The Bollywood Stereotype on Islam

 

Why does the Muslim Ummah and Islamic states stay silent over China’s abuse of the Uighurs? They blame India in the same breath.?

Nations that claim to be defenders of the faith offer no protest to the concentration camps writes Nick Cohen in The Guardian 

 

One of China’s ‘re-education’ centres in Dabancheng, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters


When China imposed trade sanctions on Norway in 2010 for honouring the imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo with the Nobel peace prize, it spat out a word we weren’t used to hearing from propagandists for an atheist communist regime, but should get used to today. “It’s a blasphemy,” a party mouthpiece said.

Once, blasphemy was damning the faithful’s gods and sacred books. Now, criticism of the world’s largest dictatorship has become sacrilegious. You shouldn’t be surprised. As some of us tried to say in the 1990s and 2000s, the gap between the sacred and the profane was never as wide as religious sentimentalists and liberal multiculturalists believed.

They went along with the argument that it was bad taste at best and racism at worst to offend believers. You were “punching down” at largely poor and largely Muslim communities. We thought they were being wilfully blind. They did not understand how men with real power and malice were manipulating religious outrage to consolidate their rule over their wretched population. Iran issued a death sentence on Salman Rushdie in 1989 for satirising Islam’s foundation myths in The Satanic Verses. Its theocratic dictator, Ayatollah Khomeini, was augmenting his powers by claiming to speak for the Muslim world, as well as taking aim at novelists. When the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published largely innocuous cartoons of Muhammad in 2005, to assert the right to mock religion, the Egyptian and Syrian dictators, Hosni Mubarak and Bashar al-Assad, turned a local argument into a global campaign against Denmark. The cries of rage usefully distracted from their corruption and misrule. I could add further examples but they tell the same story. Authoritarian politics and authoritarian religion are just two sides of the same debased coin.

China has stripped away the religious justifications to reveal what was once half-hidden: unadorned and unstoppable power. In many countries, criticising China is the new blasphemy. Nowhere can you see the power more nakedly displayed than in Muslim-majority regimes. Once, they tried to murder blasphemous novelists and screamed about their desire to defend the prophet from the smallest insult. Today, they bend their knees and bite their tongues as China engages in unspeakable atrocities against the largely Muslim Uighur population of western China.

One of the great crimes of the 21st century is being committed in front of our eyes. We see it, yet we don’t register it. The Chinese Communist party is reverting to type, and reviving the totalitarian fear of the Mao era. To bring down numbers of the largely Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang, the China scholar Adrian Zenz reports, the Communists are forcing women to be sterilised or fitted with contraceptive devices. If they resist, the state sends them to join the one million Uighur people and other Muslim minorities detained in what the state defines as “re-education” camps. A BBC investigation found that China was separating children from their families so they grew up without understanding Islam.


Countries that could not tolerate Rushdie's magical realist novel can live with the mass sterilisation of Muslim women

It may be a cheap point but it remains true that if a western country were to display one-tenth, one-hundredth or one-thousandth of the brutality that China is inflicting on Muslims, the global left would be burning with outrage. (Editor's note - See the oppobrium heaped on Modi and the BJP in India)

If you want to be charitable, its silence can in part be explained by logistical difficulties. Reporters are free to cover China’s suppression of democracy in Hong Kong, for the time being at any rate, but cannot get near Xinjiang without taking extraordinary risks. With no footage of their suffering, millions can suffer unnoticed in the dark.

But the main reasons why Muslims suffer in silence is that the Muslim-majority countries that raged against Rushdie, Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo have decided to stay silent. They use the idea of Muslim solidarity only when it suits them.

In July 2019, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and other Muslim-majority states that pose as defenders of the faith helped to block a western motion at the United Nations calling for China to allow “independent international observers” into the Xinjiang region. Iran issues occasional criticisms but wants Chinese support in its struggle against the Trump administration and so keeps its complaints coded. Their hypocrisy is almost funny, if you take your humour black. Iran, Egypt, Syria and dozens of other countries that could not tolerate a magical realist novel can live with the mass sterilisation of Muslim women. They will give concentration camps a conniving wink of approval, but draw the line at cartoons in a Danish newspaper.

