We must not draw battle lines with the police
My black sense of humour is tickled by the idea of a police raid at dawn on a Muslim household. I imagine the police banging on the front door, and the occupants opening the door bright and cheery and saying "Aah, Officer! We're just having tea before morning prayers. Would you like to join us?"
In reality though, dawn raids, cordoning off streets, shootings, and hordes of police descending on a quiet community are not by any means humorous. I refer to the recent events in Forest Gate in London, where two men have been arrested, one of them shot, in circumstances still unknown.
The police claim there was credible evidence of chemical weapons, but have yet found nothing. It's difficult to assess at this time exactly why they launched this raid. Did they genuinely believe there was a threat, or were they maliciously fishing? Were they trying to stir up trouble where there was none, and re-inject fear into the local and wider populations?
It is quite acceptable for writers, commentators and bloggers to be cynical about the police's motives. However, it is quite another for someone like Yvonne Ridley, a member of the Respect party, to stand up in public and call for Muslims to withdraw co-operation from the police. Which is exactly what she did last night at a Respect party meeting, and this morning on national radio. And she wasn't even very convincing at that. It sounded more like headline grabbing than well-thought through civil disobedience.
She has drawn the battle lines between the Muslim community and the Police and wider society. She has gone out of her way to isolate Muslims, to assert victimhood, and ignite a war where we should be building bridges. I hope ordinary Muslims will continue to play their role in being observant members of society, and will exercise their civic duty in maintaining a well-policed community. Muslims have both rights and responsibilities to society and the police: rights to be protected, served and presumed innocent, responsibilities to support the police and ensure safety and justice are kept in tact.
Whether others are abusing their power, perpetuating Islamophobia, or any of a long list of complaints, Muslims must excel in being exemplars of civic conscience and duty. Our job is to be courageous in finding solutions, not mark out the field for a battle in which there will only be losers.
In reality though, dawn raids, cordoning off streets, shootings, and hordes of police descending on a quiet community are not by any means humorous. I refer to the recent events in Forest Gate in London, where two men have been arrested, one of them shot, in circumstances still unknown.
The police claim there was credible evidence of chemical weapons, but have yet found nothing. It's difficult to assess at this time exactly why they launched this raid. Did they genuinely believe there was a threat, or were they maliciously fishing? Were they trying to stir up trouble where there was none, and re-inject fear into the local and wider populations?
It is quite acceptable for writers, commentators and bloggers to be cynical about the police's motives. However, it is quite another for someone like Yvonne Ridley, a member of the Respect party, to stand up in public and call for Muslims to withdraw co-operation from the police. Which is exactly what she did last night at a Respect party meeting, and this morning on national radio. And she wasn't even very convincing at that. It sounded more like headline grabbing than well-thought through civil disobedience.
She has drawn the battle lines between the Muslim community and the Police and wider society. She has gone out of her way to isolate Muslims, to assert victimhood, and ignite a war where we should be building bridges. I hope ordinary Muslims will continue to play their role in being observant members of society, and will exercise their civic duty in maintaining a well-policed community. Muslims have both rights and responsibilities to society and the police: rights to be protected, served and presumed innocent, responsibilities to support the police and ensure safety and justice are kept in tact.
Whether others are abusing their power, perpetuating Islamophobia, or any of a long list of complaints, Muslims must excel in being exemplars of civic conscience and duty. Our job is to be courageous in finding solutions, not mark out the field for a battle in which there will only be losers.
posted by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at 23:59
1 Comments:
Yvonne Ridley started out as a tabloid journalist. She went to Afghanistan wearing a burqa... to get a story. And as you say, I'm sure that her statement was intended to get as much coverage from the press as possible. Just because she converted to Islam doesn't mean she changed aspects of her essential character.
She reminds me of another journalist, Peter Hitchens. In the late sixties, early seventies, he was a Trotskyist, and now he is on the right of politics. But despite his political "conversion" I don't think he's changed in certain ways: he was probably just as dogmatic and humourless, with the same air of barely suppressed rage back then.
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