16 March 2019
Harun Khan, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, wrote in the Daily Express today on the horrific terrorist attacks in New Zealand yesterday.
The full article is published below.
Attacking one place of worship is an attack on us all
What drives someone to not only murder a fellow human being, but also to film and live-stream it on social media?
Yesterday, a horrific, cowardly and Islamophobic terrorist attack shook New Zealand with ripples felt across the world.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the over 50 innocent men, women and children who were killed, their families and Muslim communities across New Zealand as they came to terms with this vile act of terrorism.
Though the attack took place 11,000 miles away, the effects of it were felt here on our shores in the UK as British Muslims prepared to attend Friday prayers, the equivalent of the Sunday morning service for Christians or Saturday Sabbath for Jews.
It is deplorable that performing a religious act such as prayer should come with fears for personal security – yet this is the world we find ourselves living in today. Terrorists do not value the freedoms our societies hold so dear- the freedom to express oneself, the freedom of religion and the freedom to be safe and secure.
The rise of far-right extremism in recent years is trend that should be of concern for us all.
In the UK, in the last two months alone, two mosques in Newcastle and Manchester have been attacked by vandals who spray-painted Nazi swastika symbols. Martin Stokes, of North London, was sentenced to five years in jail for intentionally driving into a crowd of worshippers exiting a mosque.
And last October the Home Office reported that religious hate crime rocketed by 40 per cent across England and Wales in just one year, with more than half targeted at Muslims.
With Britain about to leave the European Union (EU), we must ask what we are doing to avoid the likely rise in far-right attacks against other minority communities, as Britain suffered just after the Brexit referendum in June 2016. Most tragically this included the murder of West Yorkshire MP Jo Cox by 52-year-old Thomas Mair, who the Judge when sentencing him to life in prison, said he was motivated by “admiration for Nazis and similar anti-democratic white supremacist creeds.”
Yesterday’s terror attack received widespread condemnation from senior political figures across the spectrum. But when will the words of solidarity translate into real action?
The UK Government’s ‘Places of Worship Security Fund’ to help places of worship improve their security measures like having CCTV cameras installed has been closed since August 2018. Why is it not open on a continual basis in similarity to other minority faith groups?
In these testing times, it is easy for faith communities to become more insular, to close our doors and to retreat into our comfort zones. But we must resist the temptation to do this.
We must find ways of bringing people together and bridging the divides across our society, and to strengthen our resolve to not cower to the demands of those who seek division over unity, violence over peace and intolerance over tolerance.
So, what drives someone to murder a fellow human being? For me, it is only when a society allows itself to dehumanise a portion of itself, for I am certain that the New Zealand attacker, Brenton Tarrant and his assailants, did not view their victims as human beings.
We must remind each other that we have more in common as human beings than that which divides us.
Harun Khan is the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain