Guardian did the right thing by letting go of Aslam
23rd July, 2005
by Sunny Hundal
Editor
Caught between a rock and a hard place, the Guardian was in a real dilemma last week when it emerged that one of its reporters was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Its decision to let go of the talented young trainee yesterday, although fraught with moral complications, was the right one to make. The paper acted admirably when it could have just been stubborn in the face of right-wing criticism.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is quite rightly a very reviled organisation. When I was at university it had a habit of plastering massive posters across the campus overnight, calling for all Muslims to support the establishment of an Islamic state in the UK and warning others that it was inevitable. And then there were the dubious leaflets. To say this undermined relations between religious and racial groups is obvious.
The danger HT pose is not to non-Muslims, but rather to impressionable Muslims. To most they represent arrogant preachers who refuse to accept anything other than their own narrow minded view of the world, aiming to stifle and control debate within their own community. They are already banned in most Mosques in the UK.
It are these values that go against those of the Guardian, and for why it was right to let go of Dilpazier Aslam when he refused to renounce his membership with HT.
The controversy kicked off when Aslam wrote 'We rock the boat' for the paper. In itself the comment piece is not stating anything other than the obvious. There is a lot of anger with young Muslims who see the British state as helping others (USA and Israel) kill Muslims in Afganistan, Iraq and Palestine.
Aslam's article did not toe the official line like the American media did in the aftermath of 9/11. That is admirable in an era where everyone from hysterical commentators such as Richard Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips to Muslim leaders demand extreme sensitivity to their views.
But there is plenty he does not say. The anger within young Muslims is not necessarily always there - it is whipped up by HT, using biased propaganda, to make young Muslims feel powerless, frustrated and of the opinion that everyone in the world has it in for Muslims.
That anger, if not channelled into legitimate political activity, can be exploited for more subversive activities, as the London bombings show.
But the web is full of right-wing bloggers, and it was one of them named Scott Burgess who dug up the dirt on Aslam's past. Since then it has been picked up plenty of others, specially in America where anyone other than a mouth-piece for George Bush is jumped on.
The newspaper has been relentlessly criticised by bloggers for a week, many going as far as calling the newspaper 'Islamofascist' and HT a 'terrorist organisation' - both of which are silly.
Hizb ut-Tahrir represent a few hundred Muslims in this country at most and are a fringe extremist group like the National Front. Giving them political legitimacy is dangerous.
It is even worse, morally, that a paper such as the Guardian allows a HT member to write commentary in the name of the paper.
The duplicity is that those newspapers who decry groups such as HT are usually the first to give them legitimacy by putting them on the front page. Littlejohn claimed last week: "A Guardian journalist has been unmasked as an Islamist extremist", in his usual hypocritical way.
Though Aslam has gone, the hope is that the Guardian does not censor itself in the face of criticism from bloggers. It should be the first to challenge accepted norms with good commentary, otherwise this positive development could turn out to be the worst decision made by the newspaper.
Editor
Caught between a rock and a hard place, the Guardian was in a real dilemma last week when it emerged that one of its reporters was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir.Its decision to let go of the talented young trainee yesterday, although fraught with moral complications, was the right one to make. The paper acted admirably when it could have just been stubborn in the face of right-wing criticism.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is quite rightly a very reviled organisation. When I was at university it had a habit of plastering massive posters across the campus overnight, calling for all Muslims to support the establishment of an Islamic state in the UK and warning others that it was inevitable. And then there were the dubious leaflets. To say this undermined relations between religious and racial groups is obvious.
The danger HT pose is not to non-Muslims, but rather to impressionable Muslims. To most they represent arrogant preachers who refuse to accept anything other than their own narrow minded view of the world, aiming to stifle and control debate within their own community. They are already banned in most Mosques in the UK.
It are these values that go against those of the Guardian, and for why it was right to let go of Dilpazier Aslam when he refused to renounce his membership with HT.
The controversy kicked off when Aslam wrote 'We rock the boat' for the paper. In itself the comment piece is not stating anything other than the obvious. There is a lot of anger with young Muslims who see the British state as helping others (USA and Israel) kill Muslims in Afganistan, Iraq and Palestine.
Aslam's article did not toe the official line like the American media did in the aftermath of 9/11. That is admirable in an era where everyone from hysterical commentators such as Richard Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips to Muslim leaders demand extreme sensitivity to their views.
But there is plenty he does not say. The anger within young Muslims is not necessarily always there - it is whipped up by HT, using biased propaganda, to make young Muslims feel powerless, frustrated and of the opinion that everyone in the world has it in for Muslims.
That anger, if not channelled into legitimate political activity, can be exploited for more subversive activities, as the London bombings show.
But the web is full of right-wing bloggers, and it was one of them named Scott Burgess who dug up the dirt on Aslam's past. Since then it has been picked up plenty of others, specially in America where anyone other than a mouth-piece for George Bush is jumped on.
The newspaper has been relentlessly criticised by bloggers for a week, many going as far as calling the newspaper 'Islamofascist' and HT a 'terrorist organisation' - both of which are silly.
Hizb ut-Tahrir represent a few hundred Muslims in this country at most and are a fringe extremist group like the National Front. Giving them political legitimacy is dangerous.
It is even worse, morally, that a paper such as the Guardian allows a HT member to write commentary in the name of the paper.
The duplicity is that those newspapers who decry groups such as HT are usually the first to give them legitimacy by putting them on the front page. Littlejohn claimed last week: "A Guardian journalist has been unmasked as an Islamist extremist", in his usual hypocritical way.
Though Aslam has gone, the hope is that the Guardian does not censor itself in the face of criticism from bloggers. It should be the first to challenge accepted norms with good commentary, otherwise this positive development could turn out to be the worst decision made by the newspaper.
