Last night I went along to a political rally organised by the Bangladesh Crisis Group which is an offshoot of the British Jamaat-e-Islam front, Islamic Forum Europe. I arrived at the Water Lily Centre which was the advertised venue to be told that the event had been moved to the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel. It was later expressed in the rally that the meeting had been moved because of “political pressure”. My guess is that the Water Lily Centre, which is controlled by Awami League supporters, decided not to host any political lobby involving Toby Cadman in case it irritated their leaders in Awami League HQ in Dhaka.

I thought that it was fitting that the rally had been moved back to London Muslim Centre, the nerve centre of the Jamaat-e-Islam in the UK. After all, it was the DCLG which correctly observed that the ELM/LMC is the base for Jamaat-e-Islami in the UK.

The attendance was very good, with more than 350 people in the “men’s section” alone and more upstairs in the “lady’s section” in the LMC. The rally kicked off just after the sunset prayer, with a reading of an apology from Kemal Helbawy, the chair of the Bangladesh Crisis Group, who excused himself for his absence because he was in Cairo. Helbawy is a member of the Egyptian franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood and has advocated the justification for killing children. It is, therefore, worthwhile to note that the Jamaat-Ikhwan alliance here and also the incongruity of having someone with his views proffering advice on human rights.

There were a total of 17 speakers from the initial advertised roster of 21.

The first to speak was Bob Lambert of the European Muslim Research Centre. Lambert was good enough to confess at the onset that he had never been to Bangladesh and had limited knowledge of the facts in Bangladesh first hand. He used the opportunity to discuss the “failures of the War on Terror” and to plug his new book.

Next was Moazzam Begg, who needs no introduction to those concerned with counter-terrorism in this country, who had nothing specific to say about the situation in Bangladesh but instead spoke about his “work in Libya”. He set forth a polemical rant about “oppression of the Muslims” which had everyone in the room cheering enthusiastically.

“What you’re seeing happening in Bangladesh are the birth pangs. You can see that the most demonised organisations of the world are the Muslim organisations. Everywhere you go, east, west, Islamic countries or not. And here you see in Bangladesh, the Jamaat-e-Islami, that is being demonised, that its activists are being imprisoned. Why? The reason is the same reason why Ben Ali captured, tortured and beat the people from the An-Nahda party. The same reason why Ghaddafi captured and tortured the people from the Islamic groups there. The same reason why Hosni Mubarak tortured and imprisoned the people from the Islamic groups there. For fear of legitimate opposition that had tangible abilities to challenge the status quo, i.e. they are afraid.”

Next to speak was Toby Cadman, and it is his speech that I waited to hear with interest. Cadman is the British barrister representing the five leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islam charged by the War Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. I wanted to know why a barrister was appearing at a political rally with Islamists and the supporters of war criminals. He stressed early on that he was not opposed to the Tribunal but had deep misgivings that his clients may not be receiving a fair trial in Dhaka.

“As the other speakers have said, Bangladesh is entering a very, very dangerous period. It’s not just the Tribunal. Now I’m just here to speak about the wider political issues because that’s not what I’m instructed to do. My job is to represent those currently detained and those facing allegations and, as I said, I will continue to do that. But that also involves discussing the wider political issues. The complete breakdown in democracy, the barring of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Now the wider political issues, that falls under the responsibility of a large number of international organisations. That’s not for me to get into as a lawyer. And what I’ve been doing is calling on these organisations to engage on a diplomatic level with Bangladesh to resolve these problems before it transcends into a humanitarian crisis. I think we’re on the brink of that right now. Some of the other speakers have already mentioned that. But as I say, those are the issues that need to be addressed by the international community. This government in particular, my government needs to step up and recognise that there is a serious problem.”

As Jamaat-e-Islam’s barrister, Toby Cadman is right to draw out any failures in due process and judicial norms by the War Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. However, here in London, he is sharing a platform with political groups who have been involved with crimes against humanity, sectarian violence, terrorism and human rights abuses of their own in Bangladesh and elsewhere. It is correct that people should speak out against the use of special security forces used by successive governments of Bangladesh which has led to various humanitarian abuses. But for an international barrister to point out these political and human rights abuses in Bangladesh, which are legion, and to conflate them with the due process obligations of the Tribunal is politicking and simply disgraceful.

Next to speak was Oliver McTernan, who spoke about the human rights abuses in Bangladesh in the most abstract terms and admitted that he had only educated himself on the issues prior to attending the rally, from the internet.

Farooq Murad of the MCB spoke next. Murad’s father, Khurram Murad, was the vice-Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and, as you would expect from the MCB, used arresting phrases to suggest that the whole matter was an international religious struggle against the oppression of Muslims:

“What is happening in Bangladesh now is an insult to the Ummah”

Imam Hazim Fazlic who is from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and is an imam in Birmingham, was next to speak. One of the points he made was that he hoped that Bangladesh would be the subject of some kind of humanitarian intervention by the international community, similar to Bosnia. This was not met with a very enthusiastic response from the audience.

Walid Saffour, of the Syrian Human Rights Committee, ended his speech with these words:

“May God protect our Maulana Delwar Hussein Sayeedi!”

This caused a full-throated cheer from the ELM audience, a response which made me sick to my stomach. Delwar Hussein Sayeedi stands accused in Bangladesh charged with looting, plundering, arson and rape of members of the Hindu minority. A full account of his crimes and the evidence brought to the Tribunal can be found here.

Other speakers who also addressed the LMC last night were Jonathan Fryer and Dr Noureddin Meladi. Fryer mentioned the human rights abuses in Bangladesh perpetrated by the Rapid Action Battalion, an elite crime force which has been responsible for many extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh.

Next to speak was Mahidur Rahman, who is the ‘Chief Coordinator’ of the UK chapter of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) in the UK. For some reason, Mahidur Rahman failed to mention that it was his party, the BNP, which was responsible for the creation of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). It was under the BNP government that RAB had become a “government death squad” in 2006, which a US human rights group accused of being responsible for killing 350 suspects in custody.

Mahidur Rahman made no mention of this, choosing instead to lay the blame of the RAB’s human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings firmly and in gross partisan manner on the Awami League instead.

We next had Noureddin Miladi, a Tunisian who suggested this little Islamist nugget of wisdom:

“[Democracy] as has been going for the last forty years on Bangladesh, has been something imposed from above. And all the rulers have, in a way, sustained by western powers because they serve their agenda of the western powers”

Musleh Faradhi the leader of the IFE spoke next. In addition to suggesting that the War Crimes Tribunal is some kind of Neocon conspiracy ordained by George Bush, he dishonestly mangled an historical fact:

“They found something special for Bangladesh and that is war crimes and war criminals. Because they know, because their gurus told them the bigger the issue that you raise, the young people of Bangladesh will become very emotional. They would think ‘How can these people be the enemy of the country, how can a group of people work against the independence of the country?’

Therefore they have found an issue and they have tried to make an issue of something that was not an issue. Because Bangladesh reconciled with what happened in 1971. People who were criminals, they were tried and the people who were not criminals were forgiven by the founder of the nation. But why it has come up after forty years? Only because they want to suppress opposition”

This is a blatant lie made here by Faradhi. It is his assertion that criminals were tried in 1971. But war criminals have not faced judicial proceedings until now. Perhaps he should have listened to his colleage, Toby Cadman, who had just previously said on the same platform:

“It’s important that Bangladesh, as a nation, brings an end to this particular chapter and brings an end to impunity. It has an obligation under international law to do this. It also has an obligation under international law to do it properly.”

And that is exactly what should be done. And it would be advisable that the Jamaat-e-Islami activists of the East London Mosque and the Islamic Forum Europe and their various friends who all spoke at the meeting yesterday accept that justice be served by supporting the judicial processes in Bangladesh under the War Crimes Tribunal.

It is also imperative that the War Crimes Tribunal itself comply to all international judicial process and norms so that the accused can get a fair trial.

In the Guardian, Nesrine Malik is wary of the pronouncement since similar assurances have been made in the past but have never been implemented because of inertia at beauracratic level.

In the last elections, in 2005, practical considerations and the difficulty of preparing for women to take part at short notice were the official reasons given for the postponement of the decision. Elections scheduled for 2009 did not go ahead …This is something often seen in the Kingdom with regards to women’s rights: a promise and an expression of goodwill scuppered due to bureaucracy. There is no law prohibiting women from driving, for example, but an administrative vacuum makes it impossible to get a driving licence or register to drive. “We are not ready” is the refrain often heard from those in authority.
This is the first time the king has made an overt promise regarding women’s participation in politics, and it is encouraging that the issue is being discussed. But there remains a concern that the pattern will continue, in which women’s rights appear to have been granted in principle but never in practice.

