‘Gays in Eurabia’

“Four years after the assassination of gay Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, his warning of the threat posed to the rights of European gays and women by intolerant, anti-assimilationist Muslim immigrants is increasingly vindicated by events.

“Muslims have migrated in large numbers to Europe, have more children than ethnic Europeans, are disproportionately involved in crime, and increasingly insist on being governed not by the prevailing civil laws but by Muslim Shari’ah law. Many Muslim clerics in Europe look to the day when Europe will become a Muslim caliphate. Scholar Bat Ye’or has dubbed that future Europe ‘Eurabia’. Already, Muslim leaders in France, Britain, Denmark and Belgium have declared certain Muslim neighborhoods to be under Islamic jurisdiction….

“Submissive infidels are known as dhimmis, a role tacitly embraced by those Westerners who call any criticism of Muslims racist. Fortunately, some are refusing to surrender. On March 25 in Trafalgar Square, British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, a self-described ‘left-wing Green’, joined a crowd including humanists, libertarians and liberal Muslims in a rally to defend freedom of expression….

“Tatchell wrote, ‘Sections of the left moan that the rally is being supported [by] the right. Well, if these socialists object so strongly why don’t they organize their own demo in support of free speech? The truth is that some of the left would rarely, if ever, rally to defend freedom of expression because they don’t wholeheartedly believe in it. Mired in the immoral morass of cultural relativism, they no longer endorse Enlightenment values and universal human rights’.”

Richard J. Rosendall in Washington DC’s gay and lesbian magazine Metro Weekly, 20 April 2006

For an earlier article by Rosendall on Fortuyn, see here.

‘Bringing the gospel to the Muslim counterculture’

While the Church in Wales shows sensitivity to Muslim opposition to the publication of caricatures of the Prophet, the Christian Right evidently has rather less interest in promoting harmonious interfaith relations. The Evangelical Times  website carries the following advertisement for a new publication entitled Islam in Britain:

“It helps us understand why Muslims find it difficult to adjust to life in a society where the majority ethos is secular with a fading Christian backdrop. It explains why most Muslims show allegiance to the worldwide Islamic community rather than the British state – and why full integration into British society is not really happening. And it shows why militant Islam was bound to be influential within the various Muslim communities here. This is an important report that deserves to be read by all who want to understand the Islamic community (or communities) in Britain. It provides background knowledge that will certainly be helpful to all seeking to bring the gospel to the Muslim counterculture.”

Evangelical Times, 20 March 2006

Church recalls ‘Prophet’ magazine

The Church in Wales has appealed to 500 subscribers to its magazine to return their copies after it printed a cartoon satirising the Prophet Muhammad. The editor has resigned after the cartoon was published in the Church’s Welsh-language magazine Y Llan.

The drawing – which was from the French magazine France Soir – satirises the Prophet Muhammad by depicting him sitting on a heavenly cloud with Buddha, and Christian and Jewish deities. He is being told “don’t complain…we’ve all been caricatured here”.

The Archbishop of Wales Barry Morgan wrote to Y Llan‘s approximately 500 subscribers asking them to return their copies, which he said would be reprinted without the cartoon. Dr Morgan also personally contacted Saleem Kidwai, the Muslim Council of Wales’ general secretary, to apologise and to assure him that no offence had been intended.

BBC News, 21 March 2006


The Church showing admirable concern for the culture and sensibilities of the Welsh Muslim community? Surely this is a case for Dhimmi Watch?

Postscript:  Yes, predictably, here it is.

Australian poll shows ignorance of Islam

A poll of 1,300 Australians has found high levels of ignorance about Islam. One third of Australians admitted to knowing nothing about the world’s second largest religion, while about a quarter also believed it to be either a fundamentalist or intolerant faith. More than half of the poll respondents also said they felt threatened by Islam.

One of the researchers behind the study, New South Wales University’s Kevin Dunn, said people tended to feel less threatened by Islam when they had direct contact with its followers. “That varies according to the extent of knowledge someone has and also, fundamentally, the extent of daily contact someone has with Muslims,” he said. “If you know a few Muslims, you’re much less likely to perceive a threat from them.”

The Islamic Council’s Nade Roude said that with 7 per cent of Australia’s population identifying as Muslim, it shows a lot of work needed to be done.

ABC News, 20 March 2006

Danish cartoons: racism has no place on the left

“I’ve just about had it. I cannot watch one more episode of the Daily Show which makes racist jokes about Arabs and Muslims. I am sick and tired of people who see themselves as part of the left writing articles that put a liberal gloss over what is, in essence, a right-wing ‘clash of civilizations’ argument. And I am fed up with an anti-war movement in the United States that will do nothing to defend Muslims against all the attacks they have faced both domestically and internationally. So, I feel compelled to speak out against the steady rightward drift among sections of the left since 9/11 on the question of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism. The Danish cartoon controversy, and the anemic response by the left in this country, is only the latest example of this drift.”

