The International Islamic Climate Change Symposium: Khidr Shrugs

Climate Change is big trouble. As an Indian Muslim solar engineer from the USA put it to me recently, it will make what is happening in Syria look small in comparison. It is primarily a consequence of the system of fossil fuelled industrial development ushered in by European colonialism. The transformations required for human and non-human societies to address climate change with justice and dignity are pretty mind boggling.

Al Khaliq ( Creator), Al Bari ( Evolver), Al Musawwir (Fashioner)

The Muslim context is weird as ever. Let's think of it as a Qur'anicly ecological cosmology, and a set of growing embodied practices, traditions and texts in living connection to places, environments and peoples bearing a variety of colonial wounds, capabilities and power relations. Like much of the world, for the historical Ummah, the post1492 period has largely been one of political, intellectual and industrial annihilation at the hands and systems of European colonial aggression.

Add to this the reality that the Muslim position (Obese oil sheiks, national elites, NGO developmentees and diasporas aside) is largely still at the negatively impacted, trapped but perhaps unknowing victim level and you might say that, we have 'a lot of work to do'.

It is very important not to serve as the developmentor's developmentee.
Growing numbers of Islamic Society graduates don't seem to get it though.
( Source: The Developmentia Project)

Which is why I am not pouring green algae all over the International Islamic Climate Change Symposium that will take place next week in Istanbul, just a bit. After all, many critical minds within the UK Muslim community are legitimately pissed over a certain organiser's commitment to public relations, anti-politics and neoliberalism over service, depth and cooperation.

Great British Fake Off?

Given that Nabi Khidr (our Green Man) taught us the difference between the apparent and the real through Nabi Musa, I sometimes wonder why 'ecoIslam' is such a PRfest. Then depending on mood, whether eco and green prefixatives are just forms of Preventitude. 


A Summit in Istanbul, the Symbolic Centre of the Muslim Ummah

The International Islamic Climate Change Symposium is being organised predominantly by western NGOs, Muslim and otherwise, including Birmingham-based Islamic Relief Worldwide and IFEES, US-based Greenfaith and Beirut-centred Climate Action Network ( nice bunch of briefings and positions). I wish the gathering receives and delivers justice and wisdom, and will be tuning in.

The proceedings will be live cast here  (below) on Monday and Tuesday, tweeted on #Muslims4Climate and promises to launch a finalised Islamic Declaration on Climate Change. While not the first globally orientated Muslim statement on climate change, I don't expect anything as beautiful as the Pope's recent publication of social doctrine on social, spiritual and ecological justice Laudato Si (Praise Him), in fact I just hope it is a significant improvement on the first draft.



Highlights from the schedule, detailed here, include. (NB. Istanbul time is 3 hours ahead of BST)

• A 5 minute opening remote address by Prod Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the spiritual and intellectual legend who has been writing about Islam, secularism, science, the sacred and the environment since the 60s. Monday 1045-1050 (Careful you dont blink or you will miss it.)
• A session of Climate Solutions and the Power of Faith, featuring IIED and ICCAD's Saleemul Huq and CAN's Mohammed Adow. Monday 1130-1300
• A short series of interventions from 'Muslim Faith Leaders'. Tuesday 1005-1020.

It is what it is, hopefully by the end of it some less familiar voices will be more familiar. Its not like they are going to march through Gezi Park crying 

Labbayk Labbayk Allahuma Labbayk.

What should be, however is another activity, where by the social, scholarly and political movements of Islam and the Muslims sensitise, hone and exercise their eco-politics and their creation-relations. It is not as if there is any lack of interpretive stimulus, whether through the experiences of Kelantan's floods, Karachi's recent heatwave or the coastal erosion and salinisation of Khulna.

A Decolonial Dua

Owner of Judgement, Everlasting, Protecting Friend

forgive us those foolish decisions,

which enclose noble futures,

as we make our way to the minbar.

Guide us in our knowledge adventures,

beyond the accumulation of certification

to generation, political epistemic emancipation.

Protect us from developmentors on the watchtower,

and their developmentees,

Preventing us, from helping us

Selling poverty pornography and non answers.

Salahudin Quader Chowdhury: No Executable Code is Associated with This Line

Earlier this week prominent Bangladeshi opposition politician Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury lost his appeal at the Bangladesh Supreme Court against the death penalty for convictions by the country's International Crimes Tribunals ( ICT). He has been in government detention since 2011, and the international press has detailed the torture he experienced at the hands and instruments of the British trained Rapid Action Battalion.

Hailing from a political family based in the port city of Chittagong, known as Islamabad in Mughal times, Chowdhury has served as an MP on 7 separate occasions and was a close adviser to the former BNP Prime Minister Khaleda Zia during her last stint in office. He was in his early twenties during the 1971 war year and according to his witnesses who made it through the tribunal's clumsy rigging, had been in West Pakistan for the duration of the period of the crimes for which he was convicted. The problem is that the Tribunal and the Supreme Court, with their characteristically warped view of the world, has refused to acknowledge his absence from the scene, as corroborated by many of his peers.

Given the maddening BS that we have been expected to swallow regarding people in 1971, BS thats resulted in the judicial murders of Abdul Quader Mollah and Muhammad Kamarazzaman, I think its high time to review the horror stories woven around Salahuddin Quader Choudhury in 1971 and unearth greater truths buried in the rubble of the Bangladesh Motanarrative.

A Roundly Criticised Show Trial

For years before the current Awami League regime came into power on the back of a diplomatic coup, I never thought that fair investigations, trials and resolutions would be possible. I felt that it was just an game of political emotional blackmail on account of the national liberation mythology.  It is a real pity that such a lot of lives, reputations and human horsepower have been dissipated to produce such injustice, but it goes with the territory and didn't have to be inevitable, we(pl) made it this way.

Criticisms of the conduct and integrity of the tribunals have been made by many of humble and of privileged backgrounds. For example there is the independent review by Geoffrey Robertson QC , the Economist of London's coverage of the chairing judge's collusion with a partisan activist and Bangladesh's favourite son-in-law David Bergman long archive of the tribunal's proceedings. Just a fortnight after he was given his original death penalty, an Early Day Motion was tabled in the UK Parliament highlighting the lack of due process in his trial and that of the late Abdul Quader Mollah, who was executed a few months later. It was signed by 32 MPs including people like Jeremy Corybn, Peter Bottomley, Diane Abbot and Michael Meacher.

A distinct political lineage to Year Zero 71sterism

SQC, or SaKa as he is alternatively known, is one of Bangladeshi society's intriguing characters. He represents a genealogy of politics that predates the rise of the Awami League and has never really been scared to give them the finger. His symbolic capital and privilege are independent of Liberation 1971 events and the rise of Bengali Nationalism. That is not to say he is an angelic figure, he still commands immense power over his political enemies from behind a cell.

