'Not to worry, he's only fairly Muslim'
Baroness Warsi says (quoted on the linked web page):
The problem, Baroness Warsi, is that you're mistaking an accepted aversion to many things Islam actually represents, with prejudice. And I can see why you make that mistake, because labelling the prejudices and behaviours of so many followers of Islam with Muslims per se is a very easy trap into which the rest of us can fall.
You say that we shouldn't divide Muslims into moderates and extremists. And I agree, because it's the wrong division... it gives the impression that the only issue reasonable people can have with Islam, is with Muslim people who want to want to blow us up. I don't think that's true.
I realise that I'm in a minority in understanding why many Muslims would want to blow us up... if my country and those I considered brothers were invaded under a phoney agenda and millions of my people were killed, I would want to inflict as much damage as possible on the perpetrators, and the people who continued to vote them into office. But let me join once more with the rest of non-Islam society to explain why the aversion to the practical expression of Islam is not prejudice.
Baroness Warsi, you said "In the road, as a woman walks past wearing a burka, the passers-by think: 'That woman's either oppressed or is making a political statement'." But that's reasonable of us, because she is. Islam oppresses women. That's not a prejudice, it's a fact! Fundamentalist forms of Christianity also oppress women; and if the bible were implemented in full by the followers of Christianity, that would be true of Christians as well. Wearing a Burka is an extreme expression. It would be an extreme expression if Christians did the same, but they don't. The closest Christianity has ever come, are the nuns wearing headdresses. And in the past they have had to work very hard to gain trust in spite of their extreme garb. But these days few nuns wear the full headdress, and it was never as extreme as a Burka in any case. Summary: wear extreme clothing, expect an extreme reaction.
Next thing, Sharia law. There are extreme kinds of various religions. Extreme Judaism ('ultra orthodox') has seen segregated buses in Israel, where women have to sit at the back. Some evangelical Christian sects -- even in the UK -- declare that women must be subservient to men. But Islam stands alone in vocally pressing for Britain to be subject to Sharia law. Is it surprising when British people's reaction is "If you don't like British law, f**k back off to where you came from!"? It isn't prejudice against Islam... if the Pope wanted to make us all subservient to "Vatican Law", we'd say the same thing.
Next thing: unacceptable practices. Forced marriages, female genital mutilation, honour killings: these are practised by followers of Islam in this country, and not by followers of any other religion. Bad enough what the Jews do to their baby boys, and many of us would have that practise banned by law when performed without the victim's consent. These are practises to be hated, and it's reasonable to contempt anyone who doesn't vocally and unequivocally distance themselves from the practises.
Right, next matter: special treatment. And this is a religion-thing in general which applies in triple-measure to many Muslims and Jews. (In fairness, it also extends to labour law applied to females, but that can be the subject of a separate blog post.) If any group wants privileges not afforded to the rest of us, it's reasonable for the rest of us to be pissed-off about it. Demands for provision of prayer rooms; only willing to work certain days, certain hours; public toilets to face (or not face) in a particular direction, exemption from cooking pork sausages in a police canteen (that was a Jewish law case, I think), the right to wear special garb in places all the rest of us have to wear a uniform... People support the right to be treated equally. They become angry when groups demand to be treated favourably, and even more angry when public resources and statutes grant such a right at their expense.
Okay, only-victim-syndrome. Roman Catholics and evangelical Christians feel they are victimised because they are not allowed to discriminate against homosexual people (as much as they once were). Jews feel they are eternal victims of everyone and everything in which they don't get their own way. Lesbian and gay people feel victimised when someone makes a joke relating to their stereotype. (And in this I explain that almost everything in this article may apply only to a vocal minority. I am gay, and I'm as happy to be the butt of jokes as I am to laugh at jokes at everybody else's expense. But I recognise that gay people are increasingly labelled as over-sensitive by the wider community because of the vocal minority). But Islamic activists have taken only-victim-syndrome to a whole new level... they make violent protests against non-violent hurt they believe they suffer. Whether it's authors writing books they don't like, artists making cartoons they don't like, teachers giving names to teddy-bears that they don't like... it all adds up to a justifiable resentment of the people committing the violence, the people justifying it, the people identifying themselves with it, and indeed the members of the group in whose name the violence is being perpetrated who don't vocally disassociate themselves from it.
