Imtiaz Ameen: "Not in my name"
Imtiaz Ameen was Conservative candidate for Blackburn at the 2005 general election, is a former councillor in Dewsbury and writes a regular blog which you can read here. He is also a British Muslim.
He argues on his blog and on Conservative Home here that it was not in his name that Geert Wilders was refused entry into the UK.
While disagreeing strongly with Mr Wilders' views, Imtiaz argues that, "In refusing entry clearance to the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, the Government has scored a soft own goal. It should have allowed Mr Wilders into the country and let him speak at the event organised by Lord Pearson and Baroness Cox at the House of Lords where his film Fitna was also to be aired."
This was a very brave and reasonable piece by Imtiaz and there is an important lesson to be drawn from it: those who wish to criticise the decision to bar Mr Wilders should make sure to aim that criticism at the people who took that decision, e.g. the Labour government, and not at British Muslims.
All too often Muslims get wrongly blamed for the anti-democratic actions of people on the illiberal left who misuse the idea of respect for diversity as an excuse to ban or prevent actions they disagree with.
The classic example is attempts to block celebrations of Christmas by politically correct council officials. Such attempts are rather more rare than you might imagine from the press, but they do happen. In not a single one of the cases I have looked into did an attempt to ban Christmas celebrations originate with a Muslim or a member of any other non-christian faith.
And sometimes even where there isn't a hidden agenda of discrediting Christianity, people who are not themselves muslims manage to be "More Islamic than the Ayatollah" and go further than British muslims themselves actually want to avoid offending them, sometimes with unfortunate consequences.
In the vast majority of cases, proposals to restrict Christmas celebrations of rename them with some daft title like "Winterval" originate with an atheist or agnostic who is actually opposed to all religious celebrations but who raised the spectre of non-existent objections to celebrations of Christmas from other faiths as an excuse. By misrepresenting other faiths as being opposed to celebration of a Christian holiday, politically-correct atheists and agnostics have attacked religion in the name of diversity. The irony would be funny if the consequences for race relations were not so tragic.
In reality most British Muslims, along with Jews and Hindus and people of other faiths have no problem whatever with celebrations of Christmas.
Unfortunately the law of unintended consequences has struck, and what the politically-correct idiots who attack Christmas in the name of diversity have actually done is not to weaken religion but to boost racism and fascism. Some of the people who are cross about this kind of attack on Christian celebrations which are part of our British culture have bought into the excuse given and wrongly assume that the origin of these attacks is other religions in general and Islam in particular.
The consequences of this have included a rise in racial tension, in votes for parties such as the BNP, and incidents of racist abuse directed at members of minority groups.
It is extremely important not to assume that all members of minority groups are to blame either for the actions of a handful of islamic extremists, nor for the actions of the poltically-correct left.
He argues on his blog and on Conservative Home here that it was not in his name that Geert Wilders was refused entry into the UK.
While disagreeing strongly with Mr Wilders' views, Imtiaz argues that, "In refusing entry clearance to the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, the Government has scored a soft own goal. It should have allowed Mr Wilders into the country and let him speak at the event organised by Lord Pearson and Baroness Cox at the House of Lords where his film Fitna was also to be aired."
This was a very brave and reasonable piece by Imtiaz and there is an important lesson to be drawn from it: those who wish to criticise the decision to bar Mr Wilders should make sure to aim that criticism at the people who took that decision, e.g. the Labour government, and not at British Muslims.
All too often Muslims get wrongly blamed for the anti-democratic actions of people on the illiberal left who misuse the idea of respect for diversity as an excuse to ban or prevent actions they disagree with.
The classic example is attempts to block celebrations of Christmas by politically correct council officials. Such attempts are rather more rare than you might imagine from the press, but they do happen. In not a single one of the cases I have looked into did an attempt to ban Christmas celebrations originate with a Muslim or a member of any other non-christian faith.
And sometimes even where there isn't a hidden agenda of discrediting Christianity, people who are not themselves muslims manage to be "More Islamic than the Ayatollah" and go further than British muslims themselves actually want to avoid offending them, sometimes with unfortunate consequences.
In the vast majority of cases, proposals to restrict Christmas celebrations of rename them with some daft title like "Winterval" originate with an atheist or agnostic who is actually opposed to all religious celebrations but who raised the spectre of non-existent objections to celebrations of Christmas from other faiths as an excuse. By misrepresenting other faiths as being opposed to celebration of a Christian holiday, politically-correct atheists and agnostics have attacked religion in the name of diversity. The irony would be funny if the consequences for race relations were not so tragic.
In reality most British Muslims, along with Jews and Hindus and people of other faiths have no problem whatever with celebrations of Christmas.
Unfortunately the law of unintended consequences has struck, and what the politically-correct idiots who attack Christmas in the name of diversity have actually done is not to weaken religion but to boost racism and fascism. Some of the people who are cross about this kind of attack on Christian celebrations which are part of our British culture have bought into the excuse given and wrongly assume that the origin of these attacks is other religions in general and Islam in particular.
The consequences of this have included a rise in racial tension, in votes for parties such as the BNP, and incidents of racist abuse directed at members of minority groups.
It is extremely important not to assume that all members of minority groups are to blame either for the actions of a handful of islamic extremists, nor for the actions of the poltically-correct left.
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