Written by Karima Hamdan
Truth be told, when I first glanced at the article on the BBC website I thought that I had finally discovered why Yasmin Alibhai-Brown can't seem to follow a logical and coherent train of thought. The words "Yasmin Alibhai-Brown" and "Stoned" stood out and I sighed at the decline of the BBC's use of the English language as demonstrated by the use of such colloquialisms when it would be more accurate to say "inebriated following the inhalation of illicit substances".
Close examination of the text revealed a completely different story. It seems that a hitherto unknown Tory Councillor Gareth Compton from Birmingham was so annoyed by Ms Alibhai-Brown's performance during a Radio 5 Live interview that he allegedly wrote the following tweet:
"Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really."
Agreed, it doesn't demonstrate a PG Wodehouse level of wit and smacks of a man who is labouring under the fantasy that he is the Midland's answer to Boris Johnson. Sufficed to say Ms Alibhai Brown was not amused. A police complaint soon followed and Mr Compton was arrested for incitement to murder despite spending most of the day on Thursday writing progressively more plaintive tweets expressing his regret and apologies (all in under 140 characters). He has been released on bail but has lost his job, been suspended from the Conservative Party and generally reviled as a bad sort of chap. As for why Yasmin Alibhai Brown is the high priestess of the illogical and incomprehensible - the world is still no closer to finding the truth.
Carrying on with the theme of Twitter Terrorism, Paul Chambers, a 27 year old accountant, wrote the following tweet when he found his local airport was closed due to bad weather and was anxious not to miss a flight to Belfast:
"Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your s**t together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
He was arrested and convicted for this tweet and subsequently lost his job due to the conviction. Yesterday, he lost his appeal against his conviction sparking a twitter campaign endorsed by large numbers of celebrities like Stephen Fry.
Both Chambers and Compton have lost their jobs and sustained public humiliation for their poor sense of humour but they should thank their lucky stars that they are not Muslim. Both of these jokers were probably "nicked" by an apologetic "I'm just doing me job" type Inspector Plod. One can well imagine that if a clueless Muslim brother or sister had said the same thing they would have experienced the full treatment – having their door kicked in at 4am by 10 or 20 fully armed police in riot gear; having every mobile phone, computer and piece of paper in the house confiscated usually never to be seen again; seeing all the members of their household terrified and weeping in various states of undress and perhaps being shot accidentally which will of course be deeply regretted at the IPCC hearing 6 months after the event; and having the whole episode justified by the discovery of a 20 year old Anwar Al-Awlaki lecture tape lost and forgotten down the back of a bookshelf and held aloft as evidence of their radicalisation. And be assured that the all-round nice chap and self-appointed expert on women's sexuality Stephen Fry won't be tweeting furiously in their defence and offering to pay any fines but rather they may well disappear into the black hole of extraordinary rendition and continuous waterboarding – which of course they shouldn't mind in the least as we have all been assured it isn't actually torture.
As well as highlighting the apparent lack of wit amongst white middle-class Englishmen, this has also reinvigorated the whole freedom of speech debate – a topic sure to get the chattering twitterati whipped up into a state of frenzy. We all know the rhetoric, freedom of speech is an indefensible right, a cornerstone of British democracy, a mark of a mature and stable civilisation at peace with itself and confident enough to bear any scrutiny.
Yet despite this the hyperbole was absent when the other big "freedom of speech" story was reported on by the tabloids this week. It involved 30 mostly ex-Al Muhajiroun members who have formed a new group called "Muslims Against the Crusade" staging a protest in London on Remembrance Day when they burnt a poppy and shouted during the 2 minute silence. There was the obligatory EDL counter protest and a great deal of screamed obscenity and invective, not to mention huge numbers of police. Strangely enough the tabloid coverage of the event did not mention anything about freedom of speech but tended towards headlines screaming various variations on the theme:
"Muslims dishonour war dead"
...rather than the more accurate
"30 Muslims carried on rather badly in Exhibition Road whilst the 2.5 million other Muslims in the UK went about their daily business and their personal opinions towards the armed forces are really none of our business".
In choosing Remembrance Day as the focus for their protest Muslims Against the Crusades (or MAC) could not have chosen a more combustible issue. In the last few years there has been a ratcheting up of rhetoric and feeling towards the Armed Services that has even led some senior military officers to question the healthiness of such sentiments. In this Saturday's Times Newspaper former Commander of British Forces in Iraq Lieutenant General Sir Robert Fry is quoted as saying:
"I think the British people hold the armed forces in a state of excessive reverence at the present time. It is a greater infatuation than at any other time in military history that I can recall."
The General went on to say that whilst he agreed with respecting the military, he felt worried that this excessive sentimentality was becoming mawkish and was reminiscent of "the Diana Graceland stuff".
He is not alone in feeling uncomfortable with this new trend towards public mourning (occasionally termed "mourning sickness"). Channel 4 presenter John Snow has become infamous for refusing to wear a poppy on air for which he has been accused of treachery by those he terms "poppy fascists".
Other protests against Remembrance Day have a more confrontational nature as was seen with the banner unfurled by Celtic Football Club fans during half time in a recent match which read "Your deeds would shame all the devils in hell, Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, no bloodstained poppies for our Hoops". This rather rude but entirely peaceful protest has been met with swift action from the club which has promised to track down those involved and ban them from attending matches – an action usually reserved for violent or racist fans.
