My Lobby Ran Off With Kilroy, or Why Muslims Shouldn’t Emulate Zionist Politics

First published in Q-News in December 2001. This still resonates.
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If someone had the inclination to inscribe the events of the last few weeks it would make good theatre. The burning Muslim desire to appear on Kilroy, the BBC’s flagship morning chat show, provides enough material for any aspiring comedy playwright. Only it wouldn’t be fiction - just another sad indictment of the British Muslim mentality, exceptional only in its failure not to fail.

An American student I met earlier this year who was explaining some of the ways he was paying his way through college, alleged as many have done that he was paid to appear on Kilroy. Of course, I can’t prove this. This American could just be a dastardly liar, but he seemed pretty convincing. All he allegedly had to do was go to a debate on single mothers and wax lyrical about how he could never date one (and then maybe change his mind). As he put it, “It beats filling shelves at Sainsbury’s.”

This isn’t new. The BBC’s Vanessa show was scrapped a few years back over a similar scandal. This type of TV is superficial and insincere. Throw in the fact that Robert Kilroy-Silk is an established Islamophobe and you could ask quite rightly, why Muslims of any shape, size, political or spiritual hue should want to appear on it? Kilroy-Silk’s well publicised views on Islam and Muslims can be described as misleading. I would just call him a bigot. In the Daily Express in the mid-90s he proudly declared that Muslims, “are backward and evil, and if it is being racist to say so then I must be and happy and proud to be so.” Just to clarify matters: Kilroy hates us. Unfortunately, the debacle surrounding Omar Bakri Mohammed’s almost appearance on the show illustrates the all too familiar pattern of British Muslim activism self-destructing and not realising it’s blown its head off.

At the end of October, organisations began receiving calls from Kilroy researchers asking for names of victims who have suffered from the anti-Muslim backlash in the wake of September 11. Those of us who have been boycotting Kilroy told them politely where to go. Unfortunately not all organisations did. Soon emails appeared from new brothers on the bloc, set to challenge Islamophobia by…asking for people to help Kilroy with information? Sending people to attend his show? Then Kilroy decided to throw Omar Bakri Mohammed a line and do a show on British Muslims willing to fight for the Taliban. Hereon ensued the farce.

More emails went around in their thousands, now urging Muslims to lobby the Kilroy team to drop Omar Bakri. Hundreds of protests flooded the production team, stating that Omar Bakri is unrepresentative and that ‘moderates’ should be allowed to speak instead. The Kilory team refused to budge. A demonstration was even organised outside the BBC protesting the choice of guest.

In the hysteria the organisations involved seemed to forget that Kilroy and his team didn’t care if ‘moderate’ Muslims attended their show or stood outside and protested. The programme is Kilroy produced. It is not an objective space within which debate can be heard, it is all about Kilroy making his point. If he thinks Muslims are evil, that’s the point he will make whether his guest is Omar Bakri or Mary Poppins. As regards the protests, Kilroy published an article days later decrying the campaign as evidence that wider society needs to “defend our freedom of speech from those calling themselves moderates demanding tolerance - but only for themselves.”

As it happened more sensible voices prevailed. A brother persuaded Omar Bakri to boycott the show. The stories regarding his no show are many, but he himself states that he received death threats from other Muslims should he appear on the show. However marginal Omar Bakri Mohammed’s views are (and I for one don’t endorse them) , this whole debacle shows that we have a long and sorry journey to make.

Just as ten years ago the Muslim mantra was unity (between Shias and Sunnis against non-Muslims, between Sunnis and Sunnis against Shias and / or Wahabis, and vice versa, Urdu speakers against non-Urdu speakers and so on…), this time round we’re all singing ‘lobby.’ The recent media monitoring exercises are a case in point.

