Rights Is Not A One-Way Street

I recently published the following article in The Muslim News

All of us seem to be obsessed with rights these days. Muslims too have quite rightly been demanding equal rights in British society, but this seems to be at the expense of the Islamic duty of ensuring that other Britons are at ease with us.

Everyone's favourite phrase these days begins with the words "It is my right to..." Particularly familiar sounding will be statements such as: "It is my right to offend other people". Others include: "It is my right to criticise", "It is my right to blaspheme" and even "It is my right to burn flags". We define ourselves by the rights we have. We see how far we can push the boundaries and in a mad rights-lust frenzy, we're out to secure as many rights for ourselves as we can.

Prophet Muhammed stated in the 7th century, "Surely God has a right over you, your self has a right over you and your wife has a right over you." Extrapolating from this, his great grandson Ali the son of al Husayn, wrote a document entitled The Treatise on Rights (Risalatul Huquq), as an exposition of the Islamic view of rights. Rather than starting with the rights of the individual, it starts at the opposite point of view - the rights of almost everyone you can imagine, over the individual.

Composed of only fifty paragraphs, each section is headed "The right of...", its essence being to describe the right of a person over you. For example, amongst a wife's rights is that her husband should "be a good companion" that he should "care for her" and he should "let her know that she is a comfort." One of a child's rights is that the parent should "teach good conduct". Mothers, fathers and siblings have rights, as do leaders, followers, lawyers, business partners, advisors, people you sit next to. Even someone who is kind to you has the right "that you should thank them."

In such a model - one that is conceptualised around defining the rights that other people have over you - we learn to be more measured and more compassionate. So why do we as a whole society insist on dogmatically asserting our rights (as though they were a god to be appeased), and deliberately stripping the courtesy and empathy out of our culture? Stepping back from the cartoon controversy earlier this year, I had to ask myself, as a country are we really fighting for the right to be as rude and offensive to other people as we can be? We can certainly disagree, and even do so passionately, but why the need - on all sides - to insult people?

The last few weeks have seen an increasing spotlight on the Muslim community. "Why are Muslims always in the news? All they do is demand their rights! Why can't they just get on with it?" These are common sentiments.

Making up only 3% of the population, Muslims get an awfully disproportionate amount of media coverage. Most of it is not by choice, and is at the hands of a selective media. For example, on the day that the press reported Jack Straw's comments about the veil, the police discovered the largest stash of chemicals ever found in this country, along with rocket launchers and a nuclear biological suit in the houses of two men in Lancashire. The media had determined that the veil was more frightening than two white BNP members who had a destructive 'masterplan' and the technology to carry it out.

The Muslim community split into two camps over the issue of the veil: those who cried "Discard the cloth and integrate!" and those who defended the veil as a matter of a woman's choice. Alas, the way that the debate panned out, we didn't hear the shades of grey between the two. More to the shame of the Muslim community was that we totally missed the fact that people said they felt 'uncomfortable' seeing or talking to women who wear veils. We got huffy. Why should people feel uncomfortable? If a woman wants to wear a veil, it's her choice. And indeed it is. Muslims certainly had a right to insist they would wear the veil if they chose to.

But we missed honouring a right which is as important as the right of women choosing to veil: the right of our neighbours to feel comfortable and at ease. Every right has an accompanying responsibility, and in this case the Muslim community did not step up to the mark.

As a collective society, we could and should have found a way to honour both rights. Instead we all chose to entrench our positions and only insist on what we wanted, not what others wanted. More generosity and less selfishness were called for all round.

If Muslim women want to wear a veil then Muslims must first acknowledge that veils can make people uncomfortable. This doesn't mean what people are saying is necessarily right, and it doesn't necessarily mean giving up the veil. But we have to at least recognise these feelings and assume that at least for some people this is a genuine concern. Once this is done, then we''e making progress. The next step is to find ways to alleviate this discomfort within the parameters of maintaining the dignity and principles of everyone involved.

Let's be frank though, people do complain that all Muslims do is "want, want, want". So we need to ask ourselves, why is that? Without doubt some of it lies within the hostile climate we're living in, and I wrote about this in my last piece (and boy, did I get a heated debate about it on my blog afterwards). But whether that is right or wrong, as Muslims we need to find out why this image exists. Simply using modern day rhetoric ("if they feel uncomfortable that's their problem") is not mature enough, and it isn't Muslim enough. As Muslims we need to go beyond this and bring something new to the table.

As Muslims we have a responsibility - other people have rights over us - to dispel the fear and work towards building a human connection. Muslims need to look to their own heritage within the Islamic tradition and learn about honouring the rights of others. In this case our neighbours have the right to feel safe. We can't say that the fact they are fearful is their problem, not ours. It is our problem. Most importantly, for our neighbours and for ourselves, they have the right to know Muslims for truly who we are. Not hidden, not alien, not violent, not backwards, not blinded by faith. Muslims have to see the irony and futility in the act of burning flags to prove we're not violent. Surely conversation with your neighbour over the fence about last night's football match is a better way to create a human connection and to get your message across?

On the other hand, Muslims face a huge amount of disadvantage, discrimination and prejudice. There is much work to be done to redress these imbalances. Muslims have a right to ask for these equalities which are already enjoyed by others, and they have the right to ask for the hostile media and political climate to be halted. If a Muslim asks for a right in the UK, the merit of that request must not be judged by comparison to what non-Muslims can and can't do in Muslim countries. Muslims in this country are British Muslims and cannot be held to ransom for what happens elsewhere.

Muslims must be accepted as part of "our country" and "our way" and this can only be done if everyone involved stops digging their heels in and myopically demanding only their own rights, instead of learning to honour the rights of others. We all choose to live in Britain, and we all wish to be part of building a better British community.