Juan Cole considers it little more than a token gesture thrown in to stave off the threat of an Arab Spring style revolt in the streets of Riyadh and Jeddah which the Saudi Royal family is frantic to avoid.

Nor does the right to vote in municipal elections four years down the road in Saudi Arabia amount to all that much. The royal family only allows half the seats on the city council to be filled by elections. It appoints the other half. And it appoints a mayor as a tie-breaker. So the women are being offered the opportunity to vote for 49% of the important decision-making posts.

Moreover, the municipal elections are it. There are no provincial elections. The national Shura Council (advisory body to the king) is appointed by the monarch, though now it can have women on it. At a time when Tunisians, Egyptians and Libyans are demanding free and fair, transparent parliamentary elections and the end of secret-police rule, the Saudi monarchy is taking not so much baby steps as embryonic ones. Elections to a national parliament or at least parliament-like advisory body had been scheduled for 2010, but they were never held.

As this fascinating essay about the history and the current political dynamics in the struggle for Kurdish emancipation from Outernationalist shows:

The plot of denying Kurds their basic human rights only thickened when hegemonic powers in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria denied their status as a distinct ethnic group. People of Kurdish origin were systematically punished for displaying their ethnic background, promoting their culture and speaking their own language. Kurdish was banned as a language in Turkey at all forums, including educational institutions, and so was the literature and traditions. Anyone found engaged in ‘subversion’ i.e. promoting or preserving Kurdish language and values faced lengthy prison terms and banishment from public life. The slogan “one language, one nation, one country” became the political order. Under the banner of the “superior Turkish identity”, the entire society was made to pledge allegiance to an aggressive form of nationalism.

The Iranians went a step further and declared Kurds an ethnic subgroup of the great Persian nation. The only way for Kurds to demand rights was to accept that they’re Persians, the majority ethnic group of Iran. On the other hand, the Arabs in Iraq and Syria, denied the existence of a Kurd nation. They insisted that all the issues have been resolved after the advent of Islam. Officially, Islam was the only nation. And this nation was Arab.

After the 1960 military coup in Turkey, a very liberal constitution was adopted that included substantial protections for democracy, freedom of expression, and human rights. Kurds from both sides of the political spectrum took advantage of this new change. Radical groups with Marxist-Leninist affiliations emerged, with Workers’ Party the most prominent that called for an end to the oppression of Kurdish minority.

It’s not difficult to see why the Kurdish struggle is not a cause celebre for western media and why it fails to get Muslim mass-support. The persecution of the Kurds has been at the hands of Muslims, Arabs, Turks and Persians and there is no way, in these cases, to put the blame on “western colonialism”, “neocons”, Jews or Hindus or any other of the usual suspects.

i have for some time been aware of the powerful analytical frameworks for bio-psycho-social systems developed by the american psychologist dr clare graves and systematised for practical application by don beck and chris cowan in the excellent book “spiral dynamics” (i’m not affiliated with anyone concerned, incidentally). at the risk of sounding like somewhat of a “fanboy”, as i believe it is called on teh interwebs, i am convinced it constitutes an important piece of intellectual real estate for the understanding of complex socio-political systems, particularly in behavioural terms.

you can read more about the basics of spiral dynamics here and here - and i strongly encourage you to do so, but perhaps the easiest way to demonstrate its unique way of enabling insight into human nature is by a review of the various behaviours that have been exhibited during the riots. in the table below you will see a number of different types of responses and the messages associated with them, which you will have seen reflected by the proponents of these value systems in the various media channels. the vast majority of these types of response can present in either healthy or unhealthy forms – thus “C-P” (“red”) behaviours and messages were used both destructively (wanton destruction) and constructively (arresting looters) – in both cases, the behaviour was the demonstration of dominance and power, with corresponding public messages (a cartmanesque “RESPECT MY AUTHORITAAH!”) sent to the media.

you’ll see that whilst most of the operational trouble has functioned at C-P/red systems level, most of the discussion and analysis has been conducted by politicians and the media at blue (mostly “societal breakdown”, good-and-evil) orange (intellectual, opportunistic and tactical) and green (communitarian, progressive and inclusive) levels – and if the reactions are to be systematic, they will have to be a combination of green, blue and orange solutions appropriate to the situation, just as identifying looters using website photos (orange), communally organised clean-up squads (green) and attempts to strengthen traditional family structures (blue) have already been used. i note that ed miliband (who i usually have little time for) has supposedly come out against knee-jerk reactions and i think he’s correct in this at least; david cameron will not get very far if all his responses are couched in “blue” terms to appeal to the “respect for society must be restored” brigade and executed in “orange” technocratic action plans by community workers who are uncomfortable with anything which doesn’t take account of “green” inclusion. if he is serious about the “big society”, he will need to understand that the big society needs *all* these things, it is not a blue, orange or green concept, just as it needs “red” defences and alternative “purple” clan and kin affiliations than those of gang, patois and skin colour – and that includes the purple affiliations of the non-rioters, too! the “big society” could be second-order policy thinking and leadership, but that needs a shift in both our understanding of the situation and the strategies we use to manage it.

in all these cases i would say: if you want to find a constructive, insightful way of discussing the value systems that led to the events of the last couple of weeks, you would do worse than to look at how spiral dynamics sheds light on the tensions, relationships, structures and messages involved.

all comment and discussion welcome.

“More precision needed. There should be a stamp for that. MPN should be like LOL or TMI.”

i agree. what narks me somewhat (and no doubt there are all sorts of reasons why i am wrong about this) is that this is *precisely* what bothers me about statements about a) religious people and b) the tendentious-as-feck word “judeo-christian”.

“But there again – that’s a matter of fact, not something that can just be declared from the armchair as if it were self-evident. Are Muslims as “diverse” as any other group of people living in the UK? Are all groups living in the UK exactly as diverse as each other, neither more nor less? I don’t see why that would be the case. It’s certainly not impossible that there is something about Islam and/or the history of people who emigrate from majority-Muslim countries that makes Muslims as a group tend to be different from other people as groups, including being less “diverse.” That’s something to find out, not just to announce as a necessary truth. Or a sacred cow…”

i would argue that this is exactly what annoys me about statements about religious people in which jews and judaism are included. jews in the uk are *extremely* diverse – this is an ongoing issue which pops up every time someone decides to say something about how we have a monolithic view, or “the community thinks”. in fact, the community, generally speaking, disagrees on nearly everything. on the other hand, it seems to me that the idea that muslims are somehow less diverse is equally mistaken. on the other hand, i am often attacked for suggesting that there is a “significant minority” (i usually quote 13%, based on a survey done some years back for channel 4) that are problematic particularly if you look at what they think about jews. the *real numbers* that can be attached to this, in this case 260,000 based on 2m muslims (again, if that’s correct) is still a very large number compared to the number of jews in this country. in other words, it is nonetheless possible that a) muslims are not monolithic in their views AND b) there is a significant minority of muslims whose views are problematic – and that one can therefore conclude that this minority is big enough to cause a sizeable problem. please note here that i am not intending to essentialise, demonise or whatever. this is just a numbers game. if 13% of these guys are arseheads, 13% of 2m people adds up to a LOT more arseheads than the corresponding number of jews, especially given that there is no evidence whatsoever that a “significant number of jews” hold views that are problematic for a) the UK b) liberal democracy or c) muslims. on the other hand, there *are*, i would say, a “significant number of jews” whose views on the middle east are problematic for a “significant number of so-called ‘progressives’ and muslims and people in the house of lords or the foreign office”. this, for me, is the source of the false equivalences.

the below the line comments are also quite revealing of the issues that are raised.

Shahzad was the Pakistan bureau chief of Asian Times Online and had recently authored a book entitled “Inside Al Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11”. From what I’ve read of his work Shahzad provided unique insights on militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Syed Saleem Shahzad’s killing was payback, other journalists and human rights activists said they believed — not from militants, but from Pakistan’s fearsome spy agencies. Shahzad had written before about their dealings with Islamist insurgents, and intelligence officers had warned him.

Update: This is Saleem Shahzad’s last recorded interview

“I am forwarding this email to you for your record only if in case something happens to me or my family in future,” Shahzad, 40, wrote last October to the Pakistan representative of Human Rights Watch, sharing details of a meeting he had just had with officers from Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Shahzad suggested that they had threatened him, an experience that Pakistani journalists, activists and politicians say is not uncommon.

But those threats rarely end in killing, and Shahzad’s death immediately sparked fresh criticism of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus. The “agencies,” as they are known here, last month faced unusual public condemnation for their apparent failure to locate Osama bin Laden in a garrison city, as well as allegations that they had harbored him.

