Grooming gangs: This vile racist campaign puts Muslims in serious danger
We don’t expect much from British politicians these days.
Trust is as low as it has ever been, faith in our institutions is beleaguered and the public seem as distant from our leaders as any time I can remember. And yet, even by the exceptionally low bar that has been set over the years, our politics has hit a new low.
Since the new year we have all been engrossed in a renewed national conversation, largely provoked by an offshore, foreign billionaire in Elon Musk, about child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs.
An issue as serious as they come. Only for many of us this is not a new story. We have kept watching as years of investigations took place, enquiries were conducted and serious recommendations were made for reform.
But this latest chapter in the story has taken a particularly dark turn.
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There are those who seem intent on making the scandal of child sexual exploitation and grooming in Britain a problem exclusively in the Pakistani and Muslim community.
Some of the most senior politicians in Westminster, who have never before taken an interest in this issue, seem now to be the loudest voices in the room. Using every platform, every media appearance and every minute in the chambers of the Houses of Parliament to call for a national enquiry and decry "Pakistani Muslim" grooming gangs.
But where were they before?
Why did the Conservative government, in power for over 14 years, not implement a single of the 20 recommendations of Professor Alexis Jay’s seven-year national review into child abuse?
Why does a simple Hansard check show that Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, and Robert Jenrick, did not use any of the time they have had in Parliament over the years to raise this issue before this month? Why has Badenoch not met with any survivors of grooming gangs to hear from them first-hand the changes that need to be made?
We know why.
Disgusting politics
Because this conversation in Westminster has nothing to do with the actual victims or the crimes - this is all politics of the most disgusting kind.
We have a wave of bad-faith actors from across the political spectrum using the very real crimes committed (most often) against young women and girls as a platform to launch their political careers and become the new darlings of the far right.
Gabrielle Shaw, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, an expert in this field, has said that "the weaponisation of people's trauma is reprehensible".
She reminded all of us in the political arena and in the media that "someone's trauma should not be used to score political points".
In spite of that sobering warning, it seems even an issue of this severity is not immune to the usual partisan politics of Westminster.
To anyone paying attention, there appears to be a determined campaign to attribute these horrific crimes to the Pakistani community and Muslims across the country.
To smear an entire community for a whole category of crimes. Look at everything from speeches outright calling this a problem within a single community, to the continued association of "Pakistani" and "Muslim" to grooming gangs.
The truth is that the assertion that this is somehow an exclusively Pakistani and/or Muslim problem simply does not hold up to scrutiny.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has said that it is wrong to say group-based child abuse is predominantly committed by Pakistani men. Figures from the police database have shown that where ethnicity is recorded, 85 percent of group-based child abusers were actually white.
Nazir Afzal, former chief crown prosecutor for north-west England and one of the foremost voices on this topic, stated that opportunity and attitudes were more significant than religion or race in determining abusers. He wrote that "it is not the abusers’ race that defines them, but their attitudes to women and girls".
Professor Alexis Jay, who conducted a seven-year probe into child sexual abuse, has also said that it is (for now) "impossible to know whether any particular ethnic group is over-represented as perpetrators of child sexual exploitation by networks".
A racist campaign
So while some of our worst attention-seeking, pick-me politicians are begging for a retweet from Musk, and continuing to peddle this dangerous rhetoric, I will call it out for what it is - a racist campaign.
I have seen, felt, and written about the scale of Islamophobia in the UK for nearly a decade. But this latest development is the most dangerous it has ever felt
Not because this isn't a national scandal, not because we don’t need serious reform, and certainly not because the victims do not deserve justice.
I will be the first in line to protest the treatment of victims and to fight for their right to justice. But it is because we know too well that falsely blaming an entire community for this horrible crime is extremely dangerous.
We have already seen hate crimes targeting Muslim communities skyrocket in this country. Feeding this sort of far-right rhetoric only puts Muslims in our country in serious danger and does nothing to help victims of sexual exploitation.
Islamophobia soaring
We need now more than ever leaders who can take decisive action to bring justice to victims and bring our country together in the face of attacks from an unstable foreign billionaire.
Muslims have been under attack in British politics for quite a while.
The scale of Islamophobia in British political and media institutions just can not be overstated. I have seen it, felt it, and written about it for nearly a decade. But this latest development is the most dangerous it has ever felt.
Many of my fellow Muslim politicians and media personalities have told me first-hand they have been afraid to speak on this issue publicly for fear of their families' safety.
In 2019, New Zealand saw its worst ever terrorist attack when a series of mass shootings took place in Christchurch targeting mosques and Islamic centres.
On the ammunition of the perpetrators were the words “for Rotherham" - a reference to the grooming gangs cases in Rotherham. These are the real-world impacts of the racist narratives we allow to go unchallenged in our public discourse.
If we are not careful, we run the risk of something similar happening right here at home.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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