Guest Blogger #4 - United We (should) Stand

When is the Christian community going to come to the aid of Muslims, in this country and around the world?

Superficially, there are signs of an alliance between to two great faiths. Last Friday, a group called the Christian Muslim Forum - apparently set up this year with the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury - was reported to have written to local councils warning that banning reference to Christmas lights would result in a backlash against Muslims. This is a noble and very real point, and it is a glaring fact that many Muslims – who themselves abhor the quiet abolition of multi-culturalism and tolerance for religion that is sneaking across Britain – are the last people to want to see Christmas celebrations replaced with inane phrases such as "Winterval”.

However, apart from the concern for Muslims safety, the question of “winter lights” is a silly red herring, a cartoon issue for the right-wing press. More seriously, Pope Benedict last week made the first Papal visit to Turkey in a self-proclaimed attempt to restore Christian-Muslim relations after his misguided and inflammatory remarks about Islam in September. This, too, should be welcomed. However, nice pictures of the Pope smiling in a Mosque hide what is the biggest problem facing the world today: religious hatred fuelling a “clash of fundamentalisms” that so neatly links George W Bush with Osama bin Laden. It is since bin Laden’s September 11th attacks that Muslims everywhere have gradually found themselves under attack, not just by fanatical liberal atheist-fundamentalists such as the controversialist writer Christopher Hitchens, and Salman Rushdie; but also by so-called Christians such as those on the American right. And – beneath the rhetoric - blood continues to flow across Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.

Here in Britain meanwhile, Muslims are under siege like never before, a worry that seems to have so far passed the Christian faith by. Labour – Labour! - politicians lead the way in abolishing the suddenly-unfashionable concept of multi-culturalism, after Jack Straw gratuitously raised the issue of the veil out of a clear blue sky.

Arguably, this is in order to create a narrative about “Muslim extremism” which deflects away from – and seeks to justify – the wars on Muslim countries abroad. I suspect that – whether or not he sanctioned the comments directly - it suits Tony Blair quite well to have a debate rage over the veil, instead of the rights and wrongs of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq, especially when the former sub-consciously and outrageously helps to justify the latter, if you see what I mean: this isn’t an illegal invasion and occupation, the line goes, but “the first war of the 21st Century”; the opening shots of a huge worldwide clash of civilizations, where Muslims, we are told, are on the wrong side of the argument. Above all it aids and abets the lie that attacks, like those here on July 7th, are not because of foreign policy, but because there is something about Muslims or Islam that – as the Pope implied – is about violence.

One of many points forgotten amid the anti-Islam frenzy – and the nasty sections of the media who fuel it - is the fact that “homegrown” Muslims have lived happily in Britain for decades; there was no 7-7 before Iraq. Yet, the latest desire on behalf of the Government, which has taken them a bit of time to get round to, is to make out that Islam is at odds with the West’s culture, so that it is seen as acceptable to go to war. Well, this won’t do. As a Christian believer, I am appalled at the way in which Muslims are being left out to dry in this country. Not just because the Christian view-point should be one of assistance to those in need but also because, quite simply, there are so many similarities between the faiths.

I speak as a supreme ignoramus. For up until a few years ago, when Stevenage Man (who has since become the single biggest influence on my outlook on politics and, to an extent life) told me that Islam reveres Jesus Christ and believes in the Virgin Birth – which many Christians no longer do – I had no idea of the closeness of the religions.

Yet the fundamental values, around which Christianity and Islam revolve, are to put it mildly, similar: selflessness, generosity, help for others, value for life and love of fellow human beings. It is therefore high time the Christian church – which, for better or worse, remains the official established faith of this country – stopped crossing the road and avoiding the victims, and instead came to the assistance of a group of persecuted, decent and innocent people with whom all Christians should empathize.

Rowan Williams is by all accounts an incredibly intelligent – and spiritual - man. He is also doing infinitely more for cross-faith relations than his right-wing predecessor, George Carey. But – in the current climate – he needs to lead. And what better area for a good man like Dr Williams to plunge into than Islam, a religion that is being used as an excuse for what amounts to sheer racism in this country today.

Instead of allowing himself to be bogged down with the inanity of the homosexual argument that dominates (and ultimately threatens to finish off) the church, Dr Williams should force the church to take a step back and get some perspective about what matters. He should make a speech highlighting the similarities between Islam and Christianity, and why the latter needs to defend the former.

This would anyway be necessary amid the secular fundamentalism blanketing the country in which we all live. But it is made vital by the literally life-threatening threat hanging over Muslims abroad and at home. I sense that Christians are making a big mistake in not properly supporting Islam. After all it was Christ who said in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And when it is now open season on religion, with hatred swirling particularly closely around Islam, it really is a case of: United we stand, divided we fall.

Dissident Voice

Especially published for 'Doctor's Free Time'