-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 18, 2007 6:14:37 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Islamophobia -- Arabs, the New "Jews" for New Nazis (the
Radical Right)
Charles Colson Cites Obscure Muslim Book as Evidence of Conspiracy
By Richard Bartholomew Mon Sep 17, 2007 at 03:13:55 AM EST
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/9/17/31355/6598
On the anniversary of 9/11, Charles Colson uncovers a conspiracy:
...But as a Muslim convert to Christianity notes, we have more to
worry about than violent attacks. We should be just as concerned
about the quiet inroads Islam is making in Western societies.
Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, who was born into a Muslim family, is now an
Anglican priest living in England.
...To Sookhdeo, the signs are not good. He notes that a book
"published in 1980 by the Islamic Council of Europe gives
instructions for how Muslim minorities are to work towards
achieving domination of European countries through a policy of
concentration in geographical areas."
In England and France, this has already begun.
Sookhdeo's claim about the 1980 book has been cited widely since
2005 as evidence of a "Protocols"-type conspiracy, and this has
helped to fuel suspicion of, and resentment towards, Muslim
communities. Actually checking the book for oneself, though, is
difficult - it is long out-of-print and unavailable through either
Amazon or Google Books.
However, I managed to track down a copy to a public library in
London, and having seen the text first-hand, it is clear that
Colson is simply peddling the work of a scaremongering demagogue
who has misrepresented the book for his own purposes and indulged
in shameful quotemining.
Here's Sookhdeo himself, writing in 2005:
In 1980 the Islamic Council of Europe published a book called
Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States which clearly explained the
Islamic agenda in Europe. When Muslims live as a minority they face
theological problems, because classical Islamic teaching always
presupposed a context of Islamic dominance; hence the need for
guidance on how to live in non-Muslim states. The instructions
given in the book told Muslims to get together and organise
themselves with the aim of establishing a viable Muslim community
based on Islamic principles. This is the duty of every individual
Muslim living within a non-Muslim political entity. They should set
up mosques, community centres and Islamic schools. At all costs
they must avoid being assimilated by the majority. In order to
resist assimilation, they must group themselves geographically,
forming areas of high Muslim concentration within the population as
a whole. Yet they must also interact with non-Muslims so as to
share the message of Islam with them. Every Muslim individual is
required to participate in the plan; it is not allowed for anyone
simply to live as a "good Muslim" without assisting the overall
strategy. The ultimate goal of this strategy is that the Muslims
should become a majority and the entire nation be governed
according to Islam. (M. Ali Kettani "The Problems of Muslim
Minorities and their Solutions" in Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim
States (London: Islamic Council of Europe, 1980) pp.96-105)
Not all Muslims would support this action plan. The more
secularized are happy to become integrated within the majority
society...it is not hard to recognize the different stages of the
Islamic Council of Europe's strategy being put into practice within
today's Europe...Sweden's third largest city, Malmø, is effectively
ruled by violent gangs of Muslims...
Numerous websites have picked up on this; a poster to one site
presents the first paragraph above as being a direct quote from
Kettani's essay, which it's not.
I had time only to browse the book as a whole, but I did manage to
read the Kettani essay, which I noted that Sookhdeo refrained from
quoting directly. Firstly, it should be noted that the book has a
global context: as well as Muslim immigrants in the West, it deals
with historic Muslim minorities in places like India, and with
locations where Muslims have to deal with hostility - particularly
the USSR. Some of the material in the book is arguable - there is a
defence of Muslim Personal Law for Muslims in India, and the way
the authors contrast Islam's universal values with the "ethnic
religions" of Judaism and Hinduism is problematic. However, the
essays do not speak with a monolithic voice, and, while the
perspective is conservative, the tone, although slightly preachy,
is moderate. Here's what Kettani (who was the Special Advisor on
Muslim Minorities to the General Secretary of the Islamic
Conference, Jeddah) actually writes:
Once a Muslim finds himself in a non-Muslim environment it becomes
his Islamic duty to get organized with other Muslims...Islam is a
'social religion' in the sense that a person cannot become a Muslim
unless he actively cares about his Muslim brothers...The
organization should not be an elitist gathering consisting only of
those who are the 'best' Muslims. (97-98)
To Sookhdeo, this becomes
Every Muslim individual is required to participate in the plan; it
is not allowed for anyone simply to live as a "good Muslim" without
assisting the overall strategy.
Is the Rev Sookhdeo also indifferent as to whether Christians ought
to come to church, or to socialise together? And by adding "not
allowed", of course, Sookhdeo hints at some kind of coercion -
which is not suggested in the essay.
Kettani also has some negative things to say about assimilation,
although it's clear from the context he means assimilation as
complete dissolution into the majority way of life:
It is the "Organization" of the Muslim minority that can help it
resist the different assimilative trends. In order to be able to do
so, the community should have, geographically speaking, some area
of concentration...Moreover, social interaction between Muslims
should be kept as a maximum all the time, not only at the mosque,
but also by exchange of visits by families [etc]... (103)
As a practice to maintain a minority identity, this is hardly
sinister or even surprising. Of course Muslims don't want their
children abandoning their heritage - and the same is true of
members of most minority groups (particularly religious groups)
anywhere. To paint this as some sort of covert "strategy" is
unwarranted. Kettani also writes that:
Islamically, it will not harm the Muslim community to absorb the
characteristics that are not contrary to Islamic principles. Some
of these characteristics are: the learning of the language of the
majority;...the wearing of its dress, if it does not violate the
decency of dress advocated by Islam; and the absorption of minor
social habits that are Islamically unobjectionable. (102-103)
Not exactly enthusiastic, but again unexceptionable. One statement
Sookhdeo could have made something of follows:
Muslims should continue to believe that Islam is the only true
religion and that all other religions, as stated in the Holy
Qur'an, will be rejected by the Creator. (103)
But I suppose many Christians think the same thing about their
religion, so Sookhdeo discretely passes this by. Instead, he fixes
on the following:
However, Islamically, a Muslim community cannot be enclosed in a
ghetto-like mentality. It should be capable of interacting with
members of the non-Muslim community so as to fulfil its duty of
da'wah...A Muslim community should try to move from a position of
mere defensive concerns, and try to spread the message of Islam
outside the community. If successful, such a community would grow
constantly in influence and numbers as to become a majority
community in course of time. (103-104)
The Christian Sookhdeo finds it a bad sign that Kettani believes
his religion to be true and would like to see more people follow
it. Kettani also argues that Muslims should seek official
recognition as an "entity" - pointing out that various groups enjoy
official status in particular countries, such as Jews and Roman
Catholics in Sweden.
In all, Kettani's essay is somewhat limited in outlook - but it's
far from being the kind of sinister and conspiratorial document
which Sookhdeo would have us believe it to be. And as for this
being "the Islamic Council of Europe's strategy", that is simply
untrue if you look at the book as a whole. Another essay, by Syed
Z. Abedu, is more progressive. He calls for:
A total reconstruction of our mental attitudes and social
behaviour...There is nothing wrong in emphasising in what ways we
are different, or what is unique about us. But we also need
sometimes to focus on our common humanity. (25)
...[the Muslim minority's] destiny is, to a considerable extent,
interwoven and interlocked with that of their countrymen. (26)
Abedu also takes a more liberal line on the validity of other
religions (35). Sookhdeo, however, doesn't feel the need to include
any of this in his "analysis", since that would undermine his
scaremongering purpose.
Ismail R. Faruqi, meanwhile, suggests that just as non-Muslims in
Muslim states have certain obligations, but also rights, the same
should be true in the non-Muslim world:
The principle is that just as dhimmis have to submit to and support
the Islamic state, of which they have covenanted to be members, the
Muslim minority ought to submit to and support the alien state in
which they have taken residence. (60-61)
Of course, from a modern secular perspective this again has
limitations, but once more we can see that this is a long way from
the false impression created by Sookhdeo, who has concocted a silly
conspiracy theory designed to spread fear and resentment of Muslim
communities based on an obscure and unremarkable book published
nearly thirty years ago.
For Sookhdeo's cheerleader Chuck Colson, the moral of the story is
doubtless that Americans should be fearful of Europe and of
immigrants, and should re-assert Christianity as the culture of the
USA. However, he's not the only one to have been inspired by
Sookhdeo's essay; the website of the far-right British National
Party also tells its readers about the sinister book "published in
1980 by the Islamic Council of Europe." (1)
But even if Sookhdeo had managed to find a text truly preaching
separatism and hostility toward the majority community (and
doubtless such works exist somewhere), what exactly would that
prove anyway? We know why minority communities usually tend to
congregate together: to protect cultural and religious heritage, to
maintain kinship links, and because such communities offer networks
of support which make life easier. To see the existence of Muslim
communities as some kind of "strategy" to "achieve
dominion" (Colson's term) is both paranoid and sociologically
illiterate.
The dangers of Islamic extremism are real, and valid concerns
should not be dismissed as "Islamophobia". However, efforts to
understand the growth and baneful influence of Islamism are not
helped by disinformation and distortion such as that in which
Sookhdeo and Colson indulge.
(1) bnp.org.uk/columnists/chairman2.php?ngId=27
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