Some years ago, Azhar Hussain, a technology entrepreneur from south London, came up with what he thought was a winning idea to improve the sometimes troubled relations between Muslims and their non-Muslim neighbours. His local mosque was situated in a deprived, mixed-race neighbourhood, and he suggested to its trustees that they set up a bursary that would pay for a young person to go through university. Crucially, it would be open to all, not just Muslims, the aim being to show that Muslims are not just interested in themselves. But the idea was turned down. The trustees, Hussain told me, couldn’t see beyond the fact they would be paying for someone from a rich country like Britain to go to college. The fact that their modest investment would lead to better community relations wasn’t really the issue. It was, all too predictably, a singular failure of vision.
A similar lack of vision was apparent in the response to news of the recent alleged terror plot. Britain is gripped by an understandable fear of a possible 9/11-style attack. Far too many Muslims blame government foreign policy. The government believes that influential Muslims aren’t doing enough to clamp down on extremism within their communities.
One of the problems we face in the search for better community relations is our insistence on sticking to the idea of the “community leader.” In a modern democracy, the idea that there is such a thing as a community leader and that he has the ability to prevent extremism among “his people” continues to be an important plank of government policy. But it needs rethinking.
Each time there is news of Muslim terrorism, ministers invite television cameras to film a cavalcade of mostly male Muslims who appear to have been summoned to explain themselves to government ministers. Astonishingly, Muslim peers and MPs such as Shahid Malik and Sadiq Khan allow themselves to be cast in this role. I try to imagine what must have been going through the minds of ministers in these meetings: there are these Muslim leaders, who act as a kind of authority on their young. If they tried harder, reminded them of their responsibilities to society, ordered them to attend lectures by moderate imams, their wayward young would come to heel.
Such a picture is hopelessly out of date. To begin with, high-profile Muslim leaders must accept that they have very little influence over violent criminals. And government should understand that command and control through third parties might be how you run an empire of sceptical Muslim subjects, but it isn’t a smart way to build a sense of belonging among sceptical Muslim citizens. Among other things, it allows Muslims to see themselves as separate from the rest of the society—which all too many would be happy to do.
The community leader, too, has to recognise that his job of trying to represent his community to those in authority is over. It will be hard, because some of them enjoy being snapped standing next to the prime minister or foreign secretary. But Muslim citizens can look after themselves, and, as MPs with Muslim constituents will confirm, all but the most marginalised know how to access the levers of power when they need to.
That is not to say there isn’t a role for community organisations—poverty, twisted ideas in theology, and community cohesion are all areas where the community leaders of today can become tomorrow’s pioneers. I was beginning to think that the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) understood this. In his valedictory speech in June to the organisation he helped to found, Iqbal Sacranie acknowledged that identity politics nurtures community self-interest, and that perhaps it was time for Muslims to think of “doing much more for the moral and social upliftment of society as a whole, rather than just for their own communities. It will mean replacing an inward-looking approach with greater engagement as individuals in the civil society around us.”
When the educationist Muhammad Abdul Bari was elected to replace Sacranie, one of his first initiatives was to announce a tour of Muslim Britain in an attempt to reconnect the MCB with its grassroots affiliates. In line with his predecessor’s speech, he should also include parish churches, pubs and town halls on his itinerary.
The fact remains that with each new terror revelation, the average British citizen does become a little more suspicious of the man with a long beard sitting next to him or her on the bus, or the neighbours who only take holidays in Pakistan. Yet Muslims in parliament, academia and the MCB, rather than thinking about how to reassure those who are afraid, seem merely to look around for someone to blame—and the easiest target is this country’s foreign policy.
Leadership is not just about leading communities. It must be about demonstrating citizenship, and about having a vision for the society you call your home.
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