Islam And The West

I have lived a large part of my life in majority muslim areas in Birmingham England, and the experience that I had during this time is what informs me in writing this article. I am not a scholar who claims to be any kind of authority on either Islam or the sociology of the western world, but what I am is a person who grew up in a fairly typical english household culturally, and then spent over half of my 32 years living in largely muslim areas within England. I think that this has given me a fairly good perspective on the issue, being able to look at it with good knowledge of both sides.

I am almost certainly going to put some things in this article which people will find offensive. It is my opinion that the truth needs to be spoken however ugly it is. People must all see both sides, and that is going to mean a lot of people facing their own demons. I do not want to take sides or attribute blame in this article. I do not want it to be either a vindication or a condemnation of the role that Islam has played in the Western world. I want it to just speak the truth, and keep the demands of righteousness as the ultimate purpose in all things.

The big majority of Muslims believe that they are practicing a religion of peace, and there is a great amount in Islam that conforms to this view, but unfortunately there is also a signficant amount that conforms to the opposite view, that Islam is a religion of Holy War, not least the explit teachings of Islam itself to be fond in the Koran.

Now that is not entirely a negative thing even in itself. Holy War is a very beautiful concept, but when it is applied, albeit unknowingly most of the time, to make war upon a people rather than on evil then this can create many problems.

Sexual Morality As A Weapon

When a different sexual morality is placed on men and women an injustice is created. Most obviously that is between the men and the women themselves, and throughout history we know that there has been a great deal of sexism and of repression of women by men in the world, and that this still goes on today, particularly in Islamic countries. But there is also an injustice created and served on those men living longside or within a muslim community.

Imagine for example that you grow up in a fairly liberal western family, in an area which gradually becomes more and more dominated (in terms of sheer numbers) by muslims. Imagine that there are, at least in that local area, more muslims that non-muslims. This is true in several large parts of my home town of Birmingham including where I have lived. Now, for every young women of your own culture there is one young man who is the same - plus three mulsim men who want to be with her. This is because the difference in the way that men and women are treated in Islam means that the men are free to go after the women of other communities, whereas I as a non-muslim man would not be free to do the same with the women of their community. Quite apart from the visible statement of the viels or scarves which say - I do not want men to talk to me - and the danger to yourself of the family ganging up to protect the 'honour' of the women involved, there is the even worse fear that you would only end up finding out one day that she had 'gone to live with family', which is sometimes true and sometimes a horrific euphemism.

If a lot of the muslim men get married to women from outside their community - a process which generally involves conversion to Islam rather than the other way around - then that is OK for the Mulsim women, who are married to men from their culture's home country. But what about the men? They are not given an equal chance for love or for romance. Their daughters are converted through a process which is deliberatley set up to be a weapon of Islamisization cloaked as sexual morality so that even the perpetrators often do not know what they are doing.

Why is it that muslim men are allowed to take more than one wife? Generally speaking the number of men and women in the world is fairly equal, so where are the extra women supposed to come from in order for some men to have multiple wives? They are supposed to come from other communities that is where. They are supposed to forcibly take women of other cultures as wives to convert them. This is the way that sexual morality has been set up - as a weapon of war.

Who would not feel oppressed living amongst people like this? Who would not feel oppressed when the people around you - the majority of people - can be with your sisters but you could not be with theirs - how can that be anything other than prejudice and oppression in Britain today of British people by mulsims.

A Choice That Is Being Made

Another problem arises around the very strong call to 'brotherhood' in Islam. Muslims are supposed to stick together, to look out for each other. This is, or at least it has the potential to be, a rather beautiful concept. Everyone looking out for each other, sticking up for each other, helping each other out. That is a good thing. As long as you are part of the group. But what if you are on the outside of that group? How does that feel?

I have often said that if Muslims keep saying 'we will stick together no matter what, it is us against the whole world' then how long can it be before the rest of the world starts getting sick and tired and just says 'ok, we really did not want this, but according to the muslims, its all of us against them'.