China sterilising ethnic minority women in Xinjiang, report says

Many have been bought off. China is now a more active and influential voice at the United Nations because so many countries are benefiting from billions of dollars in Chinese investments through its “Belt and Road” infrastructure programme. As Norway found in 2010, and Australia found this year when it asked for an international inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, those who blaspheme against China face cyber-attacks and sanctions. Better to take the rewards and avoid the punishments.

Following the money, however, can lead you into a dead end. In a survey of China’s growing power, the Economist noted it was making the world safe for autocracy. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, keeps his conservative base happy in Turkey by posing as an ostentatiously Islamic strongman. But he is not likely to condemn the abuse of Muslims by China when he is just as keen on abusing the rights of his domestic opponents. The Chinese world order appeals to the freemasonry of publicity-shy sadists. You say nothing about what we do to our subject people and we will say nothing about what you do to yours.

“The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes,” said Salman Rushdie when he was in fear of his life in 1990. He was talking about conservative Islam. China is now turning criticism of its disastrous record on incubating the Covid-19 virus and its atrocities against its Muslim minorities into crimes, and the people who should be shouting the loudest are bowing their heads in reverential silence.

The Muslim Ummah have abandoned the Rohingyas

by Girish Menon

While the Rohingyas starve, live in fenced in camps or are on boats in high seas with no country willing to accommodate them the Islamic organisations are loudly quiet in their response while western human rights organisations as well as Jewish holocaust survivors espouse their cause. So what happened to the universal brotherhood of Islam? Why don't they offer refuge to their fellow brethren?

The Rohingyas were used by the British during the second world war as a fifth column to defeat the Japanese in Burma. Towards this end they were resettled in the Arakan area of Burma, given arms, money and training by the Allied forces. After the British withdrew from the area and new countries like East Pakistan was created, the Arakan province was to become a part of Burma. At this time the Rohingyas started a jihad against the Burmese government to get their territories to be a part of Jinnah's East Pakistan. Many Islamist organisations were active in this jihad.

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At the time the Rohingyas used the 'dar-ul-harb' concept to refuse to integrate with the Burmese population where they were in a minority. Like their Muslim brethren in the northern plains of India they did not wish to live in a country where they were in a minority. They were actively supported in this jihad by Islamic organisations in Pakistan.

The Burmese, unlike the Indians, when they defined their citizenship laws were unwilling to accommodate this group with a separatist and jihadist motive and the Rohingyas were deemed stateless. So, from then on the only way out for the Rohingyas was to pay smugglers to get them out of the Arakan province into countries where they could lead a decent life.

So why are the Islamist countries not going the extra mile to help their brethren? Why is Pakistan (The holy land for the pure) not inviting these Rohingyas to resettle them in their lands? Why is the Islamic State not taking them to Iraq or Syria nor the al Qaeda making attempts to rescue them? Can we say that NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) supersedes the Islamic Brotherhood?

We should have been traumatised into action by this war in 2011. And 2012. But now?

Robert Fisk in The Independent 29 Aug 2013

Before the stupidest Western war in the history of the modern world begins – I am, of course, referring to the attack on Syria that we all now have to swallow – it might be as well to say that the Cruise missiles which we confidently expect to sweep onto one of mankind’s oldest cities have absolutely nothing to do with Syria. 

They are intended to harm Iran. They are intended to strike at the Islamic Republic now that it has a new and vibrant president – as opposed to the crackpot Mahmoud Ahmedinejad – and when it just might be a little more stable.  Iran is Israel’s enemy.  Iran is therefore, naturally, America’s enemy.  So there is nothing pleasant about the regime in Damascus.  Nor do these comments let the regime off the hook when it comes to mass gassing.  But I am old enough to remember that when Iraq – then America’s ally – used gas against the Kurds of Hallabjah in 1988, we did not assault Baghdad.  Indeed, that attack would have to wait until 2003, when Saddam no longer had any gas or any of the other weapons we nightmared over.  And I also happen to remember that the CIA put it about in 1988 that Iran was responsible for the Hallabjah gassings, a palpable lie that focused on America’s enemy whom Saddam was then fighting on our behalf.  And thousands – not hundreds – died in Hallabjah.  But there you go.  Different days, different standards.

