Who Have Been Your Heroes and Villains of 2009?

As 2009 draws to a close and the Islamic year begins, let's ponder on the happenings of the past year and reflect who have been our heroes and villains of 2009.

Here are some of my picks:

Villains

1) 1st Place doesn’t go to one individual but to the absolute masters of propaganda, murder and injustice in our times – the Israeli government and its band of organised killers. The year opened with the Israeli slaughter of Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza. Over 1000 people were murdered in the Israeli onslaught, and there was widespread use of chemical weapons on the civilian population during the Israeli offensive, which further strengthened the charges against Israel of war crimes.

2) 2nd place goes to most of the UK mosques. The European elections were held in June. Before the elections, there was widespread worry that the far-right BNP would gain seats at the European Parliament if there weren’t enough voters turning out to stop them reaching 6% of the total vote – the threshold they would need to break in order to gain seats at the European Parliament.

The Muslim community in the UK was ideally placed to ensure that this didn’t happen because it could vote in a bloc for one of the mainstream British parties to dampen the BNP’s total vote. In the end total turnout for the UK as a whole was around 30% and, of those 30%, the turnout that was Muslim was abysmal. This is due in no small part to the lack of motivation and education from Muslim institutions as to what threat the BNP constituted and how the EU elections would affect people’s lives.

Since then, the BNP are to be given £5 million a year to spout their Islamophobic rants. We have seen the far-right fascists and Islamophobes invade our streets and cause riots throughout the UK and the climate of hatred against Muslims is set to continue.

3) At number 3 we have the new US president, Barak Obama.

In a June speech in Cairo, newly elected President Obama made a promise to the Muslim world that America would be more even handed in its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He insisted Israel put an to end all “settlement” activities (read: colonies) in the West Bank as a condition for bringing peace negotiations back on track. It’s now December, and after a blunt refusal by Israeli PM, Binyamin Netanyahu to halt any further colonisation of the West Bank, no further progress has been made.

It’s not really surprising, given Obama’s pre-election speech to AIPAC (the Israeli lobby in the US), where he promised an “unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security” – at the expense of all others, including Palestinians and the wider Middle-East.

4) This place goes to the Muslim community’s very own “Al Halal” supermarket. During the blessed month of Ramadhan, this supermarket proudly sold Israeli Blood Dates and refused to take them off their shelves.

Unfortunately in 2009, the practice of selling of Israeli blood dates by Muslim shops continued. In 2010, let us wipe this scourge from our community by speaking out, raising more awareness of the issue and, ultimately, getting them removed from shop shelves, insh’Allah.

5) I could go on, Muslims have no shortage of enemies, but I’ve decided to keep my list down to five. My 5th villain is none other than war criminal, Tony Blair.

He proudly asserted that he would have gone ahead and invaded Iraq anyway and killed hundreds of thousands of people, even if he didn’t suspect any weapons of mass destruction (let’s not be fooled here – he invaded Iraq anyway even though he knew there weren’t any weapons). He is due to appear at the Iraq Enquiry.

The war-monger should be tried at the Hague on charges of war crimes. If not on this earth, then certainly his punishment with Allah (SWT) will be severe, insh’Allah.

Heroes

There have been some glimmers of hope amongst the gloom. We only have a few heroes to point out, but their mark on our landscape is not to be under-estimated.

1) Our first set of heroes are the Middlesex Council of Mosques, which called a hustings on 28th May for the EU elections in order to grill their candidates.

As more mosques follow this example of asking questions of the people who hope to represent their constituency, greater accountability will enter the political system and the Muslim voice will be given greater political clout. No longer can candidates hope to secure safe votes from the Muslim community. The general election is coming in March or May 2010 and it’s my sincere hope that mosques around the country will be looking to hold similar meetings so that those who want to be elected by the Muslim community address our concerns first.

2) Here we have the person who organised this campaign against BICOM (the British Israel Communications and Research Centre), where activists disrupted their offices operations.

I unexpectedly came across this video and was absolutely stunned. Well done to the people in there who brought more awareness of the Israeli propaganda machine to the wider public and had the spirit to do something about it rather than sit around and talk (or just ignore the issue completely). May Allah (SWT) reward you for your efforts.

3) Another hero is Peter Oborne, who exposed the British Israel lobby and it’s pervasive influence on the British political system through his excellent documentary, “Inside Britain's Israel Lobby”.

The pro-Israel lobby aims to manipulate the debate about Britain's relationship with Israel and future foreign policies relating to it. Oborne examined how the lobby operates from within parliament and the tactics it employs behind the scenes when engaging with print and broadcast media.

The onslaught on British institutions from the Israeli lobby continues with, recently, our Foreign Secretary promising to re-write the British legal system in order to protect the criminals inside the Israeli government.

4) At number 4 we have the team at Noor-ul-Islam Trust in East London. During the Gaza crisis, they brought together the elected representatives of the community (including its MP) and demanded a response as to what actions they would be taking to help our families in Palestine. Then, in the run up to the European elections, they mobilised the local community and organised a rally in order to show solidarity against the far-right. These are the kinds of simple actions, if done on a large scale, will ensure that the Muslim voice is heard and that our situation is altered for the better here in Britain and abroad.

5) Our final hero is the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. PM Erdogan walked off the stage at the World Economic Forum red-faced after verbally sparring with Israeli President Shimon Peres over the Israeli offensive in Gaza. Here is an individual who has refused to stay silent over the murderous activities of the Israelis, while others have looked the other way. He has gained the respect of all God-conscious people in the world.

So these are my picks and the reasons for them. It is vital that we don’t forget the events which are shaping today’s reality for all of us and that we continue to learn the lessons of our past. Never forget what happened in Gaza; never forget the atrocities committed in Iraq under a blanket of lies and deceptions; never fail to hold our institutions to account for what they failed to do. Always believe that a better future is possible if we learn the lessons of our history and make the changes that we want to see.

So over to you. I'm sure we have left many out, so who have been your heroes and villains of 2009?