As a London resident with a Bangladesh facing eye or two, I remember his amazing political insults and his unsuccesful bid during the BNP-JI regime for Secretary General of the OIC, which was viscerally resisted by the Awami League, and deludedly promoted by the BNP at the time. In retrospect it is good that Prof Ehsanoglu won that election, as the pro Islam and pro Muslim Ummah social and intellectual currents in Turkey were and still are in a better place than in Bangladesh.

What I am becoming more interested in is the condemned man's father, Fazlul Quader Chowdhury. The political orphans of Bangladesh, need to take as many of these political bypass figures closer to our hearts for the sake of past mistakes and wider possibilities of the future

He was a political stalwart for 3 decades through more interesting times, who didn't switch allegiance to the Bangladesh cause and died in prison in 1973 under dubious circumstances. There is a slightly hagiographic website about him here.

He was elected General Secretary of the All-India Muslim Students Federation in 1939, and was with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, just before he left for that important mission to rid India of it's colonial yolk during (Colonial) World War 2. Netaji was to offer to relieve the Bengal Famine with food aid from Myanmar, an offer which was refused by the British colonial authority, who censored it. A war crime by any standards.

Interestingly, in 1942 when Fazlul Quader was arrested, one Mujibur Rahman, a rising Bengal Muslim Student League leader, organised a student strike in solidarity with him. Decades later it is said that Fazlul Quader, by then an established trade union and political leader, was to reject Mujibur Rahman's offer of his daughter Hasina's hand in marriage to his son Salahuddin.

I would like to invite people to flesh out this proposal story, because it lends extra humour to some of Salahudin's comments over the years, helps us to understand Hasina's insecurity and more importantly, reminds us that the political elite and cosmology that Bengali Nationalism and its kitsch culture machine has inflicted on us is not the End of History.

There were and there are much more expansive and nobler horizons.

What is to be done?

We do not know how this is going to pan out, but we should speak out against the injustice being dealt to SQC on a matter of principle, not to mention support the family and other people in such predicaments.  We know how institutions in desh act with impunity and seek to destroy any who challenge their control and controllers. We also know how their family, NGO business and ideological networks assist them to tell the stories they want people to know about Bangladesh, and to be heard.

In this light, simply pointing out more accurate and reliable histories and principles of justice is where we should start.

When Our Ulama Rocked: Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar at the 1930 London Round Table

In the 30s there were a number of conferences held in London, the grimy heart of the British Empire, to debate the future of India. One of the characters who appears in this discussion is Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar, who counted Deoband, Alighar and Oxford ( Lincoln College - History) as his alma mater.

For the alien, that's code for traditional Islamic seminary movement, modernism Muslim experiment and Imperial western academy. He had also been a leader of the Khilafat Movement that opposed the abolition of said institution and moved Indian Muslims and Hindus to restore it.

The text reproduced below is an excerpt of his contribution at the occasion, the full text may be found here. My favourite bit is the non-concentric circle theory for dual Indian and Muslim identity. Note that Maulana made this speech only 6 weeks before his death in London, after which he was buried in Jerusalem.

The iconic image of him with his Khilafat movement hat (tupi) features on the stamps of India and Pakistan shown above, though notice the difference in where they position the star!  Bangladesh, in its nationalist shame at its Islamic anti-imperialist heritage, has not as yet found the breadth of narrative to include this man, not to mention his equally interesting brothers.

Maulana came from a wealthy and well educated family, and was an experienced multilingual journalist and publisher who drew on the quick witted combat poetical tradition of char bait. He was made of steely stuff too.

His grand daughter recounts that when the British imprisoned him, they used the failing health of his two young daughters as blackmail to force him to apologise for his political views. Hearing this, his mother, a mighty Begum (mother of warriors), wrote to him with the advise that if he were to take the offer she would throttle him with her last remaining strength.  His daughters passed on, and he was unable to attend their funerals.

At a time when Muslims sell out very cheaply, to white supremacy if not its coproduced criminal gangsters, even when they have nothing substantial to sell, the example of Muhammad Ali Jauhar is an inspiring one.

Jumma Mubarak!


****



[[8]] The real problem which is upsetting us all the time has been the third problem--this Hindu-Muslim problem; but that is no problem at all. The fact is that the Hindu-Muslim difficulty, like the Army difficulty, is of your own creation. But not altogether. It is the old maxim of "divide and rule." But there is a division of labour here. We divide and you rule. The moment we decide not to divide you will not be able to rule as you are doing today. With this determination not to be divided, we have come here. Let me assure every British man and woman who thinks of shaping our destinies that the only quarrel between the Hindus and the Muslims today is [the] quarrel that the Muslim is afraid of Hindu domination and the Hindu, I suppose, is afraid of Muslim domination. (Dr. Moonje: No, the Hindu is never afraid.) Well I am very glad to hear that. In my country the she-buffalo attacks only when she is afraid; and whatever the reverence of the Hindu for the cow, I am glad he has never the fear of the she-buffalo. I want to get rid of that fear. The very fact that Hindus and Muslims are quarrelling today shows that they will not stand British domination either for one single minute. That is the point to grasp.

British domination is doomed over India. Is our friendship doomed also? My brother took service under the Government and served it for 17 years, but he did one thing for me. He sent me to Oxford. He was always taunting me in the non- co-operation days by saying: "You have a soft corner in your heart for that place called Oxford." I must admit that I had. I spent four years there, and I always carry with me the most pleasant recollections of that time, and I want to keep that feeling. I do have a very soft corner in my heart for my Alma Mater. But I can taunt my brother, too. When he was being tried at Karachi­-when the jury let us off, and there was a British juryman among them, they voted for our release because we were such a sporting lot--my big brother said: "Even if it becomes my duty to kill the first Englishman I come across, if he happens to have blue eyes, my knife will not work; because I shall think of the eyes of Theodore Beck, my late Principal at my old College, Aligarh." There are several Aligarh Old Boys here, and they can bear witness to the fact that we who were brought up at Aligarh by Beck could never be without a soft corner in our hearts for Engl:shmen. Therefore, even if British domination is doomed--and it must be killed here--do not let us kill British friendship. We have a soft corner in our hearts for Great Britain. Let us retain it, I beseech you.

[[9]] One word as to the Muslim position, with which I shall deal at length on some other occasion. Many people in England ask us why this question of Hindu and Muslim comes into politics and what it has to do with these things. I reply, "It is a wrong conception of religion that you have, if you exclude politics from it. It is not dogma; it is not ritual! Religion, to my mind means the interpretation of life." I have a culture, a polity, an outlook on life--a complete synthesis which is Islam. Where God commands I am a Muslim first, a Muslim second, and a Muslim last, and nothing but a Muslim. If you ask me to enter into your Empire or into your Nation by leaving that synhesis, that polity, that culture, that ethics, I will not do it. My first duty is to my Maker, not to H. M. the King, nor to my companion, Dr. Moonje; my first duty is to my maker, and that is the case with Dr. Moonje also. He must be a Hindu first, and I must be a Muslim first, so far as that duty is concerned. But where India is concerned, where India's freedom is concerned, I am an Indian first, an Indian second, an Indian last, and nothing but an Indian.

