Lord Ahmed

Chairman I would like to begin by thanking St. Antony's college and also congratulating them for organising this excellent conference. The success of the conference can be seen that even on Saturday afternoon at five o'clock, almost everybody's here. That's evidence that everybody's is either enjoying the conference or that there're no trains until 7 o'clock. Since 9/11, I've attended many conferences on clash of civilisations, dialogue of civilisations and many other conferences regarding the role of Muslims in the UK and also around the world. So this is quite a different conference that we are looking at Muslims in Europe. I have to say that it feels almost that when you have 90 percent men looking at women's affairs, I've not seen many Muslim speakers here who have actually experienced the sort things that we've talked about in the last two days. But after 9/11 I do remember that the imam of Kaaba issued a statement condemning the events of 9/11 and Muslim parliamentarians in Britain, we also issued a statement, as well as councillors, community leaders and organisations. Peter was saying, earlier on, that there many people saying, "Where are these moderate Muslim voices?" or moderate Muslims. Baroness Thatcher also criticised all of us, and I cannot understand when I've been standing in the House of Lords as well as my other colleagues, condemning acts of terrorism and sympathising with those people who lost their lives. But I think that after 9/11 Muslims have almost been apologetic for the very small minority who have done acts of terror in the name of Islam. And we've almost been put against the wall and the hard rock. All of us, our loyalties have been questioned, they has really been fear and Islam and Muslims being under focus. However, Muslims have also been feeling a little bitter as well, because there wasn't the same expectation from the Pope or the church leaders when there was the massacre of Muslims in Bosnia, for instance, or the three and a half thousand Taliban prisoners of war that were locked up in containers and killed before the American soldiers. Islam has been demonised, sometimes has become interchangeable with terrorism. The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, you've seen the report, has given lists of attacks on Muslims around Europe and here in Britain we've seen mosques that have been burnt down in Batley, in Barnsley, in Southampton and there've been many many attacks, physical, attacks, violent attacks on the Muslim community. I think that media and some politicians have been the main offenders of this. Media has continuously used the terminology "Islamic terrorists", "Islamic jihad", "Islamic militants" and when they've been describing Muslims who have been involved in any acts of terror, while IRA, Spanish separatists, Tamil Tigers, Jewish settlers who have been killing Palestinians, Hindu VHP or even the Christians themselves of Sudan. Nobody has been mentioned as a religious category of terrorist, but they have been named by themselves. In fact, in the House of Lords we had a debate two weeks ago on international terrorism and interfaith response, which was called by the Bishop of Oxford. And what was amazing was the fact that every speaker, who spoke, mentioned Islam and some of them even quoted from the Koran. And it was almost saying that all international terrorism is perpetrated by Muslims who had some linking with Islam. The suicide bombers that are usually mentioned in the British newspapers and this outrageous statement that 72 virgins are waiting for the martyrs, which is continuously used by right wing newspapers, the concept of suicide bombing is not an invention of Islam, but in fact Japanese pilots and Tamil Tigers who are practising this a very long time before the Palestinians or others have been involved. In fact suicide is haram, in fact that sexual relationship does not exist in heaven, so the concept of 72 virgins – what good are they if you can't do anything? But it's a way to demonise the religion and the Muslim community. And what this has done is it has given support to British National Party, for instance, they are putting more candidates up on first of May than ever before than in the last 15-20 years in Britain and, of course, it gives racists a chance to attack Muslims. Here you have a strange combination of allies, even Hindu organisations and Hindu leaders have sort of come out and said that they no longer want to be described as 'Asians', they want Muslims to be defined as Muslims and so they have nothing to do with Asians, for instance, in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford. And I remember the Asian Radio Sunrise, although their main slogan is "The best Asian sound radio in the world," but they refuse to say Asian mobs or Asian young men have been involved in any of the riots in the north, because they wanted them to call them Muslims or Pakistanis or defined themselves so that they are not related to the Hindu community. We understand that the leadership of British National Party have been in touch with certain groups of Hindu and, of course, Sikh communities, as well, to campaign in elections and co-ordinate their campaigns, and of course they're no friends of Hindus either, the BNP. The result the media has also, if you go back to the war in Afghanistan, Mazar e Sharif [ed: chk spelling], was a classic example when an organisation, I don't want to mention their name, because for the last two days I've been listening to names, you've been giving too much credibility to these organisations, really out of 1200 Mosques, I only