Developing an independent Muslim Community
By: Dr Abdul Wahid
Political Engagement: Challenging discrimination in Rochdale
By: Mohammad Waseem
News
The case of a 15 year-old French Muslim student who was banned from attending school in wearing a long black skirt has caused outcry this week. The headteacher of the school in northeast France felt the skirt "conspicuously" showed religious affiliation, flouting the strict rules of secularity in the country.
"The girl was not excluded, she was asked to come back with a neutral outfit and it seems her father did not want the student to come back to school," local education official Patrice Dutot told a reporter on Tuesday. He admitted that the student always removed her veil before entering school premises in the town of Charleville-Mezieres, as is specifically stipulated by law. But the regional education office hinted in a statement that wearing the skirt could have been part of a concerted "provocation."
"When it comes to concerted protest actions by students, which follow other more visible incidents linked for instance to wearing the veil, the secular framework for education must be firmly reminded and guaranteed," it said.
According to the CCIF Islamophobia watchdog, about 130 students were rejected from class last year for outfits deemed too openly religious.
Comment
It is clear that judges, jurists and politicians in the West are ready to compromise all their principles of "freedom" and "democracy" to attack Islamic values. Behind the facade of "secularity" or "security", France has completely marginalized women who uphold Islam in public. It is not the hijab or niqab - a six-inch cloth on a woman's head - that keeps her out of society; rather it is the bars that she is threatened by that force her to stay home.
Legislation after legislation, case after case - this is truly the constant barricade that prevents the Muslim woman from engaging in society. They have criminalized the practice of Islam and all are guilty until they conform to society, insinuating all practice of a religion as a coordinated act of defiance against the state. This is just a part of the war waged on women to convince her that her worth is her appearance and the monetary value that she can gain by selling her body. It is the secular capitalist value of freedom that is the basis upon which businesses and the advertising, entertainment, and pornography industries are given license to expose, objectify, and sexualise the bodies of women for profit.
This apartheid piece of legislation is pure racism and coercive assimilation dressed up as security and women's rights concern. It is clearly aimed at bullying Muslims into leaving their deeply held Islamic beliefs and to embrace secular liberal values.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Aisha Hasan
News
For the past several weeks, media have been reporting shocking news of xenophobic attacks in South Africa. Several people were killed and 5,000 left homeless since the attacks erupted several weeks ago against other Africans and Asians. The Government of South Africa deployed its army to volatile areas to prevent attacks on foreigners. More than 10,000 people took into the streets of Durban to protest against the violence. Local media reports said the attack started after Zulu King Goodwill Zwelethini said in one of the recent gatherings that the foreigners ‘should pack their bags and go' because they are taking jobs from the citizens. In his response, President Jacob Zuma said his Government is addressing the social and economic concerns.
Comment
This is not the first time that xenophobic violence is witnessed in a country portraying itself as a diverse rainbow-nation. The term coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and elaborated by Nelson Mandela was intended to encapsulate the unity of multi-cultures and the coming together of many different nations in a country that was in a strict division of white and black. This is the latest in a series of attacks that dates back years. In 2008, Johannesburg was the epicenter of more anti-immigrant tensions that left dozens dead in similar attacks that spread to Cape Town. Most of the victims were Zimbabweans. In those attacks more than 200 people were arrested on various charges including murder, robbery and looting.
It is not a surprise to see a country that adopts a Capitalist economic system plunging into such violence as a result to its bounding into corrupt economic policies which does not focus on the distribution of the wealth to the common man but only to the few elites. Sadly, despite the country's abundance of minerals and resources such as diamonds and gold, over 12 million people are languishing in poverty. This is an indication that the explosion of violence is to send a message not only to the Secular Government which has failed in taking care of the affairs of its citizens, but to the whole imperial capitalist system that has ruined the lives of South Africans.
As for the violence to take a stream of attacking the ‘foreigners', this problem is not only found in South Africa but in the whole world including the super power. In August of last year, a white Ferguson Police officer shot dead Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black young man, an incident that erupted in protests in Fergusson and New York.
