‘What I think as a British Muslim’

I don’t normally like to get political but seeing this furore around this whole What British Muslims Really Think programme on Channel 4 and accompanying survey which I realised (after some very deep thought and pondering and philosophical thinking for all of two seconds) was about as representative of what I think as a British Asian Muslim as Nigel Farage is to race equality.

After thinking about it for a few more moments I realised that at the moment as a nation we sort of have a few other more pressing social matters to worry about.

Some of these are – in no particular order and also not exhaustive list:

1) A housing crisis with severe shortages of affordable homes up and down the country.

2) Problems with a struggling NHS and striking doctors.

3) The elderly who were once the backbone of our country and spent decades supporting the UK through their hard sweat, blood and tears now being abused and neglected in some so-called “care homes”.

4) Still high levels of youth unemployment to deal with.

5) Growing poverty of all sorts to deal with in the UK.

6) Growing fuel poverty despite promises by government and energy companies to tackle it.

6) As a nation we are still failing to tackle child poverty according to the UN.

7) Domestic violence issues which are now on the rise and overwhelming the police.

8) More and more child sex abuse scandals we are hearing about.

9) General increase in child sex abuse cases.

10) Our so-called leaders regularly involved in financial irregularities

11) And our PM now facing embarrassing accusations about his financial affairs.

12) Human trafficking (for the purposes of sexual slavery and forced labour, including domestic servitude) happening on our own doorstep and still not being tackled properly.

13) Rises in gang culture and violence.

14) General crime levels.

15) And many more issues.

I haven’t included the threat from the so-called Islamic State as that is a given but realised we have a lot on our plate to deal with and need to do some honest reflective and introspective thinking as a nation about what is a priority and what we really should be worrying about.

I’m not a scholar or a sociologist but even I could see this programme took a sensationalist approach and seemed more like what they refer to as clickbait. 

Before we start worrying what the roughly 2.7 million Muslims out of a population of around 64 million people in the UK are thinking about let’s have a reality check and sort out the more pressing social issues we are facing as a nation.

Once we’ve fixed all of the above then as a British Muslim I’m happy to sit down with anyone over cup of tea or coffee and let people know what I’m thinking as a British Muslim.

Rizwan Ahmed is Muslim chaplain at Bristol University and cultural awareness officer at Bristol Muslim Cultural Society

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