The recent efforts have been phenomenal- a fantastic achievement for the community, and those responsible for it should be proud. When Julie Birchill decided to vent her anti-Muslim vitriol in the Guardian in August, neither she nor her editors expected the complaints that jammed the lines for the next few days. Possibly for the first time ever it was Muslims one, Birchill nil.

So what is wrong? My concern - and this is a personal concern - is that we are rushing headlong into an enterprise without any thought regarding the problems of the methodologies we use. Whilst we clearly hate the racism and injustice that is Zionism, we seem to admire the achievements of the Zionist lobby. We are creating an inverse set of aims i.e. to create pressure on governments, the media etc. to promote Muslim ‘issues’ regardless. As appealing as this sounds, this is not necessarily a good thing. Should we, for example, defend Muslims when they are persecuting others be they Muslim or non-Muslim? It’s one thing to lobby for support of the Palestinians in the intifada, but how about a so-called Muslim government like Indonesia? Campaigning to support Muslims murdered by Christian militias in the Spice Islands makes ethical sense, but campaigning to support the Indonesian government is not the same. These are issues which Muslims have to address now. Principle or pragmatism?

As seductive as the pragmatic approach may be, we need to re-evaluate what our activism is for. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Kilroy-Silk was one of many who stated that Islam was the new enemy to Western hegemony. As recently as September this year Kilroy was on his anti-Muslim bandwagon condemning Palestinians as terrorists and describing Israeli atrocities as the odd ‘silly thing.’ Is the sole purpose of our campaigning really to change his mind? Even if this was realistic, are we just to accept the status quo and lobby for a change in its balance towards Muslims?

Creating strategic alliances with players in the race industry is another road we seem to be following. Coalitions based on principles can be excellent. Working with known Zionists can only be disastrous. Campaigning against Islamophobia when your advisor, or patron or even the chairman believes anti-Zionist campaigning needs to be outlawed can only be successful at the price of the oppressed elsewhere.

If we follow blindly the experiences of the Zionist lobby by writing thank you letters to inimical journalists for writing less offensive articles (as recently happened with Polly Toynbee), or ask production teams to only listen to certain Muslims, we may have a media and government in 50 years time ready to promote the views of the most persistent Muslim activists as policy. We may too also have a self-interested community that perpetuates the most grotesque injustices against its own people: excluding those who disagree with its aims to fend for themselves as unrecognised and unrepresented voices. This is where the Zionist lobby is at today. Is this where we want to be tomorrow?

There are principles at stake here. This is where it gets theological. The Qur’an clearly enjoins Muslims to stand up for justice even if it means bearing witness against oneself . Further it demands that we stand up and fight for those who are oppressed regardless of whether they are Muslim or not, or who it is that oppresses them. Some Muslim organisations seem to think the quest for justice is secondary to the quest for influence and political power. There may seem to be no tested British alternatives to the Zionist example. However, why should there have to be? Why can’t Muslims make a path for themselves - changing the rules instead of just playing by them? Steve Biko - who gave his life in the struggle to end apartheid - famously said, “The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” We have to stop thinking and acting in ways that have been determined by those who oppress others. If we don’t the ‘best’ we can achieve is to become oppressors in their mould.

Next time any Muslim is invited onto an Islamophobic platform, we should protest against the platform not their choice of guest. Argue with the guest not to attend. Don’t give in to the ‘extremist - moderate’ pigeon holing. Making death threats and denying multiple voices is not moderation. Realpolitik shows that today’s moderates are tomorrow’s extremists. Next time lets show that Muslim diversity is a strength, and that we can debate and allow people to air views that we disagree with even if the likes of Kilroy can’t.

The South African example is one that we could aspire to. The role of Muslim activism was integral to the fall of apartheid. Muslims gave their lives in the struggle. Many fought the battle on the basis of Quranic injunction, not ANC instructions. These men and women like Imam Haroon, were willing to die for justice for peoples who at the end of the day were mainly non-Muslim. This clearly didn’t and hasn’t until today served any political interests of the Muslim community. These people gave their lives because it was an Islamic cause, and it was a religious duty on them.

