Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Woolas facing new vote for Islamic extremism smears
By Marcus Dysch and Jennifer Lipman
A Labour MP who claimed his Liberal Democrat opponent was involved with Islamic extremists is facing a by-election after a judge found that he knowingly made false accusations.
During the 2010 campaign, shadow immigration minister Phil Woolas, fighting for reelection to his Oldham East seat, accused his opponent of wooing extremist Muslims.
Mr Woolas won the seat with 103 more votes than Elwyn Watkins for the Liberal Democrats.
But a special election court has now ruled that the MP breached election regulations by making false claims and there must now be another poll.
Mr Woolas said he will now seek a judicial review, but if he is unsuccessful he will be barred from parliament for three years.
He will also have to step down from the Labour frontbench while the matter is settled.
One email sent around Mr Woolas' campaign staff before the election contained a comment about getting "the white folk angry" in order to secure a victory.
An election result has not been challenged in this way for 99 years.
Ahead of May's election, the candidates clashed over arms sales to Israel. Mr Woolas wrote to Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg questioning his party's views on the matter after Mr Watkins wrote to Muslim supporters condemning Israel's "disproportionate use of force" during the Gaza conflict.
Mr Woolas noted that his opponent worked as an adviser to Sheikh Abdullah Alhamrani, co-owner of one of Saudi Arabia's largest companies.
At the time, Mr Watkins told the JC: "Woolas is trying to portray this as me being antisemitic. I'm not antisemitic at all. He has taken something and tried to make it something it's not."
He said his comments were "supported by quite a few million people. It's not an anti-Israel thing. I would not sell rockets to Hamas either. I was following the party line. I would equally condemn Hamas, Hizbollah or whoever targets civilians."
EU ministers to scrap visas for Bosnia and Albania - grudgingly
Brussels - European Union interior ministers are expected to agree next week to scrap visa requirements for Bosnian and Albanian citizens, but only grudgingly, officials said on Friday.
France and the Netherlands were the countries singled out by several diplomats as having the strongest reservations over the move.
'We are not satisfied with the procedure as a whole,' a diplomat from the sceptic group said, arguing that the European Commission had been too rash in judging that the two countries have met EU standards on border controls.
'We are looking at the intentions more than at the results,' he added.
Concerns have been fueled by a sudden influx of asylum seekers from Serbia and Macedonia after they - together with Montenegro - were granted free access to the EU's border-free Schengen area last December.
Ministers - due to decide by majority voting - were nevertheless expected to give a positive opinion on Bosnia and Albania, to be implemented as from the end of the year. The European Parliament already approved the move last month.
However, in a bid to address some member states' concerns, the decision will be accompanied by a written pledge from the European Commission to keep a close eye on migration flows from all Western Balkan countries.
Officials say there is growing unease among interior ministers about the EU using migration policy as a tool to extend its soft power, with little consideration over the practical repercussions on law and order.
'Visas have a tendency to become diplomatic gifts,' one diplomat said, stressing that recent commission proposals to start visa talks with Moldova have been successfully watered down by EU governments.
Diplomats also warned that growing hostility towards loosening border controls in some of the EU's biggest members does not bode well for Romania and Bulgaria's bid to join the Schengen area in March.
The border-free zone currently encompasses all EU states except Britain, Ireland, Romania and Bulgaria, plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
Cherie Blair defends Muslim women after half-sister turns to Islam
Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor
Cherie Blair has defended Muslim women who wear a veil and insisted that it is wrong to see them as a threat - weeks after her half-sister announced her conversion to the religion.
The former Prime Minister's wife also claimed that it was "not true" that women who covered up were oppressed and "incapable" of thinking for themselves. Her comments, in an interview with a Spanish newspaper, follow Lauren Booth's claims that the religion has given her "a new sense of respect".
Mrs Blair has previously claimed that full-face veils could prevent women from expressing their personality, but today struck a more positive tone.
"We use the appearance of women as a metaphor of our fear of a supposed Islamic threat," she told the El Pais newspaper. "There are thousands of Muslims in Europe who participate in our way of life and intend continuing to do so and if they want to dress in a certain way because of their beliefs, we shouldn't feel threatened. It's important to fight against certain stereotypes that affect above all Muslim women. We tend to believe they're oppressed, insecure and incapable of thinking for themselves and that is not true.
