Stand against the Promotion of Fascism through the “Debate” on the Muslim Women in Veil

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Stand against the Promotion of Fascism through the “Debate” on the Muslim Women in Veil

IHRC Statement in Response to Prime Minister Blair’s Support for Jack Straw’s Veil Comments

Jack Straw claimed to want to open a “debate” on the wearing of the veil by some Muslim women. But what is this “debate” – what is the problem? Straw claimed that the veil was a “visible statement of separation”. But the first thing is that the very fact that the Muslim women were visiting his surgery is confirmation that they are engaging in the polity, and it is Jack Straw’s attitude which is confirmation that it is the state which is using cultural and ideological issues to divide the polity and attempt to make the Islamic faith and ideology a badge of “separation”. As an MP, Jack Straw has a duty to represent his constituents and their interests and well-being, as do all MPs. The government as a whole has the responsibility to represent the electorate and serve the public good. It is in contempt of its duty to do otherwise and refuse to recognise all the electorate as equal citizens on the grounds of religion, sex, national origin or any other grounds.

            Rather, this “debate” is being promoted in the context of attacking the Muslim communities, and attempting to create a climate of fear and distrust. It is part of the criminalisation of ideologies which do not accord with the prevailing ideology promoted by the government and upheld by the state. It is consistent in the national context with the attempt internationally to impose the “universal” and “civilised” values of British racism and chauvinism. The concept of “racial profiling” is being utilised to declare illegitimate anything other than these values and criminalise Muslims and those of Arab and South Asian national origin simply on account of those qualities. This is a Hitlerite method, the path which under the Nazis led to the holocaust. The whipping up of hysteria through this “debate” in the context of the “war against terror” domestically must not be allowed to sanction a single racist attack, as is its intention, so as to scapegoat Islam or “extremism” or revolutionary communism or any community for the problems of society.

            The government must end its incitement against Muslims. The wearing of the veil is not a matter of “choice” or “preference” as Jack Straw and Tony Blair are asserting. The issue is not the right to “choose” to be taken or not, but the right to be, of the right to affirm one’s identity in all its cultural, ideological and human aspects. The government must not be allowed to criminalise these aspects, and the rights of all must be defended by the working class and people.

            We call on all our readers to oppose the creation of a psychosis of fear and to organise reasoned discussion among their circles as to the significance of the whipping up of this “debate”, and to take up seriously the defence of Muslims, especially young Muslims and women, and to take a stand against the demand that only those who espouse the so-called British “civilised values” of “tolerance” and “integration” should be admitted as members of the polity. In our view the government is attempting to brand any other values as backward and those that hold them as second class or even zero class citizens, and this must not be permitted.

Take a Stand in Defence of the Rights of All!

Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), 10 October 2006

IHRC Chairman Massoud Shadjareh stated:

            “To argue that a few thousand women in veil constitute the obstacle to community cohesion is nothing but an Islamophobic ploy to ignore the root causes of alienation of the most discriminated community in Britain today.”

            “The reality is that those veiled women who visited Jack Straw’s office took a substantial step towards integration and engagement with the system only to be told that the system does not recognise them as equal citizens.”