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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Muslims must follow the Irish example |
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| WhatDFish |
| 08/30/05 at 22:49:54 |
| [slm] tell me what you think of this article, especially muslims from the subcontinent who are living in britain. if you agree or disagree and why . . . . Muslims must follow the Irish example By Rosemary Behan (Filed: 31/08/2005) My father, Brian Behan, came to Britain at the age of 23 to work as a labourer, with three shillings and four pence (17p) in his pocket. Through hard work and native talent, he became a writer and university lecturer. He was so at home here that he rarely returned to Ireland, citing Joyce's description of Dublin as "the city of spite and shite". For my father, England was "the land of big money and small shovels". Along with thousands of other Irishmen (known affectionately as "McAlpine's Fusiliers") he came to capitalise on the post-war building boom, and worked extensively on London's South Bank complex. He was an active trade unionist, helping to organise several strikes leading up to the Festival of Britain, but this only served to cement his loyalty to his fellow British workers. Every time I pass by that part of the river, I proudly remember how proudly my dad helped to build it. When I was young we lived in Whitechapel. For my brother and me, there was no nonsense about us being "half English, half Irish" or, worse still, "British-Irish". We were British, and that was that. But others who lived in our corner of Whitechapel in the late 1970s and 1980s had a different idea of what immigration was about. The area was then, and is still, an insular and regressive Muslim ghetto, of the type that exists in towns and cities across Britain. As part of the post-mortem into the July 7 bombings, everyone is asking how we can confront the threat of extremism among young Muslims. On the streets where I grew up, round the corner from the gigantic East London Mosque, imams are interviewed and young worshippers scrutinised for signs of extremism, while wide-eyed young children beam innocently and disarmingly at the cameras. The answer, to me, is obvious: now we must really integrate. If we do not, then more areas will come to resemble my part of east London. In recent years gangs of unemployed, disaffected young Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, dressed in fake designer labels, with cropped hair and mobile phones, have been patrolling the streets. Walls display their gang names in graffiti - the Brick Lane Massive, Stepney Green Posse, the Shadwell Crew. At the annual Brick Lane Festival, which is supposed to celebrate diversity, large groups of militant young Muslims dressed as Hamas supporters march down the street, proclaiming it as their own. It is a thoroughly depressing sight. The problems date back to the 1970s, when a massive influx of immigrants from the rural and impoverished district of Sylhet in Bangladesh followed the Irish builders, Huguenot silk weavers and eastern European Jews of the 18th century. By the time I was born, in 1976, most of our remaining Jewish neighbours were moving out. In that very year the synagogue on the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane became the Jamme Masjid Mosque. Bakeries and haberdashers closed down and the rag trade moved in. This would not have been such a problem had the change not been so, well, wholesale. The demographic balance seemed to change in the blink of an eye, as the traditional Cockneys departed and the council flats of Tower Hamlets soon came to resemble the slums of Dhaka. Soon we were the only white family on our road. Street names were being translated into Bengali and the foundations for the East London Mosque were being built. After it was opened in 1985, our lives were punctuated by the call to prayer four times a day (mercifully, we were spared the 4 am adhan). My brother and I could not attend our local school because we would have been the only white faces there, and English was not spoken between pupils. We had to travel for hours each day across London to attend schools with a more balanced intake. The curry houses and corner shops were run by men, while the women, who had often come from Bangladesh as part of an arranged marriage, were kept at home. Infuriatingly for the tiny white minority watching, these immigrants' access to benefits, healthcare and education did not depend on their learning English, for translators were available on demand. It is with these memories that I challenge Sir Iqbal Sacranie's insistence that Muslims are trying their hardest to integrate into British society, and that British people must work harder to welcome them. In an article in this newspaper last December, in which he put his case for the creation of new laws banning the incitement of religious hatred, Sir Iqbal said: "Muslims in Britain do not seek to create an enclave or a parallel culture. They want to be respected as British." As the child of an immigrant I know how integration works. The onus is on the immigrant, not the residents of the host country, to find work and find his own place. It is not for him to impose his own requirements on to the rest of the population. Hosts