Challenging Bigotry

When you're a public figure, you have to be very careful about what you say - someone might just be listening. Jenny Tonge, the Liberal Democrat MP, is just the latest in a long-series of gaffers extraordinaire, with her outrageous remarks in support of suicide bombers. But unlike most of those whose problematic statements have hit the headlines in recent years, she stands by what she said.

She's not the first to do that, of course. Perhaps, Robert Kilroy-Silk started a new trend, when following his bigoted foolish fulminations against the entire Arab world in the January 4th edition of the Sunday Express, he retracted not a word. Trevor MacDonald gave him the chance on his ITV1 'Tonight' programme, but he remained adamant. The once savvy facilitator of daytime encounters tackling complex human issues, regretted what had happened, but he wasn't sorry about what he had said - and even repeated his accusations.

It's not easy to feel cornered with your back against the wall, but Robert Kilroy Silk's complete lack of awareness of his own prejudice is dumb-founding. Actually, the word 'prejudice' is not precise enough - and neither is the word 'racism'. The statement from the Council of Christians and Jews, applauding the actions of the BBC in dropping Kilroy Silk's programme and condemning his words as 'racist in the extreme' (14th January) doesn't get to the heart of the matter: Under the guise of vilifying 'Arabs', Kilroy-Silk maligned Islam, and expressed a very particular contemporary bigotry: Islamophobia.

Like any phobia - a terror of spiders, for example - Islamophobia involves irrational fear and feelings of aversion. In 1996 The Runnymede Trust, an independent research and policy agency, established a multi-ethnic and multi-religious 18 person Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia chaired by Professor Gordon Conway, and including two Jews, Rabbi Julia Neuberger and Dr. Richard Stone. The overall intention of this body was two-fold: First, 'to counter Islamophobic assumptions that Islam is a single monolithic system, without internal development, diversity and dialogue'; and second, 'to draw attention to the principle dangers which Islamophobia creates or exacerbates for Muslim communities, and therefore for the well-being of society as a whole' (Islamophobia: a challenge for us all. Summary).

In February 1997, the Commission produced a consultation paper entitled, Islamophobia its dangers and features, which was distributed to county councils and metropolitan authorities, police forces, government departments and race equality councils - as well as to a wide range of Muslim organisations, a number of leading professional associations, universities, unions and think-tanks. Building on the consultation paper the Commission then produced a report entitled, Islamophobia: a challenge for us all, which provided a more detailed explanation of Islamophobia, highlighted the consequences of Islamophobia throughout society, and set recommendations for practical action by government, teachers, lawyers, journalists, and by religious and community leaders.

According to the Commission's report, Islamophobia - a mono-dimensional mind-set - actually involves at least four key dimensions, with devastating consequences for Muslims: Not only prejudice, expressed in everyday conversation and reflected in media representations, but also exclusion - from employment, from management and responsibility, from politics and government; discrimination - in employment practices, in the provision of services, such as health and education; and violence - involving verbal abuse, vandalising property and physical assaults (ibid.).

CHALLENGING BIGOTRY - Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Sounds familiar? As we approach National Holocaust Memorial Day on Tuesday 27th January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945, memories of the horrors of Nazism surface painfully. Of course, the Shoah was a unique event, without parallel in the past or in the present. However, in Islamophobia we hear echoes of our own experience of anti-Semitism. In her monumental work, The War Against the Jews, 1933-45 (Penguin Books, 1984) the historian, Lucy S. Dawidowicz outlined the process of anti-Jewish assault which led to the implementation of the 'Final Solution' - a process, which involved whipping up popular prejudice, excluding Jews from employment and schools, discriminating against Jews in all areas of social life, and, finally, violence: With the pogroms unleashed on the night of the 9th and 10th November 1938, known as Kristallnacht - the 'Night of the Broken Glass' - the final stage of the attempt to completely eliminate the Jews of Europe began.

After two millennia of Christian anti-Semitism, after the horrors of the Shoah, we Jews should be able to recognise the perils of Islamophobia. But it's not only our past experience that equips us to detect the dangers of this menace. Anti-Semitism has not disappeared. One of the key features of anti-Semitism today, is the representation of the Jewish people as a global monolithic entity intent on ensuring the triumph of Israel over Palestine. How different is this from the popular image of Islam as a global monolithic entity engaged in a 'holy war' against the West?

