UK LAUNCH OF
PROPOSED CHARTER OF MUSLIM UNDERSTANDING
HOUSE OF LORDS
Room 3A, Lords Corridor
29th April 2007
Statement by Gerard Batten
Member of the European Parliament for London
UK Independence Party
My Lords, ladies and gentlemen, first of all let me say that the ideas contained in the Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding are not UKIP party policy in any way, and they are certainly not a call by me for any kind of European Union legislation.
The Proposed Charter is a collaborative initiative by Sam Solomon and I and it has two principal objectives. One is to highlight those Islamic texts that can be used by extremists to justify, condone or encourage extremism and violence and to help inform non-Muslims of their existence; and the second is to offer a way for moderate and peaceful Muslims to disassociate themselves from these teachings and totally reappraise their relevance in today’s world.
When I took my seat in the European Parliament in 2004, UKIP’s then leader, Roger Knapman, asked me to be the Party spokesman on Security & Defence; one of the key issues facing anyone thinking about defence and security issues is how to respond to the current Islamic terrorist threat. That has certainly been true since the 9/11 attack, and even more so from the British perspective after the London bombings of 7/7 2005.
On that basis, in order to try and formulate policies on how to combat terrorism of this kind it was first necessary to try and understand the mentality and motivation of people who are prepared to kill their fellow citizens and themselves. In 2006 I commissioned Sam Solomon to write an analysis of those Islamic texts that can be used by extremist Muslims to justify terrorism. That analysis developed into the Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding, which was initially launched in Strasbourg in December 2006. It got little coverage in the UK but did get extensive coverage elsewhere, particularly in the USA.
The Proposed Charter has now been very slightly revised with one major change, to which I draw your attention, of the insertion of an Affirmation on page 29 that asks individuals, groups and organisations that represent Muslims to affirm their belief in certain basic values, these are: The equality of all before God and the law; equal rights for women; the rejection of intimidation and violence in the name of religion; religious freedom – specifically the right of Muslims to convert to other religions if they wish; and the tolerance of other religions and non discrimination against non-Muslims.
All of these points, as Sam Solomon can demonstrate, can be related to specific teachings in the Qua’ran that say precisely the opposite, and which are used by some fundamentalists and extremists to justify their actions. Muslims in Britain, and elsewhere, are not a homogenous entity. They are made up of different ideological and ethnic groups. However we have seen in recent years that the fundamentalists and extremists have managed to convince many non-Muslims that they represent the authentic face of Islam.
The fundamentalists and extremists have to a large extent been winning the propaganda war. This has been possible because the fundamentalists are funded by countries such as Saudi Arabia to the tune of millions of dollars per year to build Mosques in Western countries and to install of Imams in those Mosques to teach the fundamentalist message. They have successfully sidelined moderate and peaceful Muslims and made them fearful of speaking out or opposing the extremists. Western governments and politicians have been complicit in this because of their fear of confronting the real issues.
Fundamentalist Muslims do not believe in the democratic nation state. They believe in a universal Islamic state, the Umma, based on political rule according to the Qur’an and Sha’ria law. And we have all seen where that leads, for example in Afghanistan and Iran, with theocratic rule, the execution of adulterers and homosexuals, the curtailing of all the basic pleasures of life, the stultification of genuine learning and science, and the oppression of women. When those young Muslims blew themselves up and took over fifty of their fellow citizens with them in London in July 2005 they did so because that is the kind of society they want to bring about in Britain.
They were able to believe that God approved of their actions because that is what they had been taught by their religious leaders and that they would be rewarded in heaven for the murder of innocent men women and children. We are not in the midst of “a war on terror”, as President Bush has coined it. That is a misconception. What we confront now is no more a war on terror than the Second World War was a war on blitzkrieg. Terror is only a tactic, a means to an end. The real challenge that we face is one of confronting ideology. Fundamentalist, extremist Islam is that ideology. It is an ideology that is simply incompatible with western liberal democracy.
We have to assume that Muslims who have made a conscious choice to come and live in Britain and assume British citizenship did so because they wanted to enjoy the benefits material, social and political of living in a democratic country. If that is the case then faced with the growth of fundamentalist extremist Islam in Britain, moderate and peaceful Muslims must make a conscious choice to reject extremism, and be seen to reject it.
And that is where the Proposed Charter seeks to help. We call on all moderate and peaceful Muslims to:
- Sign the Affirmation that sets out basic principles of freedom and tolerance that no reasonable person could disagree with.
- Enter into a dialogue regarding those Islamic teachings and texts that are incompatible with those principles.
- To consider and reappraise the suitability of those texts that were framed in a bygone age and which, in a modern society, have no purpose and can only give encouragement to extremists.
The Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding is an effort to draw a line in the sand. On one side of that line will stand those who believe in tolerance and peaceful co-existence. On the other side of the line will stand those who believe in a fundamentalist, backward-looking, intolerant and violent Islam. By embracing its principles we ask moderate and peaceful Muslims to join their non-Muslim fellow citizens on one side of a line, and to leave the extremists and terrorists standing isolated on the other side.
Pertinent Links:
1) Gerard Batten MEP launches Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding in House of Lords, Monday 29th April 2007
2) Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding - - - PDF File
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