And I suppose it’s worth noting that when Israel killed up to 17,000 men, women and children in Lebanon in 1982 in an invasion supposedly provoked by the attempted PLO murder of the Israeli ambassador in London – it was Saddam’s mate Abu Nidal who arranged the killing, not the PLO, but that doesn’t matter now – America merely called for both sides to exercise “restraint”.  And when, a few months before that invasion, Hafez al-Assad – father of Bashar – sent his brother up to Hama to wipe out thousands of Muslim Brotherhood rebels, nobody muttered a word of condemnation.  “Hama Rules,” is how my old mate Tom Friedman cynically styled this bloodbath.  Anyway, there’s a different Brotherhood around these days – and Obama couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘boo’ when their elected president got deposed.

So what in heaven’s name are we doing?  After countless thousands have died in Syria’s awesome tragedy, suddenly – now, after months and years of prevarication – we are getting upset about a few hundred deaths.  We should have been traumatised into action by this war in 2011.  And 2012.  But now?  Why?  Well, I suspect I know the reason.  I think that Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless army might just be winning against the rebels whom we secretly arm.  With the assistance of the Lebanese Hizballah – Iran’s ally in Lebanon – the Damascus regime broke the rebels in Qusayr and may be in the process of breaking them north of Homs.  Iran is ever more deeply involved in protecting the Syrian government.  Thus a victory for Bashar is a victory for Iran.  And Iranian victories cannot be tolerated by the West.

And while we’re on the subject of war, what happened to those magnificent Palestinian-Israeli negotiations John Kerry was boasting about?  While we express our anguish at the hideous gassings in Syria, the land of Palestine continues to be gobbled up.  Israel’s Likudist policy – to negotiate for peace until there is no Palestine left – continues apace, which is why King Abdullah of Jordan’s nightmare (a much more potent one than the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ we dreamed up in 2003) grows larger:  that Palestine will be in Jordan, not in Palestine.

But if we are to believe the nonsense coming out of Washington, London, Paris and the rest of the ‘civilised’ world, it’s only a matter of time before our swift and avenging sword smiteth the Damascenes.  To observe the leadership of the rest of the Arab world applauding this destruction is perhaps the most painful historical experience for the region to endure.  And the most shameful.  Save for the fact that we will be attacking Shiite Muslims and their allies to the handclapping of Sunni Muslims.  That’s what civil war is made of. 

Islam's ability to empower is a magnet to black British youths

When I was younger it was Islam's sense of brotherhood that my life needed, not the passivity of Christian doctrine

• 
• • Abdul Haqq Baker
  • theguardian.com, Monday 19 August 2013 19.04 BST

'Islam's monotheistic foundation made sense to me and was easy to comprehend.' Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian

A seminar was hosted last month by Christians Together in England to consider ways to "stem the flight of black British youths to Islam and radicalisation". In an unprecedented move, Muslims were invited to attend – and they did. Together, both faith groups discussed the reasons why a growing number of young black people are choosing Islam in preference to Christianity. According to this morning's BBC Radio 4's Today programme, one in nine black Christian men are converting to Islam.

Following in my father's footsteps, I was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Sunday mass regularly as a child. I also attended a Roman Catholic secondary school – initially a cultural shock as I found myself the only black student among a predominantly white class. The religious focus of the school was, however, a refreshing contrast to my urban, street background. Teachers and students were more serious about God than at my previous schools. A student was not considered "nerdy" or "odd" due to their religiosity. I was therefore able to excel in religious studies and was successful in my final O-level exam.

During these lessons, the more we learned about religion, the more we questioned and challenged particular concepts, particularly relating to Christianity. Questions about the concept of the trinity – the Godhead being three in one – caused many debates as some of us; myself and others did not find this logical or feasible. Our religious studies teacher became exasperated by persistent questions on this topic, and arranged for the local priest to attend and address the question. His explanations did little to remove our doubts in this very fundamental and important area of faith.