It is worth to ponder how this problem has become a malignancy in South Africa. Scrutiny shows that the seeds of xenophobia were first sowed during the apartheid era enforced by Dutch and the British settlers through legislation of a National Party formed in 1915. As a governing party in 1948, the NP members reintroduced their evil racism policy and as result, black South Africans were alienated and marginalized in all spheres of life. This situation gave rise to the formation of several ‘revolutionary' movements led by Nelson Mandela, portrayed as hero, who also led the anti-apartheid campaign and eventually became President in 1994. Worse still, 21 years of the ‘Independence and Freedom', South Africa saw itself suffering the same problem that has now taken a new twist of Xenophobia... The reason being the post-colonial ruling class was only but agents of the colonial masters carrying the same poisonous policies of discriminations and segregation.
It is crucial to comprehend that patriotism, nationalism and tribalism are all backward shallow ideas that cannot bind people together and make them a strong nation. These divisive and segregated ideas make people identify themselves on a nationalistic basis where some consider themselves more superior than the other thus making them prone to tribal and regional clashes. Even within a country, tribal clashes can emerge in the struggle for power among the tribes. It is worth mentioning that the West through their agents creates chaos between one country against the other or between a tribe against the other as a means to continue their political and economic colonialism in Africa.
On its part, Islam has long declared a war on these fatal diseases. In Arabian Peninsula, which was highly dominated by these rotten ties, therefore tribal rivalries and wars over trivial issues were witnessed. Islam commanded loyalty to the Islamic creed inviting all people to believe in the Almighty Allah Creator of all mankind. Ties in Islam were therefore based on the Aqeedah of Laa ilaha Ila Allah and not on race, color or region. This creed is the one that South Africa and the entire world need to take as a basis of their ties. The creed that commands loyalty to the Deen rather than region, race and tribe.
((يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ))
"O mankind, indeed we have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted." [TMQ 49:13]
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Shabani Mwalimu
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in East Africa
As typical for the authorities in Lebanon, in adopting double standards towards the people of the country, not a single minister or head of any party commented, and none of them condemned the remarks of the named Joseph Abu Fadel, who said during the "Opposite Direction" talk show on the Qatari Al Jazeera satellite channel on Tuesday, "We Christians, together with Europe, America, Mr. Hassan and Bashar al-Assad, will destroy it over your heads, O you Muslims, and we shall redeem Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Istanbul which you conquered by sword and we will not leave you to relish in them."
The successive epochs in Lebanon have always deceived people by the "Co-existence" lie, and that it equates citizens in rights and duties, and the balance in taking political and administrative decisions. The fact is that, these allegations have always been violated in favor of the powerful and privileged. However, these violations worsened after the outbreak of the blessed ash-Sham revolution, after Muslims resolved to restore their identity and their plundered authority and after the calls for the Khilafah "Caliphate" Rashidah project soared, thus, the political practice in Lebanon lost what it used to maintain of balance:
We present you with a few incidents:
First: the decision to close the border exclusively in the face of Muslims of the displaced Syrians who are fleeing the terror of the Baath regime, while allowing non-Muslims to cross them.
Second: the issuance of a racist close-mindedness minority decision for school closures on 24th April on the anniversary of the so-called Armenian Genocide.
Third: condoning the atrocities committed against the Islamist prisoners in Roumieh Prison, which are comparable to what Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons were renowned.
And now comes the silence of all the rulers and leaders of Lebanon about the remarks of this racist, which undermine all Muslims, while referring people to military courts on charges of stirring sectarian strife because they objected to a political stance taken by a Christian religious leader.
The silence of the entire government and with all its ministers about those flagrant and serious violations that hit the Charter of their hybrid entity confirms a decision of subjecting Muslims to the domination of the minorities. So what an insane decision is this?!
We assure you, O the heedless, that those who you oppress them today Allah (swt) will confer favor upon them tomorrow and He will make them inheritors. And soon you will see with your own eyes Allah's (swt) promise to them, so do not blacken your pages with them, as they were the most truthful to you for centuries:
((وَنُرِيدُ أَنْ نَمُنَّ عَلَى الَّذِينَ اسْتُضْعِفُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَنَجْعَلَهُمْ أَئِمَّةً وَنَجْعَلَهُمُ الْوَارِثِينَ))
"And We wanted to confer favor upon those who were oppressed in the land and make them leaders and make them inheritors." ]Al-Qasas: 5[
Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
in Wilayah Lebanon
