An enemy within

Writing in the Guardian guardian.co.uk/commentisfree > Michael White gave his opinions on Ruth Kelly’s suggestion that there be a re-balancing on government attitudes to those British Muslims who proclaim that they are the good guys.
[quote]For a politician treading on eggshells I thought Ruth Kelly behaved with suitable delicacy in this morning's speech inviting mainstream British Muslim organisations to accept publicly that they do pretty well here. To encourage them she plans to ''rebalance'' government support towards faith organisations that actively combat extremism in their midst - rather than merely "pay lip service" to the proposition.
But then I thought Jack Straw, who represents a lot of Muslims in Blackburn, also showed appropriate sensitivity when raising the question of the veil last week. He wasn't telling anyone what to do, merely seeking public debate. Myself, I've got used to all but the most severe veils. It's dark glasses worn indoors that spook me: you can't see their eyes. Clearly not everyone agrees. Straw's article proved divisive - even at cabinet level where such divisions can exist because there is no official policy on the veil - unlike in France where Salman Rushdie's insensitive assertion that "the veil sucks" prevails.
In today's Guardian the playwright David Edgar, raises Voltaire's standard of tolerance, rightly insisting that liberals must defend things they don't approve of while inadvertently illustrating the difficulty of sustaining consensus in practice: he catergorised pornography as "harmless". After watching this particular debate for 40 years I no longer think it is, do you?
But as ministers review the implications of last year's 7/7 bombings, carried out by British-born Islamists, it is clear that Whitehall has decided that its multicultural emphasis on tolerance rather than integration in the French sense (which has problems of its own) has failed to nurture the moderate majority in the current struggle with radical Islam.
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I think that someone has overlooked the effect of tribalism. Loyalty to the tribe is everything – it over-rides family ties and all personal opinion. There will be polite lip-service to saying what we want to hear but is as if they were speaking with fingers crossed. We saw just how quickly a topic spreads amongst Muslims at the time of the Danish cartoons and the remarks of Herr Pope. Did anyone appreciate the depth of feeling and the tendency to issue murderous threats amongst “those nice people from Somalia who run the vegetable stall”?
The communities secretary's specific reference to Muslim refusals to join the marking of Holocaust Day suggests she may have the umbrella organisation, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) in mind, though there will be others, struggling no doubt to maintain unity between its conservative and liberal wings - like many organisations, religious and secular.
Kelly said today "it isn't about preferential treatment, it is about equality." She cited laws and international action, Kosovo for instance, which gives the lie to claims that British foreign policy is hostile to Islam, despite Iraq. We can have differences over policy and politics, not over "non-negotiable values" like the rule of law and freedom of speech, she said.
[quote]Personally, I think Kelly's pitch a useful contribution to the debate. Knowing what Islamists are currently doing to other Muslims (much as Christians used to do to each other in Europe) there's an unanswerable case for more mainstream Muslims, living in security in the west, to speak out more openly for a less oppressive vision of their faith.
They don't have to be "on our side." Our side is strong enough to thrive on diversity and difference. But, allowing for all sorts of difficulties they must have in reconciling conflicting loyalties, they owe it to their own young generation to have the courage of their own quiet convictions.[/quote]
Yes. But how would we monitor the real feeling that is hidden inside the home or mosque? I see it as similar to the pet dog that would ‘never hurt anyone’ that suddenly and for no discernable reason, savages a kid it has grown up with.