I recall one particular lesson where we were doing Bible studies and I queried why we, as Christians, failed to prostrate in the same manner that Jesus had in the garden of Gethsemane prior to his arrest. I was unable to identify any relationship between Jesus's prayer and ours as his Christian followers. However, the Muslim prayer most closely resembled Jesus's.

After leaving school, I lost contact with most of my school friends. I also abandoned many aspects of Christianity and instead submerged myself into the urban street culture of my local friends and community – we would make our own religion based on the ethics and beliefs that made sense to us.

The passivity that Christianity promotes is perceived as alien and disconnected to black youths growing up in often violent and challenging urban environments in Britain today. "Turning the other cheek" invites potential ridicule and abuse whereas resilience, strength and self-dignity evokes respect and, in some cases, fear from unwanted attention.

I converted to Islam after learning about the religion's monotheistic foundation; there being only one God – Allah who does not share his divinity with anything. This made sense and was easy to comprehend. My conversion was further strengthened by learning that Islam recognised and revered the prophets mentioned in Judaism and Christianity. My new faith was, as its holy book the Qur'an declares, a natural and final progression of these earlier religions. Additionally, with my newfound faith, there existed religious guidelines that provided spiritual and behavioural codes of conduct. Role models such as Malcolm X only helped to reinforce the perception that Islam enabled the empowerment of one's masculinity coupled with righteous and virtuous conduct as a strength, not a weakness.

My personal experiences are supported by academic research on the same topic: Richard Reddie, who is himself a Christian, conducted research on black British converts to Islam. My own studies revealed that the majority of young people I interviewed converted from Christianity to Islam for similar reasons to me.

Islam's way of life and sense of brotherhood were attractive to 50% of interviewees, whereas another 30% and 10% respectively converted because of the religion's monotheistic foundations and the fact that, holistically, the religion "made sense" and there were "no contradictions".

My research examined whether such converts were more susceptible to violent radicalisation or more effective at countering it. The overwhelming conclusion points to the latter – provided there are avenues to channel these individuals' newly discovered sense of empowerment and identity towards constructive participation in society, as opposed to a destructive insularity which can be exploited by extremists.

Many Muslim converts – not just black British ones – will confirm the sense of empowerment Islam provides, both spiritually and mentally. It also provides a context within which such individuals are able to rise above the social, cultural and often economic challenges that tend to thwart their progress in today's society. Turning the other cheek therefore is never an option.

Muslims that 'minority politics' left behind

KHALID ANIS ANSARI

  

 

The pasmanda’s quest for empowerment will help democratise Indian Islam and deepen democracy in the country

‘Pasmanda’, a Persian term meaning “those who have fallen behind,” refers to Muslims belonging to the shudra (backward) and ati-shudra (Dalit) castes. It was adopted as an oppositional identity to that of the dominant ashraf Muslims (forward castes) in 1998 by the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz, a group which mainly worked in Bihar. Since then, however, the pasmanda discourse has found resonance elsewhere too.

The dominant perception is that Islam is an egalitarian religion and that Indian Muslims on the whole, especially in the post-Sachar scenario, are a marginalised community. The pasmanda counter-discourse takes issue with both these formulations. In terms of religious interpretation, Masood Falahi’s work Hindustan mein Zaat Paat aur Musalman (2006) has convincingly demonstrated how the notion of kufu (rules about possible marriage relations between groups) was read through the lens of caste by the ‘manuwadi’ ulema and how a parallel system of “graded inequality” was put into place in Indian Islam.

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Caste-based disenfranchisement

As far as the social sphere is concerned, Ali Anwar’s Masawat ki Jung (2000) has documented caste-based disenfranchisement of Dalit and backward caste Muslims at the hands of self-styled ashraf leaders in community organisations like madrasas and personal law boards, representative institutions (Parliament and State Assemblies) and departments, ministries and institutions that claim to work for Muslims (minority affairs, Waqf boards, Urdu academies, AMU, Jamia Millia Islamia, etc). The book also underlines stories of humiliation, disrespect and violence on caste grounds that various pasmanda communities have to undergo on a daily basis, at least in northern parts of India.

