(Last week the Islamic scholar and reformer Tariq Ramadan argued in the Guardian for an end to calls on British Muslims to integrate. Here, Prospect editor David Goodhart replies)
The idea that British foreign policy has been run on an anti-Muslim agenda does not stand examination. In Bosnia and Kosovo (and Sierra Leone), Britain took military action on behalf of Muslims, in some cases against Christians. In Iraq, rightly or wrongly (and Prospect was opposed to Britain’s role) we helped to remove a secular dictator, and we will leave behind a Muslim democracy of some kind. If there has been a disproportionate intervention in Muslim countries, it is mainly because those countries are disproportionately unstable and conflict-ridden. Of course, I am aware it is not seen like that in much of the Muslim world—where the typical hypocrisy and realpolitik of the west (relating to UN resolutions, Israel, oil, good dictators and bad dictators) always seems to bear down on Muslims. But the belief that it is all about Islam is an oddly self-regarding conceit, arising from the prickliness and defensiveness that many Muslims feel confronted with a stronger and more successful western world. And if British Muslims are so troubled by the loss of Muslim life, why did we hear so little about the greatest unnecessary loss of such life in recent times in the Iran-Iraq war? No, unfortunately, what moves many political Muslims is the loss of Muslim life that can in some way be construed as the fault of the west. Shouldn’t you be using your influence to combat this anti-western, victim mentality among your fellow Muslims?
David Goodhart Open Letter to Tariq Ramadan
