MUSLIM COMMUNITY

 CONFERENCE BOARD OF BRITISH MUSLIMS

The Muslim community itself is trying to do its part. We feel that to some of the challenges of discrimination we have to really make it known to people and to tell people what the Muslim community stands for. We need, in some ways, to give them a truer picture is not the sort of images they see every day on television screens and the linking of Islam with people being blown up all the time.

On November 3, the Muslim Council of Britain launches Islamic awareness week in the House of Commons and we have created a web site called a virtual classroom for children and adults to teach them what Islam is all about. Our position is that by making people understand each other, we are more likely to create bridges and to counter Islamphobia or discrimination by taking legal protection.

I think that should make them a bridge of understanding and a lot of work done on that should help. Respect Islam, which is part of the Conference of respect, is a way to celebrate diversity. I would say that as a leader, as someone with influence, we can make a difference, not only by hiding behind the law or with rounded margins, and said we must stay within the law, but to go the extra mile and to ensure that we do relationship and we are offering our trust and respect of the best we can.

Muslim Council of Britain, for example, is a community that is very young and most of us have come from a very diverse area so that the union even more difficult to achieve because we are talking among our more than 100 different languages. This is a very difficult thing to achieve, even internally within the Islamic community, and with all other religious communities as well.

I believe that the capacity issues within the organization, even within the umbrella body such as my own, very acute and high priority reasons why people do not come easily. This is a very chicken-and-egg situation. We submitted a grant, such as linking community grants. However, because there is a lack of capacity within the organization, we are not too au fait in doing the job and the majority worked in volunteer organizations, like myself, who according to all the work after doing a full eight hours a day at work. We do not pay staff.

The Muslim community has a specific problem in that we are not a race and not recognized as a race. Muslims in Britain to cut many different racial divide. There is a Somali, Bengali Muslims, Pakistan, Indian Muslims and people of Albanian, Turkish and Arabic. It is very difficult, therefore, to determine the Muslims as a race and as a Muslim was not until recently been discussed by the shape discrimination laws that make it difficult to identify or to challenge it. Also to date there is no way to measure, easy, the number of Muslims in this country. In the last census has shown that about three percent of the UK is Muslim, and the majority of them are in and around London or in very large cities. Three percent of the UK population means that Muslims so as to form the largest minority community groups and larger than all other religious groups, lumped together. We define ourselves by our faith and faith is something that is a little bit outdated now. It is not too fashionable to be the one to proclaim your faith or religion. Yet that is predominantly Muslim.

We have been working very hard trying to work towards religious laws. Muslim Council of Britain is an umbrella body and the majority of Muslim organizations in Britain affiliated to us. However, we have a fairly heavy task in the absence of legislation. There have been several new laws introduced recently but still have to go far enough to become adults.