CAPE TOWN - Imagine ANC stalwarts such as Ahmed Kathrada, Dullah Omar, Mohammed Valli Moosa, Aziz Pahad and current Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel being told that their Muslim faith was a barrier to being appointed to ministerial posts in ANC governments, since the onset of democracy in 1994.
This is what allegedly happened to Nusrat Ghani, the Conservative (Tory) Party MP for Wealden, in UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government.
Ghani’s claim that her Muslim faith was given as a reason by Tory Chief Whip Mark Spencer for her sacking as a transport minister in the 2020 ministerial reshuffle, prompted Johnson to order an immediate Cabinet Office inquiry.
Ghani in 2018 was the first female Muslim minister to speak in parliament. She accused Spencer in a recent interview with The Sunday Times (UK) of warning her that “Muslimness was raised as an issue”, and her status as a “Muslim woman… was making colleagues uncomfortable”, a claim he denies.
The Tories have a long-running problem in acknowledging and rooting out “Islamophobia” from within its ranks and structures, failing to take decisive action against anti-Muslim sentiment for fear of the political consequences.
Whether the party is “institutionally” Islamophobic and to what extent it pervades party structures is not clear. Not all Tories are Islamophobic, just as not all socialists are Islamophilic.
In fact, two cabinet ministers Health Secretary Sajid Javid, and Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi are of Muslim heritage.
Ex-Tory Party chair Baroness Saeeda Warsi, the first Muslim woman cabinet minister, is a long-standing critic of her party’s approach to Islamophobia allegations.
The irony is that last Thursday a beleaguered Johnson, subject to a police probe over alleged contraventions of his own Covid rules by holding a spate of parties when Britons could not even visit dying relatives in hospital due to the lockdown, saw his “loyal” long-standing policy director, Munira Mirza – yes of Muslim heritage – resign in protest against his “scurrilous” remarks about Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader.
A dysfunctional No 10 has been haemorrhaging key staff, and already 12 Tory MPs have signed No Confidence letters in their prime minister.
Chris Patten, ex-Tory party chair, in a BBC Radio interview this weekend, observed that Johnson has a “moral vacuum”, devoid of the values of society who had long abandoned traditional one-nation conservatism in favour of a right-wing English nationalism, with all its divisive implications.
Racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are various sides of a multi-dimensional coin. No country or society is bereft of it. It is as old as history itself. That it remains alive and kicking in the 21st Century means that it is difficult to eradicate especially when so-called “leaders in the free world” perpetuate myths of racial, faith, gender and ideological supremacy.
The best “antidote” is vigilance, calling out and unrelenting pressure. To add insult to injury, the Tory hierarchy cannot even agree on a definition of Islamophobia.
A devastating report titled “The Dinner Table Prejudice – Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain” published last week by Birmingham University, makes uneasy reading for many Brits. It confirms what many activists have been saying for years that middle and upper-class people are more likely to hold prejudiced views of Islam than working-class people.
The report based on a survey in collaboration with the prominent polling firm, YouGov, found that “23.2% of people from the upper-social groups harbour prejudiced views about Islamic beliefs compared with only 18.4% of people from the working classes. However, when asked their views about Muslims or most other ethnic or religious minority groups, older people, men, working-class people and Conservative and Brexit Leave voters are consistently more likely to hold prejudiced views.”
The report’s authors Dr Stephen Jones from Birmingham University and Amy Unsworth of University College London are respected academics in the study of Islam and on secularisation and religious change in Britain. Lead author Dr Jones maintains: “Prejudice towards Islam and Muslims stands out in the UK, not only because it is much more widespread than most forms of racism, but also because prejudice towards Islam is more common among those who are wealthier and well-educated.”
Key notable findings reveal the depth of anti-Muslim prejudice which should be a wake-up call for Johnson. Muslims are the UK’s second “least liked” group, after Gypsy and Irish Travellers, with 25.9% of the British public feeling negative towards Muslims (and 9.9% feeling “very negative”) compared with 8.5% for Jews, 6.4% for blacks and 8.4% for whites.
More than one in four people, and nearly half of Conservative and Leave voters, hold conspiratorial views about Shariah (Islamic canon law) “no-go areas where non-Muslims are not able to enter” and that “Islam threatens the British way of life”.
Support for prohibiting all Muslim migration to the UK is 4% to 6% higher for Muslims than it is for other groups. British people are more confident in making judgements about Islam than other non-Christian religions, but are much more likely to make incorrect assumptions such as the Qur’an must be read “totally literally”.
The recommendations to Johnson are clear – own the fact that Islamophobia stands out compared with other forms of racism and prejudice; acknowledge that systemic miseducation about Islam is common in British society; introduce religious literacy as part of any large-scale equality and diversity policy initiative.
“No-one,” says Jones, “is calling for laws regulating criticism of religion, but we have to recognise that the British public has been systematically miseducated about Islamic tradition, and take steps to remedy this.”
Madiba had an unshakeable moral authority. Embracing minority faiths and cultures is a mainstay of the Constitution. Western democracies despite the blight of slavery, colonialism and supremacy, have regressed on the wave of populism. Prejudice under the right conditions is infectious everywhere, leaving that moral vacuum. The sporadic violent xenophobia in South Africa in recent years is a stark reminder of that.
Parker is a writer and economist based in London
Cape Times