Lucy James: The Power of a Hand-Shake

How debate in universities must challenge extremism
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Students are often depicted as those devoted to protest, activism and speaking out. However, for the vast majority this perception is perhaps somewhat skewed. I spent four years as a student at the University of Manchester. Despite the efforts and energies of the candidates, there was an increasingly and depressingly low turnout in the student union elections. In 2007 only around 10% of students voted. By my final year in 2008 this had dwindled to 8%. Reasons varied. Many objected to the practice of block voting and the limited scope this provided for individual candidates not from the extremes. ‘What’s the point’, I remember one close friend telling me, ‘it’s clear that the far left or the far right are going to win and no vote of mine is going to change that’. And it’s true. It was a close battle between the ‘right’ and the ‘left’ (the former beating the latter by a small margin); that is, the Jewish Society beat the coalition of the Socialist Workers’ Party and the Islamic Society (ISOC).

But rather than abstain from voting, students should be willing to challenge this domination by political extremes through open debate and discussion. One year, feeling strongly about the topic, I attended a debate put on by Manchester’s ISOC entitled ‘Women’s rights in Islam’. I was certainly welcome to sit in the lecture theatre. However, among an entirely Muslim audience I soon realised that this was not a discussion rather a series of one-sided recitations from the Qur’an in Arabic. What was billed as a public debate- it became blindingly apparent- was not one I was able to debate in. In 2006 some members of the ISOC were voted into positions at Student Direct, the student paper. There was uproar at the prospect that they were Islamist extremists who were going to ban the most popular pages of the paper: its dating column. Whether or not this was simply a well-perpetuated myth spread among students in the union bar, it powerfully reiterates the distaste for extremism among many students.

Last year, a colleague of mine attended a lecture hosted by Queen Mary’s ISOC. At this event, women had to enter through a separate door, were sat separately at the back, and were prohibited from vocally asking questions- being provided instead with pen and paper. The head of Queen Mary’s ISOC at the time was Faisal Hanjra. He was also president of FOSIS (the ‘voice of Muslim students’ that claims to co-ordinate ISOCS nationwide). I met him last year at a conference. As is customary in Britain, I offered to shake his hand. However, having accepted my male colleague’s hand, my gesture was refused. My hand remained awkwardly hovering in mid-air; apparently it was not fit to shake- it belonged to a woman. I know how Salafists like Hanjra justify this apparent disrespect: I have read the relevant fatwas, such as those by the Saudi hardliner Sheikh Ibn Baz, which declare that physical contact with women, other than close family, is haram. The rigid, literalist interpretation of Islam behind his act may concern me- its ultra conservative perception of women being entirely incompatible with my own liberal principles. However, it is Hanjra’s casual assumption that his beliefs and habits should take precedence over mine that causes me real offence. I appreciate that we must respect one another’s traditions and I am willing to concede some of my own principles for the tolerance of others. However, it is a double-standard to have to respect someone else’s principles, when there is no attempt to respect my own. At the very least I deserved some sort of polite explanation. Fortunately, the majority of British Muslims do not share such attitudes: they would not seek to ban dating columns, refuse shaking hands with the opposite sex or resign women to the back seats of a lecture theatre.

Beyond the example of Islamist extremists there are certainly other groups and other issues. However, in all instances, what is needed is an increased involvement of the moderates, rather than demands and assertions from the more extreme coalitions from the right and left. Students are in an environment with the resources and opportunities to be able to facilitate this. They need to stand up and debate with one another to defeat the extremism active within their universities from all sides. More students must engage, think, and vote. This is taking place. Following Israel’s recent Gaza offensive, anti-Semitism was experienced by some Jewish students on campus. And what was done about it? The student union’s General Secretary submitted the motion ‘Anti-Semitism on Campus’ to the Union Council meeting. Such involvement must be encouraged, extended, facilitated. Most importantly, it must increasingly involve the moderates.

And so it is that I challenge Faisal Hanjra’s reaction; I ask him to shake my hand, or at least to openly debate why he would not.

Lucy James is a research fellow at Quilliam, the world’s first counter-extremism think tank. She has an MA in South Asian studies from the University of Manchester

Lucy James: The Power of a Hand-Shake

How debate in universities must challenge extremism
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