DAR AL HARB - U.K.: MOSLEMS ARE RECEIVING THE SAME TREATMENT AS JEWS DID 100 YRS AGO

Muslims are now getting the same treatment Jews had a century ago
Today's anti-Muslim racism uncannily echoes earlier anti-semitism - both minorities abused as an alien security threat
Maleiha Malik
Friday February 2, 2007


Migrants fleeing persecution and poverty settled with their children in the East End of London. As believers in one God they were devoted to their holy book, which contained strict religious laws, harsh penalties and gender inequality. Some of them established separate religious courts. The men wore dark clothes and had long beards; some women covered their hair. A royal commission warned of the grave dangers of self-segregation. Politicians said different religious dress was a sign of separation. Some migrants were members of extremist political groups. Others actively organised to overthrow the established western political order. Campaigners against the migrants carefully framed their arguments as objections to "alien extremists" and not to a race or religion. A British cabinet minister said we were facing a clash about civilisation: this was about values; a battle between progress and "arrested development".

All this happened a hundred years ago to Jewish migrants seeking asylum in Britain. The political movements with which they were closely associated were anarchism and later Bolshevism. As in the case of contemporary political violence, or even the radical Islamism supported by a minority of British Muslims, anarchism and Bolshevism only commanded minority support among the Jewish community. But shared countries of origin and a common ethnic and religious background were enough to create a racialised discourse whenever there were anarchist outrages in London in the early 20th century.

Most anarchists were peaceful, but a few resorted to violent attacks such as the bombing of Greenwich Observatory in 1894 - described at the time as an "international terrorist outrage". Anarchist violence was an international phenomenon. In Europe it claimed hundreds of lives, including those of several heads of government, and resulted in anti- terrorism laws. In the siege of Sidney Street in London in 1911, police and troops confronted east European Jewish anarchists. This violent confrontation in the heart of London created a racialised moral panic in which the whole Jewish community was stigmatised. It was claimed that London was "seething" with violent aliens, and the British establishment was said to be "in a state of denial". East End Jews were said to be "alienated", not "integrated", and a "threat to our security" a long time before anyone dreamed up the phrase "Londonistan".

Today the Middle East is the focus of a challenge to American political and economic hegemony, which is being presented as a "civilisational conflict with Islam". Nearly a century ago, the Russian revolution sent shockwaves through western states and financial markets. Anti-semites argued that Jewish involvement in revolutionary politics was part of a conspiracy by "the homeless wandering Jew" to replace European states with their "Hebrew nation". Winston Churchill, as secretary of state for war in 1920, wrote an article in the Illustrated Sunday Herald claiming there were three categories of Jews - good, bad and indifferent - and arguing that they were part of a "worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development".

Jews were the first non-Christian, yet monotheistic, religious minority in Britain. They are also one of its earliest "racialised" people. Despite important differences, the treatment of British Jews provides an illuminating comparison with contemporary anti-Muslim racism. There are recurring patterns in British society that racialise Jews and Muslims, which we need to understand if we are to develop an effective strategy for national security.

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1) Muslims are now getting the same treatment Jews had a century ago