Thus, pasmanda commentators contest the two key elements of mainstream ‘Muslim’ or ‘minority’ discourse —Islam as an egalitarian religion and Indian Muslims on the whole as an oppressed community. Islam may be normatively egalitarian but actual-existing Islam in Indian conditions is deeply hierarchical. Similarly, all Muslims are not oppressed, or not to the same degree, at any rate: Muslims are a differentiated community in terms of power, with dominant (ashraf) and subordinated (pasmanda) sections. Consequently, the so-called ‘minority politics’, which has been quite content in raising symbolic and emotional issues so far, is really the politics of dominant caste Muslims that secures their interests at the expense of pasmanda Muslims. Not surprisingly, a recurrent theme in pasmanda narratives is that minority politics has singularly failed to address the bread-and-butter concerns of the pasmanda Muslims, who constitute about 85 per cent of the Indian Muslim population and come primarily from occupational and service biradaris.

The notion of ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ communities in India — read primarily in terms of religious identity — is of modern origin and linked with the emergence and consolidation of a hegemonic secular nation-state project. In this sense, while ‘secular’ nationalism becomes the locus of legitimate power and violence, Hindu and Islamic nationalisms become the sites of illegitimate power. The seemingly epic battles that are constantly fought within this conceptual framework — around communal riots or ‘Hindu’/‘Islamic’ terror more recently in the post-9/11 world — have been instrumental in denying a voice to subordinated caste communities across religions and in securing the interests of ‘secular,’ Hindu or Muslim elites respectively. In this sense, the pasmanda articulation has highlighted the symbiotic nature of majoritarian and minoritarian fundamentalism and has sought to contest the latter from within in order to wage a decisive battle against the former. As Waqar Hawari, a pasmanda activist, says: “While Muslim politicians like Imam Bukhari and Syed Shahabuddin add the jodan [starter yoghurt], it is left to the Hindu fundamentalists to prepare the yoghurt of communalism. Both of them are responsible. We oppose the politics of both Hindu and Muslim fanaticism.”

Faith and ethnicity

The structures of social solidarity that pasmanda activists work with are deeply influenced by the entangled relation between faith and ethnicity. The domains of Hinduism and Islam are quite complex, with multiple resources and potentialities possible: in various ways they exceed the ‘Brahminism’ and ‘Ashrafism’ that have come to over-determine them over time. On the one hand, the pasmanda Muslims share a widespread feeling of ‘Muslimness’ with the upper-caste Muslims, a solidarity which is often parochialised by internal caste and maslak-based (sectarian) contradictions. On the other hand, pasmanda Muslims share an experience of caste-based humiliation and disrespect with subordinated caste Hindus, a solidarity which is equally interrupted by the discourse around religious difference incessantly reproduced by upper caste institutions. Since the express object of the pasmanda movement has been to raise the issue of caste-based exclusion of subordinate caste Muslims, it has stressed on caste-based solidarity across religions. As Ali Anwar, the founder of Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz, says: “There is a bond of pain between pasmanda Muslims and the pasmanda sections of other religions. This bond of pain is the supreme bond … That is why we have to shake hands with the pasmanda sections of other religions.”

This counter-hegemonic solidarity on caste lines is effectively encapsulated in the pasmanda slogan ‘Dalit-Pichda ek saman, Hindu ho ya Musalman’ (All Dalit-backward castes are alike, whether they be Hindu or Muslim). At the same time, birth-based caste distinctions are sought to be transcended from the vantage point of an egalitarian faith: “We are not setting the Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims against the so-called ashraf Muslims. Our movement is not directed against them. Rather, we seek to strengthen and empower our own people, to enable them to speak for themselves and to secure their rights and justice … We welcome well-meaning people of the so-called ashraf background … who are concerned about the plight of our people to join us in our struggle.” It is in the midst of such complex negotiations, the punctuated nature of faith and caste-based solidarities, that the pasmanda emerges as a political factor.

