Islam and Socialism

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Sunday February 05, 2006 21:21 by hs

After the "cartoon scandal", a re look if socialists and muslims can work together, without socialists compremishing progressive beliefs such as equal rights for all people regardless of gender, sexuality, religion or race.

Discrimination against Muslims in Britain has increased markedly over the last few years. The horrendous, inhuman attack in Beslan, which outraged the world’s population including the vast majority of Muslims, will undoubtedly increase anti-Muslim prejudice. Hannah Sell takes a socialist approach to how Islamaphobia can be fought, and draws out lessons from the policies of the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian revolution. This article is from the Ocotober edition of Socialism Today. socialistworld.net.

Between one-and-a half and two million Muslim people live in Britain today.

Hannah Sell, Socialist Party
In London alone they come from 50 ethnic backgrounds. As a whole, Muslims are one of the poorest sections of British society. One in seven of economically active Muslims are unemployed, compared with one in 20 for the wider population. The two biggest Muslim communities in Britain, those originating in Pakistan and Bangladesh, are particularly impoverished. For example, in 1999, 28% of white families lived below the poverty line compared with 41% of Afro-Caribbean and 84% of Bangladeshi families.

continued at

http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2004/10/12islam.html