I belong to two circles of equal size, but which are not concentric. One is India, and the other is the Muslim world. When I came to England in 1920 at the head of the Khilafat Delegation, my friends said: "You must have some sort of a crest for your stationery." I decided to have it with two circles on it. In one circle was the word "India"; in the other circle was Islam, wiih the word "Khilafat." We as Indian Muslims came in both circles. We belong to these two circles, each of more than 300 millions, and we can leave neither. We are not nationalists but supernationalists, and I as a Muslim say that "God made man and the Devil made the nation." Nationalism divides; our religion binds. No religious wars,  no crusades, have seen such holocausts and have been so cruel as your last war, and that was a war of your nationalism, and not my Jehad.

But where our country is concerned, where the question of taxation is concerned, where our crops are concerned, where the weather is concerned, where all associations in those thousands of matters of ordinary life are concerned, which are for the welfare of India, how can I say "I am a Muslim and he is a Hindu"? Make no mistake about the quarrels between Hindu and Muslim; they are founded only on the fear of domination. If there is one other sin with which I charge Great Britain, in addition to the sin of emasculating India, it is the sin of making wrong histories about India and teaching them to us in our schools, with the result that our school boys have learnt wrong Indian history. The quarrels which are sometimes visible in our streets on certain holidays, or quarrels the motives of which have been instilled into the hearts of our so-called intelligentsia--I call it unintelligentsia--by the wrong history taught us in our schools for political purposes. If that feeling, which writes "Revenge" so large over the politics of certain people in India, existed as it does, and if it existed to the extent which it does today, and the Muslims were everywhere in a minority of 25 per cent and the Hindus were everywhere in a majority of 66 per cent, I could see no ray of hape today; but thanks to the gerrymandering of our saints and our soldiers, if there are Provinces like that of my friend Dr. Moonje, in which I am only 4 per cent, there are other provinces where I am 93 percent, as in the Province of my friend Nawab Sir Abdul Qaiyum, for which we demand equal freedom. There is the old Province of Sind, where the Muslims first landed, where they are 73 per cent; in the Punjab they are 56 per cent, and in Bengal 55 per cent. That gives us our safeguard, for we demand hostages as we have willingly given hostages to Hindus in the other Provinces where they form huge majorities.

[[10]] I want you to realise that for the first time you are introducing a big revolution into India;for the first time majority rule is to be introduced into India. In the days of Lord Rama there was no majority rule, or he would not have been exiled. The old Pandu and Kuru rulers, who gambled their kingdoms away, did not have majority rule; Mahmud of Ghazni and Akbar and Aurangzeb did not have majority rule, nor did Shivaji; when Ranjit Singh ruled in the Punjab, he too did not have majority rule; when Warren Hastings and Clive ruled india, they did not have majority rule; and even in the days of Lord Irwin there is no majority rule. For the first time in India, we are going to introduce majority rule, and I, belonging to a minority community, accept that majority rule, although I know very well that if 51 people say that 2 and 2 make 5, and 49 people say that 2 and 2 make 4, the fact that 51 say that 2 and 2 make 5 does not cause them to make 5. Still I am prepared to submit to majority rule. Luckily, hewever, there are Muslim majorities in certain Provinces, and with the federal form of government which is suited to India, not only for the solution of the Hindu-Muslim problem, but is essential for the sake of the Princes also, this is in our favour. The centrifugal and centripetal tendencies are so well balanced in India that we are bound to have a federal system of government there, not as a distant ideal, as the Government of India says, but today, now this minute. We shall leave this conference only with federation established in India, with new treaties made with the Princes, with the consent of the crown and the Princes.

TellMamaGilligate, or How to win/lose credibility in one telling article

A few days ago an article appeared on the Telegraph website, written by Andrew Gilligan.  Peter Oborne's recent resignation from the publication gives us some flavour of what is going on there. Contrary to the piece's claims that there was anything radical at the heart of Whitehall, its just bum-licking as usual.

Gilligan is known for going after decent or half decent Muslim organisational forms and figures like bitch on heat on a mission from the deep state to cause maximum and unjust disruption to the scapegoats of its failed imperialistic policies abroad. After falling on bad times after failing to protect the life and dignity of Dr David Kelly, he was picked up by the now Mayor of London Boris Johnson during his time at the Spectator, and God knows who else. I argue that as far as the decolonial ummah in progress goes, he is the same category of individual as Anjem Choudhury, only fatter, balder, whiter and with a right to audience, not 'entertain'.

Both are highly dedicated and involved, wittingly or unwittingly in the assemblage of resources and interests that works to undermine any growth in our community's integrity, function and appeal.  They and the many other stage devises like them are an invitation to observe and improve.

Gilligan's last target, Mayor Lutfur Rahman and his re-election prospects, did not fall over when pushed. It was a bungled attempted coup featuring the British Labour and Tory Parties, the BBC, the Bangladesh Awami League, the City of London, a creepy blogger and a washed up documentary maker. People from all over the world understood what was afoot and smiled at Luther's re-election. At the time of writing, Tower Hamlets Council  is going through legal proceedings relating to the anti-Lutfur campaign run over last year's election campaign. In any case, it is the social cleansing of Tower Hamlets that is the long game to keep our eyes on, and that means citizen mobilisation, not simple nose counting exercises.

Which is why the recent article was annoying, as it shows the character gap in a man who runs an organisation that is meant to be monitoring Islamophobia, not fueling it.

It is a really sad feature of the late Whitethropocene, that colourful politicians on the make have become quite practiced at furthering their ambitions over the reputations, dignity and bones of others.

I saw this cringeworthy dishonour in Fiyaz Mughal's contribution to the Gilligan article, in particular his use of the term 'entryism', around which the journalist built the article, linking in with Gilligan's second most favourite Islamophobising trope, The Stratford Megamosque. Many others have noticed this skulduggery too, and I suspect Mr Mughal will now inhabit the spaces exploited by the likes of the Quilliam Foundation, which was probably part of his business plan. His clarification later, which has been taken off the website, made his supplication to his paymasters even clearer to the naked eye.

I guess Mr Mughal will be getting a good bollocking from his old friends and associates, and no doubt some strategic consolations and congratulations from his new ones, and the men who stroke cats.

