Do Jews matter? Or Muslims?

Martin Niemöller, imprisoned by the Nazis

Denmark, once a beacon of tolerance and inclusiveness, has banned the Muslim full-face veil. It also now operates a system of officially designated ghettos, mostly inhabited by immigrants.

The Danish example has animated the far right in Britain, with Boris Johnson, contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party, claiming that, while he doesn’t back a ban, he feels the niqab makes women look like letterboxes or even bank robbers.

Many, even Tories, have denounced the ‘morally empty’ Johnson for encouraging Islamophobia in this way. But he has received outspoken support from Jacob Rees-Mogg, from the hard-right, hard-Brexit wing of the Conservatives. That link between Brexit and Islamophobia is no accident: whatever people may say about ‘taking back control’ or Britain assuming its rightful place in the world, the main motive behind Brexit was xenophobia, and the first target of British xenophobia is Muslims.

The rise of xenophobia is creating a toxic atmosphere in which fundamental values of human rights are rapidly receding. We badly need a force capable of resisting that trend, which is why it’s a tragedy that the British Labour Party, far from fighting this crucial battle, has undermined its own position by failing to refute the charges of antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Now, I agree with his fans that the scandal is being sustained by right-wing propaganda against Corbyn and Labour. Where I disagree with them is in seeing this as in any way unprecedented or even unusual. Why, in 1924 the first ever Labour government faced a scurrilous campaign of vilification, including the publication (by the Daily Mail, a sewer then as it’s a sewer now) of a forgery, the ‘Zinoviev Letter’, which suggested that the Communist International was working for a Labour victory.

Attacks on Labour come with the leader’s territory. The hallmark of the leadership is its reaction to them. Sadly, the reaction of today’s leadership has been lamentable.

It could have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, with all its examples, immediately and in full. It didn’t. It decided that four of those examples would have limited its freedom to criticise the state of Israel. It’s hard to see how: nothing in those examples means that one can’t say, for instance, that the Israeli government’s attitude towards Palestinians is racist and abhorrent.

Corbynistas, however, objected to the four examples as a matter of principle. It had to be principle, since pragmatically it was a senseless decision. Ask most British voters about the Israel-Palestine conflict and it’s likely you’ll be met with ignorance. Those who do have an opinion are likely to come up with a ‘faults on both sides’ kind of argument. They might even say ‘well, Israel has to be able to defend itself against terrorists’. Persuading them that Israeli action goes way beyond legitimate action against terrorism would require a long process of education, and I’m not convinced many voters would be prepared to submit to it.

Oddly, though, the rejection of four examples was not, it turns out, a matter of principle after all. Corbyn has now decided that actually he can accept three of the four examples, so clearly they weren’t that problematic to start with. The suspicion has to be that in time he’ll accept the last one too.

Had he done that at the beginning, the attacks would not have stopped, but at least with swing voters he might have been given the benefit of the doubt. ‘Look, he’s accepted the international definition of antisemitism,’ they might have said, ‘and done it immediately. What more can you ask?’

By doing it late and reluctantly, he just looks truculent and unprincipled. He forfeits the credit he might have won otherwise.

Lousy politics.

The implications are more serious than that, however. After all, it isn’t antisemitism that is the most virulent form of racism in Britain today. It is far less widespread or intense than the Islamophobia which permeates society, as exemplified by Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. That’s what needs to be resisted before we follow Denmark down the ugly road it has taken.

But how does one resist racism by others when one’s own track record isn’t spotless? Until we’ve cleared ourselves of the charge of antisemitism, Labour can’t claim to lead the fight against racism. Boris may be morally empty, but a counter attack would be far more effective if we’d first secured the moral high ground ourselves.

The toxins run deep. A minority of Labour favours Brexit. Sadly, with his talk of the benefits of a ‘Labour Brexit’, the suspicion is that Corbyn is with that group. That gives it disproportionate power. So it’s unsurprising that the leadership is resisting, despite powerful pressure from the membership, attempts to have the forthcoming Labour Conference debate backing for a second referendum on the EU.

