Monthly Archives: July 2008

12 percent of Americans think Barack Obama is Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Despite a large controversy not long ago about Barack Obama sitting in a church listening to Jeremiah Wright preach for 16 years, 12 percent of Americans still believe that Obama is Muslim.

The breakdown shows that 12 percent of Democrats, 12 percent of Republicans and 11 percent of Independents still hold that belief.

The poll also shows that Democrats that share that misconception about Obama are “significantly less likely to support Obama.”

Among the 12 percent that still believe that Obama is Muslim, despite evidence to the contrary, 51 percent back McCain and 37 percent back Obama. Among those that believe that Obama is a Christian, those numbers reverse themselves, with 52 percent backing Obama and 32 percent backing McCain.

DigitalJournal.com, 18 July 2008

See also “Belief that Obama is Muslim is durable, bipartisan – but most likely to sway Democratic votes”, Pew Research Center, 15 July 2008

Jewish example shows there is plenty of room for sharia in English law

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The experience of British Jewry demonstrates that there is plenty of room for aspects of Sharia to be incorporated within English law without in any way compromising the cardinal principle that all British citizens must be “equal under the law”. This is the major theme of an address to be given by Professor Geoffrey Alderman to the Islamic Shari’a Council on Sunday 20 July 2008.

Professor Alderman, who teaches politics and history at the University of Buckingham, is the author of The Jewish Community in British Politics and Modern British Jewry (both published by Oxford University Press); he writes a weekly column for theJewish Chronicle. He and his family are practising Orthodox Jews.

Supporting controversial remarks made earlier this year by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Professor Alderman, in his address, traces the history of the interface between Jews, Judaism and the English legal system. “The Jewish religion has – to some extent – been successfully incorporated with the English legal system,” Professor Alderman said: “this has damaged neither the status of British Jews nor the fabric of English law.”

Geoffrey Alderman press release, 18 July 2008

Well, that’s really going to piss off Melanie Phillips, isn’t it? Stand by for fireworks in the JC.

Evicted Milan Muslims pray at stadium ‘mosque’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SantancheItalian police were out in force Friday at a Milan stadium converted into a makeshift mosque by Muslims who were forced to abandon their previous place of worship. Organizers of the Friday prayers said they expected some 5,000 Muslims at the Vigorelli velodrome which also contains a disused cycling track.

The decision by Milan’s town hall to allow Muslims to use the facility on a temporary basis has triggered protests from local residents, raising concern of possible attempts to disrupt the prayer session. On Friday, several dozen protesters, including far-right political leader, Daniela Santanche, gathered near the stadium. “We are here to prevent a symbol of Milanese sport from being transformed into a mosque,” Santanche, who leads the opposition party, The Right, said.

Earlier this month, Italy’s centre-right government ordered the closure of the so-called Jenner mosque – the converted garage where for over 20 years, thousands of Muslims in Italy’s financial capital attended prayer sessions. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the decision was based on public order and health concerns – worshippers often spilled out on the street – and complaints from local residents. Maroni, a member of the anti-immigration Northern League, drew sharp criticism for the move, with one prominent Catholic cleric, Monsignor Gianfranco Bottoni, who deals with inter-faith issues in Milan, describing it as “fascist”.

Earth Times, 18 July 2008

Agency pays damages to Yusuf Islam over sexism slur

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yusuf IslamFormer hit writer and chart topper Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam, today accepted “substantial” but undisclosed libel damages and a public apology at London’s High Court over an entertainment news agency slur.

Adam Tudor, the singer’s solicitor told top libel judge, Mr Justice David Eady, the piece at the centre of the complaint was published by World Entertainment News Network’s and was later used on Contactmusic.com, a website published by Contactmusic.com Ltd which is said to have 2.2 million page views a month. Contactmusic also apologised today and will pay part of the damages.

Tudor said the item appeared on 26 March last year under the headline: “Yusuf Islam Ignors Bare-Headed Women” and was reproduced on a number of websites including that of Contactmusic.

“The article suggested that Mr Islam, who is a Muslim, was so sexist and bigoted that he refused at an awards ceremony to speak to or even acknowledge any women who were not wearing a veil,” said Tudor. “It went on to suggest that Mr Islam’s manager had stated ‘Mr Islam doesn’t speak with women except his wife. Least of all if they don’t wear a headscarf. Things like that only happen via an intermediary’.”

Tudor continued: “As the defendants now accept, these allegations were entirely false. Mr Islam has never had any difficulties working with women, whether for religious or any other reasons. In his normal life, women feature among some of the most influential people in Mr Islam’s team. Furthermore, the statement attributed in the article to Mr Islam’s manager was simply never made.”

