If I were to talk freely I would say that I want an Islamic state, that I hope one day to see Britain or the US be a Muslim country. Not perhaps in the sense that everyone here has 'converted' to Islam, or it is run under some interpretation of Islamic Law, but perhaps in the sense that it is felt to be okay to live a fulfilling life here in harmony with the teachings of Islam. I would say I want my children to have access to halal food as easily as people today have access to non-halal food, and that they would find it easy to pop into the local mosque for prayers during the day. I want, most of all that they do not feel out of place, different, alien, in the land which has been their home since birth.
At the moment I, and I know from experience many others, do not feel this is possible. The wider society has taken to regarding us no longer as part of mainstream life, but rather as the Them in Us and Them. This isn't a war on islam, they say, nor is it against mainstream 'moderate' muslims, as they would define it, it is only against 'political' islam, against 'radicalisation'.
The sad truth in these comments are what anyone with some sense of the way in which people are treated already know, that 'moderate' muslims in their eyes are muslims that don't object to discrimination, don't put up a fight. Those that do, who object at racism, discrimination, abuse, and intolerance are seen as part of the hated 'political' islam.
Those who dare to go one step further and have an independent opinion on their country's foreign policy as it relates to Muslims abroad are seen as 'radicalized'. It seems to be Muslim in Britain and reassure the media, one must shackle oneself, and tear out one's throat.
Those who do not risk severe political penalties, and I refer here not to those who posture on Facebook/MySpace/Bebo with their transient groups and networking events with champagne glasses, pinstripe suits and intense smugness about how 'commited' they are to the 'cause', cannot understand what they have to lose, and more poignantly what they have already lost.
They don't feel the fear because they are not used to making any real difference, and have worked so hard to 'fit in' and mix in the 'right circles' that they have no idea what the free form of true islamic society is like, they have to substitute stitched linen for sincerity, sipping schloer from their flutes they worry about the security of the financial markets and their career prospects. Truly they are the House Negroes of today.
For those who recall their history, you will know of Malcolm X's reference to the House Negro who collaborates with slave masters to oppress of his fellow slaves, often without realizing the harm he is doing. The master reviling them still as inferior treat them as they would any other cherished pet which can perform tricks, and can be sicked onto their own kind. The field Negro on the other hand lives in the field, he knows the full extent of their cruelty because he can see it's shape, feel the suffering, and watch his loved ones torn to pieces by it day after day. They understand that when the masters house is burning, they should rejoice. Not weep beside the master like the House negro. In all important respects this analogy is as true today of muslims under the war on terror as it was for blacks under slavery's legacy a few short 40 years ago.
The Field Muslims are those who desperately need the change, who perhaps haven't felt its power, but have felt its promise. Their imams speak of a better world, a fairer world, a world without persecution, without concentration camps, without the injustice abroad and at home, about acceptance at school, at work, about family and the street.
The reality of these places, those faces who listen with rapt attention know beyond words what is meant by the justice of islam there, for they can see what the world should be like, and how it falls short. So they take the risks, not at tables, over drinks, but at the roadside by picking up the bleeding beggars and taking them to hospital. By staying late to help the teachers at school. By starting quranic circles, or by thinking about the shape of their lives. These are small changes, but even the emerald isle is covered with but single blades of grass.
It is particularly easy to be dismissive when sitting in an armchair and feeling expansive about the abstract evils of the world, the concrete good seems unreal somehow, the rain outside demotivates us, and we find it hard to imagine an existence elsewhere where a family is enjoying their first afternoon under their own new shelter, or elsewhere a person learns to read, or count, or further where a doctor sparing some time cures a child of some crippling disease and sees her smile.
It's hard to imagine those worlds when their progress is priceless, yet real, when our world is only real because of it's price.
The fault of our own chosen delusions.
Slaves only stop being slaves when they put down the tools for their oppressors, and pick them up again for themselves. We throw away what we don't need, and we fashion what our hearts desire from the ability of all muslims in this society to speak, to listen, to work together, and to share our ideas, our work, our homes, and our hearts. Keeping things concrete, working on the real, and watching the world take shape, filling out our communities with the missing pieces suddenly makes the government, the police, the politicians, and the administrators... our oppressors... recede.
There is no point asking your oppressor for freedom, your right to live free. They can't give you our own opinion of yourself, your own consciousness. When you know you are equal, always have been, and have been wronged... that is when the oppressor steps back, for you are no longer a slave, and your chains are broken.
I'm not saying we should react to the injustices in our society with further injustice, just that we have lives to live, communities to grow, and love to share amongst ourselves. The freed slaves didn't destroy America, neither did India declare war on the UK. Our destination is Paradise not vengeance, those who oppress us will be punished, in this life or the next.
Our only task is to live free.
Knowing Dr Ahmed personally, and having been invited personally to that particular book launch speech in Imperial College London earlier last year I was able to ask him in front of the audience which of the 'three types of muslims' he himself was. My old friend seemed slightly taken aback by this but recovered admirably to say that he was a 'modern muslim' and thus Aligarth. Unfortunately as a lot of the audience there realized, he was simply transposing the dove-myself-hawk model found in all high-school grade textbooks onto the islamic world.
It's what you do when you've been raised from birth to speak English, drink tea, wear neatly pressed oxford suits, and speak with the Oxford Voice. There is nothing wrong with any of these things however there is nothing intrinsically Islamic in any of these either, and there lies the point. He confused culture with religion, moral choices with historical trends, and in so doing provided an array of platitudes for his audience. He is a very nice man, very intelligent, and very kind. He is also a House Muslim in every sense of the word. Malcolm X would have called him a tame nigger, and while I would have objected, I can see why the term would stick in the minds of those unfamiliar with his sincerity.
The remaining authorities cited for a 'solution' to the 'islamic problem' are from the Christian Science Monitor, and a US Navy Lieutenant with too much time on his hands. Both trying to crawl their way out of obscurity. Throw in some inflammatory rhetoric, some distorted press pieces, and scarcely veiled hatred of Islam, and voila... one completely ineffectual writeup from =b=.