Muslim Discrimination in the UK After the July 7 Attacks Essay

Introduction

In the morning of 7^th July, 2005, the City of London experienced an event that will be etched in the history of Britain. On this day, a terrorist planted bomb rocked a subway ripping through a passenger bus and resulting into several deaths and injuries. Within a span of one hour starting at 8:51, more than forty people died and seven hundred others were left with injuries. This event acted as an eye opener to the British government concerning terrorism (The Guardian, 2008).

It was at this point that the British announced that their country had become the prime target for terrorism activities. Consequently, this called for a new approach to the systems of counterterrorism. Due to its new dimensions, the terrorism activities had taken a new phase of not only being a thing of the Arabic nations but citizens of Britain. As a result, the British government in conjunction with several Muslim organizations, policy makers had to convene a meeting from which they would discuss the method of countering this crime (Ansari, 2002).

Eventually, several decisions were arrived at to combat the new phase of terrorism. Albeit their imperfections and shortcomings, the decisions were rooted in mutually protecting the victims of terrorism and at the same time protecting the Muslim community from unjust treatment as a result of “islamophobia” and stereotypical beliefs by the largely Christian British society through hate crimes (Klausen, 2007).

The main principles included the communities’ role in combating terrorism and some amendments which tightened the criminal justice concerning terrorism and the protection of the Muslim community from discrimination (Phillips, 2006).

Reasons for the inappropriateness of government response to the July 7 attacks

In the United Kingdom, the home office and the government in general have received immense criticism in light of the way it responded to the July 7^th terrorist attacks in London. To start with, critics have been quick to point out to the fact that the ‘preventing extremism togetherness’ (PET) initiative by the British government was rushed. This initiative had been established with a view to tackling terrorism that is home-grown, through the formation of a partnership between the British governments on the one hand, the Muslim communities on the other hand (Briggs et al 2006).

The initiative commenced about a month after the July 7^th London bombings had occurred. Although there was a dire need to have such an initiative established in a timely, manner, the initiative was sadly completed even before three months had elapsed. As a result, a lot of observers have been of the opinion that the process may have been rushed and thus unrealistic. The issue of terrorism, especially that which is home-grown, is not only a complex problem, but requires enough space and time so that is can be tackled in the most effective manner possible.

Questions have also been raised regarding the personalities that were involved in the roundtable meetings of the initiative. Apparently, the members of this roundtable were chosen not because they were experts in issues on counter-terrorism, but because they were strategically positioned closer to the home office. It has been argued by critics then that such an initiative was not likely to produce the most gratifying solution under the prevailing circumstances at the time.

Another reason why the government’s response has been viewed at as being inappropriate is due to a problematic schedule. This initiative came at a time when the Muslims were observing the holy month of Ramadan, a period of a whole month of fasting by the Muslim faithful (Briggs et al 2006). From both religious and cultural perspectives, this move by the government civil servant is seen as a reflection of ignorance on the part of the government to be sensitive to the religious and cultural inclinations of diverse faiths.

As such, the government is believed to have watered down its credibility by most of the members of the public, and scholars alike. Certainly, this move was not bound to inspire confidence on the part of the Muslim participants, and who were scheduled to be partners with a government that did not show the least amount of sensitivity in as far as the Muslim calendar is concerned.

The issue of the extent to which the representatives of the Muslims were qualified to be representatives of their community has also been raised. As a pointer to this, it is worth noting that not a single woman was present at the roundtable. In addition, only a very mall number of the representatives were below 50 years of age. Briggs et al (2006) have argued that in a nutshell, the United Kingdom government was holding talks with a part of the Muslim community that could as well be regarded as the usual suspects.

According to Andy Hull, a police officer with London Metropolitan Authority, most government officials are for ever complaining about the difficulty with which the terrorism suspects can be reached. This notwithstanding, the government, Hull has observed, has failed to institute proactive strategies that would enable the government to establish a lasting relationship with Muslim communities.

Hull further opines that there is a need to take time and earn the trust of such groups before a meeting could be held. Even then, such a meeting ought to be established based on the terms of the Muslim groups, as opposed to those of the government, which has always been the case, even after the July 7^th London bombings.

Accusations have also been directed towards the government for establishing the ‘preventing extremism togetherness’ agenda way ahead of the commencement of the actual process. Briggs et al (20006) provides that for a majority of the people that they interviewed, concern was raised regarding the way the government was handling the entire process. A case in point is a 2006 Leicester workshop that had been sponsored by the home office. The chairman of this event directed his criticism towards the home office for its decision to dictate the title of the workshop; ‘‘Islamophobia and Extremism’.