There are other reasons for not following the Zionist example. Ask a rabbi like Yisroel Weiss who attended the World Conference Against Racism as part of the Islamic Human Rights Commission team. When he described why his group, Neturei Karta, were so vehemently opposed to Zionism and the state of Israel, he responded thus, “Zionism not only kills people, it kills the soul.” Spiritual values are ethical values. Having those ethics and values means that you can’t employ any and all tactics in the pursuit of the truth. To do so negates the truth you aspire to.

Standing for principle sometimes merits no immediate results. What then, you may ask, is the point? Again this is where faith comes in to it. Allah swt promises victory and success for those who strive in His way. The only criteria is that we do whatever little we can, in pursuit of truth and justice. It could be writing a letter, monitoring the media, organising a protest. These are all things British Muslims are at last catching on to. Whatever we do it has to be done with the right intention. Our aim is to try and change society to be more just, not change ourselves purely to suit it. Either we change the world for the better or we die trying.

Arzu Merali is one of the founder members of the Islamic Human Rights Commission

Citizen Ali

This was originally published in New Politics both in print and on-line in March 2006. As IHRC notes in April 2007, the recent Gallup poll of Muslims and mainstream communities in London, Paris and Berlin mirrors IHRC's findings.
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In 2004 the Islamic Human Rights Commission (www.ihrc.org) began an eighteen month project to articulate British Muslims’ expectations of the government to those in power, as a way of addressing what had hitherto been a top-down ‘discussion’ of citizenship – where the government, policy makers and thinkers told citizens and with distinction and discrimination it told Muslim citizens, what was required of them. It was hallmark doublespeak that invoked egalitarian norms of citizenship but actually espoused good, old fashioned values of subjecthood – at least where Muslims were concerned.

Presumed to be ‘different’ in their loyalties and love (or lack thereof) for Britain, Muslims were being told how to integrate and where their loyalties should lie. IHRC surveyed 1125 Muslims across the UK on various issues ranging from political representation to Muslims schools, the media and student life. In addition to this quantitative research qualitative work was undertaken to interrogate the findings. The first set of results were published in November 2004 as Dual Citizenship: British, Islamic or Both? — Obligation, Recognition, Respect and Belonging. Its findings are telling – they challenge not only the discourse of government but the expectations of activists Muslims and not, ourselves included.

In response to the question whether it is possible to be a good British citizen and a good Muslim, only 22% of the respondents came across a significant contradiction between the two. The rest either did not see any serious contradiction between these two (46.1%) or saw some similarity as well as deviation (31.8%). The ambiguity of the concept of being a ‘Good British Citizen’ could be one of the reasons for rejecting it, the other reason could be the incorporation of the atheistic as well as Islamophobic and racist culture with the notion of ‘British Citizenship’. Many of those questioned stated that British culture was inhospitable to religion per se, others saw institutionalised racism and Islamophobia as inherent in notions of what a good British citizen might be. As with many BME communities, unease at the resurgence of nationalism, the popularity of the St. George’s flag with all its connotations of race hate and a deep sense of unease at Muslim profiling through anti-terrorist laws and policing, were cited as causes of concern for the future and the now.

Respondents also saw huge disparity when it comes to political representation. The vast majority of those surveyed believed that it was necessary for British Muslims to be represented in Parliament and the Government (86%). Indicating that the majority of Muslims still trust the political institutions of the State as capable of influencing their lives for the better. Only 6 percent believed such representation would not solve any problems, and less than 4 per cent believed that British Muslims should not be involved in the State.

Less than 10 per cent of those surveyed believed there was at least sufficient representation of Muslims among current MPs and Lords. Over 30 per cent believed there was no such representation with over half of those surveyed regarding it as nominal representation with no practical power. It suggests that an overwhelming majority of respondents (83.1%) felt that Muslims do not have the sufficient political power to affect their lives in Britain, in turn, implying that political power was a valuable and effective force for change.