"One of the things I try to do is help to explain that Islam is an open religion in which women have influence, whether they hide their hair or not." Asked about Miss Booth's conversion, she replied: "It's her choice."
Mrs Blair's comments come amid increasing debate about the veiling of women and follow France's decision to ban full-face veils in public.
Air cargo scare as Greek anarchists post bombs to European leaders
Germany demanded EU take emergency action on Wednesday to secure air freight after parcel bombs were sent from Greece to Angela Merkel and other European targets.
by Bruno Waterfield and Nick Squires
Security services in Greece, Italy and Germany were investigating the co-ordinated campaign, which caused a continent-wide alert.
Mrs Merkel told a German newspaper that the EU needed to agree common rules on air cargo security, implying that freight-checking procedures were not up to the job of intercepting bombs.
"We have a global patchwork of security rules for air freight," she said.
EU officials told The Daily Telegraph that, while governments were responsible for passenger security, freight checks were carried out by companies with "trusted supplier" status.
"The interior ministers might want to look at the rules which currently allow accredited air freight and postal courier companies to do their own security checks," an official said. "It is difficult to detect devices in bulk cargo but if the feeling is that the bombs got through because checks were not tight enough then the rules will be looked at."
Police and intelligence services were put on high alert after booby-trapped packages were sent to Mrs Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister, and foreign embassies in Athens.
The bombs were linked to a radical Greek anarchist group known as the Conspiracy in the Cells of Fire. It has claimed responsibility for several attacks against the state over the past year, including ones on the parliament building in Athens, a police detention centre, and a government building in the northern city of Thessaloniki.
The explosives in the device intercepted in Italy ignited when examined by bomb experts but did not cause any injuries.
An Italian investigation was examining a link between Greek extremists and Italian militant groups.
George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, said the government would be "unyielding" in hunting for the bombers, whom he accused of trying to sabotage Greece's attempts to pull back from the brink of economic disaster.
"Democracies cannot be terrorised," he said. "These irresponsible and mindless acts were intended to harm the Greek people's huge effort to set the country to rights, to set the economy on its feet and for the country to regain its credibility. They will not succeed." Greece imposed a 48-hour ban on sending parcels abroad by air freight and screened thousands of packages in an attempt to locate any remaining bombs.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is expected to back calls for increased air freight security at a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels on Monday.
"The idea is to get working on some concrete proposals to improve aviation security, including cargo. It might even be that something can be done right away," said a diplomat.
Phil Woolas ejected from parliament over election slurs
Court ruling that former immigration minister lied about his Lib Dem opponent triggers a by-election in Oldham East
The former immigration minister Phil Woolas was ejected from parliament today after two high court judges ruled that he lied about his Liberal Democrat opponent during the general election, in a judgment that is likely to have profound implications for all future campaigns.
Woolas claimed the ruling – which also triggered a byelection and barred him from standing again for three years – would “chill political speech”, but the Lib Dem who challenged his 103 majority welcomed the decision, saying lying should play no part in democratic elections.
Elwyn Watkins claimed that Woolas knowingly misled voters in Oldham East in a desperate bid to stir up religious tensions in the last days of the election by claiming Watkins had “wooed” Islamic extremists. He also claimed Woolas lied about Watkins’s intention to live in the constituency.
The specially convened election court upheld those arguments after it saw confidential emails between Woolas’s team, which included the line: “If we don’t get the white folk angry he [Woolas]‘s gone.”
In the first such decision for 99 years, Woolas (who is to seek a judicial review of the verdict) automatically loses his seat in the Commons and is barred for three years. The speaker will clarify byelection plans in the Commons on Monday.
Woolas was also suspended by the Labour party; he had been a shadow cabinet member. The deputy leader Harriet Harman said it was “no part of Labour’s politics to try to win elections by telling lies” and the party would not support any appeal.
The byelection could prove an incredibly volatile first test of the coalition. There was speculation today about whether Woolas’s actions would count against Labour, or whether the party could hold on because of the Liberal Democrat’s poll ratings.
The ruling could change the way elections are fought. The former lord chancellor Lord Falconer said: “It is bound to have ramifications, if there’s no appeal, for how people conduct elections in the future. It is going to make all the political parties say, ‘look, we’ve got to be very, very careful about that in future’.” Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said: “There is a serious warning to all politicians.”