HappyMuslimsGate: Because Muslim Cultural retardation and regeneration matter

As we grow nauseous of HonestyPolicy786's recent Happy British Muslim branding exercise, it is fair to ask whether the matter is worth the attention it is being given. A lot of the sufi-media-establishment types, socially closer to the perpetrators, having realised the blunder, are encouraging people to move on.

I mean, it is not as if we don't have enough on our hands already

After all, racists on the 'left' and 'right' as well as the ruling Awami League of Bangladesh are gunning at the only brown Mayor of a London borough on spurious grounds, with the backing of the British state media. Meanwhile, in Birmingham a most likely fabricated "Muslim Plot to take over schools" has provided a pretext for an unrelenting attack on the communities there. Internationally we have the Bangladeshi establishment and its global partners (BBC, DfID et al) still covering up a hideous massacre in Dhaka last May and  Muslim communities in CAR and Burma under cruelties I can't even fathom.

Its worth  dwelling on three individual #BritishMuslims whose circumstances are anything but happy. A leading poetical voice of the UK, Talha Ahsan, has been extradited to the USA, and is locked up 23 hours a day in a torturous Supermax prison Connecticut, braving it through Aspergers and many years of detention without trial. Down the road community worker Mahdi Hashi is locked up in solitary in New York City for refusing to spy for the British intelligence agencies. To top it all, the brave and eloquent, Moazzam Begg has been detained in the UK on bullshit terrorism grounds in a clear attempt by the government to intimidate its faithful critics.

Why HappyMuslimsGate is a critical, if not terminal issue

There is a lot to decode in the choice of the video, and the stories and reactions of the people behind and in front of the camera. There are lessons here and the more it is analysed the more we can learn about how not to do things. Although it appears to be a silly video, it has produced a genuine conference of the community, which is rare and instructive. Off the top of my head, the proceedings are as follows,

• What is this Bull Shit? Where's my book of 70 odd excuses?
• Hey everybody, look at me!
• Haraaam.
• No I'm nothing like Maajid Nawaz.
• You detractors are puritans, This is Genuine Islam's Brighton Rock!
• Erm. I did it as a bit of fun, not a political template for anything.

Pir Karam has been having fun too,

The song itself is by an artist called Pharrell, known for his role in the group N. E R.D. and tracks like Lapdance, with raunchy videos, and currently for collaborations with people like Miley Cyrus. It is ironic that the HappyMuslims are vehement in crying misogyny when they can get the airtime, but are happy to blow wind into this guy's sails, if it gets them attention. Perhaps we can next look forward to the Lapdance Muslim edit.

How much the actors knew, cared, or were able to cognitively handle about this video is interesting. Although many have expressed smug pride at the millions of views of this expression of cultural consumerism and lobotomy, and some have applauded any PR impact from it, others are trying to mitigate the political revulsion from large sections of their community. We had the strange case of conflicting apparent statements from Abdal Hakim Murad, followed by a thoughtful argument for why its important to be down with the kids. It was sad to see how he was being manipulated by that media gatekeeper group, again.

It is reasonable to presume that the group behind the camera overlaps with that in front of it. There is a bit of a fightclub air to their self-image, and a strong whiff of post islamic society frat pack in their discourse and methods of shutting down debate. All the people you would expect to be recruited for such a project were there, and decolonial salutations to the people, the creatively aware, who declined to be involved.

Responses

Happy Muslims represents a failure of imagination, cultural degeneracy, aesthetic autism, subculture of sycophancy and poor judgement amongst some folks in the media scrum. It is now a matter of public record and an actant in of itself.

this meme is doing the circuit. 

Inspired by the successful movement against the neocon Henry Jackson Society's Student Rights organisation on UK campuses, and Mister Moo's inimitable satire of Ed Husain The Islamicist , a counter site called The Real Honesty Policy has been set up, mainly by sufi's to offer dialogical company to our narcissistic web 2 chums, who promise us more shenanigans.

Much of the response to it, from the seven seas of salafism to the outer Hebrides of HT, are very much concerned with the legalistic arguments. However, the murky politics, aesthetic and cultural lenses are  much more pertinent here.

I don't believe that all music is haram. I am an advocate of cultural jihad, which has a vector direction towards a place called justice. Shit music that doesn't engender wrong doing probably isn't haram either. There is no legislating against bad taste, but enculturing and enacting superior creativity is hardly going to hurt. Sometimes I imagine a 1990s Zia Sardar might write about this video

For me, putting aside the political duplicity of it, the demonstration of cultural wastage, mimicry and aesthetic autism is worth reflecting on. The civilisations that have given the world Iqbal, Ghazals, Rumi and Ghalib, think that shooting a video like Happy Muslims is worthy.


Now what?

DIY Cultures 2014 is where, A day-long festival of zines, artist books, comics, artists-run spaces, talks, films, animation, video art, exhibition, workshops - the spirit of independence, autonomy & alternatives.

The British Police State strikes us all when it commits such outrages: #ReleaseMoazzam

Countless innocent people have become caught up in unjust War on Terror justified laws and practices of authorities at home and abroad. Precious few are as articulate, gentle and courageous as Moazzam Begg of CAGE, who was arrested yesterday in what looks to be the another case of the British State crossing another rubicon in violating the rights of its citizens.

Its an immoral act that is worthy of creative and transformative resistance, but first I think we need to read, liaise and take stock.

A recent report from CAGE, called The Prevent Strategy: A Cradle to Grave Police State shows, with evidence, how every aspect of our lives has been rendered legitimate to control and intimidate to this policy. From healthcare to primary education, to mosques, universities, airports and financial transactions., education. It is more comprehensive than McCarthyism.

One useful tool that emerges form the report is the following depiction of how this nonsense engine works and harms.

Rrom page 29 of The Prevent Strategy: A cradle to Grave Police-State (CAGE, 2014)

We can test the effectiveness of this model by the case of Moazzam's unjust state kidnap.  He stands accused of 'terrorism related offences' by the West Midlands Police, who state that arrest is not necessarily about guilt and that they were acting on intelligence.

MOBILISE: There was a twitter storm at 10pm last night
there will be another at 6pm tonight (26th)

We know that innocence until proven guilt doesn't apply to Muslims, wherever we might be. We know that the authorities in particular like to target Muslims who challenge them through democratic processes for their rights, especially if they are getting somewhere.


CAGE is a worthwhile and justice-making organisation that I recommend distributing Zakat through.  They have condemned the arrest and are holding a demonstration this Saturday in Birmingham at NOON. Their website http://cageuk.org/
provides a humanising portal for people to see what Muslims, especially conservative ones are going through these days, its staffed by a pretty diverse bunch who I have learned much from over the years. Theres a new microsite on Schedule 7 Stories contains vivid case studies of ordinary lives, humiliated and obstructed by the state.

Moazzam's last facebook status update was as follows, he was onto something, and duas for his condition, family and support.