On Tuesday, the focus was on activities Pakistan’s spies are better known for domestically: punishing those who cross the powerful military, the main locus of power in a nation with a weak civilian government.

An ISI official denied that the agency was involved in Shahzad’s death. “Show us the proof. Otherwise, it’s totally absurd,” the official said.

Shahzad’s killing also renewed attention on the alleged crossover between militants and Pakistan’s security forces, some of which he outlined in his recent article in the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online, for which he was the Pakistan bureau chief. According to Shahzad’s reporting, last week’s attack on a Karachi naval base was a response to the Pakistani navy’s detection of al-Qaeda cells within its ranks, and it followed failed discussions between the navy and al-Qaeda about the release of naval officers arrested on suspicions of links to the terrorist group.

On Monday, Pakistani media reported that a former navy commando had been detained for questioning in the attack.

The author of a new book on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Shahzad was considered well connected to both the military establishment and militant groups. He persisted though the ISI had warned him several times about articles they “deemed detrimental to Pakistan’s national interests or image,” according to the Asia Times Online.

with this in mind, i thought it was worth setting out a few of the principles that i think are fairly basic to pursuing both the more aggressive and the more peace-loving sides without compromising the integrity of either. i believe we can both aspire to a more peaceful future at the same time as defending ourselves against those who threaten our society; i think these might be the things that we hold in common and the things which we believe are not held in common by those we oppose:

1. the belief that muslims have the potential to integrate into british (and other western) society as productively as jews have.
2. the belief that eventually mainstream islam will decisively reject the path of taking practical steps to take over the world and relegate this safely to the realm of the eschatological – at present the islamist movement still actually thinks it can win over this debate.
3. the belief that peaceful coexistence is possible even in the middleeast, given goodwill and a real desire to find a workable solution.
4. the acceptance that, islamism aside, there are a lot of people out there who have an unreasonable prejudice against any and all muslims, not just the fundamentalist sort – and that if we can only get the mainstream communities committed to a pluralistic, polycultural modern world rather than a salafist 7th century cloud-cuckoo-land, a commitment to standing shoulder-to-shoulder with muslims in fighting those islamophobes for their rights to be a part of that future.
5. the acceptance that 1, 3 and 4 also have ethnic dimensions and that we have nothing against arabs, persians, turks, pakistanis, bangladeshis etc qua arabs, persians, turks, pakistanis and bangladeshis etc.

if these can be accepted, without significant reservation, then we can begin to accept and deal with the following challenges that we believe to be real:

• a. that there are some muslims, whether individuals, groups, sects, parties or tendencies, that have the downfall of our society in mind and consequently hold what we consider to be unacceptable points of view – let’s say 13%, for argument’s sake; not even a particularly sizeable minority in relative terms, but in absolute terms, given the number of muslims there actually are, enough to cause problems for both their own communities and wider society.
• b. that some of these groups are busily trying to co-opt and own all the islamic community structures that presently exist, as well as present their narrative as that of “all” muslims.
• c. that these people have, over the years, received large amounts of funding and inspiration (with strings attached) from saudi and other insalubrious middle eastern places, as well as from credulous, starry-eyed orientalists in the guardianista / multiculti camp – without strings attached.
• d. that these people are busily engaged in not only political entryism a la tower hamlets, but in hoodwinking well-meaning liberals into acting as figleaves for their disingenuous political and religious programme and thereby bolstering their own credibility.
• e. that if you take a look into the history of many of these socalled respectable “community leaders”, you don’t have to look very hard before you start finding the bloody trail of the bangladeshi genocide as well as the knuckle-prints of the global islamist movements like the ikhwaan and hizb ut-tahrir, let alone all the dodgy things that get said in arabic, farsi, urdu and so on compared to what gets said in english for the benefit of the western media.

if one can accept all of these things, perhaps dialogue can get beyond the ceremonial and cynical to the meaningful and productive. i myself have to do some serious thinking about where i stand on “platform-sharing” issues in particular. on one hand, i try and follow mandela’s excellent principle of “talking to anyone that will talk to me”, but on the other, my deep distrust of certain people and groups, not to mention 16 years of experience, have led me to conclude that there are some people that it is not worth engaging with, like, say, the al-muhajigoonies of this world, who deserve nothing but merciless lampooning in the most liberal of terms (of late the ahmadis have been added to this list – so i saw with displeasure this morning an advert for them on the side of a bus). similarly, i have to consider the rabin principle – that it is one’s enemies that one makes peace with, not one’s friends and that platforms for dialogue will sooner or later have to address the points that i raise above – but you have to suspend certain questions until trust has been established; you can’t jump straight into a conversation about israel, for instance.

i would be most interested in whether people think i have the basis of the argument down correctly. alternatively, you can all call me an islamophobic racist or something.

Amnesty International has given payoffs totalling more than £860,000 to its two most senior former officials, angering its supporters.

The human rights charity says it had no alternative but to pay Irene Khan, its former secretary general, £533,104 after she completed her second four-year term in 2009.

Khan’s deputy, Kate Gilmore, received up to £330,000 at the same time, according to Amnesty’s latest financial records.

The combined payments are equivalent to approximately 4% of Amnesty’s £21.9m annual budget…
…..
Amnesty insiders are outraged Khan was paid more than four times her annual salary of £132,490. “They basically gave her the equivalent of working for another term,” one informed source said. “It is a ridiculous waste of money that will anger a lot of donors.”

Amnesty said Khan left because she had reached the end of her contracted term and the payout was made up of elements including “salary, salary increases and relocation expenses”, which were in the contract she had signed when she took up her post.

Yesterday a source close to Khan said a significant part of the payments was made as a “settlement for a dispute with the board”.

The scale of this payoff beggars belief. As Norm says:

for Amnesty to be devoting four per cent of its annual budget, and sums of this absolute magnitude (half a million smackeroonies), to payoffs of such a kind might give many of its supporters pause. The fact of there being anger within the organization, as well as being a healthy sign, should also give pause to those in the habit of suggesting that supporting human rights means you should shut up rather than criticize human rights NGOs when they foul up.

Worldwide outrage, a facebook campaign and a global petition to restore integrity to human rights followed.

The result?

A vicious slander campaign against Sahgal, coordinated by pro-extremist reactionary bloggers and useful idiots – amongst them Sunny Hundal, Andy Worthington, Islamophobia-Watch etc.

Amnesty International initially claimed that they were not promoting Begg’s views, only his experiences. Then they decided that his view on jihad in self defence was ‘not antithetical to human rights‘.

Gita and Amnesty International parted company.

An internal review found that management had failed in their duty of ‘due diligence’ and had not investigated Cageprisoners. Although no investigation has been conducted, Amnesty International and other human rights groups have lined up to support Cageprisoners.

Cageprisoners continues to flourish thanks to huge donations from the Rowntree Trust.

These protests began after Mohamed Bou’aziz, an unemployed university graduate in the town of Sidi Bouzid, attempted to burn himself to death on December 17 when the produce he sold on the street to earn a living was confiscated. (He later died of his injuries.)

How could Mr. Bou’aziz know what the implications of his desperate act would be in just one month’s time? His sacrifice inspired huge demonstrations that spread across the North African country, organized in part through resourceful use of Twitter and Facebook. These were met with brutality by the security forces, a grim reality that simply provoked more protest. Unarmed demonstrators were regularly teargassed. Many were arrested. As many as 70-80 people were shot or beaten to death. But the protesters marched on.

This largely peaceful, democratic revolution (on the side of the opposition at least) was not led by or inspired by the fundamentalist movements that have tried to claim the oppositional space in many Arab and North African contexts in recent years. It was instead, by all accounts, a largely secular appeal for real political reform and for social justice. As reflected in today’s front page of the Paris daily Liberation (above; credit), women, many unveiled, were increasingly visible in the protest marches.

One can hope that today’s initial victory of North African people power will serve as an example of what is possible in other countries in the region. This is what Noam Chomsky has called the threat of a good example. One dictator brought down by popular revolt – no dictator is safe now.

Hope is a powerful, incandescent force. Hope in the political realm has been a rare commodity of late in this part of the world. Bou’aziz’s revolution may have brought that back. But, just as the power of hope should not be underestimated, neither should the danger of hopes unfulfilled.

It is unclear exactly what the future holds for Tunisia now.

Mohammed al-Ghannouchi, the Prime Minister who has also been in power since 1999, has taken over as President since the departure of ousted President Ben Ali, whom Saudi Arabia “‘welcomed.’” A state of emergency was declared, with soldiers guarding public buildings, tanks on the streets of Tunis, and prohibitions on public meetings.