The case was brought under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act (1983) which makes it an offence for anyone to publish “any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct” to prevent them being elected “unless he can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing, and did believe, that statement to be true”.
The court ruled that Woolas’s claim, in mocked-up newspapers, that Watkins had “wooed” Islamic extremists and failed to condemn radical groups attacks, was deliberately and knowingly misleading. Woolas was also ordered to pay all costs.
Watkins said: “If you know you have lied about your opponent, then simply you have no part to play in democracy.”
Woolas’s solicitor Gerald Shamash, who regularly acts for the Labour party, said: “In reaching this decision the court adopted an interpretation of conduct detailed in a case nearly 100 years ago when considering a 19th-century statute. Those who stand for election must be prepared to have their political conduct and motives subjected to searching scrutiny and inquiry … This decision will inevitably chill political speech.”
The Conservative party co-chairman, Lady Warsi, wrote to Harman last night asking to know what role, if any, Labour HQ played in producing and approving Woolas’s election literature, and whether any individuals there were aware of its contents or signed it off for use.
Labour leader Ed Miliband told Channel 4 News: “The court has made a very clear judgment in this case, a clear finding of fact about what happened and what Phil Woolas did, in that he knowingly made false allegations about his opponent.
“Therefore, I think we have taken the right decision, and the right decision is to suspend him from the party and to say we are not going to fund his further legal action. I think reasonable people will think we have done the right thing. I think that most MPs – the vast, vast majority of people – fight very clean fights, and I think most people would agree that that is the case.
“There is obviously rough and tumble in politics, but sometimes you go beyond rough and tumble. I think this is a salutary reminder to all politicians across the political spectrum about the importance of a clean fight. It’s certainly a reminder that I think all of us will take to heart.”
Iraqi prisoners ‘abused at UK’s Abu Ghraib’
Detainees were starved, deprived of sleep and threatened with execution at JFIT facilities near Basra, high court told
Evidence of the alleged systematic and brutal mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at a secret British military interrogation centre that is being described as “the UK’s Abu Ghraib” emerged yesterday during high court proceedings brought by more than 200 former inmates.
The court was told there was evidence that detainees were starved, deprived of sleep, subjected to sensory deprivation and threatened with execution at the shadowy facilities near Basra operated by the Joint Forces Interrogation Team, or JFIT.
It also received allegations that JFIT’s prisoners were beaten, forced to kneel in stressful positions for up to 30 hours at a time, and that some were subjected to electric shocks. Some of the prisoners say that they were subject to sexual humiliation by women soldiers, while others allege that they were held for days in cells as small as one metre square.
Michael Fordham QC, for the former inmates, said the question needed to be asked: “Is this Britain’s Abu Ghraib?”
The evidence of abuse is emerging weeks after defence officials admitted that British soldiers and airmen are suspected of being responsible for the murder and manslaughter of a number of Iraqi civilians, in addition to the high-profile case of Baha Mousa, the hotel receptionist tortured to death by troops in September 2003. One man is alleged to have been kicked to death aboard an RAF helicopter, while two others died after being held for questioning.
Last month the Guardian disclosed that for several years after the death of Mousa, the British military continued training interrogators in techniques that include threats, sensory deprivation and enforced nakedness, in an apparent breach of the Geneva conventions. Trainee interrogators were told they should aim to provoke humiliation, disorientation, exhaustion, anxiety and fear in the prisoners they are questioning.
Lawyers representing the former JFIT inmates now argue there needs to be a public inquiry to establish the extent of the mistreatment, and to discover at which point ultimate responsibility lies, along the chain of military command and political oversight.
Yesterday’s hearing marked the start of a judicial review intended to force the establishment of an inquiry. Fordham said: “It needs to get at the truth of what happened in all these cases. It needs to deal with the systemic issues that arise out of them, and it needs to deal with the lessons to be learned.”
The Ministry of Defence is resisting such an inquiry, however. In a statement to the Commons on Monday, Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat armed forces minister, said the MoD should be allowed to investigate the matter itself, adding: “A costly public inquiry would be unable to investigate individual criminal behaviour or impose punishments. Any such inquiry would arguably therefore not be in the best interests of the individual complainants who have raised these allegations.”
