Launch of MAMA (Measuring ant-Muslim Attacks) Software

The time has finally come! Since 9/11 and 7/7 successive European and US Governments have rightly focussed on countering Al Qaeda and terrorist attacks in Europe and the US. However, the continued focus has missed out on the rising tide of anti-Muslim hate crime that has been taking place and which has not been properly recorded by civil society organisations. Some politicians have used Islam and Muslims as a political football knowing that it plays to the fear of some people in communities, whilst not making clear the fact that Muslim communities just want to get on with their lives, live within the law and value their local communities in this country. There is a very small group of Muslims who frankly spout pathetic and retrograde views based on their desire to be exclusive and they do not represent the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the UK.

So where are we? England is more than just a tolerant country. It is a land of opportunity and where people matter. Many people treat others like they want to be treated and place a value on the dignity of others. Yet, we have groups like Al-Muhajiroun and the English Defence League who are two peas in the same pod. Exclusivist and playing to common basic denominators, they spread messages of hate and division, even though the EDL couches their statements in being against Muslim extremism. Let us be clear; if they had their way they would expel all Muslims in line with the demented rants of that serial killer in Norway, a certain Mr Breivik!

As stated before, the lives and dignities of all people and communities matter in our country and we have to maintain and protect that space. In line with this, there are certain communities who have raised issues of attacks against them and there has been no definitive data collection on this. The Community Security Trust for example, does a sterling job in collecting anti-Semitic attacks and they work with the Association of Chief Police officers on this. They are trailblazers of this work.

In late September 2011, Faith Matters (www.faith-matters.org) will be launching software that can track anti-Muslim hate crime in real time and will be able to, for the first time, collect data and stats, as well as map incidents across the country. This is a huge step forward and one which we hope can look at this issue systematically and scientifically. Nobody should be attacked because of their race, faith, culture or background in this country. If they are, then we must all act together in challenging the perpetrators and collecting all of the data and information to ensure that they cannot enjoy the freedoms that with them, entail certain responsibilities.

Righteous Muslims (http://www.faith-matters.org/resources/publicationsreports/171--the-role-of-righteous-muslims)

Five years ago, I had a crazy idea and that was to leave my job and to undertake a programme which commemorated 60 years after the Holocaust and 10 years after the massacres of Muslims in Srebrenica. The physical journey was to start in Fieldgate Street where the Fieldgate Street Synagogue and the East London mosque are located side by side with each other. The journey was to take young Muslims and Jews on a coach journey through 9 EU countries and 13 cities to look at the history of Muslim and Jewish interaction in those cities and through Auschwitz to Srebrenica. Needless to say after 18 months of trying and receiving lots of supportive statements, I did not manage to get the programme off the ground and it helped to break up my first marriage. However, it started a personal journey that over the last 5 years has led me to look at ways of highlighting remarkable stories of heroism undertaken by Muslims and Jews who were just ordinary people doing extraordinary things. This has become even more acute given the consistent corrosive narratives around Israel and Palestine between Muslim and Jewish communities.

This booklet was initially inspired by the story of Selahattin Ulkumen, the Turkish Consul to Rhodes which was then part of the Ottoman Empire during the Second World War. I came across the story by chance when I was in Istanbul in a library in the City looking through old diaries for research that I was undertaking on the Mughal Empire in India. My fascination with my ancestors, the Mughals of India, had led me to Istanbul and in that journey, I found another path to a remarkable story that is listed in the booklet. That story, was of the heroism of Selahattin Ulkumen and it led me to search for more stories on Muslims who saved Jews and there I found many, many more extraordinary acts of human heroism and kindness. The remarkable work of Robert Satloff also helped and this booklet is also based on his work.

When thinking of stories of heroism in the Holocaust, the Muslim Righteous and their histories have never really caught the public’s imagination. Yet they should, especially when so many are frail and may not be around much longer to give first hand testimonies. Their passing away will be a huge loss which can never be filled, though at the very least their voices can be kept alive for the future.

Furthermore, to those who try and drive a wedge between Muslim and Jewish communities, these stories stand testament to the fact that our histories and our futures will continue to be shared ones. To those who believe that Muslims had no role to play in the Holocaust, these stories are a factual testimony against such thinking and to those who believe that the Holocaust never happened, these stories and many others show up the pathetic nature of such thinking. Finally, my real hope is that we can continue to learn that man’s inhumanity to man has no place in a modern civilised world and that we treat each other like we would hope to be treated. The Righteous Muslims certainly met that objective and many, many more.