Deepa Kumar in MRZine, 21 February 2006

Sacranie is a fascist, moderate Muslims issue death threats – Namazie and Tatchell claim

maryam namazie 2“The fifth annual Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund meeting was held in London last night despite the pulling out of the guest speaker, the liberal Islamic theologian, Sheikh Dr Muhammad Yusuf due to death threats. Instead the main speaker was the Iranian born secularist Maryam Namazie who claimed that supporters ‘should pay more to hear me speak than some Imam’…. In a vocal attack on the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, she said: ‘He may be a “Sir” but he is still a proponent of political Islam, the fascism of today.’ Reacting to public charges of Islamaphobia, she asked: ‘how can it be Islamophobic to say that people should be able to live a 21st century life.’

“Peter Tatchell, making his annual address to supporters of his human rights fund, expressed his disappointment at the absence of Dr Yusuf: ‘I was looking forward to giving a platform to a liberal Islamic cleric. Sheikh Yusuf is afraid of very serious retribution to him and the ones that he loves. The threats came from people who are members of so called moderate, mainstream Muslim organisations. This shows the scale of the threat from even these moderate groups’.”

Pink News, 21 March 2006

Tariq Ramadan = Hitler, according to Phyllis Chesler

Phyllis Chesler“As Americans, we have a long and legendary history of welcoming and assimilating immigrants. This includes granting political asylum to those in flight from political persecution. But, as Americans, we must also ensure that what has gone wrong in Europe – or what some are now calling ‘Eurabia’ – does not happen here. At this moment in history, we cannot allow a large influx of Arab and Muslim immigrants who have no intention of assimilating into a western, modern, and democratic American way of life…. I am talking about the ways in which a small but organized number of Muslim-Americans and Muslim immigrants, aided by their many Christian- and Jewish-American supporters, are currently seeking to begin the Islamization of America.”

Phyllis Chesler in Front Page Magazine, 21 March 2006

Along with references to “Eurabia” and Bat Ye’or, it’s always a sign that Islamophobia has reached the point of total dementia when a commentator launches into a diatribe against Tariq Ramadan. And Chesler does not disappoint:

“Ramadan is … a suave apologist for Islamic religious and gender apartheid and is, arguably, pro-jihad. He is, no doubt, a ‘moderate’ compared to al-Qaeda’s Bin Laden and Iran’s Ahmadinejad. Yet Ramadan may outdistance such terrorist counterparts in terms of his far more sophisticated disinformation capability…. Why did PEN – a distinguished Association of Writers of which I am a proud member – feel obliged to honor or to ‘invite’ Ramadan to their festive annual conference which will take place at the end of April of 2006? Would they extend a similar honor to Hitler?”

Franklin Graham reaffirms scorn for Islam

Franklin_GrahamThe Rev. Franklin Graham, who outraged Muslims in 2001 when he said that Islam “is a very evil and wicked religion,” told an interviewer for Wednesday’s edition of ABC News “Nightline” that he hasn’t changed his mind about the faith. Asked by ABC correspondent John Donvan whether Muslim groups had succeeded in altering his outlook about Islam, Graham said “No.”

“Do they want to indoctrinate me? Yes. I know about Islam. I don’t need an education from Islam,” he said. “If people think Islam is such a wonderful religion, just go to Saudi Arabia and make it your home. Just live there. If you think Islam is such a wonderful religion, I mean, go and live under the Taliban somewhere. I mean, you’re free to do that.”

Franklin Graham is the successor to his father as head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, based in Charlotte, N.C. He was interviewed in New Orleans, where Franklin and Billy were leading an evangelistic festival.

CAIR news release, 18 March 2006

Bailed terrorist suspect says he may return to Algeria

A terrorist suspect living under restrictive bail conditions requiring him to stay at home for 22 hours every day has signalled that he – and five others – are considering returning to Algeria. The 39-year-old man, who is known simply as “A”, has accused the British government of subjecting him to mental torture and said that he has opened negotiations with the Algerian embassy to arrange his voluntary return.

“I don’t want to live like this. I’m useless to my kids, to society and to my community. I can’t work, I can’t even do the shopping for my wife,” he told the Press Association. “If I’m not going to have my freedom in this country then I have to go back. A human being can’t take all this. Even if there is a risk, I have to take that risk. Here we are not tortured physically but mentally we are tortured. I am the cause of suffering for my children.”

Guardian, 20 March 2006

Tatchell loses Muslim speaker, Maryam Namazie steps in as replacement

Advance publicity for the annual Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund fundraiser, which was held last night, made much of the fact that Sheikh Dr Muhammad Yusuf, Chair of the Council of University Imams, was billed as one of the speakers.

However, Sheikh Yusuf withdrew from the engagement, apparently because of pressure from “senior Muslim figures”. Presumably they made clear to Sheikh Yusuf that Tatchell would use his presence at the event to give credibility to Outrage’s anti-Muslim campaigns.

And how did Tatchell spin the news? In characteristically Islamophobic fashion. It was reported under the headline “Liberal Muslim theologian pulls out of Tatchell lecture after threats: Lecture cancelled after fears for Sheikh’s safety”!

Happily, Maryam Namazie of the Worker Communist Party of Iran stepped in to replace Sheikh Yusuf. Yes, that’s the same Maryam Namazie who described the Islamic headscarf as “comparable to the Star of David pinned on Jews by the Nazis to segregate, control, repress and to commit genocide”. Much more in keeping with the spirit of the event, I’d have thought.