The UK Farming minister, Jim Fitzpatrick has condemned the Islamic tradition of separating men and women at weddings. The MP, who has represented Poplar and Canning Town since 1997 where over 1/3 of the constituents are Muslim, told his local paper, the East London Advertiser that he walked out of a Muslim marriage ceremony after discovering that he and his wife would have to sit in separate rooms.

He commented that the gender segregation of Muslim weddings was a sign of the increasing radicalisation in the community due to Muslim “hard-line” influences in the area and was damaging to social cohesion. He told the press, “It’s a disappointment. We are trying to build social cohesion in a community but this is not the way forward.” He also said, “The segregation of men and women didn’t used to be as much of a strong feature. We’ve been attending Muslim weddings together for years but only recently has this strict line been taken. But it is an indication of the stricter application of rules that is taking place that didn’t exist before.”
These comments are simply the latest set of attacks on Islamic values by various Western politicians in an increasingly xenophobic climate within Europe and other Western societies where any jab against Muslims and their beliefs seems to be fair game. Almost every Islamic rule and value – the hijab, jilbab, and niqab; the Islamic marriage contract; the Islamic view on women, divorce and polygamy; its ruling and punishments systems; its view on homosexuality; and its political beliefs – have been placed under the political and media spotlight in recent times and labelled extreme, oppressive, barbaric, unacceptable and a threat to British society. It is reflective both of the “religious racism” of states that embrace a secular ideology that is evidently struggling to accommodate the religious beliefs of its citizens, as well as the desperate actions of Western governments grasping at straws in order to quell the rise of those turning to Islam and rejecting Western values.

These comments from Mr. Fitzpatrick wreaks of a shameful political stunt aimed at pandering to the populist racist attitudes amongst certain sectors of British society and courting the right-wing Islamophobic vote to retain his parliamentary seat. How does he hope to build social cohesion through disrespecting and insulting the beliefs of others? One would have thought that Mr. Fitzpatrick, an ex-fireman would be well placed in extinguishing fires rather than igniting ones between communities through highly charged statements based upon irrational prejudices.
He accuses the Islamic rule of segregating men and women at social events of being a symbol of extremism and cause of community division. Does he then also believe that those who organise bachelor and bachelorette parties, those who establish Gentlemen’s clubs, those who attend single-sex schools, or those of the orthodox Jewish faith who also separate men and women at weddings are reflective of the increasing radicalisation of British society and damaging to social cohesion? It would also be interesting to know if he opposes his government's policy of banning mixed sex wards in hospitals or if he plans to storm out of a public toilet the next time he finds it gender segregated. It seems that offence is only caused by segregation of the sexes when it is Muslims practising it.

It beggars belief that Mr. Fitzpatrick, an MP representing a constituency where over 1/3 are Muslims was unaware that gender segregation is an Islamic tradition at weddings practiced widely across the Muslim community in the UK and the world over. Such an MP is in no position to talk about social cohesion. It would have been better for such a farming minister to restrict his comments to growing vegetables rather than growing community relations. It is not differences of religious beliefs that build barriers between communities but fear towards difference being peddled by opportunistic politicians hoping to score a few cheap political points off the back of the rising anti-Muslim sentiment amongst certain sectors of their electorate. It is overtly clear that it is stigmatising and demonising the values of a community that damages social cohesion and the path to creating a fractured society. One would therefore have hoped that the agriculture minister would have left the manure in the farmer’s fields rather than bringing it to the table of British politics.

The idea that social cohesion is created by adopting the value of free-mixing of the sexes makes a mockery of serious debates surrounding improving community relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the UK and the West. It seems that modesty between men and women as espoused strongly by Islam and represented by its dress codes, the prohibition of socializing between the sexes as well as restriction of sexual relations to marriage – all of which seek to ensure healthy non-sexualized cooperation between men and women in society as well as strong family units - is increasingly viewed with contempt in secular “freedom-loving” states. This is despite the plethora of social and family problems afflicting many Western societies.
Furthermore, the assumed link between adopting Islamic values and being a problem to British society is highly detrimental to community relations in the UK where there has undoubtedly been a rise in the Islamicization and religiosity of 2nd and 3rd generation Muslims – you only have to look at the rise of Muslim women adopting the Islamic dress, the rise in Muslim schools, the increase in attendance of prayers in mosques. This assumption can therefore only serve to alienate a whole generation of Muslims.

In addition, the suggested link between greater Islamicization and increased radicalization is a false one. An ICM Sunday Telegraph survey in February 2006 on attitudes amongst British Muslims found that 99% of Muslims surveyed opposed the 7/7 bombings. So while there is a rise of Islamic values amongst Muslims in Britain, there is not a concurrent rise in support of terrorism.

Moreover, this suggestion that differences of cultures is a mark of separation or a barrier between communities is in itself a barrier to the cohesion of any society. Just as fear and discrimination of the black community is caused by prejudice based upon false assumptions regarding race, likewise fear and discrimination of the Muslim community is caused by prejudice based upon assumptions regarding Islam and its values.

It is quite ironic that under an Islamic Khilafah state and according to the Shariah laws – a belief in which various Western politicians have associated with radicalisation and extremism - attacks, insults, and demonization of the religious beliefs of others is prohibited. Non-Muslims are left alone to practice their religious worships and adhere to their own laws in matters of marriage and divorce without state interference or derogatory comments from those in governance. In contrast to secular states, it is a system that presents in action rather than rhetoric a true model for social cohesion between communities.

These latest comments from a UK minister further indicates that the “integration” agenda of the British government is less about addressing terrorism and more about Muslims giving up their Islamic values in exchange for secular ones. It is vital in such a climate that Muslims hold onto their beliefs and stand firm to their deen, regardless of the insults that fly out from the mouths of politicians. While capitalist secular states grapple with economic chaos, political corruption, epidemic levels of crime, social and family meltdown, rising individualism and materialism, and increasing drug and alcohol abuse amongst their young, we must remember that Islam holds political, economic, social and moral values and laws that offer the world a fresh take on how to create an economically prosperous, stable, and tranquil society. If there is anything “radical” about Islam – it is this!

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz

Women’s Media Representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain

Source : http://www.hizb.org.uk