do not owe immigrants anything, apart from the acknowledgement of their right, if they have one, to live here. My father and his fellow Irish immigrants would never have dreamt of claiming benefits, speaking in Gaelic or complaining that they weren't being accepted. Those who believe that racial and religious segregation can be ignored need to wake up. We should have listened to the headteachers who, since the 1970s, have been desperately struggling with the problem of how to educate children who cannot speak English. More faith schools are manifestly not the answer. If we do not create a properly integrated society in which Muslim immigrants feel at home, at ease and at peace with their fellow Britons and their values, this country could become a breeding ground for far-Right political parties such as those in France, Holland, Austria and Italy. Even worse, if Britain's ghettos are not tackled, they will produce even greater numbers of alienated Muslims, compensating for their alienation in the most fundamental and uncompromising way of all. |
| 08/30/05 at 22:50:36 |
| WhatDFish |
| Re: Muslims must follow the Irish example |
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| jannah |
| 08/31/05 at 00:31:09 |
| slm, I'm not from Britian but I don't know.. I feel like she is really biased in her views.. She is obviously nostalgic for her childhood jewish neighborhood and blames the Muslims for the urban onslaught that has occured there. No doubt there are a lot of problems with the idea of Muslim ghettos, but "integration" is not going to solve that problem, especially when it is an "integration" that wants to erase a people's past, their culture, and their religion. The only thing that would probably work in changing the Muslim's condition there is tolerance, economic opportunity & growth, education. Then the Muslims can grow and develop and continue to contribute to British society without losing themselves in the process. |
| Re: Muslims must follow the Irish example |
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| SisterHania |
| 08/31/05 at 01:05:33 |
| [slm] I don't get this woman's article.....what she trying to say!? Whitechapel a ghetto? Because of the number of curry houses? Should the jewish community also follow the Irish example - don't kosher restaraunts equate gheto? How do segregated Jewish schools promote integration!? Golders Green is the heart of Jewish London with kosher restaurants, bakeries, butchers and supermarkets. Golders Green Road contains Jewish bookstores and gift shops. In the area are dozens of synagogues, temples and shtiebels. Golders Green has the Orthodox Menorah boys school, but most educational institutions are in nearby Hendon. Hendon boasts the Hasmonean and Independent schools, as well as the Jews College and Yakar, a synagogue known for its lecture series. |
| Re: Muslims must follow the Irish example |
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| abdullahcohn |
| 08/31/05 at 07:04:54 |
| If the Muslims followed the Irish example, we wont be debating one bombing, the irish in England responded to what the English government was doing in Irland with a lot more then one set of bombs. secondly, his father wouldn't need a Galic translator, because Galic is a official language in the UK! Translations are available for all official documents! Thirdly, the official religion in england is the C of E, the Irish have always had their catholic Schools founded with state funds. and there are many catholic schools here. Irish pubs are everywhere. and unlike other forigners the Irish don't need citizenship or even perminent residence to claim state benefits here. they can come here and take the benefits paid for by the taxes of british asians any time they want. |
| Re: Muslims must follow the Irish example |
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| Fozia |
| 08/31/05 at 10:06:50 |
| [slm] The article is just a thin disguise to have a good old Nationalist rant. I fully expect the person to anounce 'Go Home Paki' should I walk past her, I also expect her to accuse us of ' Coming to our country and stealing our jobs'. I have no idea who these benefit taking hoards are, my father was recently made redundant, he was far too ashamed to go and sign on and would rather sweep floors (note he's a highly educated individual with reams of experience and worked for a white collar company), most Asian people I have met are the same, they would rather be down to their last penny than claim benefits. The article is out and out racist, I find the sweeping generalisations to be deeply insulting. Interestingly, until the 'Muslim extremists' became public enemy number one, the Irish were pretty high up on the mass murderer/terrorist list at least on this side of the pond anyhow.....how easily one forgets. I am of the opinion that, the author would be better off with her head down keeping a low profile instead of spewing such vitriolic bile. As an aside the Masjid at white chapel has to keep the adhan down to a tolerable level, if Ms Behan invested in Double Glazing (I'm sure the funds from this article will now give her the finances to do just this) she would not be at all inconvenianced, by the call to prayer, the call to success...... Wassalaam |
| Re: Muslims must follow the Irish example |
