A plea to Tony Blair

By Zeyno Baran

A progressive British Muslim I met with while in London last week sent me this brief to post. He is one of the moderates desperately trying to contribute to Blair�s initiative on the fight against radicalism. Needless to say, it is rather disheartening to see that the radicals in the UK (like in the US and many other parts in the world) have managed to re-cast themselves as the "moderates" and continuing to dominate the mainstream and silencing the real moderates.

Has Blair thrown in the towel before the battle has been won?

Tony Blair delivered the speech that inspired millions of Muslims around the world. We believed finally we had a world leader in the West, who not only had the courage to recognise the ideological battle that Muslims and the rest of the world are facing, but was prepared to take on the bad guys.

With rhetoric like, �What we are confronting here is an evil ideology;� �This is the battle that must be won, a battle not just about the terrorist methods but their views. Not just their barbaric acts, but their barbaric ideas. Not only what they do but what they think and the thinking they would impose on others,� a clear message went out to extremists that their time was up!

No sooner had the Prime Minister declared �Its roots are not superficial, but deep, in the madrasas of Pakistan, in the extreme forms of Wahhabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia, in the former training camps of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan� the slick, well oiled machine that represents the Wahhabi doctrine in the UK went on the offensive. The spearhead of this network, the Muslim Council Britain (MCB), led the political networking that would be needed to ensure that they, and the groups that they represent, would be well placed to increase their foothold. In fact when the PM declared that he was going to proscribe radical groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al Muhajiroun, the MCB were amongst the first to cry outrage at this suggestion, shouting that �banning Hizb ut-Tahrir is certainly not the solution.�

So who in reality are the good guys and who is representative of the ideology that Tony Blair refers to above? The answer may well be staring us in the face and yet there seems to be a reluctance to act upon words that many of us British Muslims have been waiting for since 9/11. The BBC (Panorama � �A Question of Leadership�) undertook a brave piece of journalism to try and expose the fact that the majority of Muslims in the UK are not being represented by the existing groups to which the is is talking. In fact the researcher had proved that groups such as MCB, MAB, Jemaat Islamiah, Deoband, etc that fall under the alleged umbrella that the government considers moderate are in fact one of the major factors that contribute to the first stage of the �Extremist,� i.e. they all have their roots firmly entrenched within Wahhabism. This is something that the real moderates have been saying for years, and perhaps for the first time in the UK we had real hope that we may see some real solutions.

�More engagement with the moderates� was the battle cry from the Home Office. �Let�s talk to the common man� was heard from the rafters. Some bright sparks came up with a real Eureka moment: �Let�s set up some working groups,� with the emphasis on bringing the real moderates out so that they can debate the issues that need to be resolved. Let�s create SEVEN Working Groups to find solutions, in fact let�s create briefs for them with the objective being that they will each make four to five recommendations. Let�s spend up to �70,000 ($140,000) over a two-week period on this. Why not invite people from all aspects of modern life? Let�s call the whole process �Preventing Extremism Together.� In fact why don�t we have interesting titles for the groups, such as:

1. Tackling extremism and radicalisation;
2. Engaging with young people;
3. Supporting regional and local initiatives and community actions;
4. Engaging with women;
5. Imam training and accreditation and the role of mosques as a resource for the whole community;
6. Providing a full range of education services, in the UK, that meet the needs of the Muslim community; and,
7. Security for the community, including tackling Islamophobia, protecting Muslims from extremism, and building community confidence in policing.

AND BY THE WAY, WHY DON�T WE PUT THE WAHABIS IN CHARGE??

Mr. Blair, please do not leave the majority of the moderate Muslims that supported your government (even if we did not all agree entirely with your Iraq policy) at the mercy of these people that have proven themselves more than capable of playing the political game.
Please do not have the top role as the convenor for the task force, �Tackling extremism and radicalisation� given on a plate to a man that in January 1993, wrote a letter to Private Eye, the satirical magazine, calling the blind Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman "courageous" - just a month before he bombed the World Trade Center . After Rahman�s arrest in July that year, the same man said that it was probably only because of his "calling on Muslims to fulfil their duty to Allah and to fight against oppression and oppressors everywhere".

Five months before 9/11, he also circulated writings of Osama bin Laden, who he regarded as a "freedom fighter," to hundreds of Muslims in Britain.

Why is there a majority of Wahhabis on all of the groups, in fact why have you included the very people that you describe as the problem? When will you finally realise that sects such as Deobandi, Ikhwan, Ah le Hadith, Wahhabi, Salaafi etc. all come from the same source.

My request, my PLEA to you, Mr Blair, is that you do not give the majority of us that are moderates false hope. For the sake of all of the children of the world, stay firm in your resolve to weed out this cancer. AND please do not lose credibility with the majority of us - help us �take back the microphone�

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