Rt Hon Dr Denis MacShane

Labour Party | Rotherham

"European Muslim Communities Confronted with Extremism"

Council of Europe – 15 April 2008

The Council of Europe has adopted on behalf of its 47 member States an important policy document called “European Muslim Communities Confronted with Extremism.” Its key point is the appeal and warning “against any confusion between Islam as a faith and Islamic fundamentalism as an ideology.” It calls on European States to “combat all forms of discrimination and violence (particularly forced marriages, sexual mutilation of women, so-called ‘honour crimes’) which, in the name of misinterpreted religious texts or customs, violate the fundamental rights of women and equality between women and men.”  Britain’s former Europe Minister who works closely with Muslim citizens in his constituency of Rotherham spoke in the debate to support the adoption of the report:

Mr MacSHANE (United Kingdom). –      “In supporting this excellent report, we need to wipe away two important arguments that are sometimes deployed. First, this has nothing to do with 9/11. The extremist attacks linked to Islamist fundamentalism started in Paris in 1995. They also happened in Luxor in Egypt in 1997. The thinking, the planning, the preparation and the ideological grooming of a tiny minority was happening in London, Madrid and Paris in the 1990s and even the 1980s. I should like to recommend a very good book by the French political scientist, Gilles Kepel, a distinguished Arabist. I recommend his latest book, Terreur et Martyre, to those who want to learn about the history.

This is not about 9/11. It is not about the completely wrong reference to a “war on terror”, a phrase that I reject. It is about a fundamentalist ideology. It is not about immigration either. We all have many immigrants from many different parts of the world in our countries, and they are not given to violence, despite oppression, exclusion and a lack of employment choices. We are talking about a conscious ideological expression of hate against the values for which the Council of Europe stands, and we must reject it. We must reject it precisely in order to protect the faith.

These horrible films denouncing the Koran are completely out of place. We no more denounce the Koran than we denounce the Bible. If you want to read language about killing Jews, I suggest that you read St Paul. If you want hideous language about violence against women, I suggest that you read the Old Testament. I am not worried about Muslim children learning the Koran any more than I am worried about the fact that I can still commence the Latin mass Introibo ad altare dei. I do not speak that language fluently, but I learnt it as a small altar boy.

We must focus our minds on separating the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism to which the report refers – or “Islamism” – from the religion of Islam. Along with European Jews, European Catholics, European Sikhs and European Hindus, European Muslims are part and parcel of today’s Europe. We must say, “Respect the faith, hate the ideology.” Islamism is often anti-Jew, anti-women, anti-gay and anti-freedom of expression. It is promoted by ideologues and propagandists, and is supported internationally. It has money, alas, in one extreme form of Wahabi-ism, from a very important state with which we all have diplomatic relations.

      The most important message that the Council of Europe must send out is that we must all separate the faith from the ideology, and separate all the European Muslims from the tiny minority who are prepared to commit horrible acts. We say to the ideologues, the propagandists and the financiers of Islamic fundamentalism, “You will not pass. Europe, European democracy and the rights of European Muslims are stronger than the hate that you preach and the evil that you practise.”