This is the fourth part of an investigative series exploring the question of Islamic radicalism on British campuses. Previous installments looked at collective pains of Muslims, profiles of young British Muslim extremists and the question of how radicalization works.
London–City University’s Great Hall was packed on that day in April 2009 when the university’s Islamic Society held its annual dinner, a hallmark event attended by more than 250 people that year. The dinner’s main attraction was Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim preacher alleged by US intelligence agencies to have provided spiritual guidance to three of the 9/11 hijackers, and who was due to speak at the event via video link.
Al-Awlaki is an ex-Guantanamo Bay prisoner and Yemeni engineer-turned-imam who often talks about issues affecting Muslims in the West. He is arguably the most popular preacher among Islamic societies in Britain.
But, to students’ disappointment, al-Awlaki’s speech never came.
After a prominent blogger criticized the event before it even happened, and following several discussions between the Islamic society and university administrators, the latter decided to forbid al-Awlaki’s video message from being shown. There was also a heavy presence by university security in anticipation of al-Awlaki’s speech, according to one ISOC member who refused to give her name. “The university had a lot of issues with him,” she said.
Nevertheless, in what might have looked like an act of defiance, al-Awlaki’s face was beamed onto a screen by a large projector. A speaker from the Islamic society told attendees that al-Awlaki’s message would not be broadcast, but that they would arrange for all members to be given a DVD of his speech.
“Before I left the UK, I heard of al-Awlaki just a little bit, and when I came back I found that he’s become so popular,” Moazzzam Begg, also an ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee and a popular speaker among students, said. “He was promoted very much by people like the Muslim Brotherhood. From what I was told before I went to Guantanamo, he had a program during Ramadan here in which 800 people attended his talks every single day for a whole month.”
Unlike old-guard Imams, al-Awlaki gives lectures in flawless English and is Internet-savvy, employing a blog to spread his lectures and writings. “Part of the reason why he’s popular is because he knows Western culture, he grew up in the West,” said Begg.
“For me, it’s the fact that he speaks the truth. He lays it out without beating around the bush,” said a City ISOC sister who didn’t want her name published. “Others might be scared to be held accountable for their words. A lot of scholars are really scared when they’re talking because someone in the audience might be recording.”
Al-Awlaki lectures extensively on issues like the so-called war on terror and how Muslims are treated unjustly in the West. For Muslim youth, who are struggling to reconcile their own religious principles with Western ideals, al-Awlaki’s rhetoric touches upon incumbent fears and insecurities.
Even as naturalized citizens, some feel they are not regarded as “equal” just because their parents hail from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or Saudi Arabia. Cage Prisoners has many cases of individuals who have been wrongly placed under control orders, or detained merely because they fit the “racial profiles” of terrorists.
Begg said that following some of his speeches, students would come up to him with their grievances about living as Muslims in the West and ask for advice.
Some recent incidents in the UK and reported extensively in the media make some students believe that their plight is real enough. Last September, anti-Islamic rallies made up of former football hooligans and supported by far-right groups protested in front of mosques in Birmingham and Harrow carrying signs reading “No More Mosques” and clashing with Muslim youth.
Journalists Peter Osborne’s and James Jones’ “Muslim Under Siege” report, published by the Democratic Audit’s Human Rights Center in association with Channel 4 Dispatches, said: “Islamophobia seems to be the last respectable prejudice available in Britain … it can be encountered in the best circles: among our most famous columnists from the Independent and the Guardian newspapers, and in the Church of England. Its appeal is wide ranging.”
Some City University ISOC members said they had received “rude” comments because of the way they dress. “When you’re walking down the streets, you get rude comments here and there,” said Maryam, a City University student.
Muslim leaders like Daud Abdullah, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said there is already a belief among Muslims that the media spreads “antipathy” towards them. Osborne and Jones said in their report that the British media often described Muslims in “a relentlessly dismal light,” leading to Muslims feeling “unwanted and cast out” and non-Muslims to feel “alarm and hostility.”
Young Muslims have been complaining on public forums and blogs of being “demonized,” a grievance that al-Awlaki, like other imams who share his ideology, brings up in his lectures. He reminds his audience that “the Western media is constantly trying to underplay the atrocities committed by the West while exaggerating the violations–which are few and far in between–committed by Muslims?”
Al-Awlaki’s fervent rhetoric would have been justifiable if he had stopped at asking Muslims to stand up for their rights, in a uncompromising albeit peaceful manner. However, on his blog, al-Awlaki’s stance on using force to get “stolen rights” back is clear.
The next installment will explain why Al-Awlaki’s writings and preaching is inflammatory and arguably dangerous.