Overall, pasmanda politics has relied on transformative constitutionalism and democratic symbolism to attain its social justice goals — the deepening of existing affirmative action policies, adequate representation of pasmanda Muslims in political parties, state support for cottage and small-scale industries, democratisation of religious institutions and interpretative traditions, etc. Obviously, it confronts all the challenges that any counter-hegemonic identity movement faces in its formative phases: lack of resources and appropriate institutions, cooption of its leaders by state and other dominant ideological apparatuses, lack of relevant movement literature, internal power conflicts, and so on. Also, as Rammanohar Lohia said: “The policy of uplift of downgraded castes and groups is capable of yielding much poison. A first poison may come out of its immediate effects on men’s minds; it may speedily antagonise the Dvija without as speedily influencing the Sudras. With his undoubted alertness to developments and his capacity to mislead, the Dvija may succeed in heaping direct and indirect discredit on the practitioners of this policy long before the Sudra wakes up to it.” These are the challenges that the pasmanda activists face while confronting the ashrafiya-dominated minority politics. However, their struggle for a post-minority politics is on and one hopes it will democratise Indian Islam in the long run by triggering a process of internal reform. The pasmanda critique of the majority-minority or the secular-communal dyad will also contribute to a democratic deepening that will benefit all of India’s subaltern communities in the long run.

(Khalid Anis Ansari is a PhD candidate at the University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands. He also works with The Patna Collective, New Delhi, and engages with the pasmanda movement as an interlocutor and knowledge-activist. Email: khalidanisansari@gmail.com)

Freemasons launch recruitment drive for young women

Charlotte Philby in The Independent

Nikki Roberts is someone a teacher might call a good “all-rounder”: smart, pretty, lots of friends. Aged 31, she is also a far cry from your typical Freemason. But that, if the Federation of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry has its way, is about to change.

Forget secretive circles of white-haired men locking fingers in strange handshakes, they say. A British branch is in the throes of a thoroughly modern recruitment drive. It is using Facebook and Twitter to sign up new members, particularly young women, to its society.

“A lot of people have misconceptions about what Masonry is,” Ms Roberts says. Not surprising, given that for centuries members of this traditionally male club have refused to divulge what goes on behind closed doors in meetings and ceremonies. “I can say that it [the Freemasons] is an association, a fellowship if you like, dictated by a system of morals, with lot of symbols and philosophy...” Roberts explains. She compares it to an “occult”: “You need to believe in a divine intelligence or supreme being.”

Since joining the Freemasons five years ago, Roberts says her life has been transformed. “I gave up a lucrative job in the City and now I work in health and social care, something more rewarding,” she says. While cohorts at her lodge (one of the only mixed gender orders in the world, the British Federation) range from party-planners to nurses – many of them female – there are other common elements among members, she says. “The kind of people it draws are interested in being good people; we have respect for laws, we like giving to charity... we live by certain morals.” It is a “life-long commitment”, she adds.

The biggest misconception, Roberts says, is that women are not suited to joining the club. “People choose the Masons in order to become more aware and to awaken areas of their mind to their true nature; women, being naturally nurturing and intuitive, are particularly responsive to that.” That, however, is a matter of opinion. Ask Ken Kirk, 86, a former policeman and a member of the strictly-male United Grand Lodge of England and the answer is clear: “Mixed gender orders? Absurd.”

At first glance, Hexagon House, the British Federation’s Masonic headquarters in Surrey, does little to shift the fusty image. Inside this Surbiton base-camp, the 21st century seems a world away. The hallway is stuffed full of archaic artefacts, such as one might expect from a fraternal system dating back 500 years (the first clubs were recorded in Scotland in the late 16th century): ceremonial firing glasses, brass etchings and silk wall-hangings adorned with obscure symbols.

Follow the carved wooden staircase to the second floor, however, and there are small signs that that this particular order is trying to embrace the modern world.

On the shelves, alongside The Book of Mirdad and The House of the Temple (and a dark cloak hanging on the back of the door) is an A4 folder labelled “Website statistics” and a novelty mug with the logo “old masons never die / you’ll have to join to find out why”.

Worldwide, there are 6 million active Freemasons, with 2 million in the US and around 400,000 in Britain. At the moment the Federation of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, founded by ideological polymath Annie Besant in 1902, has around 300 members (the majority of them women), and is one of the most progressive – and smaller – orders; many orders won’t let a young women through the door.