My last point is immigration and ethnocentrism, and yet again it applies not uniquely, but rather very noticeably in Islam. The number of Muslims entering Britain, and the alien nature of the trappings of their religion to established British culture has caused much grief. Let's make a comparison between Polish immigrants (bringing very little religious baggage) and Muslim immigrants. Polish immigrants tend to be much more integrationist - the main arguments people have levied against the large and swift influx of Polish immigrants have been ironic in their perversity: the excellent work ethic, and the requirement of tax-paying Polish immigrants to rely on the same public services of schools and hospitals as the rest of us. Polish people blend in and integrate. But British people who have lived all their lives in the same towns and cities where many Muslim people now live, feel themselves isolated in an alien place. Muslim immigrants have brought with them such trappings, traditions, culture, restrictions, religious requirements, and bring about so much unwelcome change to natives of an town or metropolitan area, that people who have lived there all their lives feel trapped, displaced in their own area... they can no longer call it home. Why is it so difficult to imagine that this reaches a level where it causes tension?
So, what percentage of UK Muslim people have I incorporated above? I have heard spokesmen from Islam standing-up and condemning radicalisation of British Muslims. But I've never heard Muslim voices calling the integration of Muslims immigrants into UK culture.
Baroness Warsi said, "in the factory, where they've just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: 'Not to worry, he's only fairly Muslim'" [...] "In the school, the kids say: 'The family next door are Muslim but they're not too bad'."
There are lots of Muslims who have integrated in Britain. Lots of wonderful people who have contributed to society. Absolutely heaps of friendships between people following the Muslim religion, and anybody else who doesn't. But the proportion of non-integrationist Muslims is sufficiently high to make it eminently understandable for people to talk in the terms Baroness Warsi has outlined. Making a speech to lament the fact isn't going to change it. If there's a solution, there's no hint of it in the reports of her speech.
"Prejudice against [Muslims] does not attract the social stigma attached to prejudice against other religious and ethnic groups" [...] it has "passed the dinner-table test" and become socially acceptable in the UK, she says, going on to warn against dividing Muslims into moderates and extremists
The problem, Baroness Warsi, is that you're mistaking an accepted aversion to many things Islam actually represents, with prejudice. And I can see why you make that mistake, because labelling the prejudices and behaviours of so many followers of Islam with Muslims per se is a very easy trap into which the rest of us can fall.
You say that we shouldn't divide Muslims into moderates and extremists. And I agree, because it's the wrong division... it gives the impression that the only issue reasonable people can have with Islam, is with Muslim people who want to want to blow us up. I don't think that's true.
I realise that I'm in a minority in understanding why many Muslims would want to blow us up... if my country and those I considered brothers were invaded under a phoney agenda and millions of my people were killed, I would want to inflict as much damage as possible on the perpetrators, and the people who continued to vote them into office. But let me join once more with the rest of non-Islam society to explain why the aversion to the practical expression of Islam is not prejudice.
Baroness Warsi, you said "In the road, as a woman walks past wearing a burka, the passers-by think: 'That woman's either oppressed or is making a political statement'." But that's reasonable of us, because she is. Islam oppresses women. That's not a prejudice, it's a fact! Fundamentalist forms of Christianity also oppress women; and if the bible were implemented in full by the followers of Christianity, that would be true of Christians as well. Wearing a Burka is an extreme expression. It would be an extreme expression if Christians did the same, but they don't. The closest Christianity has ever come, are the nuns wearing headdresses. And in the past they have had to work very hard to gain trust in spite of their extreme garb. But these days few nuns wear the full headdress, and it was never as extreme as a Burka in any case. Summary: wear extreme clothing, expect an extreme reaction.
Next thing, Sharia law. There are extreme kinds of various religions. Extreme Judaism ('ultra orthodox') has seen segregated buses in Israel, where women have to sit at the back. Some evangelical Christian sects -- even in the UK -- declare that women must be subservient to men. But Islam stands alone in vocally pressing for Britain to be subject to Sharia law. Is it surprising when British people's reaction is "If you don't like British law, f**k back off to where you came from!"? It isn't prejudice against Islam... if the Pope wanted to make us all subservient to "Vatican Law", we'd say the same thing.
