Sarfraz Manzoor

I am in Amsterdam for a conference on European Muslim identity. Last night I appeared on a panel discussion but today I had the day to explore Amsterdam. As it happens today is Eid, although some places are celebrating it tomorrow. Anyway as this is my first time in Amsterdam i thought I would visit the home of Anne Frank which is in the city. Like millions of others I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was a young boy. Earlier today I queued up for an hour and then slowly made my way through the house which has been turned into a museum. The most powerful and emotional part of wandering through the building was to see the bookcase which hid the staircase that led to the secret hiding place where Anne and her family lived out of sight of the Nazis. To see the actual room where Anne sat and wrote her diary was deeply poignant, even with the Italian couple chatting loudly behind me. There were quotes from the diary scattered throughout the museum and one caught my eye especially. It was dated 9 April 1944 and it said this: ‘The time will come when we will be people again and not just Jews. We can never be Dutch or just English or whatever we will always be Jews as well.’ It stuck me that if you replaced the word Jew for Muslim in that sentence it could be taken from today’s newspapers. And it also made me think how sad it is that there is not more understanding between Jews and Muslims. Leaving aside the Middle East situation, if thats not too niave, there are so many things that the two faiths have in common that its sad there is not more emphasis on the common ground. Earlier this week I was at the Barbican where i saw a superb folk orchestra comprising 40 musicians from both Jewish and Muslim musicians. the music was utterly sublime, truly joyous and i felt so privileged to be there. and yet looking around the room there were hardly any other Muslims there. maybe the price put them off, perhaps the Barbican doesnt feature on the radar of most ordinary Muslim families, i suspect that is the case but its their loss and in a wider societal level its everyones loss as well.