Liberal Democrat candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn Maajid Nawaaz has written for the Guardian about his controversial decision to tweet a cartoon featuring Jesus and Mohammed, explaining why he’d done it:
My intention was not to speak for any Muslim but myself – rather, it was to defend my religion from those who have hijacked it just because they shout the loudest. My intention was to carve out a space to be heard without constantly fearing the blasphemy charge, on pain of death. I did it for Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab who was assassinated by his bodyguard for calling for a review of Pakistan’s colonial-era blasphemy laws; for Malala Yusafzai, the schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban for wanting an education; and for Muhammad Asghar, a mentally ill British man sentenced to death for “blasphemy” last week in Pakistan.
My intention was to demonstrate that Muslims are able to see things we don’t like, yet remain calm and pluralist, and to demonstrate that there are Muslims who care more about the thousands of deaths in Iraq, Pakistan and Syria than we do about what a student is wearing. My intention was to highlight that Muslims can engage in politics without insisting that our own religious values must trump all others’ concerns, and to stand before the mob so that other liberal Muslim voices that are seldom heard, women’s and men’s, could come to the fore. And many such Muslim voices have been heard this last week.
He concludes:
I am free not to be offended by a cartoon I did not draw. If my prospective constituents do not like me not being offended, they are free not to vote for me. Other Muslims are free to be offended, and the rest of the country is free to ignore them. I will choose my policies based on my conscience. As such, I will continue to defend my prophet from those on the far right and Muslim extremes who present only a rigid, angry and irrational interpretation of my faith. I will stand for fairness, as Amnesty International once stood for me when I was a prisoner in Hosni Mubarak‘s Egypt. Because I believe that the difference between fairness and tribalism is the difference between choosing principles and choosing sides.
You can read the whole article here.
The rather painstaking truce brokered between Nawaaz and Mohammad Shafiq, also a member of the Liberal Democrats, has faltered with Shafiq withdrawing support for the joint statement this morning. Some of the commentary on Shafiq’s Facebook page has been incredibly intemperate with Shafiq himself describing Nawaaz’s behaviour as “vile”.
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18 Comments
The Liberal Democrats have been accused of dither and inaction in recent weeks. There are two Lib Dem members here, Maajid Nawaaz, and Mohammad Shafiq. One of them is definitely NOT, in any expression of the phrase, a Liberal Democrat, and it requires decisive action from leadership, to rectify that. Will you allow dither yet again?
So far both Maajid Nawaaz and Mohammad Shafiq have shown themselves to be good LibDems. I think Maajid picked the wrong issue to campaign on and caused unnecessary offence. Mohammad has been strong in his condemnation of Maajid and has been just as strong in rejecting abuse and violence in his cause. I do hope the party addresses this dispute head on. If ignored it will only get worse. Muslims brought up in the UK are having to come to terms with living in a multicultural society where free speech can sometimes offend others (if you think this dispute is serious, try saying something anti-Semitic and see well you are received). British Muslims have a tremendous amount to teach Muslims in other countries how to balance their religion with a democratic process. We should support them, especially the LIbDerms.
@ David Pollard: Mohammad Shafiq has shown himself to be anything but liberal.
David Pollard, the petition, assuming it has only been signed by Britons, represents a tiny fraction of the UK’s muslim community (less than 1%).
It’s patronising to say “Muslims brought up in the UK are having to come to terms with living in a multicultural society where free speech can sometimes offend others” when over 99% clearly are!
It’s also sinister to compare this with anti-semitism, nobody, other than a few fringe troublemakers are suggesting the cartoon is Islamophobic, thus making comparisons with anti-semitism mistaken and demeaning the use of the concept which extends far beyond cartoons, offensive or otherwise.
It is especially unwise to say such a thing give the Lib Dem’s own problems with David Ward and Jenny Tonge.
Maajid Nawas is now becoming a courageous and principled liberal Muslim. I hope that he succeeds with his project ‘to carve out a space’ for tolerance and real respect (not Respect!) for diversity. We should recognise, too, the temptation for some liberals to excuse even gross intolerance in the name of respect for diversity, and do our best to help them avoid this trap.
Well ‘g’ 10,000 people signing a petition does not seem to me to be ‘a few fringe trouble makers’ There was a time in England when being the wrong sort of Christian led to burning at the stake. It has taken us hundreds of years to take a more relaxed view of Christianity, and you don’t have to scratch the surface too far to still find bigotry. In those terms Muslims are very new to this country and believe me, they have had to come to terms with the tensions which arise between free speech and strongly held belief. My reference to anti-Semitic comments should be seen only in the context of free speech and I do not agree with your comment that the LibDems have a problem with David Ward and Jenny Tonge. There was nothing sinister about what they said. They just said things as they found them.
The nasty verbal attacks on Maajid Nawaaz has put the spotlight on a small number of people who I suspect would be more comfortable in a different political party. I hope that our party’s disciplinary processes have been helpfully cranked into action to assist these individuals on their way.
It could easily be argued that the tweet by Maajid Nawaaz would have been better unsent. In his heart of hearts I sense that Maajid himself may agree with that. However it is absolutely unacceptable within a party like ours to campaign against his nomination as a Liberal Democrat candidate merely because of this (probably hasty) action. Muslims who join our party (and the more the merrier) have to go along like all of us with the freedom and fairness upon which the party is based.
David Pollard, Islam has been in the UK since the 1700s, inciting violence to suppress expression is much more recent. On Ward and Tonge, I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t express their views, just that their views are undeniably offensive to many people, Jews and none-Jews. Yet here you are defending their right to offend, but not the right of Nawaaz to commit a lesser offence.
I’m utterly lost as to your point.