Next thing: unacceptable practices. Forced marriages, female genital mutilation, honour killings: these are practised by followers of Islam in this country, and not by followers of any other religion. Bad enough what the Jews do to their baby boys, and many of us would have that practise banned by law when performed without the victim's consent. These are practises to be hated, and it's reasonable to contempt anyone who doesn't vocally and unequivocally distance themselves from the practises.
Right, next matter: special treatment. And this is a religion-thing in general which applies in triple-measure to many Muslims and Jews. (In fairness, it also extends to labour law applied to females, but that can be the subject of a separate blog post.) If any group wants privileges not afforded to the rest of us, it's reasonable for the rest of us to be pissed-off about it. Demands for provision of prayer rooms; only willing to work certain days, certain hours; public toilets to face (or not face) in a particular direction, exemption from cooking pork sausages in a police canteen (that was a Jewish law case, I think), the right to wear special garb in places all the rest of us have to wear a uniform... People support the right to be treated equally. They become angry when groups demand to be treated favourably, and even more angry when public resources and statutes grant such a right at their expense.
Okay, only-victim-syndrome. Roman Catholics and evangelical Christians feel they are victimised because they are not allowed to discriminate against homosexual people (as much as they once were). Jews feel they are eternal victims of everyone and everything in which they don't get their own way. Lesbian and gay people feel victimised when someone makes a joke relating to their stereotype. (And in this I explain that almost everything in this article may apply only to a vocal minority. I am gay, and I'm as happy to be the butt of jokes as I am to laugh at jokes at everybody else's expense. But I recognise that gay people are increasingly labelled as over-sensitive by the wider community because of the vocal minority). But Islamic activists have taken only-victim-syndrome to a whole new level... they make violent protests against non-violent hurt they believe they suffer. Whether it's authors writing books they don't like, artists making cartoons they don't like, teachers giving names to teddy-bears that they don't like... it all adds up to a justifiable resentment of the people committing the violence, the people justifying it, the people identifying themselves with it, and indeed the members of the group in whose name the violence is being perpetrated who don't vocally disassociate themselves from it.
My last point is immigration and ethnocentrism, and yet again it applies not uniquely, but rather very noticeably in Islam. The number of Muslims entering Britain, and the alien nature of the trappings of their religion to established British culture has caused much grief. Let's make a comparison between Polish immigrants (bringing very little religious baggage) and Muslim immigrants. Polish immigrants tend to be much more integrationist - the main arguments people have levied against the large and swift influx of Polish immigrants have been ironic in their perversity: the excellent work ethic, and the requirement of tax-paying Polish immigrants to rely on the same public services of schools and hospitals as the rest of us. Polish people blend in and integrate. But British people who have lived all their lives in the same towns and cities where many Muslim people now live, feel themselves isolated in an alien place. Muslim immigrants have brought with them such trappings, traditions, culture, restrictions, religious requirements, and bring about so much unwelcome change to natives of an town or metropolitan area, that people who have lived there all their lives feel trapped, displaced in their own area... they can no longer call it home. Why is it so difficult to imagine that this reaches a level where it causes tension?
So, what percentage of UK Muslim people have I incorporated above? I have heard spokesmen from Islam standing-up and condemning radicalisation of British Muslims. But I've never heard Muslim voices calling the integration of Muslims immigrants into UK culture.
Baroness Warsi said, "in the factory, where they've just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: 'Not to worry, he's only fairly Muslim'" [...] "In the school, the kids say: 'The family next door are Muslim but they're not too bad'."
There are lots of Muslims who have integrated in Britain. Lots of wonderful people who have contributed to society. Absolutely heaps of friendships between people following the Muslim religion, and anybody else who doesn't. But the proportion of non-integrationist Muslims is sufficiently high to make it eminently understandable for people to talk in the terms Baroness Warsi has outlined. Making a speech to lament the fact isn't going to change it. If there's a solution, there's no hint of it in the reports of her speech.
posted by Tsuchan at 5:33 pm
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