A Muslim Thinktank

While Muslims cheer Blair's demise, the community's influence may go with him

2006-09-13T17:21:18Z

Tony Blair appears to be in the doldrums of his career. I doubt that many Muslims in this country are crying too hard about this. After all, it’s his government that has presided over two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a whole raft of anti-terrorist Acts of Parliament, and a massive burst of immigration resulting in a general worsening in the climate of community relations.

But if you put aside these most public of disputes with the Muslim community, it’s amazing to look back at how much attention Blair’s government has given to Islam, and how much responsibility he’s hoping to place on Muslim shoulders.

In the first place, never have we seen a Labour government more willing to let non-state actors do things for themselves. Socialists traditionally viewed the world as a fundamentally unjust place which only the State could restore to decency. Witness therefore higher taxes, a controlled economy and state-run welfare and social programmes. But since the 1980s, the State’s influence has been rolled back even in areas it had previously ruled completely. This has been a great benefit to the nascent sense of Muslim self-identity. If you go down to the local mosque today, you see a whole variety of services being provided by the local community, with cash from the government. Take East London Mosque, for instance, where they have an “Improving School Attendance in Partnership” programme, a health promotion programme (specialities include the “Ramadan stop smoking campaign”) and JobCentrePlus weekly careers advice sessions. In all of these cases, Labour politicians at local and national level have decided that the government cannot deliver services by itself, and needs the help of the “community”. Has there ever been a time when politicians so openly admitted its inability to deliver, and handed over power and cash to others?

Secondly, we currently have a government from the secular left, that has been openly willing to allow differences in self-identification to cloud the issue of a shared cultural space. It’s now fine to talk about “faith” as your primary source of identification, and not to enter into discussion about it. Instead of asking people to think of themselves as rational enlightenment individuals, seeking equality before the law and society, the post-socialist State has allowed “cultural practices” to suffice instead of insisting on full equality. If you want a faith-based/ aptitude-based/ specialist school, that’s fine, on the principle that equality (ie the comprehensive system) is a dumber-down, rather than a raiser-up. Plenty of anecdotal evidence for that, no doubt, but is there not a case for saying that schools need also to dare to teach people in a fairly forceful manner about the key elements of a strong shared culture? British people from all backgrounds are perfectly comfortable talking about football or games, but how many school-children are ever taught how to appreciate art (either classical or contemporary), music (either classical or contemporary) or theatre (either classical or contemporary)? French people I talk to are all universally appalled at how little British children know about cultural expression – and even more so about how British parents don’t really seem to care that their children are learning merely trivia. If our educational policy encourages different segments in society simply to discover their own culture, without understanding where it came from, we cannot make good this problem.

Finally, Blair’s government has put the spotlight on faith itself to an unprecedented degree in modern Britain. Blair conspicuously attends Mass every week, and claims to have read the Qur’an from “cover to cover”. I can’t think of any other Prime Minister in recent times who has talked so much about faith and faith communities, even if he has been uncomfortable discussing whether or not he prays with President Bush. In parallel, we have seen religious leaders re-entering public debate more forcefully, from the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Iraq war, to the Cardinal of Westminster on late-term abortion, to Muslim religious leaders on Shariah TV telling Muslims how to react to modern life in total. The last phenomenon – the publicisation of how much influence and respect Muslims give to their religious leaders, has been a marked aspect of this era. People know now about Islam, they know about the social restrictions on Muslims right the way from praying at the mosque to fasting in Ramadan to not shaking hands with members of the opposite sex. For most people in Britain, even if they don’t understand or sympathise with these customs, their existence is perfectly fine because it is generally believed that faith is a good thing that produces earnest and useful members of society. However, this belief is eroding, and wider society may be in the process of reviewing the current benevolent neglect. If pious young Muslims who grow beards and give up drinking are seen as assets to society, all well and good; if they try to set light to their shoes on transatlantic planes, it’s unsurprising if well-meaning people see the perpetrators as being brainwashed by nasty extremists. We’re in a world where a handful of bad apples can tarnish the whole community.

All three of these factors have allowed local groups and communities to take on more responsibility, as state organs have retreated. No group has profited quite so much from this as Muslims. Even the churches – mollycoddled by governments for centuries – haven’t seen such spectacular influence. Imagine if the government constantly felt it had to consult the “Christian Council of Britain”, spoke to local vicars as intermediaries with poor white communities and allowed schoolchildren to take days off for the Ascension Day or Corpus Christi holidays? It’s just inconceivable.

Part of the reason it is inconceivable is because most 21st century Christians would not allow the Church to arrogate to itself the right to represent them. Sure, the church has played this role many times in European history, what with bishops running provinces on behalf of the king, imposing Sunday as a day of rest and decreeing that believers should not eat meat on Fridays. But since the advent of democracy, Europeans have kept the Church as an intermediary with God, but asserted their individual right to have no intermediary with the State. Even in relatively pious countries like Italy, Catholics habitually ignore Church statements about contraception and abortion (for example).

