So who does does speak for Muslims or Islam? The answer is a resounding - no one.
Who represents, or who speaks for, Muslims? After countless debates and articles dedicated to this question, which is asked every so often (usually on a slow news day), it is posed once again.
On Monday’s Newsnight, Quilliam Foundation’s Maajid Nawaz had just this debate with Huffington Post’s political editor (UK) Mehdi Hasan and Twitter celebrity Mohammed Ansar.
Oxford academic Myriam Francois Cerrah was also supposed to be on the show but was dropped at the last minute for ‘editorial reasons’ in favour of another male (Mohammed Ansar).
What we eventually saw was a group of South Asian Muslim men, aged 30 plus, shouting at each other (because we clearly don’t see enough of those do we?) The result was a tit-for-tat argument that descended into chaos, which even Jeremy Paxman left looking bewildered.
There is clearly no love lost between Mehdi Hasan and Maajid Nawaz, but the pair wasted an opportunity to come together to have a much needed discourse on the issue of Muslim representation.
Ironically, Myriam Cerrah complained about the all-male panel, claiming it was not representing a diverse range of views but then suggested that ex-Muslims should not be able to speak about Islam.
Far too often, Muslims complain that there is no unity within their communities yet when debates such as the one on Newsnight are aired, they take one side against the other, declare one, or all, participant(s) as non-Muslim, or non representative.
Still confused as to why ex-Muslims inc in discussion on who speaks for Muslims….probably not those who don’t identify w/it? #newsnight
— M Francois-Cerrah (@MFrancoisCerrah) March 24, 2014
What’s depressing is that the actual film raised an important point. But discussion that followed – failed to address it. #newsnight
— Sara Khan (@SaraKhanInspire) March 24, 2014
This is a problem we have – as soon as there is a Muslim, or someone of Muslim heritage gives an interview, they immediately pounce on them, attack them, or vilify them as not representative or not ‘Muslim enough’. Yet no participant, or writer, who ever speaks about Islam or Muslims purports to be representing everyone.
And, as much as I agree with many of Maajid’s views, even he does not speak for me. I speak for myself, though I understand that there are many people out there whose voices are not represented in the media.
This is why it is important to have a broad range of opinions (and this goes goes for anything, not just Muslims), meaning we cannot just play host to liberal voices. We must allow liberal, conservative, reactionary and even extremist voices, regardless of whether we agree with them not
This includes people such as Maajid or Mona Eltahawy, Mehdi Hasan, Myriam Cerrah, even the extremist Anjem Choudary and those from groups such as the Islamic Education and Research Academy, who advocate segregation at University lectures, because stifling debate is not the answer.
As soon as you forbid one opinion or one person’s views, you send them underground and make them martyrs for their cause.
So who does does speak for Muslims or Islam? The answer is a resounding – no one. No one can, or should, speak for the 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet, and nor does any one person or organisation represent Islam.
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13 Responses to “Who represents Muslims? The answer is a resounding – no one”
Winston_from_the_Ministry
Surely the answer is “whoever they allow to”.
Mark
Ansar may well have been in London, expecting to be on Channel4 news, but he was dumped. Then Francois-Cerrah is dumped for him on Newsnight. What happened? Did Newsnight know Ansar was around, or were they contacted by somebody who was suddenly free to do a job? Were media agents invloved? Who knows?
Ansar has tackled the dumping of Francoise-Cerrah with the point he was dumped for an older man on Channel4, which he says, he’s ok with. I wonder if he’s taking that view because he muscled in on Newsnight. Otherwsie, he might bemoan the non-female representation.
Then on the program, forget the film Nawaz made, it was all about the tweeting of cartoons and shoe-horning in an attack on Quilliam and Nawaz.
Move on to BBC Free Speech the next night, and in the audience is Amadullah al Andalusi, and Nawaz on the panel. During the subject of gay/muslim, Andalusi, suddenly shoe-horned in an attack on Nawaz and Quillian as if to some sort of script. Apart from that some women in the audience seemed to be Quran/Hadith literalists, bemoaning homsexuality, like some sort of beared imam.
Check out the BBC program The Big Questions. Some weeks will have three Christians. Two of them may be bible literalists. One, maybe an apologist. The next week, a Christian liberal and a Christian leaning towards agnosticism. Who represents Christians? Same for Jews; one week an orthodox Rabbi who won’t shake hands with women, the next week, a female Rabbi.There are too many Christian, etc views to choose from, and I’d guess that goes for Muslims. However, it is generally only The Big Questions where such literalist Christians get airtime on TV (unlike many years ago), but Islamic literalists are now getting more airtime on mainstream programs. I thought I’d seen the end of Christian hellfire preachers on TV from long ago, and that may well be true now, but they are being replaced with Muslim ones.
It seems to me that the nutty Christians have backed off over time because popular public opinion took them over. Nutty Islamists don’t care, and the media is confused as to who should speak. The last year has seen a change of sorts, where tougher questions of said Islamists are now being asked, and I hope I do detect a desperation among them, and also detect a move towards using liberal, secular Muslims.
Currently, a panel on Question Time, might have five people, and some might ask, “Where is the Muslim” or “Why that Muslim”? We need to get to a point where those questions are not asked, because it doesn’t matter, much like no questions of “Where is the Christian/Atheist/Jew/Hindu/Sikh?”
Ortega
Apart from that some women in the audience seemed to be Quran/Hadith literalists, bemoaning homsexuality, like some sort of beared imam.
Just to be a major nitpicker but I’d say puritans rather than literalists. The one woman said that alcohol and drugs are clearly prohibited in “Islam”. It’s actually not clear historically at all, especially as regards drugs. Cannabis was used by many mystical Islamic orders in the past and even the jurists weren’t that strongly against it.
Dave Roberts
This is the same circular argument about who speaks for ethnic minorities. Before its unlamented demise the unelected Commission for Racial Equality claimed it represented the interests views and wishes of all Black Minority Ethnic people. Then it became Black Asian Minority Ethnic so you can take your pick BME or BAME. Of course all it ever was was a vast money spinning racket that invented racism and persecuted white people.
Then of course we had the shambles of all of the Livingstone funded groups that allegedly represented this and that minority except that once again they were totally unelected and disappeared once the electorate of London dumped his newtness.
The answer of course is that non of these people or groups speak for Muslims. There is no Muslim community as there is no Gay, Financial or Intelligence community. There are all different kinds of Muslims with different opinions just like the rest of us.
swatnan
Its about time that all muslims got their house in order.
Everyone is sick to death about hearing about problems in that community.
They have to adapt and change their ways.