The French equivalent of the saying ‘birds of a feather flock together’ is ‘tell me who you hang out with, and I’ll tell you who you are’. Labour Brexiters are rubbing shoulders with the xenophobes they should be opposing. If they help reinforce racists’ views, they shouldn’t be surprised when they become tarred with that brush themselves. Backing Brexit lands them in the xenophobe camp.

Sadly, while it may only be Jews who are upset with Labour now, it’s Muslims who are facing general hostility. We should be strong in our defence of their rights. And not just for their sake: allow discrimination against the Jews or Muslims today and, who knows, in the long run you too could be the victim of your short-sightedness.

Niemöller adapted to our times

A good man murdered by ISIS. And the consequences we have to resist.

Some weeks ago, the BBC interviewed several Manchester taxi drivers, about their former colleague Alan Henning, the latest victim of the ISIS group in Iraq and Syria, which tries to call itself “Islamic State”.

His colleagues described a man who always had the time to help out others. Henning was particularly adept at fixing the electrics on a car; he would give up his own opportunity to take fares, working on other cars instead, if colleagues needed it.

It was that same willingness to help others which took Henning several times to Syria, to try to bring much-needed help to the victims of civil war in that country. It was on a visit nine months ago that he was abducted and held by ISIS, which apparently murdered him yesterday.

The qualities that drove him to travel to Syria are precisely the kind that Islam values. It is, after all, one of the pillars of the religion to provide alms to the poor; here was a man trying to help people made poor by conflict. Indeed, many of his fellow aid workers were Muslim, underlining the point that what they were doing was wholly in keeping with the tenets of their religion.

None of that stopped ISIS beheading him.

Alan Henning: driven by compassion, murdered by ISIS

Then again, ISIS has little or nothing to do with promoting Islam. It is a barbaric organisation in pursuit of power and more than happy to crush anyone who gets in its way. Indeed, not just happy, they seem to draw real pleasure from the prospect of killing, and killing in the most cruel and vicious way. Rape and torture follow in their wake wherever they go.

Equally, British government opposition to ISIS has little to do with religion or even with the protection of men like Alan Henning. The government has, no doubt, given up hope of rescuing any of the hostages held by ISIS: they will be murdered, one by one, as ISIS decides that the time is right, and no one in the West can do anything to stop them.

The government’s motivation is also primarily to do with power. On the one hand, there is popularity to be won by taking on and, it is to be hoped, defeating ISIS. To say nothing of the great photo opps that a war provides for an embattled Prime Minister.

Cameron visiting RAF crews in Syria
Support crucial to their effectiveness.
And, coincidentally, a good photo opp too

But there’s also another aspect that Cameron is enthusiastic to turn to advantage: the sheer savagery of ISIS has excited a wave of aversion in Britain, and with aversion comes fear. Cameron is whipping up that fear and using it as wonderful means to drive more people to support a government perceived is the last best defence against this terrorist group, and in order to limit still further pesky human rights legislation, always an annoyance to government.

There have already been calls by such significant Tories as Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to require people returning from Syria to prove they were not engaged in terrorism, reversing the usual arrangement whereby it is up to the prosecution to prove that they were.

We recently saw a case of where the government is heading. An action was brought against former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg who had made a number of trips to Syria. Two days ago, as his trial on terrorism charges was about to start, MI5 admitted that it had maintained excellent communications with Begg, interviewing him several times and using him as a source on the situation in Syria, even guaranteeing him the right to return to Britain from Syria unmolested. The case fell apart.

Now I don’t know whether Begg is as clean as wind-driven snow, or up to no good. What I do know is that he hasn’t been convicted of any crime – indeed, the case against him had to be withdrawn by the prosecuting authorities. From the point of view of the law, he’s innocent.

And yet – the government decided it would not immediately unfreeze his assets. A man who has not been convicted of any offence, has his assets frozen on the mere say-so of the government.

The same government that now wants ministers to be able to overrule judgements of the European Court of Human Rights, on their own authority.

A lot of people will find Begg thoroughly antipathetic. They will feel that he deserves everything he gets. But what they are losing track of is when once you give the government the right to decide who deserves to have his or her rights protected, you give it that power over you rights too.

It’s worth remembering the words of the anti-Nazi pastor, Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist. 

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist. 

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak for me. 

Let's hope that Alan Hemming, brave and generous, receives a better tribute.