Denis and David, your comments are a relief to my senses after seeing an onslaught of right wing rhetoric being spewed forth by islamaphobes, ex muslims and a fringe group of atheists who – alongside the few inexplicably extreme idiots who shot the Muslim cause in the foot by issuing death threats – have trolled this scenario and caused it to spiral out of control unnecessarily. It’s great that people on both sides, Muslim and non Muslim, recognise we live in a country where free speech must be defended, but that conduct of parliamentary candidates must be responsible and we as muslims, a minority group do have a voice and will be listened to if we put our argument across lawfully and sensibly. I and many muslims like me, never wanted Nawaaz to be censored, let’s get that much straight. We just exercised our right to be offended in response to him exercising his right to not be offended. When the fringe groups of trouble makers on both sides realise that there is a democratic and sensible way of quashing these disagreements, we will indeed make progress and minority groups like us won’t feel alienated as admittedly, I have done for years due to the harsh words and stereotypes which describe us, that are now implanted in the minds of so many.
Denis
It could easily be argued that the tweet by Maajid Nawaaz would have been better unsent. In his heart of hearts I sense that Maajid himself may agree with that.
And who was it sent to? Presumably to have received it, you would have had to sign up to be a follower of Maajid Nawaz (I don’t use Twitter myself, don’t have time for that sort of thing, so correct me if I am wrong). It’s not as if he paraded outside his local mosque waving it in the congregation’s faces as they came out. If you don’t like Maajid Nawaz’s line on Islam, then you shouldn’t have subscribed to his tweets, surely. This makes it even more sad when one considers how many Liberals have joined in the attacks on him, making out he did this in a way that was intended to be insulting.
Waseem, you don’t want Nawaaz to be censored but you don’t think parliamentary candidates should say what he said. I am finding it difficult to reconcile these two views. Could you elaborate?
Exactly, Matthew. Someone quoted Dawkins in the other thread saying this (online) cartoon ‘could only offend those actively seeking to be offended – and that says it all!’
Once upon a time back in the 1980s, a Mr Peter Tatchell announced his intention to stand for parliament and thereby campaign for gay rights. Whereupon a Mr Simon Hughes responded, broadly to the effect that whilst he was also in favour of gay rights, he would offer himself as an MP who would work for all of his constituents and concentrate on the issues like jobs and the economy which most mattered to them. The rest is history. It makes an interesting parallel with this thread.
I guess the verdict of history might be kinder to Mr Tatchell than the voters of Bermondsey were. His cause was just. Nevertheless Mr Hughes also made a very valid point, which is still relevant today.
Getting back to Maajid Nawaz, some people have commented “it was only”. For example “it was only a tweet”, or “it was only that he said he wasn’t offended”. But now we see eloquent language like “I did it for Malala”, which rather confirms that it wasn’t “only” anything. It was serious.
It can of course be argued that it was important, something that needed saying. Well, from my personal perspective as an unbeliever coming from a white Christian background, I might agree with that. But – as a final qualm – if you are serious, why choose a silly cartoon as the vehicle you will use to make your point?
Waseem Khan: ‘an onslaught of right wing rhetoric being spewed forth by islamaphobes, ex muslims and a fringe group of atheists’.
I’ve not seen you here before, so welcome to a more refined (presumably because moderated), but liberal, debating space! (I have seen some of the hateful rubbish, too).
By the way, however: I do rather resent ‘fringe group of atheists’ being used in describing my own fundamental philosophical standpoint, a matter of great significance to me, and many others – see https://humanism.org.uk/.
And while you cite Atheists as a finge group (to be fair to you, you apply the same term to ‘the trouble-makers on both sides’), you also cite yourself as a part of a ‘minority’, and who feels ‘alienated’ and wishes to be heard. This inconsistency seems revealing to me. You are content to dismiss Atheists (or perhaps just those Atheists campaigning on this issue? Does the same go for Liberal Muslims unoffended by Jesus and Mo? It makes no difference to my point!) as a small group, whose views by implication, are irrelevant, yet you wish your own minority to be treated with respect and tolerance. I hope that you can see the logical discrepancy here, now that I have pointed it out?
David Allen
But – as a final qualm – if you are serious, why choose a silly cartoon as the vehicle you will use to make your point?
Because that was the point – it was a silly cartoon, and people who are serious about their religion should not get worked up about such things.
David Allen
Once upon a time back in the 1980s, a Mr Peter Tatchell announced his intention to stand for parliament and thereby campaign for gay rights. Whereupon a Mr Simon Hughes responded, broadly to the effect that whilst he was also in favour of gay rights, he would offer himself as an MP who would work for all of his constituents and concentrate on the issues like jobs and the economy which most mattered to them.
No, neither of them did that. Neither Peter Tatchell or Simon Hughes made any mention of gay rights in the Bermondsey by-election. Indeed Tatchell was criticised in gay circles for not mentioning it during the campaign. The attacks on Tatchell for his previous activity in this area were made by the Independent Labour candidate, John O’Grady. The press was writing up the by-election as a two-horse race between O’Grady and Tatchell up to the last week of the campaign. Hughes’ line was that the local Labour Party was complacent and had let down the area, so that was an argument against voting either for the O’Grady a long-term leading member of the local Labour Party, or Tatchell who seemed to be thinking a red rosette was enough to get him in and appeared naive when it came to practical action.
Waseem Khan referred to a ‘fringe group’ of atheists. I haven’t come across them but I’ll take his word for it. As an atheist myself, I support, freedom, fairness, tolerance and the rule of law. I defend the right of deeply religious people to be offended when their religion is attacked, but I expect them to respond in a robust way to make their point and not resort to threats. As far as I am concerned, Mohammed Sadiq, was robust in his response and regularly condemned threats of violence by other muslims on his Facebook page. We need to take the heat out of this.