Conspiracy theories about what being a Freemason entails are rife. With famous alumni including Winston Churchill and Robbie Burns, the most common perception is that this is an elite club populated by powerful men. That is the dated image the Federation is seeking to change, explains Suzanne Jozefowicz, its secretary. “Masonic membership worldwide is dropping,” she says, and an image refresh is in order. “Freemasonry isn’t about the past, it is about the future, we need to reflect the world around us.”

Jozefowicz, who joined the British federation in 1984, is a suitably modern figurehead for the British Federation. Raised as a Catholic (“But I asked questions like ‘why isn’t God a woman?’ and never got an answer”), she worked as a school-teacher and then a rock musician before joining this, one of the few mixed-sex fellowships, in her twenties. “When confronted with challenges in life people invariably look for an explanation... [we] frequently turn to religion but more and more people are finding that doesn’t necessarily answer the sort of nagging ache within them to understand the purpose of life and what happens or not afterwards.”

So what does Freemasonry offer that is so different? “The natural processes of life come into play,” she says. “Masonry is experiential, it’s not something you can learn like you would for an exam... because Masonry is about your own personal search for truth.” Jozefowicz will confirm that there are various levels of membership, although not the existence of a supreme 33rd degree, which is one popular conspiracy.

“The most basic level is the apprentice, as found in the old building trades,” she says. “He would join with an expert craftsman and spend his time learning the basics; it was a very passive learning process...” Jozefowicz explains by way of analogy: “The apprentice then becomes a journeyman or, as we phrase it, a fellow of the craft, who is able to do work under the direction of the expert craftsman but isn’t yet able to go out of his own....”

At that point, he (or she) is given “some kind of broken token, half of which he would take, and the other half of which his mentor would keep; so the journeyman could go to different places but ultimately he was still bound to his teacher. “In the third and final degree, the secretary says, “the journeyman reaches his maturity and is able to go out as a recognised craftsman in his own right.” By which, she says, she also means “journeywoman”. “We have people of every background in our order,” she adds. “Now the majority are professionals, but we want to expand that out. We will open our door to anyone who knocks.”

Heading back downstairs to the library, past the loo (“It says Gentleman on the door but actually it is for women, too!”), Jozefowicz employs yet another analogy to explain what Freemasonry can bring to the contemporary citizen: “It is about gaining self-knowledge by way of practical instruments: there is the trowel, the gavel, the chisel, the ruler, the square... these are metaphorical instruments of measurement and calculation.”

Keeping their secrets secret is a Masonic priority. In order to ensure a low drop-out rate, candidates are thoroughly vetted; only once that has been done does the initiation begin.

At Hexagon House the magic happens in The Grand Temple room, replete with astrological symbols painted on the ceiling, there are wooden thrones surrounded by carved wooden objects and an organ. But what really goes on once the music starts and the incense has been lit?

“There is a handshake, yes,” Jozefowicz confirms. “But they are part of the things that are secret in each ceremony so [what they consist of] is one thing that I can’t disclose to you.” Even if she did, she says, the knowledge would be useless out of context: “It’s purely a means of recognition and generally speaking it’s only used within the lodge.”

What about the noose, which according to hearsay is placed around the inductee’s neck? “Let’s not call it a noose, let’s call it a cable-tow,” Jozefowicz says. “The significance is quite complex... [a similar rope] is used to moor a ship to its mooring, so it is a way of associating the person with the lodge, and also a symbol of something referred to as the silver cord... It is also is a reminder of the mortality of the individual because obviously if you get hung, you die.”

The rolled-up trouser leg? “For anything you go through in life there is always a specific preparation, and Masonry there is the same,” the secretary explains. “The practice varies, according to which obedience or which working or which lodge you go to... but always some of that is physical and some is mental. You will find in other orders that the rolled up trouser leg is part of that preparation. We tend not to get too distracted by things like that...”

“We open our arms to anybody, of any background, religion or gender,” Josefowicz concludes. “Other Masonic organisations have historically taken a lot more controlled approach to what they release in public. We have always advertised our presence, we’ve had numerous open days, people have been invited even to attend open ceremonies... We hide our answers in plain sight.”