He said that the article had caused the pop star considerable embarrassment and distress particularly given that it had the effect not only of creating an utterly false impression of his attitude to women, but because it also cast serious aspersions, quite wrongly, on his religious faith.

The compensation he is to be paid be donated to charity, Small Kindness. He is also to receive his legal costs. For World Entertainment News and Contactmusic solicitor Marvin Simons said they apologised for the distress and embarrassment that had been caused as a result of the “false allegations.”

Press Gazette, 18 July 2008

‘You’re having a mosque whether you want one or not’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The BBC reports that the government’s Planning Inspectorate has overturned a decision by the local council to reject an application to build a mosque in Dudley.

The proposal had been the subject of a bitter right-wing campaign by the likes of the BNP and UKIP, and the Birmingham Mail quotes Khurshid Ahmed of the Dudley Muslim Association as hailing the Planning Inspectorate’s ruling as a “victory for common sense and democracy and a defeat for prejudice and bigotry”. Indeed, you might have thought that the decision would be welcomed by anyone with remotely progressive politics.

However, Andy Armitage of the Pink Triangle Trust is not happy at all:

Continue reading →

Archbishop ‘has lost the plot’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rowan Williams (2)The Archbishop of Canterbury was under fire last night after declaring that Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims. Dr Rowan Williams also criticised Christianity’s history for its violence, harsh punishments and betrayal of peaceful principles. His comments were condemned by MPs and religious commentators.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: “The archbishop has lost the plot. He is supposed to be leading the Church, not apologising for it. What kind of leadership is this? People are sick to death of this handwringing about things from long ago. Dr Williams should be proud of his Christian beliefs.”

Mike Judge, spokesman for the Christian Institute think-tank, said: “It’s radical Muslims who are the biggest threat to liberty. Why apologise for things that happened hundreds of years ago? You can hardly compare what happened under the Inquisition with problems in the modern world.”

Dr Williams caused controversy earlier this year when he said aspects of Islamic sharia law had a place in our legal system.

Daily Express, 17 July 2008

See also “Archbishop of Canterbury ‘should be trying to convert Muslims’” in the Daily Telegraph.

The same paper also has “Archbishop bridges Muslim divide” by George Pitcher, who writes: “Christians who attack Dr Williams for trying to reach a mutual understanding with Muslims might dwell on how they would react if Muslims condemned their leaders for trying to engage in dialogue.”

Promotion of clients and stooges will get us nowhere

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Seumas Milne discusses the questions arising from the government’s stupid boycott of Islam Expo, which he argues is part of a wider problem involving a refusal to engage with representative Muslim organisations:

“The issue is the government’s growing hostility to dealing with anyone connected with the highly diverse movement that is Islamism. This is a political trend that has violent and non-violent, theocratic and democratic, reactionary and progressive strands, stretching from Turkey’s pro-western ruling Justice and Development party through to the wildest shores of takfiri jihadism. But it’s largely on the basis of this blinkered opposition that the government is now funding Husain’s Quilliam Foundation, promoting other marginal groups such as the Sufi Muslim Council and turning its back on more representative bodies such as the Muslim Council of Britain.

“This is a dangerous game, whether from the point of view of reducing the threat of terror attacks on the streets of London or narrowing the gulf between Muslims and non-Muslims in the country as a whole. As opinion polls show, most Muslims around the world are broadly sympathetic to Hamas as a movement resisting occupation of Palestinian land – and British Muslims are no exception. If such attitudes become a block on engagement with official Britain, or are ignorantly branded ‘Islamofascist’, then the government and Tory opposition are going to end up talking to a very small minority indeed.

“It’s a risk well-recognised by some inside government. As one minister argues: ‘This cannot continue, it’s completely counterproductive. You have to engage with those with influence over those you want to influence.’ Some Muslim activists trying to work with government blame Blears’ Sufi Muslim advisers, Azhar Ali and Maqsood Ahmed; one senior local authority specialist despairs that by refusing to deal with Muslim organisations the advisers crudely brand Islamist, ministers are ‘isolating themselves from the majority’….

“The groups currently regarded as beyond the pale – such as the organisers of IslamExpo – are those keenest to promote Muslim involvement in British society and politics. But they are also the most actively opposed to western policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine – an important point of common ground, incidentally, with most non-Muslim Britons. The organisations the government backs, on the other hand, are those who keep quiet about the wars the US and Britain are fighting in the Muslim world. If the priority is really community integration and prevention of terror attacks, this sponsorship of clients and stooges is going to have to stop.”