The government must respond to the grievances that first provoked these events – creating jobs, meeting human needs, fostering equality of all kinds, enabling freedom of expression and association, institutionalizing real social democracy – rather than simply engaging in window dressing that preserves the Tunisian system with a different figurehead. The international community, and the U.S. government, should support this process.
The biggest external impact of events in Tunisia could come in neighboring Algeria, which I visited twice last fall, and which witnessed scattered, sporadic émeutes – riots – throughout 2010. The country has just experienced a week of widespread, intensive youth protests that seem to have been the result of a similar long-simmering anger over high unemployment, corruption, economic disparities and la hogra, the arrogance with which officials often treat ordinary people. (photo credit) However, the immediate catalyst was likely the sharp increase in the price of staples like cooking oil and sugar at the beginning of the year. See this useful discussion of the possible causes by journalist Chawki Amari writing in El Watan, one of Algeria’s leading daily newspapers.

Some have suggested that the initial disturbances may have been provoked – perhaps by private interests that control the sugar and oil markets and were unhappy over government regulatory action in this arena. It is hard to say. However, even if this were the case, legitimate popular anger clearly took over from there. Some – only some – of the recent protests turned violent with young rioters throwing stones at police and passing cars, burning tires and looting shops.

Unfortunately, the avenues for peaceful protest are stifled in Algeria due to the continuing imposition of a state of emergency since 1992.

For example, following the week’s protests, last Sunday, January 9, a civic group called the Intercommunal Association of Aïn Benian-Staoueli tried to hold a peaceful gathering in the coastal town of Staoueli about 20 kilometers outside of Algiers. Their efforts were forcefully thwarted by “preventive” arrests. Algerian writer and journalist Mustapha Benfodil, who was attempting to cover the event, was among those arrested. He later recounted his experiences in El Watan, offering an eyewitness account of la hogra in action. As he notes, those picked up by the police that day were suspected of the rather kafka-esque offense of “attempted peaceful gathering.” (They have since been released – though across the country many young protestors remain in jail.)

For Algeria’s democratic opposition, the current challenge is to find a way to translate this month’s explosion of youthful anger into positive political change, and to maximize the jolt of energy from events in next door Tunisia. According to Benfodil, the former task requires the mobilization of civil society, trade unions, academics, the middle class, NGOs and others, “if they truly want to transform this impetuous winter into a democratic spring…”

“No-one has ever been executed under Pakistan’s blasphemy law”

While this is factually correct, it is a trope which ignores the violence and victimisation inflicted on Pakistan’s minorities by the slightest allegation of blasphemy. Take a look at this extremely distressing story of two Christian women who were beaten and publically humiliated by an angry mob over apparently frivolous blasphemy allegations. They and their family are now in hiding for fear of being killed.

“None of our relatives is ready to let us stay with them. They fear the wrath of the extremists, particularly after the assassination of Salmaan Taseer,” a male member of the family said over the phone from an undisclosed location.

The family and a non-governmental organisation that is helping them asked that their identities not be revealed, lest it put them in further danger. The names mentioned here are fictitious.

According to the family, the allegations stem from a dispute between Amina, a Muslim, and her sister-in-law Zahira, a Christian, in an East Lahore locality. The two got into an argument on Tuesday night and though it appeared to have been settled, on Wednesday morning, after her husband Zahid had gone to work, Amina walked out onto the street and started shouting that Zahira had abused the Holy Prophet (pbuh).

A short while later, a group of men led by Muhammad Sameer, a member of a religious organisation keen on raising its sectarian profile, forced their way into the house and started slapping Zahira, said another of her brothers, Sohail. “Other men and women from the neighbourhood started gathering at the house too and they beat up my sister and mother. They were the only people in the house,” he said.

“We tried our best to get her to confess her crime,” Sameer told The Express Tribune. As a member of the religious organisation, he said he could not tolerate any derogatory remarks about the Holy Prophet (pbuh).

Sameer added that he was very proud of his wife’s performance during the mob beating. “She beat Zahira more than anyone else. Her hand is so swollen that she hasn’t been able to make rotis since the day of the incident. I’ve been getting my meals from a restaurant,” he said.

[...]

[Zameer Khan, an NGO worker] said after hearing of the incident, he had reached the scene to find the women being attacked. He said he had asked the mob if anyone had heard Zahira utter any blasphemous remarks, to which they all replied in the negative. He said he persuaded them to let the women go while he investigated the matter. He then helped relocate the family temporarily. He said he had also convinced the mob not to involve the police.

There may be no cases of  anyone being executed by Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law, but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cases of people being victimised and hounded, like the case of Zahira, above. The mere accusation of blasphemy and “insults to the blessed Prophet” are enough to provoke near murder. There are even several cases of accused blasphemers killed whilst in police custody. Zahira is lucky to have survived this horrific attack. Others have been less fortunate.

Condemning the British government for its engagement with RAB—without any actual evidence that the training it provides facilitates RAB in violating human rights—risks preventing the organisation from gaining the skills and capacity that might allow it to develop into a human rights compliant organisation.

The article describes RAB as a ‘death squad’, and suggests that the British government training may well have increased RAB’s criminality, at one point reporting that its journalists asked the UK’s National Policing Improvement Agency whether its ‘courses in investigative interviewing techniques might not render torture more effective.’

If these claims were true, this would, of course, be a significant scandal. Yet, they are unsubstantiated.

Unlike the suggestion in the article, it has been no secret that the UK government has provided training to RAB.

In April 2009, Human Rights Watch itself reported that, ‘The United Kingdom and the United States’ were providing ‘training to RAB in the stated hope that the force will improve its human rights record and eventually become a more effective counterterrorism outfit.’

And, after the Guardian article was published, the news agency AFP reported that, early in 2010, Duncan Norman, Britain’s deputy high commissioner in Bangladesh, had given it an on-the-record interview about the training the British government provided to RAB.

Moreover, the use of the term ‘death squad’ is highly sensationalist.

The words are taken from a comment given by Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch who is quoted in the Guardian article as saying that ‘RAB is a Latin American-style death squad dressed up as an anti-crime force.’

The article adds that ‘Human Rights Watch has repeatedly described the RAB as a government death squad.’

However, Human Rights Watch has only once used the term ‘death squad’ to describe RAB and that was in a report four years ago. Since then—despite numerous press releases and a further detailed report on the organisation in May 2009—HRW has routinely described RAB either as ‘an elite crime-fighting force’, or a ‘paramilitary law enforcement agency.’ Not a ‘death squad’. And certainly not a Latin American-styled one.

When asked about this, Brad Adams said, ‘I’m not sure when and whether we’ve used the term before’ saying that he didn’t ‘have time right now to research this.’

And although the Guardian article suggests that HRW is not the only organisation to refer to RAB as a ‘death squad’, no other human rights organisation in Bangladesh or outside has done so.

This is not surprising. They know very well that although there is much to condemn RAB for, it is simply not a militia that goes around the country solely engaged in kidnapping and killing people, as suggested by the term ‘death squad’.

It is instead a law enforcement agency with over 7,000 officers who spend most of their time dealing with straightforward law enforcement issues.

RAB officers are, for example, commonly seen on the roads of Dhaka manning road blocks and the daily newspapers are full of reports of people arrested by them for ordinary criminal offences.

It, of course, does have a very dark side. The Guardian is right to report serious allegations against RAB of extrajudicial killings. As it says, RAB has over the years reportedly killed hundreds of people in what are often euphemistically called ‘cross fires’. These need to be investigated, the people responsible brought to justice and the agency itself needs to be seriously reformed.

Yet, there is quite a significant difference between a 7,000-man death squad, as suggested in the article, and a law enforcement agency some of whose members have allegedly committed torture and extrajudicial killings.

Use of the term ‘death squad’ only prejudices the question of whether or not it is appropriate for the British government to provide RAB training.

And there does not seem to be anything contentious about the training itself.

The leaked US embassy cable describes the UK government providing ‘human rights training’, ‘training to make the RAB a more transparent, accountable and human-rights compliant paramilitary force’ part of which is training in ‘areas such as investigative interviewing techniques and rules of engagement.’

The British-based National Police Improvement Agency expands on this in the Guardian article by stating that it provides RAB training in ‘forensic awareness, management of crime scenes and recovery of evidence. Throughout the training we have emphasised the importance of respecting the human rights of witnesses, suspects and victims.’

Following the publication of the Guardian article, a British High Commission spokesperson in Bangladesh told the BBC that the training involved ‘interview skills, investigation skills, [and] basic scene of crime skills.’

This kind of investigation skills training to improve compliance with basic human rights standards is very similar to that provided to the Bangladesh police by the United Nations Development Programme as part of its ‘Police Reform Project’, which is funded by the UK Department for International Development and development agencies of other countries. This has been going on for a number of years without any controversy.

Since the Bangladesh police has been accused over many years by human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch, of involvement in the systematic torture of detainees to extract confessions, those critical of improving RAB’s investigative skills should also want to end the police training.