My general feeling is that all of the factors I’ve talked about above are disquieting for Europeans, and although they’ve kept largely silent up to now, also for the British. I get the feeling that British people are not entirely happy about the state using intermediaries for such basic functions as health promotion and welfare provision. They’re not happy that our education system produces children who can pass exams but show little general knowledge or desire to think. And I don’t think they’re convinced by the return of faith-based politics. At the sharp end of all of these concerns will be Muslims.

Wider stereotypes about Islam have in no way disappeared, despite greater public knowledge of Muslims. Despite our hopes, the media seems to find no problem in uncovering yet more cases of dysfunctional family relations (in particular forced marriage, child-abduction and domestic abuse), low expectations, clannishness, criminality – and of course terrorism. While none of these are caused by the Muslim religion, those who do point the finger are sure of a receptive audience.

What to do about this? Up to a point, there’s not much that national government can do about it. British Muslims show an un-European respect for their religious leaders – or “scholars” or “ulema” as they prefer to title them – but none at all for national political leaders like Blair and Cameron.

I think that when historians look back on the Blair government, they will say that Muslims never got so good a time. I simply cannot see how a Conservative – or even a Brown-led Labour – government will not seek root-and-branch reforms to peg back Muslim autonomy. A future government will surely control immigration, and put great emphasis on “national” connections. It will surely seek to by-pass the religious leadership, and encourage local, grassroots level activism among young people. Local politics could be a battleground for imposing a new cultural programme to meld together a diverse society rather than pander to its constituent parts. And maybe the government might even dare to give local councils the powers to plan for mixed communities through schooling and housing.

But of course, I’m treating all of this as a domestic policy exercise – when opinion polls suggest British Muslims are more excited by foreign policy than ever before. British foreign policy, and in particular the total subservience to our American “ally”’s insensitivity to Muslim grievances, could surely wreck everything.

On pigeon-holes and group-think in the Muslim community

2006-08-08T11:37:27Z

Sometimes I think I am becoming a lone voice in Britain, but really I would rather that people stopped mixing up all 2nd generation brown people and calling them “Muslims” to the detriment of all other categories. I do understand that this is precisely the policy which the “Muslim leadership” has been trying to achieve, and with a great deal of success. People who wish to practice their Muslim faith are now afforded all sorts of understanding from the wider public, and white people tread carefully before intervening in what might be perceived as sensitive matters.

This straightening of identity is also something that Muslim immigrants & post-immigrants – particularly the young ones – have taken well on board. It’s a good way of bridging different cultures for young people with respect to their Pakistani, Moroccan, Somali and Kenyan schoolmates. Does it matter if you don’t eat the same kinds of food or speak the same kind of language, if your mothers both put a cloth over their heads when going out, and your fathers both make you go to after-school clubs at the mosque where the old beardy man shouts at you in a language neither of you understand?

It’s clear that a “Muslim” identity is a strong and popular pigeon-hole into which people can place themselves – or place other people. But there are downsides to simplification and pigeon-holing. The first is that it mixes a whole mish-mash of irrelevant factors together, without thinking about anything coherent to link them. A sticking plaster is not effective medicine on a joint – a plaster cast which gels joints together properly is.

From my point of view, “Islamophobia” is the best example of today’s sticking plaster logic. The story, roughly, is that a) Muslims are a roughly heterogenous group and b) bad things that happen to people of Muslim origin are nothing to do with their own actions, but are because other people discriminate against them. Neither of these are really tenable in the modern world, but Muslim organisations will continue to perpetrate them – because they allow themselves to look useful and representative.

If a) is not true, then why should religious organisations (for what is MCB but a collection of mosques & religious groups?) have a right to decide public policy, and why should they seek to represent anyone except the religiously-motivated section of the Muslim-origin community? And if b) is not true, then why should criminal or anti-social Muslims not have to answer for their own actions before complaining of “collective punishment”?

I understand that Tarique Ghaffur, the Metropolitan Police’s top Asian police officer, is the latest to give the issue some credence. According to Mr Ghaffur, recent laws increasing police powers in relation to terrorism and anti-social behaviour are seen as Islamophobic, and that vulnerable young people will therefore be radicalised and exploited.

This might be true, if the laws actually were discriminatory, or targeted Muslims in a disproportionate way. Except they don’t – there is little evidence to suggest that Muslims have any good reason for grievances like this. There are detailed statistics taken about the way the police treat different parts of the community, and stop and search is such an inflammatory subject that it is treated very seriously indeed. When you look at these statistics, it shows that there has indeed been a rise in the number of Asians stopped and searched, but likewise for all other ethnicities. The number of people arrested after being searched is fairly similar across the board, but Asians far from being discriminated, are in fact less likely to be arrested than other groups. Arrests on terrorism charges remain pitifully few.

This is not the received wisdom in Muslim circles. But this fact in itself tells us more about lack of Muslim self-awareness than anything else.

My concern is that the very success of the “Muslim” identity is simultaneously lessening the very interesting cultural bases that different groups of people bring to each other. The religious label is a reductionist tool, in that it stops people relating to God as individuals, and turns Islam instead into a tribal badge based on rituals and attitudes.