This state kidnap is not the first time Moazzam has been intimidated by the UK authorities. 'Security' services have been complicit in his detention, render and torture before. A couple of weeks ago he wrote about why the British state was so obsessed with his passport. I append the article below.

I do hope justice loving people will lend thir soulful minds and stamina to the collective effort to #ReleaseMoazzam.  We shall also see what nasty people are lurking out there wetting themselves with glee over this. Gita Seghal CHECK, Quilliam Foundation CHECK.

Home / Politics / Europe / The real reason behind the confiscation of my passport

The real reason behind the confiscation of my passport

Posted by: Moazzam Begg ANALYSIS in Europe, Latest, Politics, UK 13 days ago 7 Comments 13406 Views

Moazzam Begg reveals why the British government has been continually harassing him since his return from Guantanamo, and took his passport for the second time in eight years.

In the summer of 2012 I wrote about the first of my two visits to Syria to investigate leads into cases of British and American complicity in the rendition of terrorism suspects to the regime of Bashar al-Assad[1].

This followed on from something I learned first-hand from CIA and US military intelligence agents who threatened to send me to Egypt or Syria if I failed to co-operate with them during my time in the Bagram prison. I made British MI5/MI6 agents, who were present at every leg of my unlawful imprisonment, fully aware of these threats[2]. Their response was that I had to co-operate with their US counterparts.

On my eventual return to the UK from Guantanamo, along with three other British citizens I received a letter from the Home Office informing me that my ability to apply for a passport had been restricted by the Home Secretary under the powers of the ‘Royal Prerogative’[3].

Having returned from three years of separation from my loved ones, spent mostly in solitary confinement and after suffering the effects of regular human rights violations, I didn’t challenge the decision immediately. Instead, I tried to rebuild my lost connection to a traumatised family, including a son I’d never seen.

UK torture complicity

As part of my work for CagePrisoners, however, I soon began campaigning for prisoners detained at Guantanamo and others held in secret detention sites or who had disappeared after being rendered to countries like Libya[4], Egypt, and Syria. We conducted numerous investigations[5] into recurrent reports of extreme torture carried out by the Syrian regime and discovered the complicity of the governments of the US, Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Britain.

I was also constantly being invited to speak all over the world about issues pertaining to Guantanamo, torture, the rule of law and the war terror. Thus, in 2009 I mounted a successful challenge to get my passport back.

My subsequent extensive travel abroad was greeted simultaneously by meetings with people in power[6]—including unexpected praise[7] from US ambassadors in Luxembourg—to armed police escorting me off planes in order to deny me entry to Canada[8] (where I’d gone to meet with Canadian rendition victims sent to Syria).

Returning to the UK airports was often an ordeal in its own right as I would be stopped almost every time and questioned under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This happened even on visits to Brussels where I was invited to speak at the European Parliament by British MEPs as well as trips to Malaysia where I had been giving evidence in war crimes tribunals[9] set up by the former prime minister there. Often British police would ask me if I had gone to these places to further my claims about British complicity in torture.

During this period three very important things happened which I believe the British intelligence services have been unable to recover from:

1. A major civil action was taken by 16 former Guantanamo prisoners against the British government and intelligence services for complicity in torture and false imprisonment.

2. Prime Minister David Cameron ordered a judge-led inquiry to be launched into allegations that the UK was complicit in torture

3. The Metropolitan police began a criminal investigation against British intelligence services into recurrent allegations of complicity in kidnap, torture and false imprisonment

In 2010 we won an out-of-court settlement[10] against the government after it was compelled to hand over documents that showed how British government ministers had decided we should be consigned to Guantanamo, despite evidence of mistreatment.

At the end of the discussions with the government the then Justice Minister, Kenneth Clarke QC, sat with us and listened. Several of the world’s supposedly most dangerous terrorists sat in a room with a senior Tory minister discussing the previous government’s wrongs. I handed Clarke a copy of my book hoping there might be some proper understanding after this but, all the while the government was preparing the Justice and Security Bill[11]—which was passed as law earlier this year—that would ensure damaging and embarrassing civil actions such as ours would henceforth be heard in secret under colour of ‘national security concerns.’

The inquiry into torture by Sir Peter Gibson was shelved last week in favour of the Intelligence and Security Committee but in his interim report Gibson concluded that MI5 had at best ‘turned a blind eye’[12] to our abuse.

The criminal investigation is still on-going but I have sat for hours with the Metropolitan Police giving testimony to them about what happened in Bagram and Guantanamo and, they have gone to meet with rendition victims in Libya[13] and continue to investigate the claims of Shaker Aamer[14] who has been in Guantanamo without charge for twelve years.

Last year several former Guantanamo prisoners, including me, met with Asa Hutchinson, who had served as US Undersecretary for Homeland Security while we were captives. In a report by the Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment, which included him and two former senior US generals, the practice of torture by the US administration was described as “indisputable”. The report[15] also stated bluntly that our treatment and indefinite detention was “abhorrent and intolerable”. There was also no escaping the fact that the British government had colluded in sending and keeping us there.

Visiting Syria

Following the uprisings of the ‘Arab spring’ I was able to make several visits to the Arab world and follow up cases of rendition, including the shocking case of a man whose tortured false testimony[16] was used as a justification by both the US and UK to invade Iraq.

In July last year, I visited Syria where I met numerous former prisoners who had been held by the Assad regime as well as a few victims of US and UK rendition. One of the men, a Libyan who had resided in Syria, had been rendered to Libya after a phone call by a British Libyan dissident had been intercepted by MI5 and its contents disclosed to Assad’s Mukhābarāt (intelligence agency). Documents[17] found in the headquarters of Gaddafi’s Mukhābarāt after the fall of Tripoli clearly prove British involvement.

A few months later, in October 2012, I was called by an MI5 officer who said they wanted to talk to me about my views on the situation in Syria after having read my article[18]. I told them that they must be aware that I was investigating several leads regarding British and American complicity in rendition and torture in Syria. They called back after consulting with their lawyers and said they understood that and would still like to meet. I agreed to speak to them and meet at a hotel in East London. Both MI5 and I had our lawyers present.

MI5 was concerned about the possibility of Britons in Syria being radicalised and returning to pose a potential threat to national security. I told them that Britain had nothing to worry about, especially since British foreign policy, at the time, seemed in favour of the rebels. At the end of the meeting I was assured by MI5 that my proposed return to Syria to continue my work would not be hindered, and it wasn’t.

