A senior Church of England (CoE) cleric, whose father converted from Islam, on Sunday attacked the world view of some Muslims.
LONDON: A senior Church of England (CoE) cleric, whose father converted from Islam, on Sunday attacked the world view of some Muslims, accusing them of “victimhood and domination”.
“Their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, and always wrong when Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists, as with the Taliban or in Iraq,” said the CoE’s only Asian bishop, Michael Nazir-Ali.
Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester in southeast England, said that because of a “dual psychology” in which some Muslims want both “victimhood and domination”, all their demands would never be satisfied.
“Given the world view that has given rise to such grievances, there can never be sufficient appeasement and new demands will continue to be made,” he said to the Sunday Times.
As a result of not countering such beliefs, extremism had spread in Britain by some Muslim clerics and the Internet, he said, accusing the government of backsliding on its commitment to stamp out mosque radicalism.
"The presence of radical teaching is felt across the country. It affects all Muslims," he said.
To combat the problem, more needs to be done to recover “characteristic British values” of personal and common good that developed from Christianity “to help us inculcate the virtues of generosity, loyalty, moderation and love”.
The comments come at a time when religion, multiculturalism and ethnic minority integration are to the fore in Britain. Much of the debate has centred on the right of Muslim women to wear the niqab, sparked by former British foreign secretary Jack Straw, who said they hinder good communications and symbolised separateness.
The Church of England’s highest ranking cleric Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams waded into the debate last month, saying to ban veils, turbans, crosses or other pieces of clothing would be “politically dangerous”.
On the veil, Nazir-Ali — who was born in Pakistan and whose father converted to Roman Catholicism — said: “I can see nothing in Islam that presribes the wearing of a full-face veil.”
Last month a Muslim teaching assistant lost a case for discrimination after being suspended for not uncovering her face in class.
The 57-year-old bishop argued for the promotion of universal values among all sections of the community for the benefit of all.
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