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| Orange_Tree |
| 09/02/05 at 13:15:50 |
| [slm] Maybe it's just me but I have to be honest and say parts of that article ring true. I don't know much about London and whether she has accurately portrayed the environment but I live in the Midlands where there are asian ghettos and the communities tend to be quite insular and inward-looking. I do think that not speaking English is a problem. It keeps ppl separate from the rest of society as they are not able to engage fully with other ppl and therefore miss out on all sorts of opportunities. Usually it's the women who don't speak English which I think is tragic as they need to be able to communicate. My mother came to this country not speaking a word of English and now she works as a translator in the hospital working with pregnant ladies and mothers. I'm not saying it's easy but it's not impossible either. If we keep accommodating then that will turn into a reliance upon something which should be a temporary measure or at least not such a huge demand as interpreters are always desperately needed by hospitals. The article does make generalisations and I'm not wanting ppl to sweep away their identities for a new 'British' one but we cannot keep to ourselves in a sheltered little asian communtiy where everyone speaks the 'mother tongue' becuase that is marginalising ourselves from society at large. phew! rant over [] |
| Re: Muslims must follow the Irish example |
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| Halima |
| 09/02/05 at 17:48:12 |
| [slm] All, My question is, can't the Muslim community avail a kind of teaching community school for the ladies who do not speak English just as there are translators. These could be people like Orange_Tree's mother's, someone who arrived not knowing a word in English, is now translating in the same foreign language that the rest can not. It is time to take the action and educate our fellow Muslims. These does not apply to the Asian community only but every other Muslim immigrant. Those who are past school going age. As for the author of the article, she is nostalging and longing for what used to be and how it used to be. She is someone who is yearning for the good old days. I don't agree that people should loose their identity. [wlm] Halima |
| Re: Muslims must follow the Irish example |
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| Fozia |
| 09/03/05 at 11:45:01 |
| [slm] The reason the Asian communities tend to stick together, is because when they venture out alone, individuals get pretty brutally treated. For example, I wouldn't give a toss if I my neighbours weren't asian, so long as the area is nice and clean, near a good school for the girls and importantly, near a masjid. When we moved out here, I was met by the worst possible treatment, my husband works shifts (which sometimes includes nights), I and my husband were woken in the middle of the night by youths trying to break down our front door, I used to be called names, our brick wall was knocked down whilst it was only half built...should I go on?? If this is the way we are treated (the perpatrators were all white), I'm not a bit surprised that the Asian community prefer to stick together. I have to point out though that it is not only the Asian people who live together, you will find that people generally move in circles amongst those with whom they have something in common. The jewish community all live in the same area, is Golders Green then a Ghetto?? The Turkish people do, so do the Kurdish and the Portugese. I agree totally that individuals should learn the language of the country they live in. However, they do not have to adopt that country's dress, eating habits, living style, religion etc just because they live there. Also and importantly, living together enables us to pray in congregation which is imperitive. I absoloutely reject the insinuation that allowing a mosque to perform the Adhan over loud speakers is in some way infringing upon the authors rights. It's not. White Chapel mosque was made to jump through hoops before they were finally allowed this concession note it is [i] the only masjid in the UK allowed this luxury[/i] . Compare this to the fact that where my parents live (a predomoniantly Jewish area), the Jews put up 10 foot black wrought iron gates on all their syanangogues and schools because (get this) they were scared [i]they[/i] would be the next targets. The powers that be forgot that these very gates had been refused planning permission a million times before, in fact the gates had been pulled down by the council the first time round!!! That is where the Muslims are going wrong, what we need to do, is get into governemnt change it from the inside. I can just imagine the uproar, the [i]hurt[/i], the holocaust reminders the Jewish commmunity would be wailing about had this article been aimed at them. Any article ever saying anything even remotely insulting about the Jews is rescinded with bells on and a full apology. Muslims are a good target we are sitting ducks, we have no political clout and it's quite de rigeur to bash us. It's about time we did something constructive about safeguarding [i]our[/i] human rights. Wassalaam |
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