Harvey said an inquiry would not be ruled out, “should serious and systemic issues” emerge as a result of the MoD’s own investigations.
Yesterday a senior MoD official said the department was committed to investigating the allegations as quickly as possible, and that a public inquiry was unnecessary and inappropriate. Brigadier John Donnelly of the MoD’s Judicial Engagement Policy department said: “We have set up the dedicated Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) to investigate them as quickly and thoroughly as possible.”
He said the MoD’s IHAT team was headed by “an independent former CID officer”, and offered the most effective means of establishing the truth.
Fordham told the court that an investigation by the MoD would not satisfy the UK’s obligations under the European convention on human rights, and that it would amount to “the military investigating the military”.
Among the most startling evidence submitted to the high court in London yesterday were two videos showing the interrogation of a suspected insurgent who was taken prisoner in Basra in April 2007 and questioned about a mortar attack on a British base.
The recordings – among 1,253 made by the interrogators themselves – show this man being forced to stand to attention while two soldiers scream abuse at him and threaten him with execution. They appear to ignore his complaints that he is not being allowed to sleep and that he has had nothing to eat or drink for two days.
At the end of each session he is forced to don a pair of blackened goggles, ear muffs are placed over his head, and he is ordered to place the palms of his hands together so that a guard can grasp his thumbs to lead him away.
At the end of one session, one of the interrogators can be heard ordering the guard to “rough the fucker off”, or possibly “knock the fucker off”. The guard then runs down a corridor, dragging the prisoner behind him by his thumbs. This man’s lawyers say he was then severely beaten: they allege that the initial blows, and their client’s moans, can be heard faintly at the end of the video.
Before the start of the hearing, which is expected to last three days, Phil Shiner, the lawyer representing the former inmates, said: “It is nonsense to suggest, as the MoD does, it is a case of just a few bad apples. That is absolutely not the case. There are very serious allegations related to very troubling systemic abuse.
“People at the highest level knew what was going on, it goes up to the very highest level and is not something that just happened after we went into Iraq.
“They are not just allegations. I have no doubt a public inquiry can get to the bottom of this.”
In separate proceedings, around 250 Iraqis are bringing damages claims against the MoD, alleging assaults, serious sexual assaults and, in one case, homicide.
An investigation by the army in January 2008, which examined six cases of alleged abuse by British troops, described them as cause for “professional humility”, but concluded that such incidents were not “endemic”. However, the report did not address the possibility that some mistreatment was systematic, with those responsible acting under orders and in accordance with a prewar training regime that called for repeated use of abusive techniques.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission also joined yesterday’s proceedings, saying it was “particularly disturbed” by some of the allegations.
Expert view
If the interrogation techniques on view in the video footage have been used routinely on detainees in Iraq, I would expect many of the survivors to suffer significant psychological harm. I know from years of working with people who have been subjected to this sort of treatment, especially over a sustained period, that it can lead to serious psychological disorders as a direct consequence.
The resulting health problems can continue for many years and cause extensive disruption to the personal and family life of the victim.
As we have witnessed at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and as specialist studies by organisations such as the Physicians for Human Rights have shown, recipients of prolonged aggressive, terrifying and threatening interrogations are at risk of developing conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders.
The United Nations manual on the effective investigation and documentation of torture, known as the Istanbul Protocol, is widely accepted and used in British courts.
This document lists commonly used methods of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including humiliation such as verbal abuse, deprivation of normal sensory stimuli such as light and sound, threats of death, poor conditions of detention including lack of food or water, accentuating feelings of helplessness and exposure to ambiguous situations or contradictory messages. All of these methods are either seen or referred to in this video.
The disclosure of this information represents another important step towards getting to the truth of the activities of UK agents in Iraq. All allegations of torture and other ill-treatment should be fully investigated and anyone found to be responsible brought to justice.
Dr Brian Fine, Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture
Most offenders return to crime
Three-quarters of offenders return to crime regardless of whether they are jailed or given community sentences, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Newly published figures show that 74% of offenders were convicted within nine years of starting a community order or being released from prison.
The statistics, for England and Wales, also reveal for the first time rates of reoffending for individual prisons.
Justice Minister Crispin Blunt said the root causes of crime must be targeted.