This faith in the political process was further demonstrated by the response to the question: “is it necessary for British Muslims to have a voice and representation in the British Parliament and the British Government?” The majority of respondents felt that it was necessary for Muslims to participate in the political process:

It is clear that the overwhelming majority of respondents expressed their deep faith in democratic values and commitment to the political process, and not only for the Muslim community but as one respondent put it: ‘all minorities should be represented to avoid a breach of civil liberties’. They want the Muslim voice to be heard in the decision making process of the country where their ‘specific needs’ would be reflected. The only critical voices were those frustrated by the possible compromise made by Muslim representatives who were ambitious for power:

"Only if they do not sell out or compromise."
(Male, 38, Burnham-on-Crouch)


A striking note of concern given the four Muslim MPs subsequent capitualtion on the new anti-terrorism bill at the end of 2005. A further concern was the inability of mainstream politics because of its current prejudice against Islam to incorporate the Muslim voice:

"Necessary to have a voice and representation in Parliament but afraid that parties will clamp down on any dissenting comments especially when justified." (Female, 22, Manchester)

"What’s the point, they would only be token figures and not be taken seriously-they’d end up in the enemy camp"
(Female, 43, London)


Steve Biko – an ideologue of the anti-apartheid movement and inspiration to many of my generation and I hope since - once wrote that, ‘the essence of politics is to direct oneself to the group that wields power.’ He goes on to unpack the psychology of white liberals whose efforts against apartheid involve their association and discussions with black South Africans. Why, asks Biko, do they spend their time talking to those who are oppressed when they know the problem is white racism, when they know that the police and army can control black protest that the security forces have deeply infiltrated the black community? Shouldn’t they address their concern to government?

It is why IHRC focussed this report and project at articulating Muslims’ expectations – whatever they were - to the government. It is why all of us need to reflect on how we address issues of political marginalisation – of white working class men, the 40% or so of the British electorate who failed to vote at General Election time, and the Muslims who despite years of very high turnouts now disdain the political process. If people are disenfranchised the onus is on those who disenfranchise them to change.

Like Biko we don’t believe that superficial change is of any use – if Muslims become just another lobby amongst many, others will continue to be marginalised or maligned in the corridors of power.

Our report surmised that whilst Muslims needed to continue to engage with the political process, this effort alone would not be sufficient to ensure either adequate political representation or truly equal citizenship for Muslims in the UK. Amongst issue flagged as sites of dislocation between (amongst others) Muslims, was a lack of thorough consultation between government and the communities. The diversity and complexity of the Muslim communities in the UK was not reflected in consultations, and the gender, ethnic, sectarian and other dynamics of the Muslim community was not reflected at this level. Likewise government needs to engage with Muslims in consultation on all issues and not just minority or Muslim specific issues. The recent taskforce exercise that effectively equated Muslim social problems with terrorism is a case of bad normative practice which will ultimately lack legitimacy and effect.

The government further needs to respect Muslim meta-loyalties and open up its foreign policy to a more robust debate that all citizens including Muslims can participate in. The much maligned solidarity of Muslims with other Muslims beyond national boundaries is neither unique to Muslims as a confessional group or indeed a bad thing.

Raising awareness of Islam for all and encouraging Muslim participation in the political process are also key to ensuring equal citizenship, particularly when as our subsequent report showed, 80% of Muslims surveyed said they had experienced Islamophobia. The government’s reluctance to tackle Islamophobia in a systematic manner, can at best be described as denial. The results of this survey showed that at the very heart of Muslim marginalisation was not a perceived lack of affiliation or love for Britain – in fact the findings showed exactly the opposite. The site of dissatisfaction amongst British Muslims was their feeling that both government and wider society did not respect them as equal. No amount of internal transformation will change that – as Biko said that rests in the hands of those who wield power.