Yearly Archives: 2006

Islam and European identity – Tariq Ramadan responds to the Pope

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq_RamadanTariq Ramadan argues that the problems with Pope Benedict’s recent controversial speech go deeper than the mere use of an offensive medieval quotation:

“…. the pope attempted to set out a European identity that would be Christian by faith and Greek by philosophical reason. Islam, which has apparently had no such relationship with reason, would thus be foreign to the European identity that has been built atop this heritage.

“A few years ago, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he set forth his opposition to the integration of Turkey into Europe on a similar basis. Muslim Turkey never was and never will be able to claim an authentically European culture. It is another thing; it is the Other.

“These are the messages that cry out for an answer, far more than talk of jihad. This profoundly European pope is inviting the peoples of the continent to become aware of the central, inescapable Christian character of their identity, which they risk losing. The message … is deeply troubling and potentially dangerous in its reductionism.

“This is what Muslims must, above all, respond to; they must challenge a reading of the history of European thought from which the role of Muslim rationalism is erased, in which the Arab-Muslim contribution would be reduced to mere translation of the great works of Greece and Rome.

“The selective memory that so easily forgets the decisive contributions of rationalist Muslim thinkers like al-Farabi (10th century), Avicenna (11th century), Averroes (12th century), al-Ghazali (12th century), Ash-Shatibi (13th century) and Ibn Khaldun (14th century) is reconstructing a Europe that practices self-deception about its own past. If they are to reappropriate their heritage, Muslims must demonstrate, in a manner that is both reasonable and free of emotional reactions, that they share the core values upon which Europe and the West are founded.

“Neither Europe nor the West can survive if we continue to attempt to define ourselves by excluding, and by distancing ourselves from, the Other – from Islam, from the Muslims – whom we fear.”

New York Times, 20 September 2006

Tory denounces ‘red-brown coalition’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Robert Halfon, political director of Conservative Friends of Israel, reviews Michael Gove’s book Celsius 7/7:

“In stark terms, Celsius 7/7 suggests that just as Fascism subsumed tolerant nationalism and communism engulfed moderate socialism, Islamism has subjugated Islam…. In the bleak world that is painted by Celsius 7/7,  it is the free West – just as in the 1930s – that has allowed this rise in Islamism to continue unabated. Through a mixture of short term self interest and so called ‘realpolitik’, it is the West that is the primary author of its own misfortune…. The West’s lack of will to deal with Islamism, is buttressed by huge sections of the media and elements of the left who view the conflict between the free world and Islamism as one of moral relativism and moral equivalence….

“Moral relativism and moral equivalence have provided a cloak in which the left can embrace Islamism as a means by which to express their hostility to capitalism, the West and particularly the United States. Israel becomes the prism which the left and media establishment can unite against. So Ken Livingstone can nakedly court the Islamic vote in London, by making seemingly anti Semitic remarks and virulent attacks on the State of Israel. We have a grotesque spectacle of the re-emergence of the red-brown coalition in which left wingers – previously campaigners for sexual equality and freedom of speech – form common cause with Islamists whose raison d’etre is repression of minorities and dictatorship.

“There are of course some honourable exceptions. Peter Tatchell being a prime example and the group of left intellectuals behind the Euston Manifesto.”

ConservativeHome.com, 21 September 2006

I was going to comment that, as an alternative to a red-brown coalition, Halfron proposes a blue-red one. Except, of course, that Tatchell and the Euston Manifesto signatories long ago abandoned politics that could in any way be categorised as socialist.

A political pope

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In recent Islamophobic diatribes, the Pope and others have castigated the Muslims for their resort to the sword to spread their religion. This tactic is outrageous for it airbrushes the crusades, the Inquistion and the Holocaust out of history. All of these atrocities were perpetrated by Christians against millions of victims among the unfortunate non-believers, pagans, Jews and Muslims who lost their lives in wars, in courts of Inquistion or in the Nazi extermination camps arrayed across Germany and Poland….”

Brilliant demolition of Pope Benedict’s ignorant bigotry towards non-Christian religions by Michael Carmichael.

Planetary Movement, 19 September 2006

Benedict’s Papal bull is worthy of Blair

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Pope’s sectarian attack on Islam at Regensburg was strikingly reminiscent of Tony Blair’s Los Angeles speech on August 1, whooping it up for the War on Terror…. In Los Angeles, Blair referred to an ‘elemental struggle about values … for the soul of the region’, in which the West, perforce, must play a part: ‘We want moderate, mainstream Islam to triumph over reactionary Islam.’ Both men defend Western intervention in the Muslim world to sort out good Islam from bad Islam. The difference between Pope and Premier is the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedle DD.

“This is the main reason Muslims are outraged at Benedict. It doesn’t have to do with irrational sensitivity on the part of religious fundamentalists. It has to do with the function of the Regensburg speech as war propaganda. Aggressors in all wars call history in evidence to elevate their own purpose while demonising (it’s the right word in this context) the enemy. Thus, Benedict’s specific charge was that Islam, of its nature, in contrast to Christianity, endorses the notion of ‘spreading the faith through violence’. The dishonesty is of positively Blairite proportion.”

