We are not traitors in your midst

16 August 2006

Yahya Birt — son of John, the former BBC director-general — says that those who choose Islam are not the modern-day equivalent of Soviet moles such as Anthony Blunt

The radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir had also emerged on the campuses, and its confident tabloid style of politics appealed to some impressionable young Muslims. While at university, and involved with my local Islamic society, I experienced many run-ins with them. At our college we managed to keep them to the margins, but it was difficult and I was accused of being a turncoat and a spy. Recoiling from this angry Marxist-Leninist Islam, I spent a number of years away from the community, disillusioned and unsure.

During research fieldwork for a doctorate just before 9/11, it was clear to me that radicalism had become embedded in a section of the Muslim community. But it took the attack on the Twin Towers for me to realise that these people were more than just the Muslim Militant Tendency. All the other factors of disaffection and disadvantage were there, but these radical ideas were the critical factor. I felt, like many others, the need to get involved again, fearing the consequences of the great stigma that Osama bin Laden had laid upon Islam and British Muslims.

In these past five years the Muslim community has struggled to cope with the pressure. It is the youngest community in the country, half of it under the age of 25 — with all the energy, enthusiasm and inexperience that one might expect — and it’s one of the poorest and most socially marginalised. There is much to be done to cut through the despair and cynicism that have taken hold. The old colonial way of dealing with migrant communities by proxy through community representatives was always likely to prove ineffectual to deal with this crisis. The government even believes that imams can be used to direct the process of integration, when they are still regarded as ill-paid employees, and have no special status. Many cannot relate culturally to young people or speak English adequately. The mosque has a much less central role than once it had.