October 6, 2006
Britain’s veiled debate
It seems to be Islam and Europe week for this blog. I apologise if I appear like a monomaniac - partly, it’s just a reflection of the books that I’m reading as research for next week’s column. But it also reflects events out there in the “real world”. Take last night’s BBC news. The first item was about a request by Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons, for Muslim women not to wear a full face-covering veil, when they visit him in his constituency in Blackburn in north-west England. (He has no problem with a veil that simply covers the hair.) The second item was about a Muslim British policeman who - at his own request - had been excused from guard duty at the Israeli embassy. And then in the middle of the bulletin there was a long report about radical Islamists recruiting at British universities, which ended with a bleak prediction that - if nothing is done - some British students would emerge as suicide bombers. A certain poignancy was added to the story by the fact that the reporter, Frank Gardner, is in a wheelchair - after having been shot and paralysed by Islamists, while reporting in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile today’s FT reports that the British police are on the alert for urban unrest, after clashes between Muslims and whites in Windsor of all places. (Windsor is almost a byword for teashop, twee middle England.) Still, the British have company. Unrest is bubbling up again in France’s majority-Muslim housing projects, and a French police union is warning of a domestic intifada. So what is going on? Well, in Britain at least - I think a lot of what is going on is a delayed reaction to the 7/7 bombings last year. The initial reaction of the Brits was impressively moderate and restrained. But, with the passage of time, I think the sense of anxiety about Islamist extremism has actually grown, not diminished. In part, this is because 7/7 made it legitimate and interesting for the British press to start digging around in the country’s Islamist underworld. Press reports of sympathy (or, at least ambivalence) among some Muslims for terrorism has stirred anxieties in Britain; which in turn leads politicians like Straw to respond by taking a harder line stance against visible manifestations of fundamentalism. To judge by this morning’s radio shows, Straw has certainly hit a popular chord. One poll on BBC radio showed 93 per cent support for his comments. The risk, of course, is that people in Britain and Europe get sucked into a cycle of reaction and counter-reaction - a harder line towards Muslim fundamentalism, provokes a backlash, which provokes a counter-reaction - and so on. And yet, I think there is also a need for a debate about what being a British or French citizen means - which will inevitably tackle tough issues like the headscarf, arranged marriages and the treatment of radical imams. One interesting test of where people stand in the British debate is their reaction to “Londonistan” - a book by Melanie Phillips, a right-wing newspaper commentator, who argues that Britain has become a hub for Islamist terrorism and is “sleepwalking into cultural oblivion.” Personally, I’ve always found Phillips almost unbearably shrill on this, and most other issues. On the other hand, if you actually read her book - beneath the semi-hysterical tone, there is some impressive research. The best review I have read of her work comes from Denis MacShane, the former Labour minister, who argues that Phillips is definitely onto something - but that most of her hard-line recommendations would make the situation far worse. Ironically, the only internet copy I could find of MacShane’s review was on a website that monitors “Islamophobia” - apparently his review fits the bill. Next week, I’ll be in Brussels, Bratislava and another European capital that does not begin with B - so I’ll find something other than Islam to write about.
