In a speech addressing the 46th Munich Security conference, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has denounced tolerance of different cultures and values that contradicted secular liberal values, calling for a ‘muscular’ liberal British identity, and demanding Muslims ‘embrace our values’ or else expect to be treated differently to other communities in Britain.
Taji Mustafa, media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Britain commented on the reported remarks.
“After 30 years of supporting Mubarak, and their continued support for systems and dictators that brutalise and intimidate their own people, the British government has the arrogance to dictate liberal values to Muslims.”
“Over the past few weeks, we heard the cry of the Arab street, so long suppressed by those dictators who pushed ‘British’ and ‘American’ values, saying they have had enough of the West dictating who should rule them, and by what system and values.”
“Yet Cameron wants a secular liberal monoculture, not only for Muslims in Britain and Europe, but for the Muslim world. Only a few days ago Foreign Secretary William Hague (alongside a swarm of anti-Islam commentary in the media) said that the Egyptian people should decide their own future, as long as it was not an Islamic system.”
“Till today, western governments try to mask their policies to prevent the expression Islam’s political ideas under a cloak of ‘security’ or ‘stability’, hiding their real fears that Islam challenges their grip on the Muslim world strategic location and material resources.”
“But Muslims around the world are on the march to real change, which can only happen by uprooting the yoke of western capitalism and establishing the Islamic Caliphate.”
“The Caliphate we call for in the Muslim world is an Islamic system that has an accountable elected executive, that governs by laws based on the beliefs of the people and consistent with their history. It is a system that serves the many, not merely the elites, and aims for prosperity for the many that are poor not the few that are rich; where not even the Caliph is above the law.”
“We encourage Muslims in Britain hold onto the Islamic values that would be upheld by the Caliphate, which promote remembrance of their Creator in a world where religion is vilified; and that promote maintenance of Islamic family life and neighbourliness in a society that Cameron called ‘Broken Britain’.”
“We hope they will resist this patronising, arrogant and bullying colonial mindset from the Coalition government and not be afraid to speak for what is right, even if it contradicts a hostile British policy in the Muslim world.”
“Furthermore we must rebut the propaganda and myths that some politicians and media in Europe peddle about Islam, and invite the ordinary people who are fed this misinformation to look at what Islam really is.”
“If Cameron really believes in these ‘muscular liberal’ values he should be willing to openly debate them with us instead of stereotyping Islam and airbrushing the disasters that capitalism and his values have brought to the world.”
[END]
Note: In January 2011 Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain released a report titled “The Future for Muslims in Britain” anticipating the aggressive assimilationist approach of the Coalition government, and proposing a positive way forward for Muslims. The report can be downloaded from www.hizb.org.uk