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| Britain |
| The Foreign Office ought to be serving Britain, not radical Islam |
| 2006-07-09 |
| Nick Cohen, The Observer On Tuesday, three days before the anniversary of the 7/7 atrocities, the Prime Minister spoke simply and well to the Commons: 'If we want to defeat extremism, we have got to defeat its ideas and we have got to address the completely false sense of grievance against the West.' As we are fighting a battle of ideas between democracy and totalitarian religion as much as a military campaign, this was an obvious truth, albeit one that could do with greater repetition. 'I am probably not the person to go into the Muslim community,' he continued with realistic modesty. 'It's better that we mobilise the Islamic community itself to do this.' And again, his belief that the majority of Britain's Muslims don't want Islamist terror was no more than a statement of the obvious. A poll in the Times last week included the alarming finding that one in 10 British Muslims regarded the murderers of 7 July as 'martyrs', but also reported that 56 per cent said the government has not done enough to combat extremism, compared with 49 per cent of the general population. The prudent as well as the principled position is to prefer those who don't support 'martyrs' to those who do; to show solidarity with those who support democratic values rather than those who don't. How hard a choice is that for a British government? An easy enough decision for Tony Blair to make, it turns out, but a surprisingly difficult one for his unmanageable Foreign Office. This week will generate a lot of publicity for the longest and most revealing series of leaks from a government department I've seen in my career. For months, Martin Bright, the political editor of the New Statesman, has been receiving confidential Foreign Office documents almost daily with his morning post. On Friday at 7.30pm, Channel 4 will screen a documentary by Bright, Who Speaks for Muslims, which shows how the Foreign Office views the Islamist far right as potential allies. To accompany the programme, the Policy Exchange think-tank will publish 'When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries: the British State's Flirtation with Radical Islamism', a pamphlet stuffed with enough state secrets to induce coronary arrests in previously healthy MI5 officers. They describe the FO's attempts to woo the Arab Muslim Brotherhood, whose closest allies in Britain are the Muslim Association of Britain, and its south Asian counterpart, Jamaat-e-Islami, whose supporters are at the top of the Muslim Council of Britain. The mandarins reason that these groups are not part of al-Qaeda, which is true; that they are growing in power, which is regrettably true as well; and that they are composed of reasonable men with whom Britain can do business, which is palpable nonsense. The Muslim Brotherhood is an imperialist movement that wants to establish a Muslim empire in which laws will come from an early medieval holy book rather than the parliaments elected by mortal men and women. It is sexist because its clerics justify the beating and circumcision of women. It is homophobic because it justifies the execution of homosexuals. And it is psychopathic because it justifies the murders of apostates, any Jew in Israel and any British or American soldier in Iraq. Angus McKee, of the FO's Middle East and North Africa desk, thinks this gruesome record should be rewarded with large amounts of British taxpayers' money.'Given that Islamist groups are often less corrupt than the generality of the societies in which they operate,' he wrote, 'consideration might be given to channelling aid resources through them, so long as sufficient transparency is achievable.' And since January 2006, the FO has been engaging with the Muslim Brotherhood abroad while providing free passes for its clerics at home. Mockbul Ali, its Islamic issues adviser, whom Labour ministers treat with excessive deference, recommends that the brotherhood's favourite theologian, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, should be admitted to Britain, despite his sympathy for the judicial murder of homosexuals and free-thinkers. When Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, an MP in Bangladesh who preaches violent hatred against the West and Hindus, wanted to come to talk to British Muslims, Ali described him as a 'mainstream' figure. He isn't, he's a fantastically controversial figure among British Bengalis. Bright interviews Bengali leaders who regard him as a malign extremist and cannot understand why the Foreign Office wants him to preach Islamist radicalism to their children. Nor can a few clear voices in Whitehall. Sir Derek Plumbly, the British ambassador to Egypt and the only diplomat to emerge with credit from the affair, noted that there is no reason to expect that the Muslim Brotherhood will moderate its views because Britain appeases it. His masters confused 'engaging with the Islamic world' with 'engaging with Islamism', and ignored the policies of the Islamist far right as they did it. In doing so, they abandoned all the Muslims in Britain and the Islamic world who believe in the very values of 'democracy, freedom of expression, respect for human rights' Her Majesty's government is meant to uphold. |
| Posted by:john |
| #2 We've got the same problem. They're all bought and paid for. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-09 21:11 |
| #1 The British foreign office has long preferred Arabs and Muslims. The royals from all the little kingdoms and satrapys went to the same public schools after all, and they share a similar horror of the unwashed masses. Not to mention the Lawrence of Arabia effect. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-07-09 20:58 |