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Nazra aims to "build better mutual understanding between countries and communities across the world." |
With flawless British accents, four conservative-looking British Muslims set about explaining their own nazra (Arabic for "vision") on issues related to their own community in the United Kingdom. The panel entitled "Islam in the West" was part of the Nazra Festival organized by the British Embassy (31 January to 12 February 2006). Sometimes explanatory and more than often exploratory, the delegates began debating and responding to questions related to their ethnicity, feelings of belonging, and troubles back "home."
Integrate or Go Home
In a time when the European Muslim community is being accused of lack of integration within their local communities and of upholding a "ghetto" culture, the delegation emphasized their affiliations with the local UK community.
"When someone tells me to go home, I tell them that Manchester is my home," said Waqqas Khan, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies and former president of the Manchester University Islamic Society. "I don’t feel like I need integration. I'd rather be tried in a court in the UK rather than by the Karachi cops in Pakistan, and that's a fact," he said.
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| Samia Rahman a London based journalist and a member of the British Muslim delegation |
Samia Rahman, a London-based journalist and founder and deputy editor of Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel, said that there is an untold story of successful British Muslims.
"Muslims are an integral part of society with many contributions to British society," she said, adding that historically, though, Muslims in the UK haven't been as politically engaged, but that there's a reengagement from the
fringes to the center of society. "What we're seeing today is an opportunity to represent Islam and to let people know. In Emel, we celebrate Muslims in the UK as people who have the same aspirations as anyone else," she said.
An examples of Muslims reaching out to the community is the Islam Awareness Week, an annual event held in the UK, Rahman explained. "We invited non-Muslims into our mosques to see that the imams are not really preaching "death to the west." "We want them to become familiar of what it means to be a Muslim in the UK," she said.
Fareena Alam, managing editor of Q-News, a leading British Muslim current-affairs publication, said that it's important to note that Muslims have only been in the UK for 50 to 60 years, which is a very short time." There's a misconception that all Muslims live in the ghettos. When my parents came to the UK, it was a daunting experience for them. So they went straight to the area where there are many Bengalis," she said.
Intergenerational Conflicts
It was tempting to ask the panelists, all of whom are second generation Muslims from the UK, what it was like between themselves and their parents. What kind of issues do they find conflict in?
One of the examples highlighted by Abdel Rahman Helbawi, founder and managing director of Dome Tours International, a company specializing in Islamic tours, was what happens during Ramadan between different generatiosn. "When we want to know if the moon has been sighted for Ramadan or Eid, my parents first reaction is to switch on Al-Jazeera to see what they're doing in Egypt. However, my first reaction is to contact the Islamic centers in the UK, whom I know all have committees that sight the moon," he said.
Rahman said that the differences between the generations could also stem from the shift away from ethnic culture and dress. "Abandoning the 'shalwar kamees,' [Pakistani attire] for example, for a long skirt and shirt is somewhat shocking for older generations," she said.
Alam felt grateful towards the first generation Muslims in the UK. "When they came here, they were concerned with having a mosque to pray in, and of establishing a Muslim community. We live off the effort that they've put in. Being different within the community, having different sects and doing things differently makes us stronger. It would be very dull if were to agree on everything," she said.
She added that the conflicts between the first and second generations are typical of the conflicts prevalent in any culture. "Parents want you to marry someone else, they won't let you stay out late, they want you to be a doctor and you want to be an artist. Just typical conflicts," she said.
The Media and the Problems of Misrepresentation
While Helbawi said that the media represents extremist views of Muslims and sheds a negative light on them, Alam presented another side of the dilemma which is what she calls the "burden of representation." "Each morning I wake up and feel that burden, which I wish I didn't have to do. I, like all others in the country, have to work and pay rent and have an additional job to do which is representing Islam," she said.
Khan said that he feels that there are a lot generalizations. "Everyone in the west is this way or the other. In the new age we have people who cross over in any place. Furthermore, I don’t believe that the media has an agenda against Islam. It has one purpose alone and that is to sell sensational stories."
Also on the panel was Hussein Amin, professor and chair of the department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Cairo. Amin asserted that both sides, the west and the Arab world, tend to engage in a game of misrepresentation." As much as there's misrepresentation of Muslims and Arabs in the western media, there's also a high degree of ignorance about Christianity and Judaism. We're doing the same mistakes," he said.
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| " There's a misconception that all Muslims live in the ghettos", Fareena Alam said |
Amin then set about drawing parallel misconceptions on both sides. "They project us as terrorists and bloodthirsty killers, we represent them as cowboys. They represent Arab women as sex objects and we represent western women as whores. The west says that we're alienated and we say that they're in a society which is decaying. They present us as a culture of weird family ties and we say that they have no family ties," he said.
There is a need, he stressed, to correct this kind of imaging because we live in a global society. "The media is very powerful and it is time to fix it," he said.
There's an estimated 1.6 million Muslims living in the UK, and approximately 50 percent of them are British born. The largest migration of Muslim communities began in the 1950s, coming mainly from rural areas in South Asia. The largest concentrations of Muslims in the UK are in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Bradford. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) was established in 1997 and promotes consultation, cooperation, and coordination on Muslim affairs in Britain.
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