For example, I have been told many times that all Muslims should do x and y, which seem to have some scriptural bases – but beyond that they should also believe in some political positions because Muslims must stick together against the oppressors. For example, it is hard now to be a “good Muslim” in Britain today without believing uncritically that the Americans went into Iraq in order to steal Iraqi oil, and that they remain occupiers and oppressors. Well, as it happens my understanding is that foreign troops are all that remains to prevent full-scale civil war inside Iraq – and that they have specifically been asked to support by the new Iraqi coalition to help maintain order. Likewise in Afghanistan.

Elsewhere, it’s my impression that young people are no longer interested in the cultural elements of Islamic societies – judging them to be “cultural” and not “Islamic”. For example, I recently received an invitation for a concert of Qawwali music, for which the blurb made it clear that it was a mixture of Persian/Hindi poems with Indian tala and raga rhythms, accompanied by a dholak. Although the word “sufi” was mentioned, it made little of its ongoing relevance to Islamic devotion in the Indian sub-continent, and was sparsely attended by the sorts of young Muslims whose parents grew up on it.

Into the future, I wonder where the growing reliance on a religious identity will lead people. I’m sure there are all sorts of benefits to be had by individuals rededicating themselves spiritually to God, a God who has been too widely forgotten by a society that likes to think of themselves as independent and self-sufficient. But I would hate to think that a British Muslim identity really did require group-think on most societal issues and cultural heritage. Worse still, I would hate for the core curriculum of puritan Islam to be the only way that young people can conceive of the world and the people who surround them.

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dalnunstrong @ 2006-08-08T11:43:00

2006-08-08T10:43:34Z

There is an interesting article in this month's "Prospect" magazine by David Rose, which I thought struck a fair few parallels for Muslims.

The article concentrates on some disturbing conclusions coming out from criminological research into the causes of anti-social behaviour. Most people already have the idea that most crime is caused by a small minority of people who have no regard for the consequences. Indeed a study of males born in 1956 discovered that out of all known crime committed by them, over half was committed by as few as 5 per cent of the cohort. I don't think many people disagree that there are some "bad apples" who cause vastly more problems than all the others. People also cite anecdotally that poor people tend to be overtly criminal - or at least appear to be more than their rich contemporaries. Overlaying this come further political complications like race and ethnicity.

Political differences also can be seen when people wonder why young people can turn "bad". Are the "bad apples" are intrinsically "bad", or is it lack of opportunities during their youth that spoil them?

David Rose's article however shows that a whole series of studies have found that both of the above are correct. The liberals are right that bad experiences in childhood, deprivation and lack of opportunities do make some young men turn to crime. This is because
child-neglect and insufficient family relations can allow some behaviours to go uncorrected. But there is also a genetic link - a chromosome which when triggered by the above neglect can cause a dangerous cocktail.

As we advance in scientific knowledge, all sorts of worrying possibilities emerge. Could we screen young children for the possibility of future violent & antisocial behaviour? And if we find such genetic traits, what do we do about it - we could lock them up in advance in the same way as in the film "Minority Report". Or maybe we might be able to treat crime one day using drugs. Scary stuff.

For liberals and individualists such as in this country, the idea of a genetically predisposed set of behaviours is hard to cope with. It suggests that individuals are not really responsible for their actions, and that the human mind is incapable of governing the human body.

For Muslims, I don't think we have such a terrible hang-up. I would love to believe that everything I do was my own personal free will, but I also believe that God has a place in this world, as the master-controller.

I remember my old teacher from Oxford, the imam of the local Islamic Society. He was a scholar-student of something to do with neurophysics - as well as a bona fide scholar of Islamic studies. Either way, he loved to patter his sermons on a Friday with interesting stuff he'd read during his neurophysical research. One of them which particularly struck me was a read-out from a neurological paper, which asked questions on the way the body made physical decisions. I believe the idea was that subjects were wired up to an electrical monitor, and then told to keep still. The subjects then had to randomly decide to move either their left or right arms, and as soon as they reached a decision they had to move their arm, calling out "left" or "right" as appropriate when doing so. Now if things were going normally, you could expect the brain activity, motor response and vocal calliing out to be pretty simultaneous. But the results did not pan out this way. In fact, electrical signals were sent to the correct arm up to a tenth of a second before the subject had registered his conscious choice. The lesson that the imam drew was that body was making choices were actually being made before the mind was even conscious of doing so - and that therefore the human mind was never in full control of the choices it thinks it is making.

As a Muslim, this isn't so far from what God tells us. In surah Qaf of the Qur'an, Allah says "It was We Who created man, and We know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein." (50:16)

God knows what we are going to do, well before we do. This is the way that God created the world - and with his infinite knowledge he has already understood the consequences of all things that are in this world, and indeed that will be. This is the meaning of the theological term of "predestination". Indeed, so certain is God of what choices we will make that everything can already be recorded in a Book.

To return to David Rose's article, I think Muslims would not be surprised if the causes of many things have been hidden in our own genetic make-up. But this is not in itself an evil. Our genetic make-up causes all sorts of things, and is responsible for so much of what we are that it is impossible to untangle ourselves from it.

