Thoughts from London

Blair falls short of Clare and vital Muslim votes
Clare Short's resignation from Tony Blair's cabinet scratched much more than the Teflon in Blair's political make up. But even more damaging than the International Development Secretary's departure -probably anticipating her sacking from a reshuffled cabinet - was the crucial blow Britain's minorities dealt the governing Labour Party.

In that sense there was a congruence of interest between Clare Short and the ethnic minorities. That was the war against Iraq and its dangerous consequences. The minorities, by and large, supporters of the Labour Party, turned their backs on their traditional friends at the local government elections this month. They voted for the opposition or kept away from the polls to show their deep-seated anger at Britain's unlawful and unjustifiable attack on Iraq.

Strong opposition came from the country's 1.6 million Muslim community, the largest religious group among Britain's ethnic minorities and making up 3% of the population of England and Wales. Although Labour Party activists have tried to minimise the blow to its image and future prospects, in fact Labour lost 39 parliamentary constituencies with three cabinet ministers suffering defeat on the basis of these polls.

One of them was Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who has not only tried to justify the war on Iraq but the UK's diplomatic position in unashamedly following Washington like the rats scampering behind the Pied Pier. Birmingham's inner city wards, which have a high concentration of Muslims, were among 11 seats Labour lost.

There were more than 10,000 seats up for grabs in 340 councils. This could be considered the closest to a mid-term election in the British political system and the widest test of public opinion before the next general election in two year's time. The Labour Party was able to garner only 31 percent of the vote compared with the Conservatives who managed to get 34% despite poor public image.

While nationally the prospects of the Conservatives winning the next election seem remote just now, what is important from Labour's standpoint is the influence the minorities have in parliamentary constituencies, especially in marginal seats. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) estimates there are 23 parliamentary seats where Muslims could have an impact.

Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt conceded after the polls that crucial Muslim supporters in cities such as Leicester, her own seat, had registered their opposition to Labour. She said she was "not surprised" by the lack of support for Labour in the Muslim community.

Mohammad Naseem, chairman of the Central Mosque in Birmingham, a city that Labour lost after 19 years, was quoted as saying that a broad cross-section of voters were against conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Asked about the attitude of worshippers at his mosque, Naseem reportedly said:
"Up to the last man they were against the Labour Party policies". Other mosques across the country claimed that the "Baghdad backlash" cost the Labour Party this election.

Muslims, mainly from South Asia and Africa, have felt more and more isolated and targeted by law enforcement agencies in an increasingly racist Britain because of the involvement of Islamic extremists in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

While most Muslims in the UK are law-abiding persons who want to improve their social and economic standing in a predominantly white society, 9/11 has tarnished them in the eyes of the British who perceive them as terrorist supporters or sympathisers.

This feeling of being suspected of empathy with terrorists has been compounded by the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, two Islamic countries that saw worldwide protests mainly by Muslims.

Justifying the war against Afghanistan, Tony Blair said: "No one should ever allow the lie to get around that this is to do with West versus Islam. It is to do with people, decent people everywhere, including Muslims who are victims of terrorism, against terrorists".

If the Muslim community rightly doubted the righteousness of the coalition's cause, the long and deliberate build-up to the war on Iraq during which the United Nations was undermined, double standards applied and the duplicitous nature of US foreign policy came to the fore, left no doubt at all in their minds that the "war on terror" was a mere fig leaf to cover the coalition's moral nudity and political purpose.

So when Blair once more tried to hide the true nature of Britain's duplicity in joining forces with Washington claiming "Don't fall for propaganda that it's anything to do with a battle against Islam - it's not", the Labour Party that the vast majority of British Muslims supported shot its bolt.

Mahmud al-Rashid, deputy secretary-general of the respected Muslim Council of Britain laid bare Blair's motives that the prime minister had been at great pains to characterise as a "war against terrorism".

"There is a concerted effort in politics, academia and popular culture", said al Rashid a barrister, "to create another opposition enemy and it is Islam". But the bombing of Afghanistan and the more recent war against Iraq have invoked almost total criticism from British Muslims.

A Council spokesman Inayat Bunglawala moved quickly to put a damper on it and tried to distance the organisation from al-Rashid's criticism. "Certainly we don't regard in any way Islam as the enemy of the west," he was quoted as telling The Times of London.

But the truth is that there are Islamic extremists who do and are ready to use the UK as a base for fund raising, recruitment of activists, training of terrorist cadres and to preach the gospel of jihad against the west.

Around 10 British citizens are held incommunicado in America's notorious Guantanamo Bay prison where those suspected of involvement in the 9/11 attacks are detained without trial.

Shoe-bomber Richard Reid who failed to blow up a US-bound plane with the explosive in his shoe, is a British citizen. The two suicide bombers Asif Mohammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, recently involved in the attack in Tel Aviv were the first two UK domiciled suicide bombers.

One lived in Derby and the other in Hounslow, West London. Both were linked to al-Muhajiroun, an Islamist group propagating extremist ideas. Security sources here believe that the group, which is led by a highly controversial cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed was not as potentially dangerous as some others in Britain with much closer ties to Al-Qaeda.

But with Al-Qaeda under close vigilance by British security (particularly after it received information of a planned attack on the UK later abandoned because of heightened security around London's Heathrow airport), young Muslims inculcated with extreme views in some of Britain's mosques, are looking outside the country to organisations such as Hizbollah and Hamas for training and guidance in their 'jihad' against the West.
In an interview with BBC Radio, Sheikh Omar Bakri boasted that they had recruited at least 700 British volunteers to fight in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Kashmir. Because most volunteers are handpicked Muslim youth who regularly attended the mosques, these places of worship have come under the attention of British security.

Last January police raided the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London on information of an arms cache and drugs. Normally the Muslim community would not have sympathised with the mosque because Muslim community in general is moderate and law abiding and the mosque residents led by Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri are considered radical Islamists.

Yet a Muslim community under increasing pressure by the British government and the people reacted against this police action in which the most dangerous weapon (though not of mass destruction) found was a stun-gun that temporarily incapacitates a victim. It only confirmed Muslim views that Blair and Bush are determined to destroy Islam.

Most of Britain's Muslims would like to see extremist groups banned. A poll conducted on the first anniversary of 9/11 showed that six out of 10 surveyed would like a clampdown on radical Islamists as it was against genuine Islam and it would make their life easier.

But the danger is that heightened security enhanced by very tough new anti-terrorist laws could lead to crackdowns on innocent Muslims groups and racist attacks on families antagonising the community.

With the increased radicalisation of British Muslims who are even taking to suicide bombings, the potential danger to London that has so far escaped Islamic terrorist attacks, could well come from within the country rather than outside.

Back to Columns