Written by Husain Al-Qadi
Gove and the Christmas Tree Activists
As I indicated last week,
David Cameron's unjustified outburst in Parliament against Muslim
schools on the 25th of November was significant not only because the
Tory Party may win the next national election and the dire implication
this sort of policy will have for the Muslim community as whole, but it
is also significant in revealing the existence and reach of a sinister
network of hatred for Islam and Muslims crawling the inner corridors of
power in the United Kingdom.
In addition to the choreography augmenting Muslim stigma, Michael Gove's uneducated declarations, Douglas Murray's fabrications and Paul Goodman's bluster,
there was another group of individuals lending support to the edifice
of this intrigue. Although these individuals were not mentioned by name,
there is strong evidence to suggest that they are the usual suspects whose latest incarnation as "Christmas tree activists" is
consistent with their history as opportunists who will turn their heads
in whichever direction the wind happens to be blowing. They are of
course Ed and Co at the government-funded Quilliam Foundation.
The link between the Quilliam Foundation and the Muslim schools story was uncovered after the factual errors in
Cameron's outburst were highlighted in the BBC's Newsnight programme.
Michael Gove made a pathetic bare-faced attempt to salvage his
reputation with an article in
the Telegraph in which he tried to establish his credentials as someone
who is actively involved with the Muslim community. Remaining loyal to
his record of always barking up the wrong tree, he could not have chosen
a group of individuals more out-of-touch with Muslim sentiment than
those he cited. He wrote: "I sit on the advisory board of the
Quilliam Foundation, a think tank that exists to support the mainstream
Muslim majority in defending their faith from extremists of every type. I
have enjoyed working with them, and the Sufi Muslim Council."
Lost
on him and perhaps most of his readers was the fact that both of these
organisations, despite their high profile image in the media, have
little if any support amongst mainstream Muslims - who they are supposed
to be "defending". The mere fact that they are unable to secure their
own funding from the Muslim community whom they claim to be defending is
in itself proof of a patently quixotic imagination. Were they as
crucial to the defence of the Muslim community as they like to portray
themselves, then the government would not need to fund these "real life
Don Quixotes" to the tune of one million pounds of taxpayers' money.
Whipping his dead horse, Gove insisted in the article that: "The
men who established the Quilliam Foundation have themselves made the
journey from extremism to the mainstream. They were once members of the
fundamentalist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir and they have consistently warned
that we need to be more vigilant about this group's activities. That is
why we, and others such as Policy Exchange, the Centre for Social
Cohesion, and British Muslims for Secular Democracy, have been so
worried by the activities of the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, which
runs schools and nurseries in Haringey and Slough... I, too, have seen a
curriculum from the school. It has also been reviewed by
several former Hizb-ut-Tahrir members. They confirm that it propagates,
in detail, every particular of the group's vision of an Islamic state."
Given
this elucidation it is reasonable to assume that in addition to Douglas
Murray and Paul Goodman, in building his brief for David Cameron,
Michael Gove also had some assistance from Ed Husain et al at the
Quilliam Foundation. Now, before we switch off and say - yes it's
obvious, nothing new, same old story, and rush for new infotainment,
let's pause and reflect on the implication of this piece of information.
A
Labour government funded institution (the Quilliam Foundation) is
assisting a network of hate-mongerers consisting of anti-Muslim Tory MPs
(Michael Gove and Paul Goodman) and Neocon fascists (Douglas Murray)
with a brief to the Leader of the Conservative Party against Muslim
schools.
If
David Cameron amongst all the austerity measures he has announced,
insists on continuing to fund the Quilliam Foundation, then he must
realise that the Muslim community will see him and his party as
co-conspirators in this cross-party Neocon campaign to stigmatise
Muslims and Islam in the United Kingdom.
Keeping
Gove hidden in the dog house for a few weeks only to let him loose off
his leash when the story fades from Muslim memory will not work this
time. We will be watching every sleight-of-hand attempt to stigmatise us
even further.
As for Gove's "Christmas tree activist"
friends (Ed Husain et al) who have called on Muslims to celebrate today
with Christmas trees, I must explain why we (Muslims) celebrated Eid
al-Adha a few weeks ago without calling on Christians to also slaughter
animals on that day. The reason was that we did not want you (our
non-Muslim neighbours) to feel that we were using socio-psychological
pressure to force Islamic rituals upon you. I would also like to take
this opportunity to reassure all Christians that we do not object to the
veneration of Jesus (peace be upon him) who we regard as a true prophet
of God and, more importantly, please know that we will never pay
disillusioned Christian "Don Quixotes" to call on you to participate in
our ritual sacrifice at Eid, nor will we even demand that you circumcise
your boy children even though we believe Jesus (peace be upon him) was
circumcised.
The
reason is simple, we have different perspectives on the history of the
prophets of God. We are Muslims and you are Christians living, of
course, side by side in peace and harmony, without forcing our practices
upon one another which is the only true and effective recipe for a
peaceful coexistence. Happy Holidays!
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