Yet it should not hide the equally true fact that human beings remain responsible for their reactions to the circumstances they do face. Although Allah tells us that some people will never repent despite the evidences - indeed he will seal their hearts - this is no excuse on the day of judgement. Never does Allah suggest that genetic predisposition towards crime excuses the crimes a person commits, but he does suggest that when a person sins he should be given the possibility of repenting for his crimes and moving on a better person.

And even more so, the Prophet said that "a penitent man is dearer to Allah. He who return from sin is like one who has got no sin." Sometimes God puts trials on people as a test of their faith in this life. It may be that the penitent sinner is more beloved of God than he who had not sinned at all - and insh'allah he will cast his mercy on me every day until my case is judged on the Last Day

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Investing in the future of the Middle East

2006-08-02T17:58:17Z

Last night I went to another talk on the situation in Lebanon, which gets endlessly more depressing. The speaker was a man who didn’t look like he had a great deal of sympathy for what’s going on – Silvan Shalom, the former Israeli foreign minister. For those of you who know a little bit about Israeli politics, Mr Shalom is a Likud member of parliament who did not leave to join Ariel Sharon’s new Kadima party after the withdrawal from Gaza – and preferred instead to stay in Likud and oppose any further “concessions” to the Palestinians.

Silvan Shalom’s message was extremely wide and unfocused, but boiled down to some perennial Israeli themes: Israel is the West’s proxy in the region; Israel is surrounded by extreme and hostile Islamic groups, who have consistently shown that they aim for Israel’s wholesale destruction; all Arab-Israeli negotiations have been let down by the refusal of the Arabs to make sure that peace-deals (such as the Gaza withdrawal) are followed by real peace; hostile Islamic groups are backed by hostile governments (viz Syria and Iran), who like to cause trouble through militants in order to hide their own
military aims (viz nukes).

It didn’t appear to me that the audience at Chatham House bought his pitch. While we all sympathised with innocent civilians in northern Israel who are hit indiscriminately by rockets, most of the questioners doubted whether a high-tech bombardment of Lebanese villages was an appropriate response. Shalom suggested that if London was being shelled by terrorist groups from across the border, British people would be the first to call for military retaliation – but the audience pointed out that IRA terrorist groups in the 1970s/80s had done precisely this, and not one person had suggested shelling villages in County Donegal would solve the situation.

It struck me once again that the Middle East is in that terrible position whereby Israel is a regional superpower with a GDP of $23,500 per person, as compared to $5,000 per person for Lebanon and Jordan, $4,000 per person for Egypt and $3,500 per person for Syria - to say nothing of the $800 per person in the West Bank and $625 per person in Gaza. How can there be peace with such a disparity between them?

Worse still, the failures of the majority of Arab states to help their own people develop, mean that the best chance many people get towards economic and human development is through support groups that have militant wings attached. Take southern Lebanon, for instance. The Lebanese system of confessional-based politics has meant that it has been almost impossible for members of the Shia minority to really get on well. Hezbollah offered the social development services the government was too weak to provide – it currently operates at least four hospitals, 12 clinics, 12 schools and two agricultural centres. Likewise in the Palestinian territories, 90% of Hamas’s $70m annual budget is social services, relief and education programs.

If Israel’s aim is to weaken these organisations, the result will be to increase the economic wretchedness of the people of its region – especially if in doing so it openly bombs bridges, airports, milk factories and any other facility that could have the smallest possible interest to industrial progress.

If Israel looked like it did actually care about the future of the people of its region, then maybe perceptions might change? Should Israel therefore invest real resources, money and time into facilitating the economic and human development of the region?

I put this question to Silvan Shalom. His answer was tricky, but there is some truth in it. He said that Israel has no interest in the continued poverty of its neighbours, and in the right circumstances has taken action. He gave two examples, both of how Israel (ie himself) had brokered free trade agreements between Jordan and Egypt (ie “moderate governments with whom we have concluded peace”) with the USA on textiles. In the five years following the 2000 free trade agreement, Jordanian textile exports to USA increased from $100m to $925m. Egyptian textile exports are expected to increase from $850m in 2004 to $1.6bn in 2006. The answer sounded impressive – although when you think about it, Israel did precisely nothing to facilitate them. Not blocking other people’s prosperity is hardly massive. And in any case, Jordan and Egypt are members of WTO, which would require favourable trade treatment.

No, what I was talking about is something pro-active and real to help people in the region. I’m talking about direct Israeli-funded development aid, of the type which they gleefully receive from the United States. Israel received $357m economic aid and $2.2bn military aid in 2005 from the USA alone, in addition to billions of dollars of loan guarantees.

In fact, Israeli giving to overseas causes is pretty thin. Over the years 1997-9, it was under $1m, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’s website. Israel does have quite a large organisation in its Foreign Affairs Ministry (which Shalom obviously must have known about) to give international aid. But MASHAV works on a largely cash-free basis, by organising training courses on subjects where Israeli business has a competitive advantage (eg “water resource management and irrigation, desert agriculture and combat of desertification, early childhood education, community development, emergency and disaster medicine, refugee absorption and employment programs, and many many others”)

If Israel were wise, it would take an entirely new approach to human development in its region. Local people across the Arab world currently only think of Israel in terms of tanks and bombs. If they could see clinics and hospitals in their own villages, it would be a great sign of goodwill for a better future. If Israel was clearly investing in their future as a people, and wanted to give them a livelihood, it would be hard to demonise them in the way extremist groups want.

