--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Holy Uncle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1348045,00.html

'The West needs to understand it is inevitable: Islam is coming back'

Faisal al Yafai talks to Britain's most radical Islamic group, banned
across 
the Middle East, about faith, defiance and the future

Thursday November 11, 2004
The Guardian

The east London hall echoes to the sound of the speaker's voice: "They
want 
us to redefine Islam to fit the agenda of the west," he intones, and the 
audience murmurs. "Islam is going to be political, no matter how hard
they 
try. Islam itself is political. Allah has not remained silent when it
comes 
to political matters."
The speaker is a member of Hizb ut Tahrir, the most controversial Islamic 
group in Britain today. Critics have called for the group to be
banned, as 
it is in Germany, while supporters hail it as the saviour of the Muslim 
community. Hizb - the name means Party of Liberation in Arabic - is
banned 
throughout the Middle East, and three British men are in jail in Egypt 
accused of propagating its views. In Uzbekistan, thousands of Hizb
members 
are in jail, and a Russian thinktank has compared the group to al-Qaida.

Eighteen months ago, the group briefly appeared in the public eye when
the 
wife of Omar Sharif, the Briton who launched a failed suicide-bomb
attack in 
Tel Aviv, was found to have leaflets from the group in her home. Hizb ut 
Tahrir also has a presence on university campuses, where it has been
accused 
of anti-semitism.

Until recently, the leadership of Hizb was secretive and cautious,
reluctant 
to release details of the scale of its membership, its leadership
structure 
or its funding. One ex-member who spent years with the group says
there are 
probably only 500 members across the country, but the group may have 10 
times that number as committed supporters. Hizb's annual conference in 
Birmingham last year attracted about 8,000, by the far the most for a
Muslim 
organisation.

In a sign that the group is changing direction, it has given the Guardian 
unprecedented access to its leadership. The newspaper has spoken to
current 
and former Hizb members and supporters in London, Derby, Leicester, 
Birmingham, Nottingham and Manchester in an attempt to piece together the 
group's motivation and ideology.

The leader of the group, a 28-year-old IT consultant called Jalaluddin 
Patel, is the first leader in its 18-year history in the UK to speak
to the 
national press. He says Hizb has nothing to hide but will not release 
membership figures: "It's a genuine security issue. We're unsure about
the 
manner in which western society would treat a group like ours."

Patel insists that Hizb is no threat to the west, but part of it. But he 
adds that the west "needs to understand what is really an inevitable
matter, 
and that is that Islam is coming back, the Islamic caliphate is going
to be 
implemented in the world very soon ... The Muslim people need to realise 
that the way in which they will restore a form of dignity and bring 
civilisation back to the Islamic world is to establish a modern
caliphate."

The call to re-establish the caliphate, the single Islamic state that 
existed for a millennium and a half, until the end of the Ottoman
empire in 
1924, forms the thrust of the group's message. But its call for
Muslims to 
be strong is not just political; it is also religious: "Secularism has 
failed the world" declares a Hizb poster.

Bringing the caliphate back will not be easy: at one debate on the
future of 
Iraq, held just off Brick Lane, an American journalist warned the
audience 
that America, China and India would never tolerate an Islamic state
"strung 
like a belt across the world. There would have to be a response."

Hizb's message is too radical to seem immediately threatening. But it
is the 
scale of its ambition that is striking. Hizb appears to be focusing its 
efforts in Britain on removing Pakistan's President Musharraf, a key
ally in 
the US war on terror. Last month the group led a march of thousands to
the 
Pakistani high commission in London, calling for regime change and
declaring 
"Pakistan Army: why are you silent?"

In Pakistan the security services say they are keeping close watch on
Hizb, 
mindful of the group's links with an educated middle class and fearful of 
possible links with other, more radical groups.

Brainwash


Despite recent moves by the group to open itself up - in March this year, 
for the first time, Hizb announced the nine people on its executive 
committee - it remains difficult to join it. Before membership,
supporters 
must be invited to join a study group. Patel dismisses the idea that
these 
study groups brainwash supporters: "If you call brainwashing the
imparting 
of ideas and discourse based on those ideas, then I'm afraid that's
what it 
must be. But fortunately we're not in the business of brainwashing."

At 28, Patel is relatively young to be leading a national group,
though he 
has been involved with Hizb since he was 16. He came to Hizb searching
for 
answers, studied with the group, and became chair of the executive
committee 
at 26. Although reluctant to talk about his own background, it is
clear his 
upbringing was comfortable and not particularly political - he says his 
father knows he is involved with Hizb but doesn't know he leads it.
"He will 
now."

Hizb often holds public debates with figures from politics or the
media. The 
meetings are usually packed. Across the country the group publishes books 
and magazines and holds discussion groups trying to galvanise the Muslim 
community on a variety of issues. But the solution is always the 
re-establishment of the caliphate.

Hizb is reluctant to say where its gets the money for these activities. 
Patel says it all comes entirely from donations from members and
supporters, 
gathered as and when needed. No one in the party receives a salary.

