Ef þig langar til að lifa undir sharia lögum, flyttu þá til Saudi!!

Mig langar til að vekja athygli á góðri grein sem ég var að lesa á TheTimesOnline .  Greinin er skrifuð af Shahid Malik, þingmanni fyrir breska Verkamannaflokkinn. Umræðuefnið er staða múslima í Bretlandi og þá sérstaklega núna stuttu eftir viðamiklar handtökur á meintum hryðjuverkamönnum.  Shahid Malik er múslimi og sendir í greininni trúbræðrum sínum nokkuð harkalega tóninn.

Hér eru nokkur dæmi úr greininni:

"Last Tuesday, after a 90-minute meeting with John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, to discuss the challenges of extremism and foreign policy, I emerged and was immediately asked by the media whether I agreed that what British Muslims needed were Islamic holidays and sharia (Islamic law). I thought I had walked into some parallel universe.

Sadly this was not a joke. These issues had apparently formed part of the discussion the day before between Prescott, Ruth Kelly, the communities minister, and a selection of “Muslim leaders”. I realised then that it wasn’t me and the media who were living in a parallel universe — although certain “Muslim leaders” might well be."

"Maybe they thought that the entire plot and threat were the “mother of all smokescreens”, a bid to divert our attention from the killing fields of Lebanon. Or maybe it was another symptom of that epidemic that is afflicting far too many Muslims: denial. Out of touch with reality, frightened to propose any real solutions for fear of “selling out”, but always keen to exact a concession — a sad but too often true caricature of some so-called Muslim leaders.

Other members of the Muslim community I am sure would have cringed as I did when listening to Dr Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary-general of the Union of Muslim Organisations of the UK and Ireland, who explained his demand for sharia and more holidays: “If you give us religious rights we will be in a better position to convince young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens.” He has done much good work over the years but this is clearly not one of his better moments."

"As I have repeatedly said, in this world of indiscriminate terrorist bombings, where Muslims are just as likely to be the victims of terrorism as other British and US citizens, we Muslims have an equal stake in fighting extremism. Hundreds of Muslims died on 9/11 and 7/7. But more importantly, given that these acts are carried out in the name of our religion — Islam — we have a greater responsibility not merely to condemn but to confront the extremists. In addition to being the targets of terrorism, Muslims will inevitably be the targets of any backlash."

"So too, unfortunately, did the comments of some of the “Muslim leaders” who demanded sharia for British Muslims rather than the existing legal system. The call for special public holidays for Muslims was unnecessary, impracticable and divisive. Most employers already allow their staff to take such days out of their annual leave. And what about special holidays for Sikhs, Hindus, Jews? If we amended our laws to accommodate all such requests, then all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wouldn’t be able to put our workplaces and communities back together again."

"In Britain there are no laws that force Muslims to do something against sharia and Muslims enjoy the freedom to worship and follow their religion, as do all other faiths. Compare Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, a sharia regime where women are forbidden to drive; or Turkey, a secular country where women are forbidden to wear the hijab; or Tunisia, where civil servants are forbidden to wear a beard.

I believe that as a Muslim there is no better place to live than Britain. That doesn’t mean that all in the garden is rosy; often Islamophobia is palpable. But my message is: whether you are white, Asian, black, Muslim, Christian or Jew, if you don’t like where you’re living you have two choices: either you live elsewhere, or you engage in the political process, attempt to create change and ultimately respect the will of the majority.

When Lord Ahmed, the Muslim Labour peer, heard my comments — I said essentially that if Muslims wanted sharia they should go and live somewhere where they have it — he accused me of doing the BNP’s work. He is entitled to his opinion. However, a little honesty, like mine, in this whole debate might just restore trust in politicians and ease the population’s anxieties."

Since I made my remarks my office has been overwhelmed with support. I also know that some Muslims feel uncomfortable, not necessarily because they disagree but because they feel targeted. But what I want to say to my fellow British Muslims is that in this country we enjoy freedoms, rights and privileges of which Muslims elsewhere can only dream. We should appreciate that fact and have the confidence to fulfil the obligations and responsibilities as part of our contract with our country and as dictated by sharia law."

Allar feitletranir eru höfundar þessa blogs.

