Europe has to guard against it’s ugly tendencies

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HA Hellyer

Last Updated: September 05. 2009 7:29PM UAE / September 5. 2009 3:29PM GMT I remember some overzealous Muslims trying to convince themselves that Hijrah, or migration, was the only real option for Muslim Britons when I was a student at university. Muslims had no business being in a predominantly non-Muslim country such as the UK, they said, and would only be able to be “real” in a Muslim nation abroad.

These well-meaning but ultimately misled youngsters did not know history very well. Around one third of all Muslims today live as minorities and the minority experience has always been a key facet of Muslim life throughout history. Muslims in Ethiopia were the first but they were far from the last.

Recently I met a number of Muslim Britons who had actually migrated, albeit temporarily, to Kuala Lumpur. I had half expected some of them to say they had left because of anti-Muslim sentiment – but that was not it at all. It was purely an economic decision. They even insisted that their children have a British education so that they could always return to the UK whenever economic conditions dictated they could.

It was not Hijrah at all. Over the years, the kind of discourse I heard in university became unappealing to young Muslim Britons. They saw opportunities for themselves in the UK and they were not interested in going anywhere else. They may have felt a bit out of place but the UK was their home. Why on earth should they abdicate their right to call it such and remain there?

That feeling, however, took a bit of a hit after September 11th, when anti-Muslim sentiment reached new heights in the media – and that eventually affected local interactions. Still, the “evil Muslims” were over in the Muslim world, and our “good Muslims” (Muslim Britons) were generally OK.

That changed forever after the bombings in London in 2005. No longer could the issue be claimed to be a completely foreign phenomenon. Muslim Britons could not deny that a problem lay within their ranks – and the rest of us in the UK did not let them forget it. The constant questioning about terrorist sympathies and the demands that Muslim Britons continuously and publicly denounce terrorism made it very certain.

But it seems we learnt nothing about the stigmatisation of Irish citizens of the UK some years ago. Over the last couple of years, and particularly so during the last few months, there’s been an added element to the mix. That element was not born with the bombings in 2005, but that certainly has exacerbated it – and it is growing in terms of importance.

Terrorism does not continue indefinitely and nor does fear of terrorism. Take the fears of the IRA in the UK, for example and the stigmatisation of Irish Britons – these finally dissipated, and I have little doubt that eventually, the “terrorist” label will fail to taint Muslim Britons.

However, there is a larger worry that all Britons should have, and that is the effect of stigmatising a minority population on the basis that it has become an existential threat to a culture and way of life. I am not sure why things are intensifying now, but it does appear that more people are calling attention to Muslim Britons as a threat to British society on a cultural level. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly – in reverse order.

As Europeans, Brtions should remember “the ugly” – what xenophobia can become. We saw some of the worst results of it in the Second World War and then again in the Bosnian genocide. It’s serious and it needs to be taken seriously.

But as ugly as things seem to be getting in the UK, the rest of Europe is far worse. Every week now, it seems, a new article discusses how Muslims in Europe are a threat and right-wing commentators in America warn their audiences not to let Islam get too far. Europe is lost, they say, because they let Muslims in and Americans should take heed to protect themselves. The ugliness is rooted in deep-seated prejudice about Islam as a faith and the belief that Islam cannot exist within the West without destroying it.

Here’s the “bad”: news stories create facts on the ground and toxic discourse has an effect on peoples’ lives. An Imam is kidnapped at knifepoint and ordered to stop ministering to his congregation in England; a bank in France bans a Muslim woman in hijab from entering its premises; a Danish education minister draws comparisons between Muslim schools and “Nazi schools”; even a youngster is charged with producing posters that called for an “Islam-free country”. And all this happened just in the last few weeks. We have to be concerned about this trend. It strikes at the very heart of what it means to be European, and what it means to be British – and it will define what kind of Europe and what kind of Britain is built in the 21st century.

The “good” part of all this is not certain – it’s conditional. How will we meet these challenges? Will it be “good” or is it going to get uglier? Although the media does not report on it as much, I do see good signs. There are growing numbers of Europeans who remember their history and know that what is good must be vigilantly defended, not taken for granted. For their opponents, that means slowly diminishing the space that those who are “different” have in European societies. But for those who remember history, it means upholding the principles of pluralism and coexistence that so many have struggled to protect – especially when it is difficult to do so. That’s the only kind of Europe that can endure.

Dr HA Hellyer is fellow of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick, and founding director of the Visionary Consultants Group (UK, Egypt & Malaysia)

Japan says willing to resume Ethiopia coffee imports

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By Tsegaye Taddesse
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Japan is willing to resume importing large quantities of Ethiopian coffee as long as the authorities in Addis Ababa guarantee quality and safety of the beans, the Asian country's envoy said.

Japan stopped Ethiopian coffee imports in 2006/07 after beans were found to contain harmful chemicals, Ambassador Kuniche Komano told Reuters. However, the country's coffee remains popular with consumers in his country, he said.

Japan bought over 29,000 tonnes of coffee worth $84 million in the 2006/07 period.

"Japanese coffee importers are willing to resume buying vast quantities of Ethiopian coffee as long as they receive guarantees from authorities in Addis Ababa that the beans being exported meet Japan's quarantine criteria," Komano said.

"There is a big interest in Japan to buy coffee from Ethiopia, but the beans must be of top quality and free from all sorts of chemicals and contamination."

Importers are also frustrated over delays at a laboratory in Addis Ababa that provides coffee samples destined for export to Japan, Komano added.

Tarekgen Tsigie, head of public relations in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, admitted that Japanese buyers had not been receiving samples in good time.

"This was due to some technical problems which have been overcome and I assure Japanese buyers that samples will be sent in the immediate future," he said. Continued...

Former Olympic 5,000m silver medallist Ejagayehu Dibaba has been forced to withdraw from the Great Yorkshire Run because of visa problems.

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The 27-year-old Ethiopian, who also holds world championships 5000m and 10000m bronze medals, is the latest casualty in what is a worrying trend for Ethiopian runners, having seen compatriots denied a chance to compete at last week's British Grand Prix in Gateshead.

It is understood the foreign office attempted to push through the necessary documentation to enable Dibaba to compete in the 10 kilometres race being held in Sheffield on Sunday, but were unsuccessful.

She has failed to obtain the required paperwork to enter the United Kingdom, therefore, and so has had to pull out of the event.

Organisers have been unable to find a suitable substitute but insist the women's event will still be highly competitive with Benita Willis and Jessica Augusto now the pre-race favourites.

Somali Gov't Negotiates With Opposition

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By IslamOnline.net & News Agencies


"We have started talking to the rebel groups of Hezb al-Islam and the Shebab," Jama said. (Google)
MOGADISHU — The Somali government of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is engaged in clandestine talks with opposition groups to end the deadly fighting that tore the Horn of African country to shreds.

"We have started talking to the rebel groups of Hezb al-Islam and the Shebab," Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Jama said Saturday, September 5, reported Agence France Presse (AFP).
"We are negotiating with these two groups."
The revelation comes two days after President Sharif acknowledged holding secret talks with his arch rival Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, leader of Hezb al-Islam party.

Sharif said has worked with Sheikh Aweys for a long time and still wants to work with him in returning peace and stability in the country.

Sharif and Aweys were leaders of the Islamic Courts Union, which briefly ruled Somalia in 2006 before the Ethiopian invasion.

The two went into collision courses after Sharif joined peace talks with the interim government to end Ethiopian occupation of the Horn of Africa country.
Ethiopian invaded Somalia to oust the Islamic Courts and install the interim Somali government, but Addis Ababa withdrew troops earlier this year under the ferocity of resistance attacks.

The Shehbab and Hezb al-Islam fighters launched a deadly offensive in May to unseat the Somali government.
The fighting has left hundreds of civilians dead, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

More than 200,000 people have also been displaced in the past two months.

But in the past few days, the war-torn country saw a relative lull in the fighting between the two sides
“We hope our mission for broader reconciliation will be fruitful soon," said Jama.
Joining Govt
The Somali minister said that the government has even started to lure some Shebab and Hizb al-Islam party members to its side.
"Some of them have already joined the government,” he said.
Jama expected the whole country would come under the government's control soon.

"We are working closely with community groups and the country will be under government control soon," Jama said.

The Somali government currently controls only small parts of the central region and a few districts of the bullet-scarred capital.
Neither of Shebab or Hezb al-Islam commented on the government's announcement.

However, a Shebab commander said that his group was continuing to beef up defences to prevent a counter-offensive.
Shebab fighters on Saturday started digging trenches to block the streets in some Mogadishu neighbourhoods.

"This is a military tactic, we are pre-empting any attacks from the enemies of Allah and have dug new trenches near the streets leading to their (the government's) positions."

Jama, the Somali foreign minister, vowed that the government would enforce security across the country in the near future.

"We are planning to handle the country's security in the near future,” he said.
“This is our priority and we have support from the international community."