To do this though would be entirely counterproductive. A key reason why such organisations as RAB and the police are involved in torture is that these are the only methods by which the organisations know how to investigate crime. In Bangladesh, crime scenes are almost never kept, techniques like finger printing are not used, and cases are not built up on the basis of deductive inquiry and questioning. Both RAB and the police, simply detain people, and carry out investigations by coercion, torture—and sometimes killing.

It is, therefore, essential that these organisations understand that crimes can be solved without torture. Criticising the British government for providing training removes the possibility that these agencies will ever learn how to investigate crime using the human rights compliant techniques standard in the UK and other countries.

And, interestingly Human Rights Watch, in its most recent report on RAB states that international donors like the British government can provide training as long as it is ‘specifically for human rights’.

Human Rights Watch has not responded to a query about why the training by the British government does not constitute the kind of ‘human rights training’ it supports.

The only suggestion in the Guardian article that the training provided by the British government was not human rights training comes from a comment by the RAB’s head of training, Mejbah Uddin ‘that he was unaware of any human rights training since he was appointed last summer.’ It is notable, however, that the Guardian does not set out what training was in fact provided.

It is very likely that Uddin’s response simply reflects a different understanding of what constitutes ‘human rights’ training, not recognising that it includes learning about the maintenance of crime scene and investigation techniques.

There is a purist view that donor agencies should not engage at all with organisations involved in human rights violations, that any engagement simply provides them unhelpful legitimacy. And there may well be questions to be asked of the British government about how much pressure it put on the Bangladesh government to stop torture and extrajudicial killings by RAB.

However, condemning the British government for its engagement with RAB—without any actual evidence that the training it provides facilitates RAB in violating human rights—risks preventing the organisation from gaining the skills and capacity that might allow it to develop into a human rights compliant organisation.

This makes it all the more remarkable that British lawyer Phil Shiner has initiated legal action against the British government. One would expect lawyers of Shiner’s reputation—who made his name in taking action against the British government over killing of citizens in Iraq—to undertake their own due diligence before opportunistically filing legal papers based on a misleading newspaper article.

Through our work helping those facing the death penalty in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, we have come across a number of recurring themes. One is police torture – it is standard practice in some parts of Pakistan (including Azad Kashmir) for people to be tortured upon arrest until they confess.

Most instances of torture are not reported. Police abuse appears to be so common in Pakistan that it has been accepted as the norm. We want to uncover the full scale of the problem of police torture in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir and try to put an end to it. To do this, we need to speak to as many victims of police abuse as we can. We will use this information, with expert medical support, to challenge these practices.

With your help we can make a difference
The time is ripe to end this practice in Pakistan. Recently, the police have been recorded brutalising prisoners on phone cameras. For the first time we are seeing police officers suspended and arrested for torturing prisoners. A major exposé of police torture could turn the tide in the battle against this horrific practice.

The more people who come forward, the greater the chance of success.

Please contact Owen Watkins at 07595 763131 or owen.watkins@reprieve.org.uk

Download the PDF leaflet

BenSix begins, rather badly and rather characteristically, with a slander:

Blogger Meredith Tax and activist Gita Saghal appear to believe that one shouldn’t defend a person’s rights if they’re a bastard.

Which is, of course, a misrepresentation and a cheap smear of the position taken by Sahgal, Tax and Bennoune. And if BenSix had actually taken the time to understand their arguments, he might have known that they have not any point suggested that “bad people” be denied their human rights or be subjected to extra-judicial imprisonment. But what to expect from a LiberalConspiracy blogger, where smears come thick and fast against people who campaign against extremism?

Luckily Meredith Tax, the subject of the smear, responds in the comments to clear her name which is reproduced in its entirety here as a blog post:

Neither Gita Sahgal nor I have ever maintained that morally or politically repugnant people should be denied human rights. Everyone is entitled to a legal defense against abuses of state power, including targeted assassination.

The problem is that, in the US, bringing a legal case of this kind means you cannot speak truthfully about the person you are defending without risking being disbarred for working against the interests of your client. That is why the case risks sanitizing al-Awlaki–because the lawyers working for his father are not allowed to speak as if he were anything but innocent. So one of the issues in taking on a political case in the US, as opposed to the UK or Spain, is the limited room for maneuver given lawyers.

There are, however, other ways of making disclaimers which the CCR has not pursued consistently, such as stating in their press releases that they oppose attacks on civilians, or organizing forums in which they can speak against targeted assassination while others not from the CCR can speak about the dangers posed by al-Awaki’s politics.

The other problem is that the rights of people suffering from abuses of state power are not the only rights that need to be defended. Gita, Karima, I, and others–many others, though not mostly in the UK–are against setting up a hierarchy that puts the rights of those attacked by the state above the those attacked by armed groups. Some of these armed groups are on the right–Islamist networks, Christian militias, settlers in the West Bank.

Others are on the left–Sendero Luminoso comes to mind. We believe the human rights movement must stand up for the rights of those attacked by such groups as well as the rights of those attacked by the US or British state.

[my emphases]

I am a member of the board of trustees of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in the US and an international law professor of Muslim heritage. I spoke out in the Guardian of 15 November 2010 against CCR’s decision to represent pro bono the interests of Anwar al-Awlaki – a jihadist linked to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula – in litigation against the Obama administration over its stated intention to assassinate al-Awlaki.

As a human rights lawyer, I oppose extrajudicial killings in violation of international law, so I oppose a policy of targeted assassinations by the US government, whether applied to Awlaki or others. However, Awlaki has himself openly called for assassinations, and is at large and continuing to do so (pdf; see pages 24-28, in particular).

How can we defend the principle that assassinations are wrong by standing silently next to an advocate of assassinations? I urged CCR to find other ways to challenge the Obama administration’s policy without associating with Awlaki.

I appreciate that CCR says it merely seeks to challenge US government policy, and opposes all killings of civilians. Yet, the organisation has been quiet about who Awlaki is and what he has done, describing him simply as a “Muslim cleric” or a “US citizen”. This silence exacerbates a climate where others claim Awlaki denies involvement in terrorism or is innocent – odd assertions about someone openly calling for killings.

Consider what Awlaki himself advocates: “Hatred of the kuffar [unbelievers] is a central element of our military creed” (from 44 Ways to Support Jihad). Conversely, loyalty to those Awlaki deems Muslim has to be absolute, irrespective of what they have done: “If a Muslim kills each and every civilian disbeliever on the face of the earth he is still a Muslim and we cannot side with the disbelievers against him” (from Awlaki’s now defunct blog, 2 December 2009). His “disbelievers” include those he deems insufficiently pure Muslims.

In his 44 Ways to Support Jihad, Awlaki provides practical advice on arms training, financing mujahideen and encouraging love of jihad among children. In a lecture series, entitled Constants on the Path of Jihad, he says, “Jihad will also carry on until the Day of Judgment since we are told to wipe out kufr (unbelief) from the world.” Recently, he has written that Muslims living in the west have two options: departure or jihad.

Some say that this is merely Awlaki exercising freedom of speech as an American citizen, but he is openly calling for large-scale murder of non-fundamentalist Muslims and other civilians. And there is every reason to believe he knows such action may occur imminently when he calls for it. He and others have allegedly acted on such pronouncements, whether in the 2009 Christmas Day attempted airliner attack, the failed Times Square bombing in May, or the stabbing of an MP by a young woman in Britain.

Read in full.

“Is there some reason not to pursue a legal or political strategy explicitly calling for him to be captured and brought to the US to stand trial, a la Eichmann, rather than just not killed?… By what means will the CCR distance itself from al-Awlaki’s opinions while defending his right not to be assassinated?… Most importantly, if the CCR becomes identified as defenders of al-Awlaki, will women who are victims of salafi-jihadists feel they can trust you with their own cases?”

The CCR never responded to my letter and the case went forward; it is now in the US District Court in Washington.  But the questions that rise from the case were too serious to go away, and are dividing the human rights movement. This is clear from an article in today’s Guardian:

…a CCR board member has distanced herself from the group’s decision to represent Awlaki’s interests. Karima Bennoune, a law professor at Rutgers school of law, Newark, New Jersey, has gone public with her misgivings at the CCR’s decision, reflecting a debate within human rights groups on how to deal with Islamist fundamentalists.

Karima Bennoune, a law professor at Rutgers school of law and of Algerian decent, went public about her misgivings, saying that the ACLU and the CCR were in danger of “sanitising” al-Awlaki to Western audiences.

