by Cheryl Gallagher
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, founding secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, spoke of the common values shared in multi-cultural Britain and of his hope that communities of all faiths will work together to end discrimination and extremism. He was addressing a Greencoat Forum in the London centre of Initiatives of Change on 17 March, 2009.
Since his arrival in Britain from Malawi 40 years ago to study accountancy, Sir Iqbal has been an active member in many national and community organisations. He helped to found the Muslim Council of Britain in 1997 and served again as Secretary-General from 2002 to 2004 and from 2004 to 2006. He was awarded an OBE in 1999 and a knighthood in 2005 for ‘services to the Muslim community, to charities and to community relations’. He has also served as an advisor to four home secretaries on race-relations and equality.
When Sir Iqbal arrived in 1969 he found a very different Britain from the one we know today. There were no mosquesor halal restaurants, making it difficult for Muslims to continue their traditions. But it was walking in Hyde Park during prayer time with his late father that helped him see future possibilities. With no mosque nearby, they knelt down to pray in the park. ‘My father told me that where there is a will to pray, you can worship wherever you are, wherever you feel comfortable. My father also taught me that people should be judged not by their race or religion but by their contribution to society. This was a very powerful message for me.’
Sir Iqbal spoke of the importance for people of faith to have the necessary provisions to enable them to live according to their faith. For Muslims this means having access to mosques, hospital chaplaincies, Muslim burial space and the facility for burial the day after death as prescribed in Islam. Such requests were not ‘special treatment’ but simply the right to live according to their faith—the same right that should be afforded to people of all faiths. In this way, the Muslim community has worked in partnership with other faiths to bring about change.
But it was the right for people to identify themselves in terms of their religion in the 2001 census which gave a platform to make faith a part of society. British Muslims were previously invisible statistically, only being able to characterize themselves according to race and ethnicity.
Sir Iqbal highlighted that it hasn’t always been easy for Muslims to live according to their faith without facing discrimination: ‘Imagine two women going for a job interview where one is wearing a hijab and the other isn’t. The most likely outcome is that the woman who isn’t wearing the hijab is going to get the job. This effectively bars Muslim women from playing a role in society.’
Muslims have also suffered discrimination in the media and Sir Iqbal highlighted an occasion in 1998 where the Daily Express featured the front page headline ‘Moslem plot to bomb London’. ‘This kind of media coverage is extremely damaging particularly considering that the individual involved was not even a Muslim. Members of the Muslim community were harassed as a result of this headline.’ Where mistakes of this sort are made in the media, an apology is usually printed in a small space in the inside pages with no guarantee that people who have read the offending article will subsequently read the apology. The case of the Daily Express was a welcome change from the norm and an editorial apology was printed.
Sir Iqbal went on to describe a general Islamophobia in the media where too much coverage is given to individuals who don’t represent the rest of the community. ‘Every community has its nutcases but when that nutcase is a Muslim, the events are over-reported. The whole community is tainted because of the criminal actions of a few individuals. We don’t condone terrorism, as the Quran states clearly: “If you have hatred in your heart, all your praying and fasting is worth nothing.” The Quran also explicitly says that it is wrong to kill innocent people: “To kill one innocent is like killing the whole of humanity.”’
For Sir Iqbal, who has a multi-faceted identity as a British Muslim born in Africa with Asian heritage, it is vitally important that communities unite to prevent terrorism. He talked about division between communities causing ‘Muslim ghettos’. With virtually no integration with other community groups, such ghettos can lead to the radicalization of some young Muslims. For Sir Iqbal, constant dialogue between faith and secular communities is the way to promote the truly pluralistic and peaceful society that he would like to see.
See also Tackling religious discrimination in the UK article in Guardian Weekly Online
Clips from this Greencoat Forum can also be viewed on YouTube:
English