The figures also show that 14 prisons have one-year reoffending rates of more than 70%.
According to BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw, the figures also show there is less difference between short-term imprisonment and community orders in terms of reoffending than has been previously thought.
The MoJ’s figures also show that of the offenders who were discharged from custody or began a court order between January and March 2000, 20% had been reconvicted within three months, 43% within a year, 55% within two years, and 68% within five years.
Individual prison rates
Court orders under probation were seven per cent more effective at reducing reoffending rates after one year than custodial sentences of less than 12 months, according to a comparison made using figures from 2007.
Details of reconviction rates at individual prisons in 2007 have been released for the first time, and show that at one-in-eight adult prisons across England and Wales, more than 70% of inmates serving sentences of a year or less were released, only to be reconvicted within 12 months.
At Dorchester prison, 74.7% of inmates serving short sentences were released but reconvicted within 12 months, and at New Hall women’s prison in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, 76.6% of those on short sentences were reconvicted within 12 months.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Prison remains the right place for the most serious, dangerous and persistent offenders”
End Quote Crispin Blunt Justice Minister
Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said it was the “ordinary things that count” towards preventing reoffending, such as “a home, a job and a supportive family”.
She added: “If you compare the results of a community penalty with a short prison sentence, you can see why the justice secretary wants to keep petty offenders out of prison and paying back in the community.”
Mr Blunt said: “Today’s statistics show we need a more intelligent approach to sentencing that targets the root causes of crime and reoffending, so making our communities safer and better places to live.
“Reoffending rates among short-sentence prisoners remain unacceptably high. We will address this failure in the system by making prisons into places of hard work which prepare offenders more effectively for the outside world.
“Prison remains the right place for the most serious, dangerous and persistent offenders. We must stop the revolving door of crime and reoffending.
“We will do this by targeting interventions that work for victims, offenders and the community.”
Lauren Booth: I’m now a Muslim. Why all the shock and horror?
News that Lauren Booth has converted to Islam provoked a storm of negative comments. Here she explains how it came about – and why it’s time to stop patronising Muslim women
Lauren Booth Lauren Booth . . .’How hard and callous non-Muslim friends and colleagues began to seem’. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
It is five years since my first visit to Palestine. And when I arrived in the region, to work alongside charities in Gaza and the West Bank, I took with me the swagger of condescension that all white middle-class women (secretly or outwardly) hold towards poor Muslim women, women I presumed would be little more than black-robed blobs, silent in my peripheral vision. As a western woman with all my freedoms, I expected to deal professionally with men alone. After all, that’s what the Muslim world is all about, right?
This week’s screams of faux horror from fellow columnists on hearing of my conversion to Islam prove that this remains the stereotypical view regarding half a billion women currently practising Islam.
On my first trip to Ramallah, and many subsequent visits to Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, I did indeed deal with men in power. And, dear reader, one or two of them even had those scary beards we see on news bulletins from far-flung places we’ve bombed to smithereens. Surprisingly (for me) I also began to deal with a lot of women of all ages, in all manner of head coverings, who also held positions of power. Believe it or not, Muslim women can be educated, work the same deadly hours we do, and even boss their husbands about in front of his friends until he leaves the room in a huff to go and finish making the dinner.
Is this patronising enough for you? I do hope so, because my conversion to Islam has been an excuse for sarcastic commentators to heap such patronising points of view on to Muslim women everywhere. So much so, that on my way to a meeting on the subject of Islamophobia in the media this week, I seriously considered buying myself a hook and posing as Abu Hamza. After all, judging by the reaction of many women columnists, I am now to women’s rights what the hooked one is to knife and fork sales.
So let’s all just take a deep breath and I’ll give you a glimpse into the other world of Islam in the 21st century. Of course, we cannot discount the appalling way women are mistreated by men in many cities and cultures, both with and without an Islamic population. Women who are being abused by male relatives are being abused by men, not God. Much of the practices and laws in “Islamic” countries have deviated from (or are totally unrelated) to the origins of Islam. Instead practices are based on cultural or traditional (and yes, male-orientated) customs that have been injected into these societies. For example, in Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive by law. This rule is an invention of the Saudi monarchy, our government’s close ally in the arms and oil trade. The fight for women’s rights must sadly adjust to our own government’s needs.