This is a debate which in many ways mirrors the Amnesty-Sahgal fallout earlier this year. Who then better to discuss the concerns of Bennoune and other Asian and Middle Eastern feminists regarding the ACLU/CCR story than Gita Sahgal:

Karima Bennoune’s public criticism of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU’s case in defence of Anwar al-Awlaki is a welcome stand for a universal vision of human rights that has largely gone missing from western human rights organisations.

Many Asian, African and Middle Eastern groups and organisations who are struggling against both state and non-state violence feel utterly betrayed by the deliberately ignorant and partial stands taken by organisations in the US and Britain which are supposed to represent human rights. Their outrage was ignored or attacked by the left in Britain. The three founders of Amnesty International in Algeria were allegedly expelled from the organisation for raising an internal complaint about Amnesty’s failure, in their view, to criticise atrocities committed by Islamist rebels, as opposed to government repression, as Algerian feminist Marieme Helie Lucas made public for the first time earlier this year.

In my case, I asked my bosses at Amnesty International for informationabout what investigation of Moazzam Begg, the former Guantánamo detainee, they had conducted – including his beliefs both before his detention without charge in Guantánamo Bay and, subsequently, when his admiration for Anwar al-Awlaki and Ali al-Timimi should have rung alarm bells. They failed to answer my questions and I left Amnesty International due to “irreconcilable differences”, having been suspended after going public. Later, an internal review (pdf) found that Amnesty International had not done “adequate due diligence”. In plain terms, Amnesty executives had entirely failed in their duty to conduct an investigation of Moazzam Begg. Although they expressed regret for their failure, they also affirmed their relationship with Begg.

To this day, no investigation of Moazzam Begg or Cageprisoners‘ suitability as a partner for a human rights organisation has been made available to Amnesty International staff or members. Nor have any of the issues been debated internally.

Read the article in full.

Followers of the Ahmadiyya movement (known as Ahmadis) are often victims of religious bigotry. They have long been popular targets of religious extremists and have suffered a great deal, especially in Pakistan where they have been continuously persecuted.  Like most commentators on this site I utterly deplore such actions and I defend the right of Ahmadis to freedom of religion.

I personally spent a number of years studying Ahmadi literature, meeting their leaders and discussing their beliefs.  In this article I intend to explain their beliefs, their attitudes towards other faiths and their political views.

The Founder

Ahmaddiya is a religious movement established in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.  Ghulam Ahmad was born on 1839, in Qadian, Punjab, India.  In the early part of his life, whilst working as a clerk in Sialkot (present day Pakistan), he came into contact with Christian missionaries.  As time passed, he began to engage with the missionaries and started challenging them in public debates. This gained Ghulam Ahmad praise from India’s Muslim Scholars and some hailed him as a protector of the Islamic faith against the onslaught of Christian missionaries.  However, all this started to change when he began claiming that he was a recipient of divine revelation.

His Claims

In 1889 Ghulam Ahmad claimed to have received a message from God asking him to create a new movement.  After receiving pledges of initiation from forty of his followers, he founded the Ahmadiyya movement.

Shortly after this, he claimed that he was the Muslim reformer (Mujadid) of the 20^th century.  His next claim was that he was the Mahdi and also the second coming of Jesus Christ.  As time went by he made various other claims.  These included: the discovery of the tomb of Jesus in Kashmir, claiming that the founder of the Sikh faith Guru Nanak was a Muslim and also that he was the likeness of the Hindu Lord Krishna. All these claims led to a barrage of criticism from Muslim, Christian and Hindu scholars, with many declaring him to be a deceiver, apostate and government agent.  The main point of contention between Ahmadis and orthodox Muslims was Ghulam Ahmad’s claim to prophethood.  The vast majority of Muslims believe the prophet Mohammed to be the last prophet of God, whereas Ghulam Ahmad claimed he was also a prophet of God.  Due to this issue some hard-line scholars started calling for the death of Ghulam Ahmad and his followers.

The Split

Ghulam Ahmad died in 1908 but his movement continued under its first successor (Caliph) Hakim Noorideen.  After Noorideen’s death in 1914 problems arose concerning the selection of the next leader. This led to the movement splitting into two groups. The splinter group was led by Maulana Muhammad Ali, a long-time companion of Ghulam Ahmad. He believed the election process was unfair and that Mirza Bashirudeen Ahmad (Ghulam Ahmad’s son) had already been secretly chosen as the next leader.   Maulana Muhammad Ali broke away from the main party and moved to Lahore to set up his own Ahmadi movement.  This movement is today known as the Lahore Ahmadiyyah movement with the main party becoming known as the Qadian Ahmadiyyah movement.

The Lahore Ahmadiyyah movement has very similar beliefs to the Qadian Ahmadiyyah movement.  The main difference being that the Lahore movement does not believe Ghulam Ahmad actually claimed to be a prophet of God.  They claim that Ghulam Ahmad only used the word ‘prophet’ in a metaphorical sense.  They therefore claim to be orthodox Muslims and only believe Ghulam Ahmad to be a Muslim reformer.

Persecution

After the partition of India in 1947, many Ahmadis moved to Pakistan and settled in the city of Rabwah.  This also became their new headquarters after the original headquarters of Qadian went to India. The first foreign minister of Pakistan Sir Chaudhry Muhammad Zafrullah Khan was an Ahmadi.  Riots, usually led by extremist fanatics intermittingly broke out against Ahmadis.  One famous instigator of such riots was the Islamist leader Maulana Mawdudi.  From 1973-1974 Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, under pressure from religious figures, had the Pakistani constitution amended, declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims.  In 1984 the Head of the Ahmaddiyya movement ‘Mirza Tahir Ahmad’ (Ghulam Ahmad’s grandson) fled from Pakistan and settled in the UK.  This was because of the increasing persecution his movement was facing under the military dictatorship of Zia ul Haq.

Propagation

In London the Ahmadiyya movement has been very active in propagating its faith.  It works as a missionary movement and has its own satellite TV channel MTA.  However, many people have criticised the way it operates and have accused it of using underhand tactics to gain recruits.  For example, many ex-members have claimed they were duped into thinking they were converting to Islam and not told anything about Ahmaddiya beliefs or its founder; see the article Escape from Rabwah: http://www.alhafeez.org/rashid/escape.htm. Other prominent  ex-members who have come out to criticise the movement and its recruitment techniques, include Sheikh Raheel Ahmad and Shahid Kamal.

Views on Israel

Despite claiming to be moderate Ahmadis have been criticised for holding extremist views, especially against the state of Israel.  For example, during the Gulf War the Head of the Ahmadiyya Movement, Mirza Tahir Ahmad, issued a book titled ‘The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order’.  In this book he blamed Israel for the Gulf War and just about every problem in the Middle-East.  He even questioned the validity of Israel’s existence as a country:

“Take for example, the establishment of Israel in the Muslim region.  Although America was also involved in a major way, yet this mischief was initiated by British. It is the product of British minds” (The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order, Islam international Publications, UK 1993, Pg 178)

“Israel was created in the name of the United Nations and the greatest role played in its establishment was by the US. One matter that amazes me is why was no question raised as to whether the U.N. has a right to create a new country in the world? (Pg 178)

“There is no basis for the creation of that country… In fact the creation of Israel is not an act of enmity against the Arabs but against Islam” (Pg 179)

“Do you think the sounds emanating from the minarets of Mecca and Medina are those of Allah and His Prophet? The truth is that these minarets simply project the loudspeakers which are connected to the microphones located in Washington where Israel is the speaker using these microphones” (Pg 192)

Amazingly, Tahir Ahmad also believed that the document ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ (a well known forgery) was a Jewish scheme to control the world:

“This was a scheme of the top leaders of Israel, who believe in Zionism, as to how they shall dominate the world, what mode of action shall be adopted for this purpose, what will be the work principles and objectives, what means will be adopted etc” (The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order, Islam International Publications, UK 1993, Pg 199)

The book is full of the same anti-Israel conspiracy theories peddled by Islamist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir.  In the same book Mirza Tahir Ahmad also praises Iran:

“I have openly admitted a number of times that their religious differences notwithstanding, the Iranian nation does not behave hypocritically when it comes to Islam: they are the true lovers of Islam…Iran’s services to Islam are second to none” (The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order, Islam international Publications, UK 1993, Pg 194-195)

At times it was hard to believe that this book had not been written by Islamists.

