Ed has the following complaint in his Telegraph opinion piece:
Politicians send a confused message of wanting to uproot extremism, but courting the most illiberal, anti-secular organisations.
Is that why Husain went running to promote his group in The Daily Wail, a well-known advocate of liberalism and secularism?
He goes onto complain about the marriage habits of British Pakistanis and Bangladehis:
When I visit America, I see Muslims who are free, vibrant, dynamic, and fully American. In France, too, there are greater rates of inter-religious marriages: Muslims marrying people of other faiths, and negotiating how we coexist. In Britain, rates of Muslims marrying outside their faith community are woefully low, and the numbers returning to the villages of Pakistan and Bangladesh for a spouse worryingly high.
Apart from the fiqh question (important for observant Muslims), and the more important one related to religious liberty (more important in the context of British legal systems), we see that Husain is not much different to the molvis and maulanas he would not doubt rail against for their illiberal views on sex and marriage. Both moralise on the desires and choices of individuals, and both demand they engage in personal relationships with the right kind of people; the difference is the molvis and maulanas don’t hide behind the pretence of freedom, liberalism and individual choice*.
The use of “Muslims” is also odd, if we consider the lengths the Quilliamites went to attack the idea of a ‘monolithic Muslim world’, and demand politicians recognise the more pressing fact that there are Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, etc who happen to be Muslim. If there is no ‘Muslim world’, why is there a ‘British Muslim’ community? Why talk of ‘British Muslims’? Why not stick to talking about British Pakistanis, British Bangladeshis, British Algerians, and British Somalis? And is it only villagers he is upset about? What if a British Pakistani returns to Lahore, or a British Bangladeshi goes to Dhakka (cities comparable to London in population size)?
I will be very surprised if we don’t see more of Ed flogging his political goods (centre-right liberalism and soft-nationalism) to the rabid anti-Muslim hordes in the right-wing press between now and next June. If the Tories do win the next election (and that is the most likely scenario), they will probably start to slash the money being poured into counter-terrorism measures by the current government. Furnishing your pro-British credentials in the popular right-wing press is a good way to ensure you get to keep some of that money you’re so desperate to get hold of.
*There is a more theoretical point here about liberalism, education and the liberal principle of the inalienable right of individuals to choose, raised in Talal Asad’s Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. See the discussion on Britishness and Salman Rushdie.
