Definition of Islamophobia
Mike Gapes Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Wes Streeting
I wholeheartedly agree; that is exactly what we are trying to achieve. The story that is not written or told is about the faith leaders in my community who do not just know the challenge posed by hate preachers; they have physically wrestled them out of their mosques. Those are the same people who, when an act of terrorism is carried out in the name of one of the world’s great faiths, not only deplore the attack but know that they will be on the receiving end of the backlash, even though they believe their faith and the teaching of their religious text to be about peace and harmony.
Wes Streeting
I will give way one final time, and then I must draw my remarks to a conclusion.
Mike Gapes
I only intervene because he mentioned our Redbridge community and I want to pay tribute to the Redbridge Faith Forum and all the inter-faith work in Redbridge. The Muslims who are involved in that have done a fantastic job. Does he agree that inter-faith dialogue is the essence of dealing with these problems?
Wes Streeting
I wholeheartedly agree. As shown by the discussion on “Newsnight” last night between myself and a respected imam from Leicester, we can reconcile our way through some of these challenges, difficulties and tensions with mutual respect, proper public discourse and dialogue. Those of us who are on the receiving end of prejudice of one kind or another know exactly what it feels like, and we have a particular responsibility to stand alongside others who experience prejudice. That is why I am proud to lead the APPG on British Muslims as a non-Muslim and the APPG on British Jews as a non-Jew. It is not just the responsibility of Muslims to tackle Islamophobia; it is a challenge for us all.
Let me conclude with some personal observations. I have watched, with some amazement and even greater despair, the Conservative party making exactly the same mistakes over Islamophobia as my party has with antisemitism—the same miserable, inexcusable pattern of dismissal, denial and delegitimisation of serious concerns raised by prominent Muslims about racism within their ranks. My friend Baroness Warsi has stood as a brave lone voice, challenging discrimination in her party. As we recoil in horror at the deafening silence of decent people in the Conservative party about racism within their ranks, I respectfully say to some quarters of my own party: that is the same silence you demand of me on antisemitism, and it is one you will never receive.
The Prime Minister could have followed the lead of the Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, in backing this definition and left a powerful legacy to detoxify her party and improve the lives of Muslims across the country. Instead, with a remarkable lack of self-awareness and humility, the party that has so spectacularly failed British Muslims now intends to produce its own description. The party’s abject failure to understand and tackle Islamophobia within its own ranks means that it has neither the wisdom nor the credibility to do so.
Given that, just over a year ago, Ministers denied that there was a need for any definition at all, I suppose we might consider this latest development some sign of progress. But it is too slow; it is insufficient; and it will not be tolerated. British Muslims deserve better than this. As the Runnymede Trust said last year, Islamophobia remains, shamefully, a challenge for us all. It is one that we must now meet.
Holocaust Memorial Day
Mike Gapes Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
No other episode in human history can match the holocaust for scale and depth of evil—an evil that sought to harness the technology of the modern world to deliver mass murder on an industrial scale, in an attempt to eliminate an entire ethnic group. The fact that it could have happened not in the distant past but in supposedly civilised 20th-century Europe still shocks me, and I still find it impossible to comprehend, so many years after I first learned the story of those terrible events. That so many people stood by when their Jewish friends and neighbours were torn from their homes and subjected to unspeakable cruelty is the most truly shocking part of that story.
However, I think we should also remember those who did not look away when Jewish people and others were being attacked and rounded up by the Nazis: the people who stepped up and saved lives, even when that put their own life and those of their families in real danger. The example that I want us to remember today is Albania.
Following the German occupation, the Albanian population, in an extraordinary act of courage, refused to comply with Nazi orders to hand over a list of Jewish people living in their country. Albanian Government agencies provided many Jewish families with fake documentation to enable them to hide in the wider population. That remarkable assistance was grounded in Besa, a code whereby it was considered a matter of national honour to help Jewish people in their time of trouble. Sanctuary was offered not only to Albanian Jewish people, but to refugees from other countries. Albania, the only country in Europe with a Muslim majority, succeeded where others failed, and at the end of the war its Jewish population was larger than it had been at the start.
Theresa Villiers
No, I will not.
As well as producing stories of horror, brutality and pain, the events that we are considering today gave rise to the heroism of ordinary people in Albania, as well as people such as Frank Foley and Nicholas Winton, the voluntary groups and church groups who made the Kindertransport possible, and so many others who gave sanctuary and shelter to Jewish people fleeing Nazi atrocity.
