Scotland sets up Muslim Council to challenge "Islamophobia”

National Secular Society  20 November 2009

The Scottish Government has set up close links with the Muslim Council of Scotland to work towards challenging "Islamophobia” and breaking down barriers between communities. It is not clear what form this co-operation will take or how much taxpayers’ money is involved.

Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said: "Let us hope that the Scottish Government doesn’t run into the same problems as the English did when it threw in its lot with the Muslim Council of Britain. No sooner had Westminster provided huge amounts of public money to the MCB than suspicions began to emerge about the nature of some of the affiliated groups and their links to undesirable foreign interests and individuals.”

Mr Sanderson said the best way for the Scottish Government to proceed was not to allow religious leaders to be the sole conduit for communication with the wider communities. "Religion shouldn’t be the only characteristic that identifies people from Asian backgrounds. Constantly referring to ‘Muslims’ as though they are of a single mind or single culture and are all terribly pious immediately alienates large numbers of people. The ‘faith leaders’ are all male, they don’t always represent the views of the people they claim to be speaking for and they stand in the way of hearing the real opinions of people in their communities. The Scottish Government, like the English one, has to find a way around that. Simply consulting with self-appointed ‘leaders’ — who are almost always religious in motivation — is not the right way to proceed.” (...)