DEFEND THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY

The Stop the War Coalition expresses its solidarity with the Muslim communities of Britain and calls on all people in the anti-war movement and beyond to reject the wave of Muslim-baiting and Islamophobia now sweeping British politics and the media.

We believe that the central issue in the present controversy is not press freedom but racism.  The whole controversy over the publication of the “Danish cartoons” is a provocation directed against the Muslim communities in Europe, designed to humiliate and isolate the majority of Muslims while provoking a tiny number into offensive behaviour which can then be used to justify further reactionary measures directed against Muslims as a whole.

Such calculated insults would never be allowed against other minority faiths.  And we cannot ignore the fact that these religious insults are directed against a community in Britain already bearing the brunt of contemporary racist abuse, violence and intimidation.

“Press freedom” is not the question.  Those who wish to fight for media freedom should concentrate on the role of the press in retailing the government’s lies in the build-up to the Iraq war, on the government’s legislative plans to restrict free speech under the pretext of the “war on terror” and on the control of most of the mass media by a tiny number of big businesses.

The row over the cartoons is rooted in the determination of the British and US governments to maintain the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, support the occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel, and intimidate and perhaps attack Iran and Syria.  Such policies are rejected by the entirety of the Muslim community in Britain, which has played such a central part in the anti-war movement.  The continuing attacks on Muslims and their religion serves the purpose of trying to silence their opposition to this policy of domination and despoliation across the Middle East and South Asia.

The Stop the War Coalition has warned from its foundation in 2001 that the war launched by Bush and Blair would likely be accompanied by a racist backlash in this country.  We stand against all forms of racism, including anti-semitism, and against any attempt to use the war crisis to poison community relations in this country.  It is clear that we are now in the middle of just such a dangerous backlash, directed against the Muslim community.

We call on the whole anti-war movement to stand in solidarity with British Muslims and their organisations at this time and to make the demonstration on March 18 a powerful expression of not only our opposition to the occupation of Iraq and attack on Iran, but also of our support for our Muslim brothers and sisters.