The meeting’s chairman concerns stemmed from the fact that the Muslim community had already registered hostility as regards the title of the meeting. Nevertheless, the home office held its ground, arguing that the title was in a total alignment with the approach of the department. According to Briggs et al (2006), such a practice by no less the government is not a good indication of a government that is ready to embrace local engagement.

Rather, the emergent issue is that the government’s main interest is in leading and talking, as opposed to being a good listener, and a partner. Following these events, the government has already registered a negative impact in as far as a majority of the Muslim communities re concerned. The government has also been challenged for ‘renegading’ to follow up on the proposals that emerged from working groups that had been established after the July 7^th London bombings.

Members of these working groups who were interviewed by Brigs et al confessed that the government was seen to be picking up issues in a certain inevitable way. As such, the feeling of some of the participants was that their mere presemnce4 in the working groups was just to legitimize the entire process. In other words, they were being used by the government mere rubber-stamps to an initiative that they could not claim that they hade any control over.

Perhaps the greatest impact of the aftermath of the July 7^th London bombings is the Muslim community. To start with, a majority of the Muslim leaders went out of their way to convince their members of community to take what Briggs et al has termed at ‘the leap of faith’. These Muslim leaders went ahead to take personal risks by way of persuading even the skeptics amongst their community members to become participants in the PET initiative.

Given that the whole exercise now appears to be characterized by a feeling of hollowness, it is not a wonder then that their Muslim leaders may feel as if they lost their legitimacy in the community, as well as their overall standing. Already, some of the members of the Muslim community are shunning events run by the government. Further criticism on the part of the government came following the manner in which the government was seen to be handling the issue of legislation laws that in effect gave the police force extra powers to handle extremism in government-community cooperation, especially in the worship places.

A majority of the Muslim community member who has thus far been interviewed by Briggs et al (2006) have denied that fact that these new powers bestowed on the police force came into effect upon the request of the Muslims themselves. Criticisms of the government response to the July 7^th attacks were not just restricted to the Muslim community.

Rob Beckley, a member of the Chief Police Officers Association (ACPO) held the argument that the prevailing powers of the police were adequate to enable the force undertake any action that would be deemed necessary under the prevailing circumstances. In addition, Beckley opines that the action chiefly focusing on the worship places was not very helpful; arguing that a majority of the faith places would be adversely affected by this action.

Discrimination against Muslims

Employment

According to research based and official data on the key indices of employment from a national perspective, there is no clear indication that employers are out to target members of the Muslim faith per se in as far as the recruitment of human resources ins concerned. Nevertheless, there is still an indication; albeit on a smaller scale that a significant proportions of the Muslim migrants especially into the European nations tend to be more disadvantaged and discriminated against in as far as the seeking of employment is concerned.

Nevertheless, a total attribution of this on the basis of cultural and religious background would be quite misleading. There is a wide variety of interrelated factors that come into play here. These include the human capital and skills, as well as the existence of a social network. This notwithstanding, evidence has been fronted to the effect that religion does indeed play a significant role in as far as employment-related discrimination is concerned.

For instance the UK based BBC undertook an exercise that involved 50 firms through its ‘five live program’. In this exercise, the 50 firms were recipients of the application letters of six ‘fictitious candidates’ who bore names that gave the strongest hint that they were of Muslim, African or British background. According to the findings, those candidates who bore white names had a 25 percent higher chance of getting invited to an interview compared to the blacks (13 percent).

Those candidates who had a Muslim name only had a 9 percent chance of getting invitation for an interview. In 2004, the University of Paris center for discrimination monitoring dispatched various curricula vitae as a way of responding to a total of 258 sales jobs that hade been advertised for. The study revealed that any person form the Magreb was far less likely top receiver a positive reply; by as much as five times.

For a majority of the member states, Muslims usually experience low rates of employment. For example, Turks in Germany, Pakistanis and Bangladesh in the UK, and North Africans who have migrated to France tend to have an unemployment rate that is between 15 and 40 percent when compared to that of the natives. A wide range of available unofficial data has also illustrated the presence of employment-related discrimination for Muslims.

For example, a survey carried out in Denmark gave a revelation that for every three migrant respondents of the survey, one was likely to feel that they are often discriminated against. This saw arise in the rate of Muslim discrimination from the previous year, where the ratio was one in every four Muslim migrants.