Subsequently, I travelled to Syria without incident. I spent much time accumulating testimony and information for a report on the situation of the current prisoners as well as the accounts of those who had been detained and tortured in the past. I witnessed the squalid refugee camps, I visited the wounded, young and old, some of whom I buried, I saw the carnage of Assad’s killing machine and I saw the beautiful young faces of children aged beyond their years. I witnessed the harsh winter and saw farmers chop down their olive trees to warm themselves and I heard the horror stories of torture under the rule of both Bashar and Hafiz al-Assad. However, I also saw aid coming in from all over the Muslim world which included British ambulances, British fire engines, British garbage disposal trucks; British aid centres and hospitals with British doctors (one of whom was killed[19] saving lives a few months ago) and volunteers from Britain’s Muslim community. And yes, there were some British fighters too. I do not believe any of them posed any kind of threat to the UK.

I returned home without hindrance, except for the customary Schedule 7 stop. I was briefly questioned about my visit by border police and returned home shortly after. I came back ‘radicalised’ enough to speak at numerous events for various charities working out in Syria. I also conducted interviews[20] with people on the ground that are close to the fighters to answer questions about any tangible threat to the UK to help allay the fears of the British public and intelligence services.

Schedule 7 stops

Since then I have been ‘randomly’ stopped[21] more times than I can recall under Schedule 7 while travelling.

The last time this happened, last month, I was en route to a conference[22] in Turkey about the mass-imprisonments and torture occurring in Egypt following the military coup. British police suggested that I might be going to Syria, despite showing them details of itinerary and return flights for the following weekend.

I was made to miss my flight but the police were prepared to rebook me for the next available one meaning that they were neither preventing me from going to Turkey, or even potentially to Syria. I refused their offer as I would have had missed the conference by then and opted to returned home. However, they took possession of my iPad and phone and kept them for a week. Both items contained sensitive information and documents pertaining to CagePrisoners’ investigations on both complicity in torture and responses to the British government’s measures in tackling extremism.

In anticipation of future harassment at airports I began legal proceedings to challenge the constant harassment at airports under Schedule 7 and informed the Home Office, the border police and British airports about my intended travel via my lawyers. We received a response from their lawyers, which acknowledged the letter but did little else.

Change of language

The language and attitude of the British government has steadily changed towards the Syrian opposition especially since much of it has openly chosen an Islamic path, something the west has been unwilling to engage with and unprepared to accept. Britain went to war based on the falsehood that Iraq may have possessed weapons of mass destruction. Clear evidence of the use of chemical weapons, in addition to over 120,000 dead through the use of conventional ones in Syria has not elicited any such response, and most people are grateful for it. No one wants to see British involvement in Syria, especially the Syrians who know well what happened next door in Iraq.

As a result, however, the Assad regime is now regarded as the better of the two choices. That is why last month the decision to stop[23] even non-lethal aid for western-backed factions in Syria was taken by Britain. But, despite there being no evidence of a tangible threat from British fighters returning from Syria (the contrary[24] in fact) and certainly not the type that might have been posed from the same in Iraq or Afghanistan because of the presence of British troops, the government now wants to remove not just the passport but the nationality[25] of Britons suspected of being involved in fighting in Syria. The government’s myopic insistence on this point cannot fathom that this is simply about Syria, not Britian. The counterterrorism industry, it seems, has too many vested interests for the language to be tempered with reason.

Instead of easing the arduous journeys for the numerous convoys leaving with aid from Britain for Syria every month, border authorities detain the aid workers for hours on end—both on exit from and re-entry to the UK. On several occasions volunteers have been turned back, vehicles confiscated and money and goods collected by the community for the beleaguered Syrian people seized.

Britain has refused[26] to take any Syrian refugees despite the unprecedented crisis facing millions fleeing the war. It also did next to nothing for the British Muslim Dr. Abbas Khan[27] and has been heavily criticised for shirking its duty regarding one of its own citizens while he was horrifically tortured and murdered.

Simply speaking, the British government has lost all touch with the reality on the ground and the enormous sentiments in the Muslim community, and beyond, regarding the Syrian conflict.

Losing my passport – again

After a trip to South Africa[28] last month—which had coincided with the funeral of Nelson Mandela—where I spoke extensively about the complicity of the British government in rendition and torture, I was met upon arrival at Heathrow by officials who served me with a notice to seize my passport under the ‘Royal Prerogative’ stating that it was assessed my previous visits to Syria had constituted involvement in terrorism. No explanation other than that was given.

I am certain that the only reason I am being continually harassed—something that began long before any visit to Syria—is because CagePrisoners and I are at the forefront of investigations and assertions based on hard evidence that British governments, past and present, have been wilfully complicit in torture.

How logical is it to stop me from travelling anywhere in the world simply because they want to prevent me from going to Syria? Numerous British citizens have been prevented from entering Turkey (the key entry point to Syria) at the behest of the British authorities. They could have done the same with me.

It is these government-shaking issues that are the real reason why I have been continually harassed and targeted by the authorities in this country. I am not and never have been in anyway a threat to them, unless words seeking accountability are a threat.

At a time when Islam and the Muslim community is facing an unprecedented attack via politicians, the media and ultimately some sections of the public susceptible to this onslaught, it has been the aim of CagePrisoners and myself in trying to empower the community that is being purposefully undermined.

The struggle for reason and justice is clearly a longer one than I once imagined but since our aim is a good and just one, I do not believe our detractors will succeed.

Source: www.islam21c.com

This article was cross-posted from www.cageprisoners.com

Notes: 

[1] http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/4758-syria-my-journey-to-the-land-of-blessing-and-torture

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/12/moazzem-begg-speaks-binyam-mohamed

[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4266609.stm

[4] http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/2425-some-deaths-are-more-convenient-than-others

[5] http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/3496-fara%E2%80%99-falastin-%E2%80%93-syria%E2%80%99s-proxy-us-prison

[6] http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/alerts/item/454-luxembourgs-olive-branch-to-former-guantanamo-detainees

[7] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/30/wikileaks-cables-us-guantanamo-moazzam-begg

[8] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/13/canada-guantanamo-bay-camp-guard

[9] http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/4175-bush-convicted-of-war-crimes-evidence-from-cageprisoners-director-crucial”

[10] http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/861-settlement-are-the-guantanamo-cases-closed

[12] http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/19/gibson-report-mi6-detainees-torture-cooperated

[13] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/12/libya-rendition-torture-abduction-mi6

[14] http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/feb/19/police-claims-shaker-aamer-torture-mi5-complicit

[16] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/may/13/ibn-al-sheikh-al-libi

[17] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/04/libyan-commander-demands-apology

[18] http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/4758-syria-my-journey-to-the-land-of-blessing-and-torture

[19] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22684151

[21] http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/7059-just-a-job-how-uk-border-police-target-muslims-at-airports

[22] http://www.thecordobafoundation.com/news.php?id=1&art=160

[23] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10510498/Britain-and-US-suspend-non-lethal-aid-to-Syrian-rebels.html

[24] http://news.sky.com/story/1183820/syria-sky-news-gains-access-to-uk-jihadists

[25] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-no-way-back-for-britons-who-join-the-syrian-fight-says-theresa-may-9021190.html

[26] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/former-liberal-democrat-leader-sir-menzies-campbell-joins-labour-in-condemning-uk-for-turning-its-back-on-syrias-refugees-9026083.html

[27] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25517356

[28] http://www.ciibroadcasting.com/2013/12/10/moazzam-begg-obama-tributes-to-madiba-ironic/

The al Shabab video, the unthreatened leaders and decolonial ummah love for East Africa

Social Media Wars are the cheaper kind

Last night I picked up a story about some Muslim figures being directly threatened by the ever degenerating Al Shabab in an hour long video. If I recall correctly it was journalist Mehdi Hasan tweeting solidarity to the allegedly threatened.