This is not just about feeling physical threatened or put down either. I have felt it in the political opinions of the people in my area, and the way that they vote for the member of parliament who is supposed to be there to represent me. When we had the war in Iraq, and when the war in Afghanistan started there was a widespread attitude that this was somehow an attack on Islam. England was in the wrong, and there was a feeling that because England were fighgting muslims the muslims in England should support that other muslims. This was not just the minority extremist opinion of terrorists - this was the attitude shared by a large number of people who were in no way inclined towards terrorism. And it is because of this idea of Muslim brotherhood - the idea that a muslim should always take the side of another muslim against a non-muslim. This is the way that Islam is working in this country - can you imagine living within that, knowing that everyone around you is not only willing to gang up against you, but that they would think it the right thing to do? No mention was ever made in the Muslim community that the war in Iraq came from the same policy of liberal interventionism which saw us send in our soldiers to save the lives of Muslim people who were being attacked, and nor has there been the upcries (here or anywhere in the muslim world) against things such as the genocide in Sudan - by muslims against non-muslims, that there always are whenever a non-muslim country does something that a muslim country doesn't like.

As a non-muslim living amongst muslims in the UK I have not only felt that I have been oppressed, but perhaps even worse is the fact that if I have mentioned it, then I am accused of being the oppressor. Imagine when even expressing your suffering at what the people around you are doing causes people to label you as a nasty, vile, evil hatemonger. Is that justice?

So this leads on to my next topic, my next bugbear, which is not so much with the muslim community as with liberal commentators who live in nice wealthy white areas (the exact same people who left the areas I have lived in as soon as large numbers of immigrants arrived - white flight by wealthy liberals is well know to happen) and then tell me that I do not have the right to express my feelings about what has happened and continues to happen in the areas I have been living in. They have decided that being nice to every culture in the world should take precedence over my rights - not over theirs because they invariably do not live in areas like this but over mine.

Let me start with the term Islamaphobia. I object to this very strongly. A phobia is an irrational fear. The use stems from 'homophobia' where this form was adopted to express the idea that all the people who were most vehementally prejudice against gay people were actually gay themselves and repressing their desires. Islamaphobia therefore means 'irrational fear of Islam', and its application in the media to any criticism of Islam is completely innapropriate. What about the people who simply do not like it? This idea that it is not possible to dislike a religion, only to have a phobia about it which needs to be cured, is something that I find deeply disconcerting as an atheist. (Although of course there are no Christianaphobes are there? Because it is ok to not like Christianity, only Islam has a special place as being beyond all reproach in our society).

We must be able to criticize religion. It is vitally important that race and religion are not confused in the way that they have been. Many people seem to view so called Islamaphobia as racism. They see dislike of or criticism of Islam in the UK as racist. So let me clear something up right now - it is literally impossible to be racist against mulsims, because they are not a race. You can't be racist against macaroni cheese either, in case you were wondering. It's just one of those things - you can only be racist against people based on, erm, race.

Race is, mostly, only skin deep. The race which you are does not affect whether or not you are a good person. It does not influence your value systems, the way that you interact with people on a daily basis, or the way that you live your own life. It just affects the way you look and a small number of other things like susceptibility to different diseases. That is why judging people on the basis on race is wrong - not because it just doesn't feel like a very nice thing to do, but because it is objectively wrong - it is factually incorrect.

But religion does influence your value systems, your moral codes, the way that you interact with the people around you and the way that you live your daily life. Therefore it is perfectly right and correct to make judgements and have opinions based on religion, or more correctly still than judging people based on their religion - to judge the religion itself. I am under no obligation to believe in other people's religions, and I will not be forced into silence when I disagree with what they say or do.

The choice before us is that both sides begin to recognize their own part - not just one side - and that we can find a way to live together whilst still being just to both sides.

If we are to move on, if we are to find a situation in which we can live happily together and if we are to avoid escalating tensions, then the Muslim community in the UK must start treating us like equals. If this does not happen then I cannot see any other result than rising anger, frustration and ultimately violence.