Það gerir þessa grein örlítið merkilegri en ella að það er múslimi sem skrifar.  Ekki er ótrúlegt að ef einhver annarar trúar hefði skrifað slíka grein, hefði "rasistastimpillinn" fljótt komið á loft hjá mörgum. 

En það er þarft að hugleiða hvað breskir (og aðrir) múslimar vilja.  Hvers óska þeir af þeim þjóðfélögum sem þeir búa í?  Hvernig á það að geta gengið að sumir þegnar ríkis búi við önnur lög? 

Einn af mínum uppáhaldsdálkahöfundum Margaret Wente skrifaði dálk fyrir nokkrum dögum sem snertir þetta sama málefni.  Þar sagði hún meðal annars: 

"And now the battle over passenger profiling rages anew.

After last week, the French, Dutch and German authorities all want much more of it. So do the British public — 55 per cent, according to a recent survey. “I'm a white, 62-year-old, 6-foot-4-inch suit-wearing ex-cop,” wrote Lord Stevens, London's influential former police chief. “I fly often, but do I really fit the profile of a suicide bomber? Does the young mum with three tots? The gay couple, the rugby team, the middle-aged businessman? No. But they are all getting exactly the same amount [of security checks] and devouring huge resources for no logical reason whatsoever.”

Predictably, his comments created a firestorm. The Muslim Council of Britain warned that any profiling — even behaviour profiling — would inevitably lead to discrimination and would alienate Britain's Muslims even more. One of Britain's most senior Muslim police officers warned that profiling would create a whole new offence of “travelling whilst Asian.”

In North America, profiling is anathema (although it's quietly practised in major airports, where security personnel are on the lookout for twitchy-looking travellers)."

"In Britain, cynicism about the new measures abounds, because in spite of last year's subway bombings, a lot of people think there was no airline plot. Many Muslims believe it was cooked up by the authorities to justify the war on Islam. (Friends and neighbours of the alleged plotters invariably describe them as quiet young men who couldn't possibly be guilty of such a thing.)

Cynicism is also prevalent in the salons of the left, who think the Bush-Blair axis of evil wants to deliberately distract us from its foreign-policy fiascos. Even some Canadians think the plot is a mirage. “Could it be that this whole thing was an orchestrated overreaction to steer public attention away from the difficulties facing the Bush-Tony Blair fight on terror?” wrote our own Sheila Copps last week.

The plot (or police conspiracy, or bungled roundup of the innocents) has lent urgency to the now familiar question: What do Muslims want? According to the sort of people who write in The Independent, they want better jobs and houses (although the jobs and houses of this group seem pretty good), an end to

Britain's evil foreign policy, and a culture with a higher moral tone in which Britons stop behaving like promiscuous drunken yobbos.

Unfortunately, a significant number of Muslims also believe that violence is acceptable if they don't get what they want. In one recent opinion poll, almost a quarter of British Muslims said the 7/7 bombings could be justified because of the government's support for the war on terror. Among those under 24, the figure was almost twice as high. A couple of weeks ago, all the leading Muslim groups published an open letter in the papers charging that the government's foreign policies were providing “ammunition to extremists.” This statement is clearly true. But it's not clear what foreign policies they want. Retreat from Afghanistan? Support for Hezbollah? Support for the extinction of Israel? Different takes on reality are a bit of a problem too.

Around half of British Muslims believe Sept. 11 was the result of an American-Israeli conspiracy. And a third say they would rather live under sharia law in the U.K. than British law. Among them is Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary-general of the Union of Muslim Organizations of the U.K. and Ireland. “If you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince [Muslim] young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens,” he said this week.

Mr. Pasha is described as a moderate. But there are also a few British Muslims — around 10 per cent — who won't be happy until everyone lives under sharia law. It's tough to imagine what kind of outreach will work for them."

Aftur eru allar feitleitranir gerðar af höfundi þessa blogs.

Greinina í heild má finna hér.

Athugasemdir

[Jón Valur Jensson, 21.8.2006 kl. 21:34]

Þakka þér árvökula fréttavaktina, Tómas. Þú stendur þig vel, og þetta bætir upp stórar gloppur í fréttaumfjöllun íslenzkra dagblaða.