Fair enough, I mean who wants to go through videos you could get locked up for viewing

The Guardian's Shiv Malik named Mo Ansar (the cuddly), Usama Hasan (the cornered sellout) and Ajmal Masroor ( the dimpley), while ITV's footage focused on the linkages with the Mall attack in Nairobi a few weeks ago, citing access to a Kenyan intelligence report on the atrocity and featuring the Henry Jackson Foundation.

Tracking down the elusive video 

Searching last night I found pukesome films by the al Kataib, demonstrating their efficacy with deadly rifles, video cameras and editing software,

This morning the url ( i think) was circulating on twitter You too can take a Daily Motion link to a surreal experience of degenerated jihadi PR, a la Four Lions, interleaved with 25 second adverts.

I'm not a terrorism industrialist, clearly, but there were many other Muslim figures featured in the video and notwithstanding the exasperating call to arms and meat cleavers generally, I cant make out the bit with a specific threat against those three individuals.

Shiv Malik is generally known as a bit of a prick but lets have a (Muslim) roll call of this 58 minute piece of shoytani. Condemning the Woolwich soldier's murder and featuring in the media collage we had Dr Shuja Shafi (MCB), Farooq Murad (MCB) Somali looking community leader, Hamza Tsortzis, Maulana Shamsuduha (Ebrahim College), Shayk Ibrahim Mogra (MCB), Muhammed Shafique (Cordoba Foundation) and Amir Taheri, who makes a thoughtful point on the need to detoxify Islam.

Perhaps these less mediatised guys aren't worth making up sympathy over? Perhaps there is something I don't know going on. Stranger things have been true.

Where are the threats?
That I'm not able to perceive the threats to the headlining three makes me wonder to what extent this is a set up and to what extent its a deeply troubling set up. It also reminds me of Leyton Masjid-gate.

In the posturing badboy corner we were treated to Anjem Choudhury, pretty much frontlining, along with Ayman Zawahiri, the AQ boss, and our narrator, Gazi BagOnHisHead who makes a cheesy meal of musing on the diversity of UK recruits. Many of us believe Anjem Chauhdury is a government plant, but we also know that there are no limits to the stupidity of youngsters who wrap themselves up in a naive, romanticised identity of Mujahid.

The sad thing was that lots of the people who's faces were flashed in our faces had passed on. Gotta feel for the sincerity lost, misled and families broken by this.

I think, by the derivative quality of the video and its petty obsession with little people in the UK, that AQ are pretty much several more half lives along their exponential decay curve. This I suppose is the good news in amongst the fear for Somali and Kenyan people are times get more fearful for them

Neoliberalistan 2053

“This recitation of Surah Fatihah was brought to you by the Halal pencil company. Their pioneering stationary prevents harmful innovations, by administering electric shocks to the user when creativity that might contravene five hundred year old fiqh stances from Madagascar is detected. The HB Bida Blocker recently won a Smart Technology Award at the 50th meeting of the World Islamic Economic Forum in South Korea. The following recitation of Surah Ikhlas was brought to you by Electric Mejdoul, the uk’s first halal genetically modified date company, whose flagship product brings the exact DNA of the dates that our beloved....”

Obama Hasan slapped the side of his head, to get the ridiculousness out of his legal Muslimness implant and out of his consciousness. It was hard to these days, and it seemed to get worse every Ramadan.

In fact the only part of Ramadan which had not been sold of was Salatul Duha, nobody really cared too much for that super-obligatory prayer.

*** 

The adverts for zakat were out too, it was a tradition now, competing in good works they would say. It was Islamic Green Leaf versus Muslim Orangade, and the new kid on the block Muslim thumbs, a charity dedicated to freedom of movement across all sorts of borders.

Way before even the first erroneous moonsighting Obama Hassan had been buttered up for a month of giving no actuay thought to the problems of the world. His all time favourite was...

National Zakat Foundation: Establishing Zakat provision for the needy in the UK

The National Zakat Foundation (NZF) is a startlingly obvious project that nobody seems to have gotten around to so far, but around which considerable talent is organising. Last month, I spoke with Iqbal Nasim of the NZF, who had been quietly working on the project for 6 months prior to rolling out the public engagement and champion programme.

Iqbal is a Cambridge grad in his mid 20s who worked as a stockbroker before joining Mercy Mission (the NZF’s parent organisation) last year. I first met him on a trip to the World Islamic Economic Forum in Kuwait during 2008, a rather obese affair to which Tony Blair was invited to advise the Muslim national corporati. In 5 star hotels we were wastefully catered for and patronised with talks of food crises, enough said really, other than the challenge of substance over style for our generation. 

Mercy Mission which was founded by Shaykh Dr Tawfique Chowdhury in Australia extends globally and is relatively new to the UK. It describes itself as a community empowerment organisation and has built a strong reputation and volunteer base through its activities in Islamic education provision via the Al Kauthar Institute. With NZF and a philosophy of unpretentious practical partnership working, they are providing one of the more real examples of Muslim mobilisation in the UK.

The provision of Zakat for Muslims in the UK has generally been thought of as a lesser priority when compared with causes more established in the Musalmind. Many of our ancestral lands are very much still needy places. They suffer everyday violence, inept and corrupt government, structural injustices of neoliberal capitalism, developmentia, war and environmental calamity. Directing our Zakat solely their way, or towards vivid flashpoints in the ummah heartlands seemed a no brainer until relatively recently.

The Quran, His Divine Speech, continually calls us to the virtues and beauty of establishing Salah and Zakat. For reference, the eight categories of persons eligible for Zakat are detailed in Surah Taubah, Ayah 60. Zakat is the poor’s due. We do not get to slap ourselves on the back for paying it as it is not even ours. In spite of state welfare provision, which we observe the withdrawal off, there is a significant body of people in need in the UK. This ranges from newcomers who have fallen between the cracks of an increasingly shrill immigration system, to new Muslims often young and female vulnerable to exclusion.

The NZF’s bread and butter, as Iqbal puts it, is dealing with applications from people seeking Zakat assistance on a case by case basis. By analysing applicant forms submitted on their website the team make a raw financial assessment of the application and proceed from there.

