Hizb ut-Tahrir: This is open hostility to Islam
Taji Mustafa, media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain, rejects coalition’s ‘colonial’ approach:
“This policy has nothing to do with security. It is about forcing a set of values on a community simply because their beliefs do not conform to secular liberal norms, and is proof that liberals can be supremacist.
“After bombing Afghanistan and Pakistan, does Mr Cameron still expect people to believe in the Blairite delusion that it is Islamic beliefs that are the cause of security threats to the UK? Most serious observers have abandoned this discredited world view, which continues to be propagated by some politicians, and self-serving think tanks and academics whose funding relies on such nonsense.
“This Conservative-Liberal government has decided to display an open hostility to Islam – threatening to cut funding to some groups – in order to impose Cameron’s definition of ‘British’ values, and coercing Muslims to leave any Islamic values that the government labels ‘extremist’.
“It is worth recalling that the Blair-Brown government’s definition of ‘extremism’ included a belief in the Islamic Caliphate system of governance in the Muslim world; Islamic values in relation to intimate relations between men and women; and views on resistance to Western occupation in the Muslim world.
“Our message to the Muslim community is: let the government keep their funding and let us keep our Islamic values. Prevent funding has been largely rejected by the Muslim community who look at those who took it with suspicion so this ‘withdrawal’ is unlikely to affect many.
“This community built thousands of mosques, businesses, and schools largely without government funding. It was through initiative, hard work and most of all the help of Allah. No amount of government funding will compensate for us abandoning our Islamic principles and values.
“Our community would be doing a great injustice to itself and destroying decades of hard work if it did what Cameron and his government ask of us: to put loyalty to him above loyalty to the wider Muslim Ummah; to feel happy and proud when he orders British troops to kill Muslims in colonial wars; to accept his version of sexual morality as the norm; and to remain silent when oppression of the Ummah conflicts with British foreign policy interests.
“At a time when people in the West are seriously questioning the capitalist economic system, the West’s destructive colonial exploits around the world, the sexualisation of youth culture, the breakdown of family life, and the rise of disrespect and antisocial behaviour, does Mr Cameron seriously expect Muslims – in Britain or elsewhere – not to look to Islam for answers that would best suit their community and indeed the wider world?
“For years, governments in the Middle East that had accepted British and American money in order to curb the rise of Islamic values and secure Western interests are now reaping the response from their oppressed and exploited people. Now, it seems Mr Cameron hopes to bring this discredited colonial approach to Muslim communities within Britain.
“The Muslim community should reject such proposals to compromise our Islamic values as a condition of citizenship and instead work hard to preserve and uphold Islamic values, and engage with the people in the wider society based upon these noble values.”