On Jihad

The second leader of the Ahmaddiyah Movement, Mirza Bashirudeen Ahmad, explained the Ahmadiyyah view on Jihad as follows:

“The fifth big objection raised against us is that we deny the institution of Jihad. I have always wondered how such a false charge could have been made against us, for to say that we deny Jihad is a lie.  Without Jihad, according to us, belief cannot be made perfect….We are not against Jihad. We are only against the tendency to label any kind of aggrandizement as Jihad”. (Invitation to Ahmaddiyat, by Mirza Bashirudeen Ahmad, Islam International publications, 1997, pg 52)

“In short, the Jihad sanctioned by Islam is to make war against a people who prevent others from accepting Islam, or who wish to force people to deny Islam.  It can be made against a people who kill others because of Islam”. (Invitation to Ahmadiyyat, by Mirza Bashirudeen Ahmad, Islam International Publications, 1997, pg 56)

It is also worth noting that some Hindu groups blame Ahmadis for the murder of Pandit Lekh Ram, an opponent of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

Conversions

During my time studying with the movement I got to see a very problematic side to it.  In the beginning the Ahmadis I met were very welcoming and very courteous. I was treated very respectfully and regularly invited to their houses, Mosques and gatherings.  I was also told that after I finished studying Ahmadi literature I would definitely convert to Ahmadism and this seemed to be their main goal.  However, when this didn’t happen, the members and leaders I was in touch with suddenly turned very cold.   They even started getting aggressive and began telling me that I was destined to go to hell for rejecting the Ahmadi truths.  This was coming not just from regular members but also from their leaders and Imams. I was also regularly told that only their version of Islam was acceptable to Western countries and they were working very hard to keep it that way.

It seemed that their sole objective was to convert me and when this failed they didn’t want to talk to me again.  They behaved in a very cult like fashion and I was later to discover that I wasn’t the only one to receive this treatment from them.

Conclusion

The Ahmaddiyya movement continues to suffer from persecution and discrimination.  This is clearly wrong and we must all speak out against this injustice.  However, the Ahmadi movement itself is not as moderate as it claims to be.  Despite its PR image, it also holds extremist and bigoted views.  As well as supporting the Ahmadis right to freedom of religion their problematic views also need to be exposed and challenged.

given that the board of deputies and, by the looks of it, the community as a whole, has withdrawn cooperation with the programme, as it was clearly interpreted as a hatchet job, the same way that “the root of all evil?” was – tendentiously edited and, wherever possible, using extreme examples as if they were the norm. of course whenever the jewish community was mentioned, it was invariably accompanied by a shot of someone strictly orthodox – small boys with giant peyot, or behatted, abundantly bearded, penguinish yeshiva bochurs staring through bottle-top glasses. as we all know, all jews look just like that.

the jewish community yesterday, apparently

a salient example was that of the british humanist society researcher pulling out the “shocking” example of the jewish school that does 8 hours of “religious education” a week compared to 6 hours of science. i wonder which school it was? they didn’t say if it was a mainstream united synagogue school or a strictly-orthodox school, of course.

what the anti-faith-schoolers don’t seem to get is that in this “8 hours of religious education”, they’re *not teaching theology* or “how to be unscientific” – they’re teaching practical skills of language, textual analysis and interpretation. in this sense, the correct analogy is not between a “faith school” and a “secular school”, but between a “specialist school” and a “generalist school” – i don’t see dawkins jumping all over sylvia young because her schools devote 10 hours+ a week to performing arts compared to 6 hours of national curriculum science. these kids need to PRACTICE – and so do religious kids, whether they’re learning Qu’ran or Torah or gita or granth. most religion – and this is an area where the preponderance of christianity in this country distorts the debate – requires considerable grasp of both practical techniques and core knowledge, in the same way that you’d expect a specialist technology college to spend extra time on programming languages to an level of detail not matchable by a specialist modern languages college.

anyway, stereotypes apart, like most of the jewish people (and christians and muslims) i know, religious or not, faithschoolers or not, i do struggle with whether we’re doing enough to encourage critical thinking. and i think it is worth mentioning that, in my opinion, in general, we’re not, which is part of the reason that the kiruv and dawah organisations which are, as far as i’m concerned, the vanguard of clerical fascism, are gaining ground. whether pro- or anti- people don’t know enough about religion to make informed choices and, as a result, many are either accepting it for badly-thought-through, poorly-rationalised reasons, or seeking to have it eliminated for equally misguided reasons. there isn’t a strong enough voice saying that you can be both traditionally religious and a clear, critical thinker, or that even though you don’t believe something yourself you still think it has a role to play. and, in point of fact, i don’t hand over the programming of my kids’ minds to their school, to teach them “the correct way” to think, that has to be my responsibility as a parent as well. part of the problem with the faith schools debate, it seems to me, is that focusing on theology and the problems with critical thinking misses why faith schools are really needed – it isn’t to teach them to “think correctly”, it is to teach them the skills to live in that particular community, which are time-consuming to learn, the same way as if you wanted to grow up to be an orchestra player, you’d need to go to music lessons and spend a lot of extra time practicing in order to be able to perform to the required standard. because christianity does not, generally, require these sorts of skills (say, for example, latin and greek, or scholastic argumentation) it is a lot harder to say how they clearly add value, other than that by all the motivated parents competing to get in increases the performance of the school – i think it might in fact be just another variety of the hawthorn effect.

getting back to the main point about the critical thinking deficit, however, i think a major part of critical thinking is the ability to debate with people of differing opinions. this, i feel, is typified by the current debate over free speech and offence. i analyse the issue and i see a continuum, starting with unintentional offence, going through intentional offence, through harassment to ultimately incitement to violence. it seems to me the debate is currently polarised between those who see all offence as tantamount to incitement to violence and those who see even incitement to violence as merely an expression of free speech. considering the vehemence with which my religion and ethnicity is attacked by the former and their apparent inability to comprehend the continuum connection, one might think that i would go to that opposite extreme – as indeed i have been accused of many times, when pointing out instances of jew-hatred and being told i was merely being hysterical. in fact, i am naturally far closer to faisal’s espousal of the “fry/hitchens standard”, if you like – “so you’re offended? so fecking what?”, as i believe in free speech. my difficulty is where the line should be drawn, which needs a far more nuanced perception than i can currently bring to the debate.

an excellent example of the challenges of critical thinking is currently being debated at harry’s place and elsewhere in this intellectual neighbourhood of the blogosphere between edmund standing and others:

“why would anyone want to take books that manifestly do make assertions about ultimate reality and give clear commands about how humans should behave, the punishments they should incur for thinking or behaving differently, and so on, and then delude themselves and others into thinking that actually those books don’t say what they clearly do say, or attempt to ‘reinterpret’ those books in a way obviously at variance with their intended meaning?”

in other words, if someone says “kill the bastards”, he means “kill the bastards”, not “engage them in debate” – and you should take that statement at face value. the trouble is, mr standing, that *isn’t the way we do it in judaism* (and, i would argue, not the way many people do it in islam) – we take challenging statements like that as a jumping off point, assuming that there is more to the basic statement than meets the eye. it is, for us, clearly established by the talmudic debate about the “oven of akhnai” (BT baba metzia 59b) that human interpretation has the power to overrule a “voice from the heavens”, but our *authority* to do this is derived from the Torah’s plain meaning: “it is not in heaven” (deuteronomy 30) – in other words, that it is for us to interpret how the Text should be interpreted, that’s how it’s designed in the first place, not as an instruction manual free from ambiguity. jewish texts are based on cardinal principles of interpretative methodology and it is understanding how these work that constitutes a large part of the training that jewish children undergo when they are understanding their texts. i would go so far as to say that you can see the difference between people with this training and people without it is abundantly evident from the attitudes of, say, your average bible-belt christian and those of your averagely educated student of jewish law – the latter would not consider carrying out a punishment from leviticus, or even suggesting that it should be carried out as stated in the plain text without the full range of checks, balances and protective safeguards detailed in hundreds of folio pages of Talmud, commentaries and halakhah, under the precise circumstances in which such conditions apply. yet what some people seem to object to is interpretations based on simplistic misunderstandings. the objection then is:

“We don’t look at the work of medieval cartographers and then try to ‘reinterpret’ their maps so they fit with modern understandings of geography.”

well, no, but this isn’t a physical phenomenon here, it’s a legal framework, so its application is always going to be a matter of interpretation. i really don’t see what’s so hard to understand about that – but nonetheless, i don’t see an authoritative argument being made in return for the benefit of those who might not understand why interpretation is important; G!D Forbid, someone might think that that’s what those texts actually mean, or that G!D actually Wants us to behave like bronze age maniacs, when nothing could be further from the truth.

r. jonathan sacks once said, in conversation with john humphrys i believe, that the Torah seeks to teach us to learn to think for ourselves; initially, like a parent, G!D Chastises us and then Picks us up – but there is an expectation that we learn, over time, to pick ourselves up and eventually, not to fall over in the first place. i would argue that developing critical thinking is a salient example of precisely that and that the Commandment to do so is itself a Divine Mandate – so objections such as this:

“In every other area of human thought and writing, we turn to the latest, most advanced ideas, not to the primitive ideas of men of the past.”

