Opinion
7 DECEMBER 2020
Is Corbyn’s reinstatement furthering acceptance of anti-semitism? Diva Sinha, MSc Environment, Politics and Development On 17 November, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was reinstated to the Labour Party. Corbyn was suspended in October after he commented that the scale of antisemitism within the party had been ‘overstated.’ This came after the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released a report that detailed ‘unlawful harassment, including using antisemitic tropes and suggesting that complaints of antisemitism were fake or smears’ in the party under Corbyn. After his suspension, some British Jews might have felt vindicated, but the victory was short-lived, as in less than three weeks Corbyn’s suspension was lifted. The decision to reinstate Corbyn is controversial at best. While Corbyn has a long history of being a champion of human rights, he has repeatedly been embroiled in situations which some in the British Jewish community have found to be alarming and discriminatory. From laying wreaths to Black September terrorists, to referring to Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends, expressing support for the Freedom of Humanity mural, as well as aligning himself with fringe organisations who openly call for the destruction of Israel, it was his comments on the report that were the last straw for many in the center of the party. Corbyn has acknowledged that antisemitism is a problem within the party and has issued statements and apologised. He said: ‘People who dish out antisemitic poison need to understand: you do not do it in my name.
You are not my supporters and have no place in our movement.’ Appearing on ‘This Morning,’ he was asked to apologise to the British Jewish community. He said, ‘anti-Jewish racism is wrong and vile and Labour would not tolerate any form of racism in the future Labour government.’ He added that internal procedures for dealing with antisemitism were under review and his doors were open to rabbis and other leaders from different faiths to discuss such challenging issues. However, in a different interview, while discussing the issues surrounding antisemitism and Labour, Corbyn declined to apologise to the Jewish community on four occasions. He said that society is safe for all faiths. The controversy surrounding Corbyn did not end with his return. Current Labour Leader Keir Starmer made it clear that while Corbyn has been welcomed back into Labour, he has not been reinstated in the parliamentary Labour party. He tweeted, ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s actions in response to the EHRC report undermined and set back our work in restoring trust and confidence in the Labour Party’s ability to tackle antisemitism. In those circumstances, I have taken the decision not to restore the whip to Jeremy Corbyn.’ He added, ‘I will keep this situation under review.’ Nevertheless, this does not sit well for those who believe in Labour and its ethics. For a party that has always stood for the working class and seeks to remove racism and discrimination from society, the reinstatement of a man who has overseen a painful period for Jewish people in the Labour party paints an unwelcoming image
The former Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. (Credit: Garry Knight)
for anyone affected by antisemitism. Corbyn's suspension and subsequent reinstatement seem at odds with what the EHRC addressed in its report. Corbyn’s comments on the findings of the EHRC report speak to his unwillingness to acknowledge that antisemitism was becoming institutionalised and normalised. Corbyn has the right to defend himself, but offering an apology and acknowledgement of the problem after the report was published could have
resulted in a peaceful resolution. Dismissing complaints of antisemitism, refusing to acknowledge the blurring lines between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and treating the complaints made by Jewish Labour members as weapons of a smear campaign are Labour party attributes Starmer is keen to be seen leaving behind. In time, Corbyn may prove to be too much of a ghost of the party’s past to keep around.
Muslim Pro and the American Security Apparatus Samia Majid, MA History The U.S. has an unsavoury history of leveraging surveillance campaigns on its unsuspecting Muslim populace. On 16 November, Vice’s Motherboard revealed that Muslim Pro, a popular Quran and prayer app, has been selling its user data to third-party brokers, and by extension the U.S. military. With over 98 million downloads, Muslim Pro is widely used by Muslims across the world. In response to the backlash, Muslim Pro denied any wrongdoing, asserting that it has never sold the personal data of its users. The Muslim Pro team announced that they have terminated their relationship with all third-party data partners. Although they pledged a commitment to protect user privacy and investigate their data governance policy, this is too little, too late. Omar Suleiman, a Dallas-based Imam and spiritual leader stated: ‘This is wild and unacceptable. Download a Quran/prayer app and end up with your data sold to a counterterrorism unit of the US military. No Muslim app should be selling data, especially not like this.’ Unfortunately, this is not the first time that ordinary Muslims have been targeted by an indiscriminate mass surveillance operation. The New York Police Department has a notorious history of spying on its Muslim citizens. In 2001, a newly created covert Demographic Unit within the NYPD sent informants, or ‘crawlers,’ into Muslim neighbourhoods,
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student associations, and businesses. These individuals were encouraged to gather information on vaguely termed ‘persons of interest,’ infiltrating ethnic minority neighbourhoods, with no prior evidence of wrongdoing. Despite the fact that this initiative failed to produce a single lead, neither the NYPD nor the City of New York ever admitted any misconduct. Lawsuits directed at the programme contended that the NYPD’s unconstitutional surveillance of Muslim Americans presented a civil rights breach for overt discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or religion. Lest we forget, the Patriot Act was passed by Congress just weeks after 9/11. The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act sought to ‘deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes.’ The act effectively sanctioned the surveillance of ordinary Americans. The FBI was authorised to obtain phone, computer, and banking records of any individual even suspected of engaging in international terrorism. So much for innocent until proven guilty. The Snowden leaks revealed that the National Security Agency had used Section 215 of the Patriot Act to harvest the phone data of millions of unsuspecting Americans. Eventually, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board declared that there was not ‘a single instance involving a threat to the
United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.’ In June 2002, the Attorney General John Ashcroft drafted a list of Muslim and Arab countries from which all males were required to submit fingerprints to a government register upon entering the US. This regulation programme lasted until 2011, and unsurprisingly never generated a single terrorism-related conviction. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, hate crimes based on race, religion, and ethnicity proliferated. Muslim women became overt targets of abuse, harassment, and discrimination based on their outward appearance. Civil Rights groups like the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor and the Islamic Society of Portland reported that attendance numbers saw a sharp drop due to fears that the Patriot Act would be used to obtain its members’ personal records. The federal government had carte blanche to wiretap any device it deemed suitable. Against a backdrop of civil liberty erosions, the vaguely defined Muslim ‘other’ caused a spike in fear of homegrown terrorism, a suspicion based more on state sanctioned Islamaphobia than rationale. From Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, to the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, the criminalisation of Muslims across the world is following an unsettlingly Orwellian pattern. We don't need seemingly benign apps like Muslim Pro joining the insidious surveillance apparatus.
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