There are real issues that would need to be tackled before we got to this point:
• Israel has not got an international development agency with any track record – and early funding projects may not prove good investments.
• The Israeli brand is so tarnished in parts of the Arab world that there would be vigorous local opposition to aid projects. Shalom himself mentioned that economic relations with the Palestinian Authority were broken off when Hamas came to power – though he didn’t look like he really cared too much about this either.
• Arab governments may resent Israeli-backed aid projects as being an insult to their own capacity to govern their territories.
• Local political opposition would condemn the use of Israeli taxpayers’ money to “fund our enemies”

Nobody would ever claim that building a peace is easy. But as of now, the firm impression is that Israel fundamentally doesn’t care about the human development of its neighbours. It should, and real peace can only come about when extremist groups no longer offer the best way for poor people to find self-development.

After all, development aid is a carrot that the UK has offered to Northern Ireland, with a great deal of success. The EU has done likewise with its fractious eastern neighbours, and the international community to wartorn parts of Africa like Rwanda and Burundi.

A few hospitals and business development centres in Gaza, Egypt and Jordan would certainly do more for Israeli security than the current position, even if the said hospitals and business development centres didn’t have a Star of David on the plaques by their entries.

Lebanon- sacrificing a pawn

2006-08-02T17:57:38Z

The international situation of Muslims is again looking bleak. The bombings in Lebanon are killing hundreds, and the infrastructure of what might justifiably be called the most developed Arab country is being uprooted again.

I’m finding the whole Lebanon-Israel situation particularly disturbing, because these are the two most progressive countries in a region that has been crying out for progress for some time. I’ve been to Israel, some time ago now, and it feels like a different world from anywhere else in the Middle East. The people as a whole are enterprising, dynamic and cultured – and there is a respect for law and an intolerance of corruption that is very laudable. I’ve not been to Lebanon, but from all accounts, it’s got many of the same attributes. Could I go as far as to say that it’s the only Arab country without an overbearing and unaccountable State sector, that by turns distorts and throttles the economy? Lebanese traders are known the world over for their superb skills at commerce and selling. Certainly there are few decent businesses in West Africa that have not been set up by Lebanese. But admirable populations are let down by the deeply dysfunctional politics of the area.

Israeli politics have been dominated ever since 1948 by the need to feel militarily safe against hostile Arab regimes all around it. Consequently, ever spare shekel has been spent on soldiers, in addition to the unlimited amounts of weaponry and high technology provided by Israel’s Western friends, in particular the obsequious United States. But military dominance has simply not provided the security that hard power theories suggest should be the case. The only success of constant Israeli military assaults in the West Bank, Gaza, Golan and southern Lebanon has been to destroy ammunition dumps – while the destruction has alienated foreigners and helped recruit more Arabs to resistance organisations.

And time and again, Israeli military doctrine has been proven to be entirely wrong. Military interventions are designed to weaken resistance groups – but end up making them stronger. The ones who are weakened are the “moderates” whom Israel actually supports.

Lebanon proves this point over and over again. In the 1970s, Israel intervened in order to make life difficult for the émigré Palestine Liberation Organisation, who had engaged in cross-border military attacks. The destruction of southern Lebanon saw support for the PLO and the Shia militant group Hezbollah sharply increase. It was proven that the Lebanese government was helpless to protect the country, and only the militants could be relied on. In 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon again, and again failed to dislodge Hezbollah. Israeli support for a Christian militia group led directly to the massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and a wholesale civil war in which all moderate government collapsed. Radical factions, on the other hand, radicalised yet further and large quantities of sophisticated military technology found its way to them in the chaos. The end of the war in 1989 left most of Lebanon firmly in the grip of Israel’s implacable enemy Syria, except for a strip in the south which Israel continued to occupy in violation of UN resolutions. The Taif Agreement itself institutionalised politics in Lebanon based on religious-affiliation – thereby almost guaranteeing instability.

Recent events in Lebanon and Syria had made many people optimistic for the first time in a long time. The “Cedar Revolution” of 2005 had seen Syrian occupation ended, and a UN Commission seemingly on the verge of punishing the Assad regime in Damascus for the murder of the former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri. Fresh elections in Lebanon brought together a broad coalition that was debating seriously whether Hezbollah should be disarmed in favour of a strengthened central army. Why should Hezbollah have the right to declare unilateral war on Israel, when the rest of the country would suffer the consequences?

But can this really be said now? The Hezbollah operation cannot be seen as anything other than a success. It succeeded with relative ease in capturing Israeli soldiers, and has inflicted significant damage on the myth of Israeli invulnerability. It proved itself the only Arab force to stand up alongside the Palestinians over the recent events in Gaza. There is no foreseeable way in which its position will not be strengthened in post-conflict Lebanese politics. And worst of all, peace could only be achieved now through the influence of Syria – condemning the poor Syrians to yet more Assad rule. Worst of all, there are real suggestions that Israel has been trying again to foment sectarian conflict in Lebanon – has it learned nothing since 1982?

