to be presumed, liberals hold dear. She exercised her right to be treated equally within German society and not to be insulted for making a personal choice to wear the hijab. However, what has become undoubtedly true in the current climate is that, despite their call for universalism, many liberals see the freedoms of some as being more worthy of protection than others. Thus, because Islam is seen by many as a religion that denies rights to non-Muslims, whether or not this is the case, those who seek freedom to practice their faith without the risk of insult or constraint should de facto be seen as less equal than others.

It has become a commonplace in liberal circles to decry ‘political correctness’ in relation to race and religion, Muslims in particular, and to claim that a hierarchy of victimhood has led to discrimination faced by other minorities being ignored, a favoured line of the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. Beyond the fact that pitting disadvantaged groups against each other in such a way is entirely counterproductive in the aim of achieving a fairer society, this view tacitly endorses the notion that it is time that some groups were denied full access to their rights. Practicing Muslims in particular are held individually responsible for everything from sexism, homophobia, genital mutilation, forced marriages and honor killings, right up to riots and suicide bombings. Hence, it is only fitting that they are denied equality until such time that they integrate (again, into what it is unclear) or are defeated.

Unfortunately, the knots in which such liberal thinking ties itself are not obvious to the vast numbers of those for whom writers such as British journalist Nick Cohen or Dutch-Somali integrationist Ayaan Hirsi Ali are heroic in their stance against what they see as the onslaught of illiberal Islam. It seems that where Muslims are concerned, it is unnecessary to bring such ‘liberal’ arguments to their logical conclusions and to admit that they are not all as egalitarian as they profess to be. Rather, the rush to pit illiberal Islam against the liberal West will indeed lead to the segregated societies that Muslims in Europe have already been blamed for constructing, if not to a much worse future in which, due to the increasing authoritarianism of western states desperate to crush apparent extremism, liberalism in any form will be but a distant dream.