know of two or three mosques where they've been allowed to pray and thank god that they've been thrown out of Finsbury park as well. And yet the British media were writing stories about these five British Muslims who have gone in Afghanistan to fight against British forces. And in fact that there were so many different stories, linkages of young men who had been trained in the mosques and young men who going to fight against our British soldiers and then five days later, all those five young men appeared in Islamabad and said that they'd survived, apparently they said that they were killed. But obviously we didn't see any apology or correction to what was reported wrongly, but what also has been quite offensive is when politicians have been linking terrorism, religious festivals, Muslim communities and if you can recall on eid, last eid, Eid al-Adha, the Home Secretary ordered the army to go into Heathrow Airport because there was real threat of terrorists attacking. That was the first time ever we had army, except once when the IRA actually launched an attack on an airport, but throughout the time when IRA was bombing London and Manchester and elsewhere, we didn't have any army personnel at the airports. Here we had the Home Secretary, and it was really quite offensive to many Muslims, on a day when Muslims are celebrating eid and they've been to hajj and then suddenly the Home Secretary says, well, we have very credible information on this particular day, because they are celebrating, of course. It's like the awful day of Bali bombing, I remember watching CNN news, there was a Hindu specialist on terrorism that came on television and he was asked why he though al-Qaeda was involved and why these Indonesian organisations were linked with al-Qaeda and he said, "You know, they read the same holy book. And they pray to the same god. And they pray five times a day" and that's a very clear linkage with this organisation that is responsible. And it's almost like when you're celebrating eid you have to blow up an airport as well and that was very sad. Even Finsbury Park Mosque. I am one of those who called for an investigation many, many months before 9/11. I've been calling it in public to say that, you know, these people are giving a bad name to Muslim communities as well as Britain, they need to be investigated. The way it was done, the timing of it and when it was done, with 150 officers and helicopters, and what did we actually find? Empty can of CS gas and a toy gun and one person was prosecuted for having illegal documents as an illegal immigrant. All this, what it does it demonised the rest of the Muslim community. What it does is when you see pictures of a mosque being raided and the first headlines basically talk about terrorist have been hiding in a mosque and they've been training and they've got equipment and, of course, that creates fear within communities and every mosque is then looked upon with suspicion that all mosques are being used as training grounds. I think that out of all the European leaders, perhaps Prime Minister Blair has been the best since 9/11, frankly except the war on Iraq, if I could just say that he has been praised by the Muslim community because of his knowledge of Koran and what he said, Tony Blair and all his ministers have been continuously saying that Islam is a peaceful religion, has nothing to do with terrorism, etc, etc. Their actions, some of their actions have been quite positive as well, the way they went to Al Khoi Foundation, Prime Minister Blair, but he also visited many other organisations and invited Muslims to make them feel that they are part of the society and that they're not being alienated after 9/11. I feel that although I've been pessimistic with the sort of things that I mentioned earlier on, nevertheless as a Muslim we have more rights in the UK than anywhere else in the world. I have to say that as British Muslim identity, I'll just quickly say that those people who think that because of this identity change from being Pakistani Muslim, Indian Muslim to British Muslim a natural change, because those people who came from Pakistan and India, they were classing themselves as Pakistani British, but those who are born in this country, they have a new identity. And this has been a struggle when they have been inserted there, they have new identities, they have been certain problems as well. In Britain today we have six parliamentarians, five mayors, leaders of councils, two hundred councillors plus hundred schools and where else in the world where you can have somebody who arrives as a bus driver and has a billion pound turnover like Sir Anwar Pervez’s Bestways Cash and Carry. I mean as far as, yes, we have problems in law, Maleiha Malik and all her colleagues talked about it this morning, yes we have problems of racism, but I have to say, I can conclude on this that in Britain, as British Muslims, I think that the future is good. There are social problems, there are underachievement, high unemployment, social exclusion, social deprivation have all been mentioned in the last two days. They need to be dealt with and they need to be dealt with as communities who are unemployed with high employment and underachievement, but once those communities can be economically made better where there is economic regeneration and community regeneration in those communities, I think that British Muslims will clear a path as their forefathers have done in making Britain the fourth richest country in the world and I am sure that is also a role, a positive role that Muslims will play in Europe as well. Thank you.