Muslims ‘easy meat’ for scare stories

Negative stories about Muslims are nothing new. The media seems to excel in manufacturing some of the most bizarre and contorted images, feeding on the worst xenophobic fears. The pretext of many hide behind the argument that it is the price of having a free media, even if the same freedoms are denied to others in the uneven playing field of British society.

But there can be no excuse for the irresponsibility of politicians in giving ammunition to provoke scare stories.  Jack Straw is among Britain’s most experienced elder statesmen, serving as Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Leader of the House of Commons and Justice Secretary, often with distinction. For the past 32 years, he has been MP for Blackburn.

He has been supported by most of the 20 per cent of Muslims in his constituency. However, this did not stop him from provoking controversy by saying in October 2006 that his women constituents should remove their face veil before visiting his Blackburn office.  His latest outburst was to give support to claims that the grooming of vulnerable white schoolgirls for sex was a “specific problem” in the Pakistani community which was not being confronted due to political correctness.

The accusation was made following the conviction of Mohammed Liaqat and Abid Saddique as ringleaders of a “reign of terror” gang in Derby targeting victims. They were sentenced to a minimum of eight and eleven years respectively. Although there is no evidence to support Straw’s claim, first voiced on the BBC’s Newsnight, he extended his thesis suggesting that the problem was not in the Indian heritage community and was related to forced marriages and attitudes towards women. Speaking on Sky News, he was at pains to say the issue was “complicated”, had “nothing to do with Islam” and most sex offenders are “disproportionately white.”  Children's charity Barnardo’s, Muslim youth group, the Ramadhan Foundation, and retired detective Chief Superintendent, Max McLean, who led a previous investigation into sexual exploitation involving young girls in Leeds, were among those who said Straw was wrong to focus on one community.

The authors of the first independent academic analysis of “on-street grooming”, Helen Brayley and Ella Cockbain, from University College London’s Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, said they were “surprised” and “worried” that their research, confined to just two English police operations in the north and Midlands, which found perpetrators were predominantly but not exclusively British Pakistanis, had been extended “to characterise an entire crime type, in particular of race and gender.” They disagreed that white girls were deliberately targeted. “Though the majority of the victims…were white, so too were the majority of the local inhabitants.” Comparing the percentage of white people in the areas with black and ethnic minorities, their data showed “black and ethnic minority girls were over-represented among the victims.”  In Lancashire between 2007/2008, 0.3% of those arrested for sexual offences were Pakistanis, 85.5% were white.  But Mick Gradwell, a former detective Superintendent suggested that Asian gangs had been targeting underage and vulnerable girls for decades but this was ignored by senior officers.

“The main pressure police have is being called institutionally racist if they highlight a crime trend like this,” he claimed.  There is a lot of anger in the Muslim community in Blackburn. “We feel let down by Jack,” Chairman of Lancashire Council of Mosques, Councillor Salim Mulla, told The Muslim News. He said that they were “disappointed” and “angry” at Straw’s comments. Cllr Mulla argued that there was a wider problem and “to stereotype a section of the community is out of order.” Blackburn is one of the most deprived area in the UK with low quality of education being provided by state schools and a high unemployment amongst Muslims.  There were also reports of more Asians arrested in Rochdale and the launch of an inquiry by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (Ceop), to establish “whether it is accurate to identify any patterns of offending, victimisation or vulnerability within these cases.”

Ceop Chief Executive, Peter Davies, said sexual exploitation of children is “not exclusive to any single culture, community, race or religion” but cuts across all communities. “Neither can it be simplified along ethnic lines where the victims constitute one ethnicity and offenders another,” he said.  Child exploitation is far too serious an issue to be used as fodder to appeal to the most base and irrational phobias. The trafficking of underage girls, sexual abuse and prostitution are huge problems facing British society. If some white girls are “easy meat” as Straw suggests, then why is the focus not on protecting the vulnerable and ensuring appropriate support.

Issues include parental responsibilities, care and foster homes, as well as various institutions.  Stereotyping the blame on one ethnic or religious group is blatant racism and is giving further fuel to extreme right-wing groups that already use Muslims as ‘easy meat’ for their racism and Islamophobia. As one can see from the stories we publish in The Muslim News, Muslims are suffering from attacks and discrimination. And such stories which are taken out of context and demonising a community makes it worse. It is innocent Muslims who suffer most.