Lebanon is a real pearl in the region – a democracy which has come a long way towards overcoming sectarian hatred. Its government is not clean, but is better than its neighbours. Its economy grew impressively during the 1990s, though has slowed recently to a normal 3-4% per year. Furthermore, 75% of the economy is in the hands of the private sector, with Lebanese banks in particular proving of international significance. All this is under threat now.

When the rockets and bombs fall silent again in the next few weeks, and when the death toll is completed, the West will see that it has comprehensively lost. The fragile democracy which Washington so feted in Lebanon only a year ago will be weakened, the dictatorships it seeks to weaken will be strengthened. Its failure to support the elected government of Lebanon or to oppose Israel’s grossly disproportionate strategy will lose it yet more confidence across the Middle East.

Where next for Western policies? If there is not some serious efforts at promoting a broader peace in the Middle East, another generation of Arabs will suffer under all the crippling issues affecting the region. A quick look at the UN’s Human Development Report lists pages and pages of negative trends, which nobody appears to want to deal with. Elections alone don’t make democracy – as Iraq patently shows. Without urgent effort now, not only the Bush doctrine but almost any Western foreign policy at all will soon seem as potent as a perfume in a hurricane.

Water shortages - and maybe water taxation?

2006-06-26T16:33:15Z

Last weekend, I went to Oxford for the day, and spent a very pleasant afternoon on a punt along the River Cherwell. The Cherwell flows gently down and joins onto the Thames, where the water continues on its journey to London and the Sea. As we punted along the stream, we passed a weir near Lady Margaret Hall, which appeared in rude health. Fast-flowing water posed a challenge for navigation, and we had to drag ourselves along the bank. Immediately, the conversation turned to water, and the fact that it didn't look like Britain was in a drought condition.

The chat continued - May has been a particularly wet month (as we all know by now), but yet the water companies have nevertheless been reporting extremely low levels of water in reservoirs. In many parts of the country there are hose-pipe bans, and in London where I live, Thames Water has now applied for a "drought order".

The newspapers have of course, in their usual British way, been playing a double game. On the one hand, pages of vitriol are sent towards "wasteful" water companies, who want to restrict our access to water, while nevertheless allowing shocking amounts of water to simply leak away. On the other hand, they are full of helpful tips, showing how every household can do its bit to cut down on usage.

When I read these articles, I of course think of my own usage of water. I think of my ancient old toilet cistern, and does it really need a 9 litre flush. I think of the dripping tap that I still haven't got round to fixing - what a disgrace of a DIY man I am.

And then, to make me feel all the more guilty, I realise that my own waste is positively unIslamic.

Islam, as any fool knows, is a religion which sprung up in a very under-watered region of the world. The Prophet and the early Muslims were keenly, keenly aware of the value of water in the desert. It's in situations of great need that the workings of nature are recognised as the signs of God that they are. As the Qur'an tells the world, the mastery of God over the world is a simple a matter of water being present, or not.

"Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah Sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they Trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth;- (Here) indeed are Signs for a people that are wise." (Surah al-Baqara, the Cow, 2:164)

As Islam also tells people, the fact that nature mostly provides for human needs is not something that we should take for granted. We do not really understand our own environment, let alone are we able to manipulate it to do what we want. Human ingenuity has provided immense improvements in our understanding of the functions of nature, and has allowed us to avoid many of the catastrophes of natural disasters. For example, barriers and dams such as the Thames Barrier and the Dutch dyke system have largely prevented western Europe from being swamped as it always used to be. But even so, we cannot control what God intends to give us. Even the USA, the world's richest country was unable to predict the arrival of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year, let alone stop them. The massive tsunami in Asia last year would have destroyed any human structure at all.

Likewise, we could not do anything if God decided to take away the water which supports life. As the Qur'an says in Surah al-Mulk (Dominion, 67:30):

"Say: "See ye?- If your stream be some morning lost (in the underground earth), who then can supply you with clear-flowing water?"

This led the Prophet to make very explicit that his followers were not to waste water. In the traditions, 'Aisha recounted that the Prophet used only one large pot of water to bathe in (perhaps around 1-2 litres). Furthermore, he said that all humans have a right to adequate water, followed by priority for water for animals, then crops and all the environment.

This is in marked contrast to our modern 1st world today, where people think nothing of using 200 litres in a day, through washing machines, hosepipes and all sorts of other things that we take for granted.

If we now face small problems from the results of our profligacy, who can we blame for our misfortunes?

The newspapers report gleefully that there will not be enough water for the inhabitants of the new housing in the Thames Gateway, despite the fact that the land sits on the floodplain, at risk of the storms of the North Sea. Of course, what they mean by that is that there is plenty of water for all good uses we can put to it - but not enough for the selfish indulgences we desire.

Desire, desire, desire! Once again, the bottom line is that modern Western life is about indulging passing desires of individuals, without real regard for the future.

As Allah says,

"Set forth to them the similitude of the life of this world: It is like the rain which we send down from the skies: the earth's vegetation absorbs it, but soon it becomes dry stubble, which the winds do scatter: it is (only) Allah who prevails over all things." (Surah Al-Kahf, the Cave, 18:45)

The life of this world is such a short and fragile thing that we must not forget the insignificance of our own existence compared to the world - and that we have no right to waste what God has provided for all beings.