should be shown as the red herrings they are. of course, this objection is foreseen:

“There is absolutely no rational basis for ‘reinterpreting’ ancient texts to make them appear relevant to today, nor any objective criteria for how this should be carried out, or to what extent such texts should be ‘liberally’ reinterpreted.”

but why should such criteria be objective? do we demand objective criteria against which to measure the Torah? do we demand that the world be judged against the Torah’s criteria? no, we do not – by the Torah’s own command. nor do we always demand a “liberal” interpretation. the point is that the giants of Torah throughout history to the modern era have always provided for the best of modernity to be understood, whether as “the wisdom of the nations” or as “Torah and wisdom”, but this perspective is in danger from the tendency to look inwards, to assume we have all the answers, from fear and suspicion of the outside world. simply to assert that “it’s not a valid question”, or that “it comes from an impure source” is not going to cut it in the long-term, whether or not you’re able to control the sources of people’s knowledge; and, if this is what is sought, it is both immoral and contrary to the justice that the Torah commands us in the most emphatic terms to pursue.

we need to understand and respond to these questions and attacks as a bona fide challenge, as if they were asked in an open-minded way – because regardless of whether the people conducting the public polemic are open-minded or not, similar questions will always be asked from “inside the camp” – and not to be able to address them effectively will prove the case of the public polemicists.

The fashion police, at least, have already arrived, a decade early and without any help from Islamists. But rather than forcing women to wear the burqa or niqab, their job is to force them not to. Earlier this month Italian police in the northern city of Novara fined a Tunisian immigrant, Amel Marmouri, €500 for being veiled in a post office. Belgian police are likely to be doing the same after the Brussels parliament outlawed the burqa. France expects to pass a similar law by the autumn. Holland could follow suit. The Spanish city of Lleida has forbidden the burqa in public buildings; the Minister of Labour and Immigration Celestino Corbacho has hinted at a national ban. In Canada, the Quebec government has drafted an anti-burqa law. Australian politicians are demanding one too.

The rhetoric accompanying the bans has been as gushing as the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. Jean-Francois Copé, leader of the majority UNP party in French National Assembly, has talked of ‘a reaffirmation of our ideals of liberty and fraternity’. For the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, the bans are nothing less than a ‘defence of the Enlightenment’. According to Celestino Corbacho without a burqa ban it would not be possible to protect ‘the values of our society’.

There is certainly something medieval about the burqa and the niqab. The idea that in the 21st century women should be hidden from view for reasons of modesty or religious belief is both troubling and astonishing. Yet, there is also something surreal about the way that this piece of cloth has been turned into a battleground for Western values and about the idea that the burqa poses some kind of existential threat to the West.

The campaign against the burqa is particularly puzzling when in reality so few women choose to wear it. The sight of a burqa in Paris or Brussels is almost as rare as a glimpse of a bikini in Riyadh or Karachi. France has a Muslim population of 5 million. Its government estimates that fewer than 2000 women wear a niqab or burqa. (The original survey, conducted by DCRI, the French secret service, came up with the oddly precise figure of 367; that was so low that the Interior Ministry told the DCRI to count again.) In Holland some 500 women in a Muslim population of one million do so, in Denmark the estimate is fewer than 200 out of 170,000 Muslims.

So why, at a time when Europe is beset by so many fundamental economic and social problems, have legislators become so obsessed by this piece of cloth? There are three main kinds of arguments against the burqa: practical, political and existential.

The burqa, Jean-Francois Copé has suggested, ‘poses a serious safety problem at a time when security cameras play an important role in the protection of public order’. Many worry that the burqa would allow terrorists to evade airport security or provide the perfect camouflage for bank robbers. Others fret that wearing the burqa makes it difficult to perform certain jobs, particularly those that require face-to-face contact with clients or the public – doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers.

There are clearly practical problems that come with wearing the burqa. It is, after all, a piece of clothing designed for feudal life, not the modern world. Practical problems, however, can usually be solved on a case-by-case basis without the need for national soul searching or draconian legislation. Airports already require veiled women to reveal their features when passing through security. Police have no problem demanding to see faces when checking ID cards. And if banks insist that people should not wear bulky clothing, so be it. But that is very different from the state imposing an outright ban on such clothes.

If wearing a burqa is incompatible with the needs of particular jobs, then those particular employers – hospitals, schools, shops even- can legitimately demand that employees not be clad from head to foot. But again, one can impose dress codes for certain jobs without banning a type of clothing for everyone. After all, we don’t have judges and teachers wearing bikinis on the job either.

The practical arguments for a ban on the burqa are weak and shallow. More profound is the political case. The burqa, proponents of a ban argue, undermines gender equality and makes social integration impossible. It is, Bernard-Henri Lévy has written, ‘not a dress, it’s a message, one that clearly communicates the subjugation, subservience, the crushing and the defeat of women.’

The burqa is certainly demeaning to women, and often used to enchain them. Many other practices and rituals that Western societies tolerate are, however, also degrading. Orthodox Jewish women must shave their heads and wear a wig when they marry. The Catholic Church forbids women priests. Many Protestant evangelical churches insist that wives must ‘obey’ their husbands and that the role of women is to breed new evangelicals. Nobody seriously suggests that Jewish marriage rituals be banned or that the Catholic church be forced to accept gender equality or that evangelical wives be saved by state legislation from being baby factories.

A liberal society accepts that individuals should be free to make choices that may not be in their own interests and that, to liberal eyes, demean them. This applies even to particularly distasteful expressions of degradation, such as the wearing of the burqa.

What of the suggestion that women are forced to wear the burqa, and so need protection from the law? It is true that in countries such as Saudi Arabia or Yemen women have little choice but to cover up their face. That in itself is a good reason for liberal societies not to impose coercive dress codes.

If women are forced to do something against their will, the law already protects them in democratic countries. But what evidence exists, suggests that in Europe most burqa-clad women do not act from a sense of compulsion. According to the DCRI report in France, the majority of women wearing the burqa do so voluntarily, largely as an expression of identity and as an act of provocation. A second French report by the information authority, the SGDI, came to similar conclusions. Burqa wearers, it suggested, sought to ‘provoke society, or one’s family’, and saw it as a ‘badge of militancy’, and of ‘Salafist origins’. The burqa ban will only deepen the sense of alienation out which the desire for such provocation emerges.

The burqa is a symbol of the oppression of women, not its cause. If legislators really want to help Muslim women, they could begin not by banning the burqa, but by challenging the policies and processes that marginalize migrant communities: on the one hand, the racism, social discrimination and police harassment that all too often disfigure migrant lives, and, on the other, the multicultural policies that treat minorities as members of ethnic groups rather than as citizens. Both help sideline migrant communities, aid the standing of conservative ‘community leaders’ and make life more difficult for women and other disadvantaged groups within those communities.

What of the impact of the burqa on social integration? The veil has been rightly described as ‘ghetto walls that a person wears’. It often inhibits normal social interaction – that, after all, is its very purpose – and may preclude those who wear it from integrating into society. But given that virtually no Muslim woman actually wears the burqa, it can hardly be held responsible for creating a sense of social separation.

The real significance of the burqa is that it has become a symbol of the anxieties that have come to beset Western nations. What does it mean to be French? Or British? Or Swedish? Most Western nations have undergone a crisis of identity as both traditional values, and trust in the institutions in which those values were invested, have become eroded. Unable to define clearly the ideas and values that characterize the nation, still less to win people to those ideas and values, politicians have taken the easy step of railing against symbols of ‘alienness’. In this sense the burqa bans are similar to the prohibition imposed last year by the Italian city of Lucca on kebab shops ‘to protect our culinary tradition’ or to the decree by the mayor Rome that schools can no longer serve couscous or Chinese fried rice but only ‘regional cuisine dishes’. They are attempts to define ‘Western values’ or the republican tradition by showing what such values or traditions are not at a time when politicians find it increasingly difficult to express what they are.

And this takes us to the existential argument against the burqa. ‘This is not about the burqa’, Bernard-Henri Lévy claims. ‘It’s about Voltaire. What is at stake is the Enlightenment of yesterday and today, and the heritage of both, no less sacred than that of the three monotheisms. A step backwards, just one, on this front would give the nod, all fanaticism, all the true thoughts of hatred and violence.’

The idea that the entire weight of the Enlightenment tradition should rest on banning a piece of cloth worn by a few hundred women shows how absurd has become the debate about the burqa. Certainly, it is important to defend liberal social values, the secular society and the heritage of the Enlightenment. But we cannot do so by promoting illiberal policies, stigmatizing immigrants, or banning symbols of ‘otherness’. The very values that Lévy believes are undermined by the burqa demand that we oppose any attempt by the state to ban it.