‘Are you really a Muslim? I mean you’re black and, like, really westernised, I don’t get it’. The Labour party activist looked puzzled as she waited for a reply. After explaining to her that yes, I was a Muslim and, no, not all Muslim women wear a headscarf, a niqab, nor are they all from Pakistan or Bangladesh. Her face relaxed and all was good in the world again. I sat back and started to think about her question.
This wasn’t the first time someone in the party had asked me this, but unlike before I wasn’t able to simply laugh it off or think nothing of it. This time it made me realise that if the Labour party is to really embrace all of the communities in Britain then the party needs to really understand not just the fact that there are different Muslim communities in Britain, but the reality that these communities are very different and they are not just one ‘voting bloc’ that the party can tap into at election time.
What might work for the south Asian Muslim communities won’t work for the west African Muslim communities and vice-versa the north African and east African Muslims. Indeed, there are many similarities as most of these communities make up the most poorest and vulnerable in our society, hit the hardest not just by the Tory-led government cuts but the never-ending negative media coverage unleashed by the rightwing press. These communities feel under siege.
Labour needs to engage with theses communities in a very different way than it has been doing in the past because the community has changed. The increase of refugees from countries like Somalia, Libya, Iraq and many more from the Muslim world over the past 20 years, means that the traditional Muslim Labour base has changed.
Of course, we all know what happened in Bradford West – many lessons should be learnt from that experience. It is sad that opportunist like George Galloway can time and time again be allowed to divide the Muslim community by exploiting the fact that Labour has not only ignored the needs of the Muslim communities, but just keeps taking them for granted.
As I have said, the Muslim community is diverse. I recently spoke to a young west African teenager, Abu who told me that he feels a double negative of being both black and Muslim in Britain today. He said that his community experiences both the racism of being black in Britain and the anti-Islamic prejudice felt by the wider British Muslim communities.
As a black Muslim woman I understand where he was coming from and the Labour party needs to understand this issue too. Just going into mosques (which are divided along clan and ethnic lines) is not the answer, nor is connecting with one part of the Muslim community and ignoring others just as important. These communities are feeling more and more alienated and forgotten by all the political parties. The result in Bradford West was just the start of a growing shift moving slowly away from the Labour party, as more and more Muslim communities begin to start voicing their anger and frustration towards a political system that has taken them for granted while dividing them.
Through my work with Muslim Women for Labour I have discovered more and more that Muslim women are the backbone of all these Muslim communities. They are strong articulate women who work as lawyers, doctors, teachers, mothers and carers, and they don’t all wear a headscarf. They come in all shades and ethnic backgrounds, and are not governed by the men in their communities.
The Labour party needs to directly engage with them through organisations like this if it is to understand the changing face of British Muslims. These women joined Muslim Women for Labour because some do believe in the Labour party values; others have voted Labour in the past and the younger women just want to know what the Labour party has to offer them.
Whatever the reason all that matters is for the Labour party to win the next election with a strong Muslim turnout voting Labour, then the party needs to realise that the Muslim community of the past has gone, and that a new, more diverse, community has taken its place with very diverse needs and opinions, which, if not met or understood will result in more Bradford Wests occurring up and down the country.
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Amina Ali is founder and chair of Muslim Women for Labour, chair of Somali Friends of Labour, and vice-chair of Tower Hamlets CLP. She tweets @AminaAliLabour
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And the Labour Pary could start their new awareness by giving support to Occupied Palestine rather than blindly believing everything Israel says.
On the other hand we could stop playing communitarain politics and leave that to George galloway and Ken Livingstone, because such policies are divisive and dangerous. Bradford West was indicative of nothing more than showing how far removed from mainstream politics far too many Muslims have become.
And quite frankly, I am quite prepared to ignore the “needs and opinions” of this diverse Muslim community if those needs include continuing to demand respect for medieval thinking and practices.
My Labour values include secularism, sexual equality, racial equality and oppose anti semitism. I fear that rather too many Muslims do not share these values. If they don’t then the Labour Party is the wrong place for them.
Yes, many working class youngsters (White and Pakistani) are disaffected by a mainstream politics that somehow has left them disenfranchised. That they have decided to vote for an alternative is instructive – perhaps as a party, we need to rethink how we are interacting with youth in general and those from deprived urban areas in particular (that is, from traditionally core Labour turf).
I am a Muslim. I have never demanded or expected that my faith or its values be respected by all in society – though I respect my faith and its values with every fibre in my body. Indeed, l recognise that in the society we live in there are diverse opinions on almost everything. That is why a Labour party that seeks to represent “One Nation” must listen to all views and then seek to speak for the many and not the few.
Notwithstanding the fact that (of course) Labour has principles that it stands for and that we should always endeavour to respect, we would be foolhardy not to welcome everyone who wants to help work towards making our country a better home for us all into the broad church that is the Labour party, don’t you agree comrade?