Hizb ut Tahrir was formed in Jerusalem in 1953 by a Palestinian judge.
Since 
then, it has expanded across the Middle East and throughout the world,
from 
Indonesia to America. But it is in Britain that the group probably has
its 
strongest presence. Its conferences have attracted thousands of British 
Muslims.

In Tower Hamlets, east London, Hizb distributed a leaflet opposing the
Brick 
Lane festival last month, arguing that the promotion of "the culture of 
drinking alcohol, dancing and free-mixing" was not the image the area's 
Muslim community ought to be projecting.

Meetings - or "circles" - follow the same format, with a speaker from the 
group expanding on a subject for around 40 minutes. The audience, almost 
always students and professionals in their 20s and 30s, listen and then 
pepper the speaker with questions. Some meetings are men- or
women-only. At 
those that are mixed, the women, seated separately from the men, ask the 
most forceful and detailed questions, usually from beneath a sea of 
headscarves.

Although one of the main aims of the group is to forge a strong religious 
identity for Muslims in Britain, it also believes the wider Muslim
world has 
been ill-served by its rulers. It has openly called for coups against
Arab 
governments to establish more representative leadership. Governments
such as 
Egypt which feel that Hizb is a threat have banned it and arrested its 
members.

The group came to Britain in 1986, founded by a Syrian called Omar Bakri 
Muhammed. Bakri remained leader for 10 years until he left to form
another, 
more radical, Islamic group, al-Muhajiroun.

In the mid-1990s, Hizb was a fixture on university campuses, organising 
societies and debates. Its rhetoric was fierce and angry. Then Hizb went 
quiet, and now its influence on campus is limited to some Islamic
societies 
or smaller groups. Some maintain it is still a threat: in March this
year a 
motion proposed by the Union of Jewish Students to the National Union of 
Students conference banned Hizb from campuses because of alleged 
anti-semitism.

Last year the German government banned the group for the same reasons and 
the country's interior minister, Otto Schilly, proposed Britain should 
follow suit, saying: "It won't do if the same thing is then not banned
in a 
neighbouring country. We have to act in harmony."

Patel calls such accusations misguided. But he does not deny being 
anti-Israel: "Being anti-Israel is probably a sentiment held by one
billion 
Muslims around the world. It's not unique to the party. A lot of western 
commentators could be classified as anti-Israel."

On some campuses, the group has renamed itself, using such names as the 
Ideological Society. Its uncompromising tone, in contrast to the mute 
moderation of some imams, is a powerful attraction. In cities where it
has a 
strong presence, such as Birmingham and Leicester, some mosques have
made it 
clear that Hizb is unwelcome. "We don't like their ideas at all," said
the 
imam of one of Birmingham's biggest mosques. "They're not Islamic ideas, 
they're very nationalistic, racist ideas that they've got from somewhere 
else."

Angry


Hizb says such criticism is an attempt to depoliticise Islam and warns 
against seeing political awareness always in the context of angry youth. 
Hizb offers a worldview that can be easily grasped, a straightforward 
solution to many of the problems of society. The scope of Hizb - Patel
says 
"every mosque in this country" has members or supporters - has led to 
worries about its influence. But it is not on the Home Office's list of 
proscribed organisations, and the Metropolitan police's anti-terrorism 
branch says it has no evidence of illegal activity.

Critics are most concerned about Hizb in Central Asia, where its brand of 
political Islam is motivating impoverished Uzbeks against the
government of 
Uzbekistan. In testimony before the US Congress earlier this year, a 
director of the Nixon Centre, a rightwing thinktank, warned: "Like other 
Islamist movements, HT's goal is to overthrow secular regimes around the 
world. Unlike many others, however, HT hopes to achieve this goal
peacefully 
... I think HT, which is not considered a terrorist organisation, is
an even 
more dangerous long-term threat, as it is the elementary school for the 
ideological training of many other groups."

This is the "conveyor belt for terrorism" argument: the implication is
that 
such an organisation might inspire others. Patel is dismissive: "I think 
it's a very disingenuous view. The Founding Fathers of America would 
probably have been called a conveyor belt for terrorists because they 
produced the intellectual ideas which led to the American people
rising up 
against colonial rule."

If there is a threat it comes in ideas, because the message of Hizb -
of a 
strong, international Islamic state; of a Middle East free of the western 
powers; of Islam as a solution to the problems of society - may be far
more 
dangerous to the west.

Patel accepts that the very notion of a caliphate implies the
destruction of 
institutions and government systems, but believes there is no
alternative - 
although he stresses the transition will not be violent. And although
Hizb 
has been making its argument for over half a century without visible 
results, Patel does not see that as a criticism of the concept. "We
believe 
the caliphate could be established tomorrow. We believe all the
ingredients 
are there," he says. And he has a warning for the Muslim rulers of the 
world: "One of the greatest obstacles that exists is the brutality of the 
state and the fear that is instilled in the masses. What we say is
that it 
is a matter of time before the masses observe that brutality and say
enough 
is enough."
--- End forwarded message ---






------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
$9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/BRUplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

***************************************************************************
Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg 
Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc
***************************************************************************
__________________________________________________________________________
Mohon Perhatian:

1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik)
2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari.
3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 
4. Posting: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
5. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
7. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    [EMAIL PROTECTED]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 



Kirim email ke