Cameron and the Muslim Vote (Part I)

Written by Husain Al-Qadi

On Tuesday, Conservative Party leader David Cameron apologised to Parliament. He explained that he had got his facts wrong. His original statement in the Commons had been made a week earlier when, using Hizb Al-Tahrir as a punch bag, he had slammed his fist repeatedly during Prime Minister's Questions about the fact that two Muslim schools influenced by extremists were being funded by the Labour government.

When the BBC's Newsnight programme interviewed the minister concerned, it came to light that, following a number of investigations - including Ofsted inspections  - no such extremist influence had been found in the schools' curricula or in the behaviour of the staff. Yet, in his apology on Tuesday, Cameron continued to give the impression that he was justified in his original accusation.

"I am sorry for the error. I believe that when you get a fact wrong you should put it right but I continue to believe that it is wrong that taxpayers' money goes to schools run by extremists," he said.

It should be noted that his apology was addressed to Parliament, and not to the Muslim community for the petrol he had poured on the rising flames of hate and violence being directed against Muslims all around the country. Be it the thugs attacking Muslim students in London universities, the gangs killing Muslim pensioners as they leave mosques, the youths who are carrying out arson attacks on an Islamic charity shop, or the naïve supermarket cashier who casts a dirty look at the Muslim women in hijab whom she is serving, they will all have one thing in common to celebrate: "The leader of the political party touted to win the next election is as angry as we are about Muslims in the United Kingdom – so let's not feel too guilty!"

Choreographing Muslim Stigma

To placate Muslim concerns over Cameron's blatant anti-Muslim rhetoric, a perfectly choreographed counter-event was arranged. The Tory Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action, Sayeeda Warsi from Dewsbury, went on a walkabout in, of all places, an area of Luton where one is almost guaranteed to attract the attention of loud-mouthed, long-bearded protesters.  The BBC camera crew just happened to be "fortuitously" present at the opportune moment when an egg from an unidentified source landed on the Baroness's head. Warsi is then filmed having a vigorous debate with long-bearded extremist Muslims.

As the event makes headline news throughout the UK, two birds are hit with one stone. While Muslims are reminded that the Tory shadow cabinet contains a Muslim (so you can cast your vote for the Tories guilt-free), the rest of the UK population can continue to believe the myth that all Muslims with beards and hijabs are extremists. They would not recognise that almost every time this drama is paraded in front of the media, its protagonists are the same half a dozen or so individuals being photographed, holding placards perfectly designed for prime position on websites run by Islamphobes around the world.

The man holding the placard "Islam will dominate the world" on the left in another highly publicised protest in London (October 2009) is the same person seen in the BBC video debating with the Tory Shadow Minister Warsi in Luton on Monday (30 November 2009). One wonders if this person and his cronies were sent a personal invitation to attend Ms Warsi's walkabout?

I don't know whether these people have a website or a hotline number for drama productions but one thing is for sure: the idea of a member of the House of Lords from Yorkshire being accidentally confronted 150 miles away by this same group of individuals, whilst a BBC camera crew hovers on standby, on the same day that Cameron is apologising for his inaccurate criticism of Muslim schools, is too much of a coincidence.

Even if Ms Warsi were to be given the benefit of the doubt, her rhetoric did not do her any favours. Instead of using the opportunity to challenge her party's growing anti-Muslim inflammatory rhetoric, she followed Cameron's lead by indulging in her own scaremongering about the "wrong sorts of Muslims" living in Britain whilst being interviewed by the BBC.

For the average consumer of the Warsi story and Cameron's outbursts in Parliament, these are just two more confirmations of the myth that Muslims are uncivilised and threaten the future of Britain through extremist ideology whilst simultaneously sponging off the state.  When people see the headlines following Cameron's outburst in Parliament, claiming that Muslims who want to kill them are also stealing from the taxpayer, then it does not take much for anti-Muslim sentiment to boil over into the kind of violence we have been witnessing in recent months. Take this example from the Tory mouthpiece, the Daily Express' (26.11.09) frontpage coverage of Cameron's assertions:

Many Muslims might be uneducated but thankfully we can still tell when shameless attempts are made to pull the wool over our eyes. We are not as fickle as the Tory spin doctors take us to be, especially when we have to face the violent manifestations of these "clever" scaremongering tactics in our day to day lives.

Ask the lone Muslim student in hijab how vulnerable she feels every time a newspaper quotes a politician making statements against some version of Islam that displeases his or her fancy, and then you will get an idea, Mr Cameron, of the part you and your colleagues play in what history will one day pronounce as Tory hostility towards Muslims in Britain.

This is not to say that some politicians of other parties have fared any better when it comes to scaremongering against Muslims.  However, with the prospect of a future Conservative government seeming perilously near, there is an added sense of concern and apprehension among Muslims. Rest assured, Mr Cameron, your unjustified outbursts against Muslims at the dispatch box will not easily be erased from the memories of Muslim voters – not even with the aid of choreography!