Aside from boxers Prince Naseem Hamed and Amir Khan, British Muslims have been virtually absent from the British cult of celebrity. There are no Muslim footballers of note in the English Premiership, nor are there singers or movie stars.
However, the British intelligence services are doing their best to keep Britain an egalitarian society, as more Muslims are given the opportunity to appear on TV when MI5 officers raid their homes to arrest them. The only downside is that their celebrity status may not last long, as in many cases there is no evidence to support their detention. As soon as these new celebrities are no longer considered a threat to the country, they disappear off the TV screens and the front pages of the tabloids, allowing the Beckhams and Jordans of the world to claim their usual spot.
The only outcome is the marginalisation of the entire Muslim community, which is clearly at a real disadvantage. And the British government has never bothered itself to try to deal with the roots of the problem.
According to the 2001 British national census, carried out before September 11, Muslims have the worst health in the UK and the highest rate of disability and long-term illness. In addition, home ownership among British Muslims is well bellow the national average. This might be explained by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures for 2004 which show that Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment of any ethnic group in the UK. Many believe that these findings are the result of institutionalised discrimination in housing, employment and education.
Not one of the new policies introduced by New Labour to reduce socio-economic inequa-lities was aimed at tackling sectarian discrimination. In fact, the British government’s contribution was adding more fuel to the fire. For example, then Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a speech on 8 January 2007 that it is not the Afro-Caribbean or the Polish or the Hindu communities who are causing the trouble – it is a minority of the Muslim community. Although he referred to a minority, his speech implied that Muslims are the only cause of such problems. In other words, it was a call (however indirect) for further alienation and social exclusion of the Muslim community. His speech reminded me of a documentary in 2004 about the far-right British National Party (BNP) trying to ferment divisions among ethnic minority communities. Blair’s speech articulated a similar message.
I believe that the important lesson for us in Ireland is not to follow the British model of multiculturalism. The Muslim community in Ireland, estimated at 25,000 in the South and 4,500 in the North, is quite small, young and new. This means that the experience here could be very different from the experience in Britain. This is reinforced by the fact that Ireland does not have forces occupying Muslim countries, which eliminates any governmental need for anti-Muslim propaganda.
It is important that Ireland builds its own model of an intercultural society. Trying to copy the British model will only lead to an exclusive society divided on sectarian and ethnic bases. However, this does not mean that we should not look across the water at all – at least we could learn where they went wrong. Additionally, we could learn from other countries where the experience has not been great, but where there are some positive experiments to copy. For example, the Muslim community in Munich, Germany, organised a program during the month of Ramadan where Muslim families invited their non-Muslim neighbours for the evening meal.
For now, if you are a Muslim who lives in Britain or in Northern Ireland and wants to become a celebrity, simply grow your beard, go to the mosque regularly and you are more likely to be spotted by MI5 Stars Academy. The only problem I can see is that MI5 appears to be a sexist organisation that rarely takes women onboard…
Mohammed Samaana is a Palestinian living in Belfast