In the mean time, maybe tax is the only answer. When customers in Britain have to pay a price for water that starts to cause financial pain, maybe at least some overconsumers will start to think twice.

How about a water tax system along the same model as income tax - with a limited free quantity of water for each individual (say 36,500 litres), and then progressively higher prices for each extra 1000 litres per year?

Football and entertainment

2006-06-14T17:15:55Z

The population of much of the world has now turned to football, for the World Cup in Germany. Certainly, nobody in England seems to be thinking of much else, witness the number of flags and bunting in most windows and car aerials. The beleaguered government had a strategy last week of “getting by until the World Cup starts”, which has been firmly vindicated – who cares now whether or if Prescott is still playing croquet.

I am certainly not immune from such seemingly irrational pastimes. I’ve watched my fair slice of Ivory Coast and Ghana, as well as England’s finest. But I’ll not deny that football on the television is a peculiarly paradoxical thing. It gathers immense meaning during the event, but then when it’s over, it’s as if nothing had ever happened.

I received a forward last week from the “Islamic Da’awah Academy” (whoever they are), which expressed this quite well. “When our team is lifting the trophy
at the end of the season, we jump with craze and joy. But do we ever notice that we are as empty handed as we were at the start of the season?”

Of course, from a Muslim perspective this is the way so many people lead their lives: you get caught up in the whirl of emotion, pride and temporality, but find yourself ultimately with nothing meaningful. And for a Muslim in particular, the Day of Judgement will show conclusively that the temporary joys of this world are simply a distraction from the truth and permanence of God.

There is of course a lot to be said for this approach. Modern people expect constantly to be entertained – by television, video games, sports etc. But when they’ve finished (as all things do), you feel empty. In my own life, I’ve wasted hours and hours to “Sid Meir’s: Civilisation”, “SimCity” and other such games, and gone to sleep at 5am wondering what on earth I was thinking of.

An entertainment culture is based on the premise of disposability, of time-filling and emptiness. You watch/play because you are bored, and you watch/play simply to avoid where you are or what you are. You might be initially fascinated, but when it’s over you realise you haven’t really gained anything. Soap operas, game shows, celebrity cooks, Teletubbies, Channel 5 documentaries, Hollywood comedies, whatever. The alternative to the entertainment culture is clearly the book. By this I mean all books, really, but wider even than that. In the written word, in art and in so many pieces of Culture, there is an attempt to understand what it is to be human. It’s about reflecting some form of truth about existence, non-existence, and something in the middle. There are very few novels that don’t grip the human condition, and even rap has an important message.

I believe most people do know what the difference is between meaning and meaningless. Meaning is something that is important, that adds to your awareness and understanding. There’s nothing in modern living that stops people being able to do this: you can download tracks to your iPod that you will listen to again and again, you can go to any number of art galleries or read works of knowledge on the web.

I wonder how many people are honestly able to answer that they do things for meaning, or simply lazily look for entertainment. The entertainment culture is going nowhere fast. Muslims are not immune to it – indeed our young people are some of the most attracted to it. We are not readers, nor are we artists. We should be.

But, but…

There is entertainment, and there is entertainment. Football is more than entertainment. Under my test, football has the capacity to pass, because there can be real meaning in it. As every 4 years, the country is showing how much people invest in football about what it is to be living today, to be British (or English as the current flags have shown), and to be part of a collective rather than an individual experience. British people can express through football big emotions such as honour, pride and glory, hitherto forbidden because of their violent overtones. There is no reason Muslims should not be able to take part in such an easy part of national life. We are aware of the truth and permanence of God at all times, but a more open understanding of the global human experience would do us no harm either.

Pensions and the long term

2006-06-02T18:12:05Z

This week, the government published its plans for the future of Britain's pension system. This was described by the "Economist" newspaper as one of the very few times that the current Labour administration has bothered to go through the hard work of policy development, as opposed to coming up with some quick fixes. Perhaps there is some justification in this view, because the work that the Pensions Commission has done over the last few years really does look like a way forward.

The UK’s population will actually grow slightly over the next fifty years, from 60 million to 67 million. Nobody needs to be too alarmist about this, which is not actually that different from the long term trend. The causes of it are quite clear: our rich, modern society has allowed individuals so much liberty and opportunity that families are relatively unpopular, while advances in medical science have solved many of the problems that led to people dying of natural causes. Inevitably, a fall in fertility and an increase in life expectancy means that the population is ageing fast

Not that this current generation of older people appear too worried at all. People over 50 years old spend around £240bn every year on leisure, and account for 40% of all consumer spending. This means that in an average month, retired people spend £344m on meals out and £535m on travel. Research for Saga suggested that the over fifties now own 80 per cent of the country’s wealth. In this age group 90 per cent have their own homes, of which 72 per cent have no mortgage. These figures must surely make advertisers drool.

However, sadly I'm not in this category. I'm 27, and therefore am one of the younger generations on whom my parents' generation are relying to support them during my old age.