Eamonn McCann in the Belfast Telegraph, 21 September 2006

Canadian students set up task force to study Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Canadian Federation of Students launched a task force yesterday that will go from school to school across the province to hear from Muslim students who have had good and bad experiences because of their religion.

“I’ve noticed differences in how people treat you,” U of T student Ausma Malik said, adding the treatment can be subtle and come from both students and faculty. Malik will sit on the task force made up of Muslims and non-Muslims from inside and outside the student community.

The task force started as a campaign against “Islamaphobia, anti-Semitism and racism” after Muslim students at Ryerson University were targets of hateful graffiti and posters two years ago, said Jesse Greener, the federation’s Ontario chairman.

Toronto Sun, 21 September 2006

Hirsi Ali arrives in the US

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi AliThe Washington Post on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, newly arrived in the United States:

“Her story is told in a riveting new book, Murder in Amsterdam, by Ian Buruma, who is not alone in finding her – this ‘Enlightenment fundamentalist’ – somewhat unnerving and off-putting…. He is dismissive of the idea that she is a Voltaire against Islam: Voltaire, he says, offended the powerful Catholic Church, whereas she offends ‘only a minority that was already feeling vulnerable in the heart of Europe’.

“She, however, replies that this is hardly a normal minority. It is connected to Islam’s worldwide adherents. Living sullenly in European ‘dish cities’ – enclaves connected by satellite television and the Internet to the tribal societies they have not really left behind – many members of this minority are uninterested in assimilation into open societies…. Europe, she thinks, is invertebrate. After two generations without war, Europeans ‘have no idea what an enemy is’…. Clearly she is where she belongs, at last.”

Muslims respond to Reid

Posted on by Bob Pitt

There’s quite a decent piece in today’s issue of the freesheet thelondonpaper on the response to Reid’s call on Muslim parents to control their children. After dealing with the disruption of his visit to East London, the article continues:

Despite their differences most Muslims are determined not to let the furore overshadow what they say is the hidden agenda behind Reid’s speech. While they agree that security is an issue, there is a feeling that his speech will serve to feed Islamophobia.

Azad Ali, a 37-year-old Londoner and chairman of the well-respected Muslim Safety Forum is one of those we polled yesterday who believe that Reid’s words were incendiary and naive.

“It is a huge assumption to make that Muslim parents are not concerned about their kids,” said Ali. “Regard less of your religion, what young child does not have a time-keeping issue or make new friends? it is an unfair spotlight on Muslims.

“There was already an atmosphere of unease before Reid’s speech. I just don’t see how these words help to build a cohesive society. They were ill-advised. They will further promote Islamophobia and alienate the Muslim community,” he said.

Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: “The Government talks about terrorists as though there is a sign you can spot, but they should be appealing to everyone for help, not just one community.” Shadjareh added that Reid’s demands were “unrealistic and not demanded from any other community”….

On Brick Lane yesterday London Muslims gave their reaction to Reid’s speech – and opinion was divided.

Shopkeeper Ali Hussain, 29, said it should come as no surprise that Reid was heckled, even if Izzadeen was a known firebrand. “If you have a dog and keep kicking it, it will eventually bite you. And that’s what is happening over Iran and Afghanistan with British Muslims.”

Abdul Rouf, another Brick Lane shopkeeper, said he believed bad feeling should be seen as a political issue. “It’s world politics that turns British Muslims against Tony Blair and his government, but it’s not a problem between Muslims and other ethnic groups at ground level,” he said.

Fatima Mahmood, 24, said Izzadeen’s tirade was pointless and the frustration felt among Muslims must be expressed another way. “Maybe we are treated unfairly, but making a scene won’t change people’s point of view,” he said.

Other Londoners were also critical of the speech. Londonpaper reader Rebecca Priddle believes Reid should show more respect to the Muslim community. In a sarcastic letter to the paper, she wrote:

“Why doesn’t the government ‘go the whole hog’ and install ‘telescreens’ in Muslim houses? That way, the parents will not have to bear the guilt of having to report their radicalised toddlers themselves, and Mr Blair can ensure that all of the infants are rounded up and put into good, Catholic schools where they will receive a well-rounded, Western upbringing.”

Catholic Archbishop questions Turkish entry to EU

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales today questioned whether Turkey should join the European Union. Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, echoed comments previously made by Pope Benedict XVI in saying that the predominantly Muslim state was not culturally part of Europe.

His comments came as the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, also questioned the admission of Turkey into the EU.

Cardinal Murphy O’Connor questioned the position of Tony Blair who has consistently argued for Turkish membership of the EU on the grounds that exclusion would be damaging, arguing:

“There may be another view that the mixture of cultures is not a good idea. I think the question is for Europe: will the admission of Turkey to the European Union be something that benefits a proper dialogue or integration of a very large, predominantly Islamic country in a continent that, fundamentally, is Christian?”

Times, 21 September 2006