LONDON: Baroness Warsi, a Muslim former minister in the UK, has warned that “deeply dangerous” Islamophobic narratives are being promoted in British public discourse, The Independent reported.
The House of Lords member, who was speaking at the Hay Festival — a prominent literary and arts event — compared rising Islamophobia in Britain to the treatment of Jews in 1930s Europe.
In conversation with British-Israeli journalist Rachel Shabi, she described feeling “heartbroken” at the way Muslim communities are increasingly portrayed in the UK.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you serve and how many times you do what you do for our country,” she said. “You still don’t belong. You still don’t matter. You still can’t be trusted.”
Warsi, who was discussing her new book “Muslims Don’t Matter,” described growing up in a working-class family of Pakistani origin in Yorkshire.
The former co-chair of the Conservative Party said she had recently discussed with her husband whether it was necessary to prepare “exit routes” from Britain.
“I turned to him and I said are we going to be like those Jewish families in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, who were always sitting back, looking at the writing on the wall and thinking, ‘No, we’re going to be all right. We’re very successful. We live in the right part of town. We’re part of the establishment.’ And then it will be too late. Should we be doing what everybody else around us seems to be doing right now, which is putting in place plan Bs and exit routes?”
Warsi warned that negative narratives surrounding British Muslims are being driven by politicians and the media.
“The good news is this isn’t bottom up,” she said. “This isn’t ordinary people sat there thinking, ‘Oh, I really have an issue with Muslims and I’m now going to have quite hateful views about them.’
“This is people in power and people with big platforms constantly telling us, ‘We can’t trust Muslims. They’re all dangerous, they’re violent, the men are sexually predatory, the women are traditionally submissive.’”
She added: “It’s these tropes which we’re constantly being told about Muslim communities which, in the end, poisons the public discourse to a point where we start seeing this community in the worst possible light.”
Warsi ended the discussion with an appeal for solidarity, and called on the British public to reject divisive narratives.
“It’s time for us to organize and it’s time for us to fight back, because all of our rights in the end will suffer,” she said.