In 2004, a survey that involved 1,000 Turkish respondents revealed that 56.5 percent of the respondents had experienced a form of discrimination in their places of work. A further 48.4 percent revealed that they were often faced with discrimination as they tries to look for jobs. In the Catalonians region of Spain, a project that interviewed 1,860 migrants of the Muslim Arabic descent made the revelation that the labor market in Spain had a tendency of ignoring this group in the allocation of jobs, despite the fact that they are normally formally trained and in possession of job experience.

Although the level of inequality amongst the various immigrants into Europe varies, the discrimination that is exercised towards those of the Muslim origin appears to be greater. Migrant women of the Muslim descent generally tend to be mo0re discriminated against compared to their male counterparts, on the basis of both religion/ethnicity and gender orientations.

Housing

Generally, high homelessness levels appear to be noted on those migrants whose origins are Muslim countries. The same religious group has been noted to live under housing conditions that are poorer in comparison to non-Muslim migrants. Furthermore, this residential neighborhood by extension also tends to be poorer.

In essence, this means that the groups are highly vulnerable to cases of insecurity. The housing problems that this group of migrants have top content with includes among others inaccessible toilets and drinking water, overcrowded dwelling houses, as well as house purchase and rent rates that are extremely higher.

Changing stereotypes

In Europe, there have been several cases of discrimination. A few report conducted recently indicated that 45% of Europeans viewed Islam with negative image. As evidence, the stressing of the issue of integration was cited. There has to be a division for there to exist integration.

Despite the European Muslims knowledge of the languages of their countries of residence and their being loyal to the laws of their countries, most countries have been campaigning for an integration of the Muslims and other members of the society. In addition to this, the terminologies used to refer to the Muslims have always portrayed the rift between the two communities.

With discourses such as “with an immigrant background” and those like “the host society”, the Muslims stand a chance of believing that they do not belong to the European community. This also serves to nourish the “us and them” attitude by the non Muslims and thus encourage discrimination in terms of employment, housing and the provision of other services. (Ramadan 2008)

Due to the changes that terrorism has taken, different countries have had different approaches Britain included. This has led to more oppression to the Islamic family. With almost no country providing reliable protection and jurisdiction procedures towards religious crimes, the sole solution left was to counter the oppressive governance by extremist islamists through terrorist activities.

Most of the British Muslims have taken a new approach from being passively oppressed (according to their perception) to being actively involved in terror activities. This could be attributed to the British government’s change in tactic on its approach towards terrorism. When the United state took its position to attack Kashmir and Chechnya, the British government played a passive role by taking no step.

The British government changed its approach in the recent times as evident in its participation in Afghanistan and Iraq wars. This prompted the native Muslims to “support their brothers being oppressed.” According to Winnett and Leppard 2005, from a number 10 dossier leakage, the war in Iraq was among the greatest causes of the increased terrorist activities by the British citizens.

Due to what they perceive as a double standard by the western nations’ foreign policies (especially those of UK and US), the young recruits to terrorism felt disillusioned and thus resorted to the only way to level the score and that was through terrorism activities (Winnett and Leppard, 2005).

Anti-discrimination measures

Currently, most of the laws of member states of the European Union are not known to practically refer to religiously aggravated or motivated offences. This includes even the offences that may be directed towards Muslims. In its place, most of the European countries including Britain have lumped xenophobic, racist and religiously inspired crimes together, under the umbrella of the ‘hate crime’ legislation Home office 2008).

Moreover, data on criminal justice often collected is not always done with a view to identifying those criminal who commits racist crimes. According to The Guardian (2008), there is a nationwide ‘eradication program’ that is being developed as a way of tackling anti-Islamic discrimination. The Home Office, who are campaigning for the development of the program, wishes to change the outlook and ideology of the Muslim immigrants who, though they may not have committed any criminal offence, could be headed that way.

Thus far, this program by the Home Office is aimed at reversing the radicalization process that is often attributed to the members of the Islam community. This deradicalisation program being carried out in the whole of the United Kingdom shall involve among other things, borrowing from similar experiences from other countries, as well as they use of pilot projects.

It is worth mentioning her that at the moment there does exist in Leicester a mentoring community program. The objective of this program is to offer mentorship and guidance to ‘vulnerable individuals’ by the use of a variety of techniques (Home office 2008).

For this reason, local partners have been identified, and these liaise with the organizations that are in a capacity to provide fro this form of service. This so called diversionary work has taken the assumption that ‘vulnerable individuals’ shall not in any way be faced with prosecution, unless of course there is evidence to support claims that indeed they have committed criminal offences.

