Politics: cash for memories

By Richard North - March 7, 2024

The very last thing I imagined writing about today (it is well past midnight as I sit at my keyboard) was a Muslim war memorial. Had the idea been put to me yesterday, I might have dismissed it out of hand, as inconceivable.

What made the difference was chancellor Jeremy Hunt who chose the moment of his spring budget speech to elevate the idea momentarily to the top of the political agenda, leading his speech with the announcement that he had decided to allocate £1 million towards the cost of building such a memorial.

For this to come out of the blue, in such as prominent fashion, was remarkable enough, but the framing of his statement was little short of jaw-dropping. “As we mourn the tragic loss of life in Israel and Gaza”, Hunt said, “the prime minister reminded us last week of the need to fight extremism and heal divisions”.

As a stand alone statement with no hint of what was to come, that would have been seen as anodyne and somewhat worthy. But it was what followed that launched it into the realms of the bizarre. Said Hunt, following up, “so I start today by remembering the Muslims who died in two world wars in the service of freedom and democracy”.

The striking thing here is that his follow-up is a complete non sequitur. What on earth is the connection between the “tragic loss of life in Israel and Gaza” and “remembering the Muslims who died in two world wars”? In time, space and in sentiment, these events are entirely unconnected. In no way does the former have any links with the latter.

In then arguing, as Hunt does, that “we need a memorial to honour them”, the chancellor may have a point. He may even have a good point. But were the opening words of the annual budget statement really the best place to announce what, in the grander scheme of government business, was a minor administrative detail?

However, some clue as to why Hunt was making the allocation comes from the intervention of his predecessor but one, Sajid Javid who, at a time that does not seem to be exactly recalled, in a place which is not specified, made “representations” to Hunt, calling for the memorial to be funded.

According to the BBC on 9 February, Savid had claimed that around 140,000 Muslims had “made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedom”, and that a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire would “help honour the fallen and educate future generations”.

Again, according to the BBC, Hunt had replied that it was right to honour the sacrifices of those who fought for freedom, but he is said not to have committed himself to providing the money for a memorial. He added that his officials would “be happy to engage with him to identify how best the government can help make this vision a reality”.

Then, apparently without further prompting, almost exactly a month later, up pops Hunt in the most prominent way imaginable, to offer £1 million of taxpayer’s money.

This is at the very point that he is screwing the nation down to the highest level on taxation since 1948 and is setting private debt collectors on the public to squeeze every last penny he can get.

But given the recent examples of civic participation of a goodly part of the Muslim community, as Pete asks with some puzzlement: “How did we get from mobs outside parliament to building a Muslim war memorial inside a fortnight?”.

And that, of course, not only answers the question but illustrates quite how unbelievably naff the chancellor’s statement is. It is not just what he said, but the timing. All it took was a baying mob to parade outside parliament to have MPs quivering in their seats, and now for the chancellor to chuck more money at them.

While, in principle, there can be no harm in having a memorial at the national arboretum – a design was actually approved last March, there doesn’t seem to have been any great pressure from, or enthusiasm in, the Muslim community to get it done.

While the BBC says that the campaign for a Muslim memorial was inspired by a Dr Irfan Malik and started in 2015 by Tazi Husain, who died a year later – with both men thinking that, in the Centenary commemoration of World War One, the contribution of Muslim soldiers had been largely forgotten.

But, according to official documents, a formal charity was not established until 19 October 2020, with only four relatively unknown Muslim trustees.

At its inception, the charity set itself a fundraising goal of £2 million, to day the accumulated donations after over three years amount to £47,894 – less than one fortieth of the sum it is aiming for. Yet, while the Muslim community seems reluctant to fund its own memorial, it seems Javid is quite happy to have the taxpayer do it for it.

Perhaps one of the reasons why there is no great enthusiasm for the project is because Muslims, as a religious body, have no commitment to this country and, during both world wars were not aligned, as a coherent body, to the British government or the allied powers.

In fact, the only thing approaching a dedicated Moslem military formation during the Second World was the 13th Division of the Waffen SS. As to the nominal leader of the Muslim faith, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was an ardent fan of Hitler, even if he had a marginal effect on Nazi policy.

Although the British, during both wars, did employ Muslim units, they were never specifically identified as such and most often served as part of the Indian Army, internally within India and on the frontiers, in Asia confronting the Japanese, and in Africa and (in limited numbers) in Europe.

From 1936 onwards, the British were heavily engaged on the Northwest frontier, suppressing an uprising led by the Waziri leader, the Muslim Fakir of Ipi, who had launched a jihad against British rule which lasted well into 1942. This distracted the Indian Army from its battle with the Japanese, and weakened the British effort elsewhere in Asia.

Most of the soldiers engaged in Europe were line of communication troops and pioneers (labourers), and while Muslims lay claim to 7 Victoria Crosses, the Gurkha Regiment, by contrast, won twelve (of which five were posthumous), from the 120,000 or so who served in the Second World War, compared with the 5.5 million or so Muslims who are said to have participated on the Allied side, in one way or another.

That notwithstanding, there has never been anything to stop Muslims taking part in memorial ceremonies and rituals, and personnel of all faiths have been welcome at the Cenotaph in Whitehall which, in 1926 cost £7,325 to build (inflation-adjusted: £255,332 in 2010) – a fraction of the cost to be allocated to the Muslim memorial.

However, it seems that the Muslims have always been keen to play the victim card, with Irfan Malik (mentioned earlier) thinking that WWI “was very much a white war” (which, in Europe, it was).

It is germane to note, though, that the Jewish Military Association march alongside UK veterans on Remembrance Sunday and have a separate annual Jewish ceremony of Remembrance on the following Sunday in November, staged from the 1930s onwards.

If the Moslems can get over themselves and break away from their death cult obsessions long enough to honour the dead, instead of defacing their memorials, they could make a positive contribution to British society. But for the government simply to throw money at them, in what seems to be a crude attempt to appease the mob, is as offensive as it is fruitless.

Yet, said Jeremy Hunt, to conclude his bizarre statement, “Whatever your faith, colour or class, this country will never forget the sacrifices made for our future”. But, it seems you get more cash for memories if you can raise a baying mob to scream genocidal chants outside parliament. This is no way to heal divisions.