since she seems to be back in the limelight.
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VICTORIA BRITTAIN: The death threats to Cageprisoners that followed Ms Sahgal’s irresponsible words cannot just be shrugged off. For Moazzam Begg in particular – as young British soldiers die in Afghanistan – it cannot be easy to feel safe walking in public after being branded the greatest supporter of the Taliban. He can’t ask everyone he sees to read his book and see what his real position has been. The fact that he actually went, in a joint decision with his wife, with his young family to Afghanistan, to build schools for girls, and dig wells, at least should be a matter of public record by now. The objective was to engage, however difficult it was, in the experiment of an Islamic state, which he by no means accepted blindly – as his book makes clear. That same willingness to engage, has been behind his accepting the responsibility of playing a leading part in the debates on the war on terror and its fallout. He could hardly have foretold this ‘gender politics’ chapter of the consequences. But even more serious is how Ms Sahgal has contributed to the current climate of intolerance and islamophobia in Britain, where the families of Muslim women like those I mentioned at the start, are having their hopes and dreams of a normal life in Britain dashed. Intolerance and confrontation with Muslims is on the rise all over Europe. Parliaments in France, Belgium and Spain are currently trying to pass laws against wearing the full veil in public, and a French MP justifies it by talking of combating “the French Taliban in our midst.” Violent incidents are recorded in Britain’s local papers every week. Human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy QC said on a platform recently, that we should be concerned that hostile and vicious expressions towards Islam have become shockingly respectable in our society – as racism and anti-Semitism once were. Ms Sahgal has been playing a dangerous game, and has got a following – besides the obvious one she would get on the right – that she does not deserve. This row will not destroy Amnesty, nor Cageprisoners, but it has given a push towards further heated polarization, when what we need are cool heads in complex debates on the politics of gender, patriarchy, and of religion, now when religious fundamentalism is on the rise all over the world – including the US. More here.