With MAC's protest, and another planned for Remembrance Sunday (as well as another obligatory EDL counter protest) the whole question of loyalty and patriotism of British Muslims has become polarised into two camps – those who wear poppies and observe the 2 minutes silence, and those who would stand behind a police cordon yelling "British soldiers burn in hell". There appears to be little room left for the large majority who would rather keep their lapels uncluttered by flowers as well as their opinions on "the glorious dead" as well as the armed forces in general to themselves.
One wonders if British Muslims will have to "prove their patriotism" as Indian Muslims are often called on to do – with famous Indian Muslim actors often pressured into appearing in heavily propagandised, jingoistic, anti-Muslim Bollywood movies where they take on and win against the combined forces of the Taliban, the Pakistan army and Al Qaida armed with nothing more than hair gel and a hip gyrating bhangra.
Already some Muslims feel embarrassed enough by the behaviour of those 30 people that they have set up facebook groups to publicly denounce them and called on the entire group to be arrested, prosecuted and jailed for excessive lengths of time "as an example".
An example of what, one wonders? A demonstration that freedom of speech is only for non-Muslims or only when one is insulting our beloved Prophet (sallallāhu 'alaihi wassallam)?
Please don't misunderstand me, I am not defending what those 30 young men did on Exhibition Road on the 11th of November. Their demonstration has caused and will continue to cause a huge blowback for the Muslim community in this country. From the young Muslimah taking her children to the park who may be spat and sworn at, to the Muslim office worker who finds his co-workers cold and distant and the workplace strained, to Muslim school children teased and insulted in the playground, not to mention all those Muslim taxi drivers and takeaway shop owners whose daily dealings with Britain's drunk and rowdy lad-culture will become much more dangerous and fraught. Already within 24 hours of the protest a mosque in Portsmouth completely unrelated to the poppy demonstration was daubed with graffiti and the EDL staged a demonstration outside it. Those 30 young Muslim protesters in London were obviously fired up for a fight but they were protected by a large contingent of police officers, some of whom were assaulted by the EDL in the line of duty. It must be remembered that those police will probably not be on hand to protect other more vulnerable members of our community.
Our response to this should not be the knee-jerk "lock 'em all up and throw away the key" rhetoric that is also shared by many in the EDL. It should be to point out that the great British idea that "freedom of speech and freedom to offend are absolute cornerstones of this great civilisation and we must at all costs defend everyone's right to it" is as imaginary as other British myths like St George and the dragon, King Arthur and his knights and fairies at the bottom of the garden. What is entirely obvious is that whilst the British public is more than happy to dish out insulting "truths" to those they disagree with, they are certainly not happy to capitulate and accept disgraceful behaviour towards what they hold dear. This society is not mature enough to do so and furthermore I doubt if there is any society that will accept slurs, insults and slander against those beloved by the nation without retaliating by being offensive back, which will only result in a downward spiral of insult and counter-insult until it all inevitably ends in violence.
All this is should be nothing new to Muslims who have had the benefit of the revelation 1400 years ago in the Holy Quran which admonishes believers:
"And do not insult those upon whom they call besides Allah, lest in their enmity they insult Allah in turn, not knowing (what they do)." (Al-An'am 108)
Allah thus commanded the Muslims not to insult the false gods which the polytheists held sacred, because this would make them insult Allah and Islam in turn. It needs to be pointed out to these young men that when you burn a giant poppy on Remembrance Day, you are desecrating something which the non-Muslims hold sacred. If you do that, they will disparage Allah, His Messenger (sallallāhu 'alaihi wassallam), and Islam in turn.
It needs to be pointed out to the opinion makers, thinkers and political leaders of this country that freedom of speech is, to use a much overused phrase, not fit for purpose. It makes people like the Tory who called for Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's stoning feel that they are entitled to say whatever comes to mind without fear of consequences. This societal change seems best summed up by comments in a recent interview given to a French magazine by actress Dame Helen Mirren who criticised modern Britain for being angry and cruel with a diminishing sense of decency. Government attempts to control speech by legislation or criminal convictions is a blunt tool that just looks like ridiculous overkill when implemented as evidence by the Twitter case involving Paul Chambers' bomb threat against an airport.
As adults we all know when someone is trying to engage in a debate or ask difficult questions and when they are merely being loutish and impertinent. The former must be encouraged whilst discouraging the latter and this can only be done if in Cameron's "Big Society" social responsibility extended towards encouraging good behaviour and politeness rather than promoting an individual's right to be churlish whenever the mood takes him. If government ministers like Iain Duncan Smith can speak about refusing work as "sinful" and Danny Alexander calls the practice of exploiting tax loopholes as "morally indefensible" then it seems right that this Big Society can also spare some room for the concept of social decorum and decency. I somehow doubt that Britain will magically metamorphose into North Korea overnight if this occurs.
As Muslims, we have been given clear parameters for our behaviour and we should never seek to match our morality to the lowest common denominator around us but rather strive in every way to emulate the best of mankind, our beloved Prophet Muhammad (sallallāhu 'alaihi wassallam):
"And verily, you (O Muhammad) are on an exalted standard of character." (al -Nisa' 4:128)
"The best amongst you are those who have the best manners and character." (Sahih Bukhari)
"The best loved by me and the nearest to me on the seats on the Day of Resurrection are those who have the best manners and conduct amongst you, who are intimate, are on good terms with others and are humble, and the most hated by me and who will be on the furthest seats from me are those who are talkative and arrogant." (Al-Tirmidhi)
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