Let me, like other Members, pay a heartfelt tribute to holocaust survivors in my constituency. There may be others, but those of whom I am aware include Hedi Argent, Harry Jacobi, Freddie Knoller and Mala Tribich. It is incredibly brave of survivors to be prepared to come forward and tell their stories—to relive those terrible years of suffering. We owe them so much for their role in explaining to successive generations the evil to which humanity can sink, and the importance of doing everything we can to make sure that this never, ever happens again. Like others, I thank the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Government for their financial support for holocaust education.
I have been campaigning against antisemitism for about 30 years. More or less the first day I set foot across the threshold of this building was to lobby my MP to highlight the plight of Jewish refuseniks in the Soviet Union, who were unable to practise their faith in freedom. I am sure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will remember the debate in April on antisemitism; it was one of the most moving debates I have ever been present for in this place. It was a chilling reminder that the menace of antisemitism is still with us. It is truly shocking that the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) has stated that the problem with antisemitism in Labour is now so severe that the party has passed the threshold for being deemed to be institutionally racist. As colleagues have pointed out, this is a problem on many parts of the political spectrum, and it is completely unacceptable.
Antisemitism has mutated, taken on new forms, and gained a lethal new lease of life with social media. It has also been given new life by the militant anti-Zionism of the radical left, so today is a time for all of us to make a commitment once again to root out antisemitism wherever it emerges, and to say loud and clear that we will never, ever tolerate this vicious form of racism.
Holocaust Memorial Day
Mike Gapes Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), in his absolutely powerful and moving speech, made reference to films. There is another—Steven Spielberg’s fantastic work “Shoah” in which survivors living at the time all gave their testimony, speaking in their own words for the record. Hopefully, those words will be there for generations to come.
Twenty-one years ago, I introduced a private Member’s Bill on holocaust denial. It was a precursor to a private Member’s Bill on Holocaust Memorial Day promoted by my former hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, who came in in 1997. We did not get the Bill on denial, but we did get the Bill on memorial. I received an incredible amount of anti-Semitic abuse. For two years after, I received specially printed Christmas cards with the most vile images. The assumption was that I was Jewish. Actually, I am not; I grew up in Ilford and the mum of one of my best friends at school always thought that I was Jewish because I was always round there, but I am not.
Interestingly, after the election in 1997, I decided that I was going to do more about these issues. Then a group was established locally that campaigned against me because I supported a two-state position in the middle east. The group, which called itself the Association of Ilford Muslims—I do not have the time now, but I refer Members to my Westminster Hall debate that I held in June 2001—put out leaflets saying that I was no friend of the Muslims, I was a true friend of Israel, and I represented Tel Aviv South, not Ilford South. Subsequently, the Muslim Political Action Committee UK was set up. It has peddled on the internet and through social media anti-Semitic material, which it dresses up as anti-Zionism. It has targeted people in election campaigns, including in Rochdale, Oldham, Birmingham, Blackburn, in my constituency and elsewhere to try to get rid of people it regards as pro-Zionist MPs—mainly Labour MPs, but Conservatives as well. That has been the power of their message. It is insidious, and it is in our politics.
I am very pleased to say that next Friday in Ilford we are going to have all communities, as we always do—Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews—
Mike Gapes
Valentines Park in Ilford, at the holocaust memorial garden, which was established on the initiative of the former council leader—still a Conservative councillor—Alan Weinberg. We will have our annual service there, and there will be young people from many different schools, including, as in recent years, young people from a Muslim school—the Al-Noor school. We have many different people from different faiths speaking, because that is Ilford today. A century ago, Ilford had a very large Jewish community, but now we have all the different faiths, and they come together.
It is important to recognise that the poison that was put out against me all those years ago did not succeed. I am still here. More importantly, the community has rejected extremists of that kind, but they are still there. They are out on Twitter. They are out on Facebook.
Ruth Smeeth
My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for how much has changed locally. This debate is all about the power of education, and that has a huge impact in my constituency and across the country, which is why the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust is so important.
Mike Gapes
I absolutely agree. I had not been to Auschwitz before 2013, when I went with a group of young people from schools in the south of England—there were not people from my constituency on the day that I was available. Every year, young people from many of my local schools go there, and those young people come back and talk about their experience, and spread the message in our community.
In our modern, pluralistic, democratic society, we must never forget the events of the holocaust. We must also remember the more recent genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia and what happened to the Yazidis. As the Foreign Affairs Committee and the International Development Committee pointed out in their recent reports, we also need to highlight the plight of the Rohingya today. We must stand together as a community and fight these evils.