Integration

The debate on integration in the face of the developments on the July 7^th seems to have assumed a new face following the legislation of the antidiscrimination laws in the United Kingdom. The debate gained momentum following the September 11 terrorist attacks, but intensified after the July 7 attacks. In addition, the debate seems to have been more focused on the Islam communities, with the main agenda being the finding of ways through which radical elements in the community could be dealt with (Miliband 2006).

According to Sunder Katwala, the Secretary General of Fabian, a UK-based think tank, a disintegrated society is neither sustainable in the long-run, nor is it desirable. In order for any form of integration to persist, it must be seen as a two-way affair for both the government and for example, the Islamic communities in the United Kingdom (Fabian 2008).

There is also the requirement that all the citizens as a whole, not just those of the Muslim origin, to come together to observe and shape the rules of a society that has a sharing culture. There is also a need to have action on the economic and social agenda, for the sustenance of the integration promise.

Hampshire & Saggar (2008) opines that we would be committing a gross mistake by taking the assumption that the July 7 bombing in London were in no way linked to migration. To start with, Hampshire & Saggar (2008) argues that the four bombers were all immigrants. The authors have thus taken issue with the vulnerability of the British borders in general, and especially the issue of border control.

The fact that this sort of terrorist attack could be homegrown makes it all the more worthwhile to integrate not just the Muslim communities living in the united kingdom, but also the white and the African descendants as well.

Conclusion

Prior to the London bombings of July 7, 2005, terrorism in Britain was not viewed at as a serious threat to the citizens. However, the event of the day led to a total change of the fight against terrorism. The government through the home office resolved to form a partnership with the Muslim community in order to arrive at a lasting solution that would ensure that terrorism did not become a serious threat to the lives of the British citizens in future.

Nevertheless, the manner in which the government responded to the attacks has often been viewed by critics as being inappropriate. First, the so called roundtable meeting came at a time when the Muslim community was observing the holy month of Ramadan. Secondly, those chosen to be members of the roundtable have been accused of not being representatives of the views of the Muslim community members in the United Kingdom.

There is also the issue of the short time within which the round table was expected to give their findings. Again, the round table meeting has time and again been seen by many as merely a rubber stamp of the contentious issue of counterterrorism, with several critics arguing that the government had already decided on the course of action to take regarding the antiterrorism initiative.

There exist both official and unofficial evidence regarding the issue of discrimination of migrants of Muslim descents in Europe, and specifically in the United Kingdom. This is in the areas of getting employment, and the acquisition of houses for purposes of renting or purchasing. Nevertheless, the Home Office is currently campaigning to reduce the levels of discrimination that has a cultural and religious orientation.

The issue of integrating the Muslim immigrant communities in the united kingdom with the whites and blacks has also been raised, so that there can be a communal eradication of the terrorism instead off labeling the whole community as being terrorist just because of the actions of a few radical elements in their midst.

Bibliography

Ahmed, S.A, 2008, Muslims in Europe: Perceptions of Discrimination and Islamophobia – II. Indian Muslim Blog.

Ansari, H. ‘Muslims in Britain’, minority rights group international, Vol 24, no 3, (2002).

Briggs, R, Fieschi, C, & Lownsbrough, H, 2006, ‘‘Bringing it Home Community-based approaches to counter-terrorism” Web.

Elworthy, S & Rifkind, G, 2005, Hearts and minds, Demos, London.

Fabian, 2008, “Integration agenda needed to strengthen Britishness”.

Gove, M, 2006, Celsius 7/7: How the West’s policy of appeasement has provoked yet more fundamentalist terror – and what has to be done now. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.

Gunaratna, R, 2002, Inside Al Qaida: Global network of terror. Hurst, London.

Hampshire, J, & Saggar, S, 2006, ‘Migration, integration, and security in the UK‘. Web.

Home Office, 2006, ‘Preventing Extremism Together: Places of worship consultation’.

Klausen, Jytte, 2007. A Retrospective View on New Approaches to Counter-Terrorism Principles of Community-Based Counter-Terrorism. USIPeace Briefing.

Miliband, D, ‘Building a community in a diverse society’, Scarman Lecture.

Phillips, M, 2006, Londonistan: How Britain is creating a terror state within. Gibson Square Books, London.

Ramadan, T, 2008, Has Europe come to Terms with Islam? Khaleej times. Web.

Sacranie, I, 2007, “The experience of combating Islamohebia in the UK”

The Guardian, 2008, “New plan to tackle violent extremism: Mentors to be drafted in to help reverse the process of radicalization‘. Web.

Wardell, Jane. “Four London Blasts Kill 40, Injure 700.” NETS 24/7. Web.