My own path to Islam began with an awakening to the gap between what had been drip-fed to me about all Muslim life – and the reality.
I began to wonder about the calmness exuded by so many of the “sisters” and “brothers”. Not all; these are human beings we’re talking about. But many. And on my visit to Iran this September, the washing, kneeling, chanting recitations of the prayers at the mosques I visited reminded me of the west’s view of an entirely different religion; one that is known for eschewing violence and embracing peace and love through quiet meditation. A religion trendy with movie stars such as Richard Gere, and one that would have been much easier to admit to following in public – Buddhism. Indeed, the bending, kneeling and submission of Muslim prayers resound with words of peace and contentment. Each one begins, “Bismillahir rahmaneer Raheem” – “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate” – and ends with the phrase “Assalamu Alaykhum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh” – Peace be upon you all and God’s mercy and blessing.
Almost unnoticed to me, when praying for the last year or so, I had been saying “Dear Allah” instead of “Dear God”. They both mean the same thing, of course, but for the convert to Islam the very alien nature of the language of the holy prayers and the holy book can be a stumbling block. I had skipped that hurdle without noticing. Then came the pull: a sort of emotional ebb and flow that responds to the company of other Muslims with a heightened feeling of openness and warmth. Well, that’s how it was for me, anyway.
How hard and callous non-Muslim friends and colleagues began to seem. Why can’t we cry in public, hug one another more, say “I love you” to a new friend, without facing suspicion or ridicule? I would watch emotions being shared in households along with trays of honeyed sweets and wondered, if Allah’s law is simply based on fear why did the friends I loved and respected not turn their backs on their practices and start to drink, to have real “fun” as we in the west do? And we do, don’t we? Don’t we?
Finally, I felt what Muslims feel when they are in true prayer: a bolt of sweet harmony, a shudder of joy in which I was grateful for everything I have (my children) and secure in the certainty that I need nothing more (along with prayer) to be utterly content. I prayed in the Mesumeh shrine in Iran after ritually cleansing my forearms, face, head and feet with water. And nothing could be the same again. It was as simple as that.
The sheikh who finally converted me at a mosque in London a few weeks ago told me: “Don’t hurry, Lauren. Just take it easy. Allah is waiting for you. Ignore those who tell you: you must do this, wear that, have your hair like this. Follow your instincts, follow the Holy Qur’an- and let Allah guide you.”
And so I now live in a reality that is not unlike that of Jim Carey’s character in the Truman Show. I have glimpsed the great lie that is the facade of our modern lives; that materialism, consumerism, sex and drugs will give us lasting happiness. But I have also peeked behind the screens and seen an enchanting, enriched existence of love, peace and hope. In the meantime, I carry on with daily life, cooking dinners, making TV programmes about Palestine and yes, praying for around half an hour a day.
Now, my morning starts with dawn prayers at around 6am, I pray again at 1.30pm, then finally at 10.30pm. My steady progress with the Qur’an has been mocked in some quarters (for the record, I’m now around 200 pages in). I’ve been seeking advice from Ayatollahs, imams and sheikhs, and every one has said that each individual’s journey to Islam is their own. Some do commit the entire text to memory before conversion; for me reading the holy book will be done slowly and at my own pace.
In the past my attempts to give up alcohol have come to nothing; since my conversion I can’t even imagine drinking again. I have no doubt that this is for life: there is so much in Islam to learn and enjoy and admire; I’m overcome with the wonder of it. In the last few days I’ve heard from other women converts, and they have told me that this is just the start, that they are still loving it 10 or 20 years on.
On a final note I’d like to offer a quick translation between Muslim culture and media culture that may help take the sting of shock out of my change of life for some of you.
When Muslims on the BBC News are shown shouting “Allahu Akhbar!” at some clear, Middle Eastern sky, we westerners have been trained to hear: “We hate you all in your British sitting rooms, and are on our way to blow ourselves up in Lidl when you are buying your weekly groceries.”
In fact, what we Muslims are saying is “God is Great!”, and we’re taking comfort in our grief after non-Muslim nations have attacked our villages. Normally, this phrase proclaims our wish to live in peace with our neighbours, our God, our fellow humans, both Muslim and non-Muslim. Or, failing that, in the current climate, just to be left to live in peace would be nice.
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