Her latest objective is all about less confrontation, more moderation, a word we don’t readily associate with her. Over the past weeks she has watched the Muslim demonstrations following the publication of the Muhammad cartoons with mounting horror.
Seeing marches turn ugly, mullahs pronouncing and embassies blazing, precipitated a personal crisis: “As a person who wants to live here, in a tolerant country as a British Muslim, I couldn’t understand the hatred that some people have.”
At the same time Abu Hamza, the preacher from Finsbury Park mosque, was jailed for seven years for inciting murder and race hate. “I want to say to people like him, ‘Why are you living in the West? Why don’t you go and live in Saudi Arabia?’
“Being a Muslim in Britain is different from being a Muslim in other countries. I am all for peaceful demonstration. If you live in this country there are democratic ways to behave. If you don’t like it, then go and live in a Muslim country.”
Khan believes there is an urgent need for mainstream Islam to speak out. Ever the businesswoman, she would “build a new brand”. Our images of Muslims are skewed, she argues.
On one hand we see the mad mullahs who represent fundamentalists; the other the moderates such as Sir Iqbal Sacranie, leader of the Muslim Council of Britain. But both, and we’re talking broad brush here, are swarthy old men with beards. “We need to rebrand Islam and present a different face. The Muslim council is very important as an organisation but I’m not sure that it means a lot to young British Asians.”
She wants high-profile Muslims such as Imran Khan and the boxer Amir Khan to join forces with her in raising the profile of those who keep the faith — but not too vehemently. Some of them may pray regularly, attend the mosque, forswear pork, but do touch alcohol.
“People like Tony Blair should seek out role models like me who appeal to the majority of people to head up a taskforce. I want British Muslims to be the examples for moderates all around the world.
“I want that group to include women and a cross-section of the Muslim community, not just middle-aged men in beards who were not even born in this country."
2 comments:
Hey Richard,
Nice to see the debate continues on KKRP. Just a word of warning on that article. Sir Iqbal Sacranie isn't at all moderate, -only when compared to Abu Hamza. A few years back Iqbal was calling for the death of British-Indian author Salman Rushdie a for a novel he wrote ...see here for more on the 'satanic verses' controversy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie
There are quite a few interesting parallels between this and the 'cartoons' controversy.
Hope all's well with you
Steve
Yeah, I had heard that about this Iqbal guy, but at least he's "better" than Abu Hamza. Didn't know it was him who called for Rushdie's death. How soon people forget, eh? Though I'm sure Rushdie hasn't forgotten that!
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