Tragically, there are Muslims who play the anti-Semitism game, just as there are Jews who play the Islamophobia game - after all, the point is that both Muslims and Jews are diverse. Nevertheless, it is yet another instance of the prevalence of both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism that those who are neither Jewish nor Muslim blame Jews for Islamophobia and Muslims for anti-Semitism. How convenient! The fact remains that everybody - of all faiths and none - must take responsibility for challenging the dangerous process by which particular groups are singled out as targets for prejudice, exclusion, discrimination and violence.

This week's parashah, Va'eira, opens at Exodus chapter 6, verse 2 with the continuation of the encounter between God and Moses at the Burning Bush in the wilderness. The name of the portion, Va'eira, meaning, 'I appeared', is the first significant word of the text. In appearing to Moses, God tells him, 'Va'eira el-Avraham el-Yitzchak v'el- Ya'akov' - 'I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob'. The theological term for Divine appearances is 'Revelation'. The Torah recounts a series of revelations - to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, to Abraham's concubine, Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, to Moses, to the people gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai. Whether one is Orthodox, and believes that the Torah is 'from heaven', or Progressive, and sees the Torah as written by human authors, all Jews of faith agree that it reflects experiences of the Divine Presence. And that is why the Torah is sacred to our people.

In all the talk about the 'threat' of Islam, and the grotesque stereotypes of Islam as totally 'separate' and 'different', and completely at loggerheads with 'Western values', as 'static', 'barbaric', 'irrational', 'primitive' and 'violent', those engaged in promulgating Islamophobia forget that Islam is rooted in a sacred text, the Koran. Significantly, the Arabic word, Koran, meaning 'Reading', is based on a root similar to the Hebrew root, Kuf Reish Alef, which also means to read or to call. In a few minutes we will begin what is known in Hebrew as K'riat HaTorah, 'the reading of the Torah'.

The Koran reflects one individual's experience of God in a series of Divine revelations. The individual in question was Mohammed, who was born around the year 570 at Mecca (Makkah) in Arabia. The Koran opens with these words, a series of seven statements - and the translation I'm using is one distributed by the Islamic Cultural Centre in London (Islamic Book Service):

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

1. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds,

2. The Beneficent, the Merciful.

3. Owner of the Day of judgement

4. Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help.

5. Show us the straight path,

6. The path of those whom Thou hast favoured;

7. Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.

Just as all Jews of all denominations find our roots in the sacred text of the Torah, so all Muslims of all denominations - Sunni, Shi'a, Sufi - find their roots in the sacred text of the Koran. Making a real effort to grasp the diversity of Islam, involves exploring the theology, the history and the geography of this great religion, and acknowledging the significant cultural differences that exist between Muslims in different cultural contexts. And so, just as British Jews and Israeli Jews live different lives, so do British Muslims and Palestinian Muslims; just as South American Jews and Eastern European Jews live different lives, so do Muslims in Pakistan and Muslims in North Africa.

We need to acknowledge the diversity of both Muslims and Jews. We also need to recognise the similarities between Judaism and Islam as monotheistic faiths that promote the values of justice and compassion, as well as the similar experiences shared by Muslims and Jews in Britain as minorities, who initially came here from somewhere else. What is more, we need to recognise that neither Jews nor Muslims live as peoples 'apart' in this country: While some Muslims and some Jews focus more on their own communities than on the wider community, most Jews and most Muslims are engaged in trying to be true to their faith and their roots, and full participants in society at large at the same time.

And if that balancing act wasn't hard enough, both Jews and Muslims have to contend with bigotry as well. The theme of this year's National Holocaust Memorial Day is 'From the Holocaust to Rwanda, Lessons learned, lessons still to learn'. One of the lessons we still need to learn is that genocide is the outcome of a process that begins with prejudice against other groups and peoples. As we join with the country as a whole in commemorating the 59th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, let us commit ourselves to challenging anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and racism in all its forms. And let us say: Amen.

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue - Adat Shalom Verei'ut

24th January 2004 / Rosh Chodesh Shevat 5764