Islamophobia and the war on terror: meeting report

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Rachel Godfrey Wood reports.

On 12 February the Stop the War Coalition held a public meeting in a packed out Camden Town Hall to discuss the rise in Islamophobia and the ‘War on Terror’. Speakers denounced the growing atmosphere of hostility being expressed towards Muslims in the West, and identified the links between this and the global War on Terror which has been prosecuted by the West against predominantly Muslim populations since 2001.

Seamus Milne, Guardian journalist, began by identifying that we are living through a wave of anti-Muslim feeling, with crackdowns on civil liberties and hate crimes against Muslims such as the recent murder of three Muslim people in Chapel Hill in the USA. The official response has always been to throw petrol on the flames, which is what was done after the September 11 terrorist atrocity in 2001, when the US government and its allies went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. More recently, following the murder of 11 journalists of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France, France has in fact voted to step up its military presence in Iraq. The role of the War on Terror in generating hatred has been almost entirely overlooked in the Western media. In fact, these sorts of attacks were practically unheard of before the War on Terror, and it wasn’t just predicted by opponents of the wars but also by the Western intelligence services. Since then the War on Terror has spread from country to country, and in Iraq we can see the rise of Islamic State which is very much a product of the war in Iraq. In spite of that, the UK government has announced the establishment of a new military base in Bahrain. Back in Britain, Muslim schools and even nurseries are being targeted. In order to really oppose Islamophobia, Milne argued, you have to oppose the War on Terror as well.

Following Milne, Rania Khan, Stop the War member and councillor, denounced the racist attacks on Mayor Lutfur Rahman of Tower Hamlets. Practically every week there is an attack on Mayor Rahman by the Evening Standard, the BBC, Panorama or the Labour Party. This in spite of the fact that the extremely costly PwC audit found no evidence of fraud or any illegal acts. He is accused of giving too many grants to people of migrant communities, but it isn’t any coincidence that these are also the poorest ones. One of the more outlandish accusations was that Rahman’s campaign depended on handing out lollipops in return for votes. Muslims are criticised precisely when they exercise their democratic rights as citizens, namely by opposing the wars in Muslim countries, and when they see someone like Lutfur Rahman being attacked this can only increase disaffection. Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman lied about being excluded from a mosque, and there is a denial about the nature of the Chapel Hill killings, for example the suggestion that it was purely over a parking dispute. In the battle against racism, Rania argued, you’re either on one side or the other.

Following this, Kevin Courtney of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) talked about the union’s history of participating in the Stop the War Coalition in opposing the war in Iraq. He discussed the difficulties teachers face when trying to teach tolerance and cohesion when they face pressure opposed on them by government. In particular, he discussed an illustrative anecdote from a school in East London, where a popular teacher tried unsuccessfully to get her pupils to discuss the murder of the journalists of the Charlie Hebdo magazine and the response to it by the media. She later found out that the children had been reluctant to talk because they had been warned not to by their parents, who were afraid of them being labelled ‘extremists’. The Trojan Horse allegations against a school in Birmingham were also unfounded.

Mohammed Kosbar of the Muslim Association of Britain and chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque offered condolences for the people killed in the Chapel Hill attack. He compared the double standards that Muslims are frequently demanded to denounce crimes by extremists such as Islamic State, yet no one would think of asking atheists to apologise for a crime like that of Chapel Hill. The fact is that Muslims have very strong reasons to be angry, including domestic inequality and the war on terror, which has been used by the ‘international community’ to start so many wars. Large amounts of money are being spent on spreading hatred of Muslims, while Muslims rarely have the resources to counter this. The Counter Terrorism Bill is mainly targeting the Muslim community. Not only that, the contributions Muslims make are rarely given any publicity, such as the support given by the East London Mosque following the 7/7 attacks in London.

Kate Hudson of the Stop the War Coalition and Left Unity emphasised the movement’s opposition also to NATO and attempts to expand the organisation, calling on those present to support them to continue to oppose war and discrimination.

Paddy Salter, a student at Newham Sixth Form College, noted the increasing Islamophobic attacks happening locally, including accusations of terrorism and highlighted the important role of teachers in tackling it and establishing places for open discussion. Shadia Edwards Dashti, the student representative of Stop the War, linked Islamophobia and the war on terror, and the contradiction of spending money on warfare at a time of austerity.

Maz Saleem, the daughter of Mohammed Saleem, who was murdered by a neo-Nazi last year, denounced the silence about the case, and also linked Islamophobia to the wars that have been waged in a number of Muslim countries.

Lindsey German of Counterfire and the Stop the War Coalition also noted the refusal of the media to mention the war on terror when discussing the Charlie Hebdo attack. Not only that, the killing of three Muslims in Chapel Hill was clearly about more than just a parking place. To be blunt, she said, there something powerful in western societies at the moment that encourages hatred of and attacks against Muslims. It is linked to racism, because the majority of Muslims are not white and therefore existing racist ideas are being transferred to a criticism of Islam and Muslims. The idea that people are in some way being inhibited from criticizing Islam is clearly ridiculous. German also discussed the recent film, ‘American Sniper’, in which case the ‘hero’ clearly regards the occupied Iraqi population as being deserving of being killed.

Finally, Jeremy Corbyn MP discussed the history of the war in Afghanistan, with all the bloodshed and harm that it caused. Stop the War has always been an inclusive movement opposed not only to war abroad but to the racism at home that often accompanies it. It has opposed a string of Western interventions in the last 13 years, as well as the arms manufacturers that profit from them. Just recently, 300 people have been killed in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, and it seems that the EU now wants to stop any efforts to save these people. There is a long history of racism in Britain, going back to the slave trade and colonialism, through to the 20th century with attacks on migrants from the Caribbean and anti-semitism. Now, it’s Islamophobia that has come to the fore. Ultimately, opposing imperialism abroad is necessary to get a fairer society at home, he said. Fortunately, more and more people across Europe are mobilising against racism.



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