There are some young people who are somewhat unhappy at the current situation, seeing that they are being exploited by older people. Indeed, there is even a young person's political party in Germany, campaigning for reduction in the pensions paid to old people. As they rightly point out, this is the most privileged generation of pensioners ever - untouched by war, medically healthy and generously funded by the state.

But this is not the way a Muslim approaches the situation. For Muslims, the fact that a person is old is a glory, a blessing to those around them. As the Prophet said, "Glorifying Allah involves showing honour to a grey-haired Muslim and to one who can expound the Qur'an, but not to one who acts extravagantly regarding it, or turns away from it, and showing honour to a just ruler" (Abu Daw’ud, Book 41, No. 4825).

Furthermore, there is an intense concentration in Islamic thought on maintaining family relations. As the Prophet said, "The word 'Ar-Rahm' (womb) derives its name from 'Ar-Rahman' (i.e. God). So whosoever keeps good relations with it (i.e. kith and kin), Allah will keep good relations with him, and whosoever will sever it, Allah too will sever His relations with him."(Sahih Bukhari, Vol.8, Book 73, No.18).

The family basis for an Islamic solution to pensions does seem to have gone against the grain of thinking in the West. Over the last hundred years, we seem to have evolved from a situation where families looked after their own, to one where the community, and then subsequently the State took over. Without doubt this was for the best of motives. There has never been a past utopia in Britain, when family solidarity was enough to guarantee old people a decent life and constant care. Indeed, the Victorian and Edwardian State was prompted to action by precisely the levels of deprivation among the old and no longer useful which were obvious all around.

But I think few Muslim thinkers, if any, would be really happy with a situation where families were not given the prime responsibility for maintaining themselves together. Reliance on the State is a mark of weakness which Muslims should hide, rather than rejoice in. No doubt there are plenty of Muslims who have benefitted immensely from the generosity of the British welfare system to people who may or may not be really deserving.

But it seems to be very hard for Muslims really to have a big voice in this debate. The essential problem is one which to which we don't have good solutions. This society needs more workers to pay taxes towards a sustainable welfare system - either by raising the age at which people retire, or by bringing more economically inactive people into society. Yet this is precisely what too many Muslims refuse to do: 52% of Muslims in this country are "Economically inactive" according to the census, which when you add those who are actively unemployed (ie on the dole) it makes a staggering 59% of Muslims who are not contributing taxes. Among Muslim women this figure rises further to 73%. We have to get back to work if we want people to respect our input to society.

Of course, people back in work means less people at home doing all the useful (but non-economically active) jobs like childcare, care for the elderly and general family cohesion...

I know that plenty of Muslims see it that way - Muslim women often see their place in the home, doing the jobs that matter, but which do not produce taxes for the government. Fair enough. But someone, at some stage, will have to bring home the bacon (or halal chicken as the case may be). I have a feeling this situation will have to change soon, and Muslims too will have to face up to a new world where we have to work longer hours. Poverty is the alternative to this - but who's going to take that path?

Mission statement

2006-05-26T19:02:09Z

One of the things I'm going to try to do with this journal is to put some comments on recent events, from what I hope is a slightly more spiritual, maybe even philosophical perspective. We all seem to be caught up in the hurly-burly of the modern 24-hour news culture. Does yesterday's train crash, today's murder or tomorrow's Cabinet reshuffle really help us understand how to live our lives better?

And certainly, for Muslims, does concentrating on yesterday's invasion, today's court case or tomorrow's Daily Mail editorial do anything for our nerves or outlook?

Islam is a religion which is based on the knowledge of God's presence in human lives, whether and whether we humans feel or understand that presence is the criterion of success or failure for our time here on Earth.

Perhaps at some time in the past, it was easier for people to be spiritual. Before we invented high-technology for ourselves, there was more time in the day for God and for pondering the mysteries beyond our own existences. Even the busiest of people two hundred years ago was substantially freer to think than they are now. Could twenty minutes here and there not be taken to wonder at the majesty of a summer's evening, or to take a tea with a customer, or to simply to enjoy a meal? Nowadays, emails need to be sent till late at night, 1-hour train journeys seem interminable, and people are so exhausted by the weekend that even sleep is a luxury. We want speed, instant returns, and to move onto the next thing.

This is the way that God has created us, mortal and always looking for change. The Qur'an even explains this essential human dilemma. Surah 70:18 (al-Ma'arij the Ascending Stairway) of the Qur'an says: "Inna al-insan khuliqa halu'an / Idha massahu ash-sharru jazu'an / Wa idha massahu al khayru manu'an - Truly, the human being was created impatient / When evil touches him, he is fretful / And when good touches him, he is miserly."

My aim in this journal therefore, is to look at the bubbles of current affairs, and to see whether I can still find Allah behind the headlines - or at least something more meaningful than the immediate. This is the mark of the true Muslim, or at least the one who heeds the Qur'anic injunction: "When the hearts of those who disbelieve were full of the zealotry of ignorance, Allah sent down His Peace upon His messenger and the believers and imposed on them the word of patience, for they were entitled to it and worthy of it." (Surah 48:26 - Al-Fath the Victory).