(Credit:Alfredo Borba/WikiCommons)

The Government’s faith adviser, Colin Bloom, published the long-awaited review of government engagement with faith communities, Does government ‘do God?’ An independent review into how government engages with faith. The review is a mixed bag, particularly when it comes to the Muslim community.

Despite some favourable recommendations, Muslims continue to be perceived more harshly than people of other faiths.

Despite some positive coverage on Muslims, Bloom attempts to divide the Muslim community by portraying “true believers” and “non-believers” as the good people – “sincere, peaceful, and decent,” and hence deserving of government consideration.

The report also identifies several areas of British life in which Muslim communities are marginalised. Bloom also urged ministers to develop sharia-compliant student loans to help more Muslims enter universities and to conduct an outreach programme to increase their representation in the armed forces.

With its permissive use of terms like “Islamism” and “Islamist” [i.e., the word ‘Islam’ connected to ‘isms’], the Bloom review is, in essence, no different from the incumbent Islamophobia riddled government it seeks to enlighten.

And the way Bloom phrases his argument is also aimed at demonising Islam. For example, he says in the review: “Islamist extremism, Islamist-inspired terrorism, and the support of terrorist and extremist organisations… are as repulsive to mainstream British Muslims as the acts of Anders Breivik are to mainstream British Christians.”

This sentence by him is telling, trying to say Muslims are repulsed by terrorism and extremism just as Christians are. However, if you read the way he has structured the argument carefully, you will see ‘Islam’ is phrased with extremism and terrorism whilst Christianity is not.

So, he says Muslims are repulsed by “Islamist extremism, Islamist-inspired terrorism.” and that Christians are repulsed by, yes not Christianity, not “Christian extremism or Christian terrorism” but by a terrorist Andres Breivik! It is a very subtle way to demonise Islam.

The focus of the review is more on non-Christian faiths than Christianity despite the latter being the main religion of the country.

And on extremism more pages are devoted to Muslims and Sikhs, only a couple of paragraphs to Hindu extremism and none to Jewish extremism.

The Bloom Review, like ones that came before it, falls into the trap of negatively characterising Muslims while also advocating for their conditional inclusion, that ultimately calls for more compromise of ethos than from any other faith groups.

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