The battle for the common ground continues to rage within high-profile British Muslim circles. To me there can be no greater example of this ongoing turf war than the recent Newsnight debate between Quilliam founder Maajid Nawaz, Muslim commentator Mo Ansar, and the Huffington Post’s non-Muslim berater-in-chief Mehdi Hasan.
The three locked horns on BBC Newsnight on Monday, each setting out their respective positions on the ‘Jesus and Mo’ cartoons (which to the BBC’s credit, it actually showed) and on the subject of who speaks for the Muslim community in the UK.
There’s no doubt in my mind Mehdi Hasan wishes he spoke for Britain’s 3 million Muslims, whereas Maajid is seemingly quite content to represent himself, and perhaps his constituents if he wins election to Parliament in 2015.
All in all, my obvious bias considered (if you didn’t know, I can’t stand Mehdi) I think Maajid wipes the floor with these two. Watch for yourself:
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