“It’s not just financial,” Iqbal continues, “everybody who has a financial problem, doesn’t just have a financial problem.” This directness is significant, we are all too familiar with bureaucratic workings of organisations with narrow boxes, remits and agendas. That an organisation is this open minded and approachable to the needy is an example to us all.

In addition, the NZF is working with St Mungo’s, a homeless people’s charity, to establish refuges for Muslim women suffering domestic violence in London, Birmingham and Manchester. It is heartening to see this group neither denying nor exploiting the uglier face of our malaise, but addressing its impacts by providing solid Ummahstructure.

Against a backdrop of PREVENT funded, posture organisations vying for the policy limelight, of corporate charities with overseas focus and exploitative public relations practices, and a rapidly shrinking welfare state, the UK Muslim Millet is broadly welcoming this initiative. A few weeks ago I bumped into some city workers I had not seen in a while. Not only had they bought fully in to the NZF idea, they were speculating as to the amount of unpaid Zakat simply floating around Canary Wharf and how it might be liberated. There is growing support from scholars and community institutions for this. We pray for the protection, success, integrity and longevity of this project.

It is worth dwelling for a moment on a growing problem in the Muslim third sector, that it has begun to adopt much of the language and PR imprint of the development industry. This superficial industry tends to make dramatic, heroic claims and portray its victims in a disempowering light. It exploits human emotion, distracts from the causes of our problems and is difficult to argue against as it wears the cloak of virtue and charity. It could even be called “poverty pornography”. We need not make this mistake; resemblances to such infantilising PR schemes are not an inevitable short term consequence of ‘reaching out’ to the wider community. It is not beyond the wit of Muslims to establish and respond to a language which is reflective, grounded and soulful. ‘Poverty alleviation’ is not it.

Cultivating discerning support is a strategic asset; perhaps the NZF might see it this way as it develops its participant base further outside Muslim youth. The Zakatable community does not have the same social view as the audience of the Badman videos on YouTube. It comprises a mixed population of savvy, world weary professionals, business people and workers in all sectors, who would not mind being treated as adults.

By altering the reach of Zakat NZF has embarked on leading work, complementing our current overseas Zakat relations with a much needed contract to the needy closer to hand.

As we parted company, I suggested that we institute Khums, the Shi‘i practice of giving 20% of one’s earnings into the communal cause. Iqbal smiled, “Let’s start with 2.5% Zakat and see where that gets us”.

For a whole host of tools, from Zakat calculators to educational aids do visit www.nzf.org.uk

UPDATE (8/8/12)
Sorry to say that the relationship between the NZF and the dubious #STOPKONY2012esque #savemaryam campaign (also from Mercy Mission) needs probing. This immense imitative bumwave, alarmist and insulting of Indonesian Islamic culture undermines the credibility of what the NZF is committed to doing. 'Diasporas' mustnt be colonial.

Seven days till the MCB AGM: bovered?

As the Annual General Meeting of the Muslim Council of Britain (largest umbrella group of Muslim organisations in the UK) approaches next week, it is worth cultivating conversations so that we are better informed on the day. For there will be no campaign trail, nor will their be manifestos, nor corporate patronage. There will be the conversations that we have had, that might, or might not cascade into said proceedings.

Firstly, I think we need to finesse our way of looking at the Ummah and the MCB, and their ecology. Seeing things for what they are, rather than what they say on the tin can save a lot of hassle. The Ummah is a constellation of people, families, situations, relationships and ideas that operate with varying degrees of harmony. The MCB is structured more like a tree diagram, which sees itself governing, representing and being governed. The  technocratic tree diagram logic forces bureaucratic ways of being Muslim, which are hard to keep going with a straight face as nowadays, with terrorism capital and money to play for, there is a growing inducement for Muslim organisations to work that way, but better.

Its also important to respect and recognised why a lot of people do not officially affiliate to the MCB and probably never will, because of historical stuff.

Secondly, there is the problem of orientation. Which way to face? Towards white power or towards the communities? Amazingly, there are  many who hold a candle for government, even after all they have done to destroy the MCB and subvert our political wills and insert their own agendas onto our organisations. When you feel that you have a lot at stake to protect from govt violence/law, one tends to contract developmentia and (con)descend to bleadership and misleadership.

Thirdly, responsiveness and agility.  The rules of the MCB AGM are tuned to inhibit takeover from strange organisations who like to set up loads of fronts and over-influence priority setting.  These rules annoy folks from outside and inside the Mussalmass.

Case in point, two years ago at the last election, the normally sympathetic Madeline Bunting decided to write in the London Guardian how the result of the election was pre-decided, which wasn't very nice. However, her declared winner seemed to match the decision that was collectively taken over the course of the day by the risk-averse central working committee elected by the hundreds of affiliates on that day. The Tory Muslim contender (the only opposition) didn't even make it into the Central Working Committee. (probably because nobody knew/trusted him, these things take time, but i think it was because he was a tory and sounded scary)

The MCB is not a cultish love-in, its got a bit of everyone in there and its a site for cultivating an episteamology, meaning a cooperative culture of knowing. Its not like being in a well greased coherent movement with  leadership, discipline texts and tightness nor in a random group of people praying in all different direction, with no structure, brotherhood and meaning, not amorphous or crystalline, more poly crystalline.

Its like being in perpetual Coalition, which can drive you nuts. From Ismaili to Sunni, Welsh Pakistani to London Bangladeshi, African to Anglo. And some Arabs. The interesting people do interesting things, medics do the healthy thing, the press releasers do their pressing thing (bless), the leader makers to the leader maker thing, the finance people to the bismillah thing, the lovers of mosque histories do mosque histories, and the Islamic workers work in the space that's created for them for little but the sake of His Pleasure. The trick to not going mad it to realise the diverse capabilities, tastes and motivations for constituent elements of the ummahtic ecology who are in the MCB space. And its getting less London centric now too.

Clear as mud?

Let us see: growing recognition of the ecology of the Muslims here, a community-facing orientation and an agility trained into the MCB.

In terms of content:

• Access to quality Islamic instruction for all
• Legal and political backup for endangered (Talha, Babar et al)
• Reform of 'halal' industries
• Tawhesion
• Deimperialisation
• Deconsumerisation

In terms of leadership, I think leadership is (l)earnt from doing awesome things, translating high ideals into social goods, daring to face down and defeat an adversary, and crucially being able to take the lead as well as be compelled by firefighting situations. Anyone touching PVE funds can join the back of the queue and get out of our faces. We should be creating the conditions, the playground, and community integrity in which such qualities can be raised. At present, yes-men go far in the ummahstructure.

On the 3rd July we celebrate, learn and appreciate Algeria's Independance. Will the august Council share the good news?