Guardian, 17 July 2008

Mosques increasingly not welcome

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cologne mosque protestEuropeans are increasingly lashing out at the construction of mosques in their cities as terrorism fears and continued immigration feed anti-Muslim sentiment across the continent.

The latest dispute is in Switzerland, which is planning a nationwide referendum to ban minarets on mosques. This month, Italy’s interior minister vowed to close a controversial mosque in Milan.

Some analysts call the mosque conflicts the manifestation of a growing fear that Muslims aren’t assimilating, don’t accept Western values and pose a threat to security. “It’s a visible symbol of anti-Muslim feelings in Europe,” says Danièle Joly, director of the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick in England. “It’s part of an Islamophobia. Europeans feel threatened.”

The disputes reflect unease with the estimated 18 million Muslims who constitute the continent’s second-biggest religion, living amid Western Europe’s predominantly Christian population of 400 million, Joly says. The clashes also represent a turnaround from the 1980s and ’90s, when construction of large mosques was accepted and even celebrated in many cities. “I think the tide has turned,” Joly says.

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Blears justifies IslamExpo boycott

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hazel BlearsIn Hazel Blears’ speech today to a seminar organised by the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, she outlines “the Government’s strategy for engagement with different Muslim groups”:

“As a minister dealing with this every day, I can tell you there is no easy answer to the questions of when, who and how to engage with different groups. When my predecessor Ruth Kelly became Secretary of State, she made it clear that the Government would not do business with any groups who weren’t serious about standing up to violence and upholding shared values, and that has been our approach ever since.

“Take the Islam Expo at the weekend. I was clear that because of the views of some of the organisers, and because of the nature of some of the exhibitors, this was an event that no Minister should attend. Organisers like Anas Altikriti, who believes in boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day. Or speakers like Azzam Tamimi, who has sought to justify suicide bombing. Or exhibitors like the Government of Iran.

“Not because the vast majority of Muslims at the event were not decent citizens; they were. But because the organisers were trying to influence the audience in certain directions. And by refusing to legitimise the event for these specific reasons, we would hope to isolate and expose the extremists and ensure they were not part of the event next year. Our policy is designed to change behaviour.

“Our strategy rests on an assessment of firstly whether an organisation is actively condemning, and working to tackle, violent extremism; and secondly whether they defend and uphold the shared values of pluralist democracy, both in their words and their deeds. By being clear what is acceptable and what isn’t, we aim to support the moderates and isolate the extremists.”

So Blears is opposed to any official contact with representative Muslim figures like Anas Altikriti and Azzam Tamimi. But she will happily lead a seminar organised by Policy Exchange, a body headed by the raving right-wing anti-Muslim extremist Dean Godson.

Not content with imposing a government boycott of one of the most popular and mainstream Muslim events of the year, Blears chooses to announce her justification for this disgraceful decision from the platform of a Tory think tank notorious for its hostility to British Muslims.

It’s difficult to see this as anything other than a conscious provocation directed against the Muslim community. Either that, or Blears is even more stupid than I’d imagined.

Update:  Read IslamExpo’s response to Blears here.

French minister denounces burqa

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Amara and SarkozyA Muslim member of the French government has backed a court’s decision to deny citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears the burqa. Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara said she hoped last month’s ruling would “dissuade certain fanatics from imposing the burqa on their wives”.

“The burqa is a prison, it’s a straightjacket,” she told Le Parisien. “It is not a religious insignia but the insignia of a totalitarian political project that advocates inequality between the sexes and which is totally devoid of democracy.”

Ms Amara, who is also a prominent women’s rights campaigner, said she made no distinction between the veil and the burqa, describing both as symbols of oppression for women.

BBC News, 16 July 2008

See also Reuters, 15 July 2008

As one critic notes about Fadela Amara:

“She says she speaks for women, but she only speaks for women who share her vision of what women should be. Does she speak for the Muslim sister? … The average French Muslim sister just trying to live her day? Like me? I mean nothing to feminists like Fadela Amara or anyone from Ni Putes Ni Soumises simply by dint of my belief that a woman in a headscarf, or a woman in a burqa, deserves the same presumption of free will and sound mind as some braless chick with a visible thong.

“I will never abide by the belief that headscarf=the patriarchy. In fact, men telling me what to wear=patriarchy. I know I have the free will to decide what I will wear in the morning, and I use that free will. I only wish people would ‘assume’ that Muslim sisters in fact are woman enough to have free will when it comes to dressing ourselves. We’re not toddlers….

“And regardless of how I feel about niqabs or burqas, the bottom line is that this sister met the requirements and they said no based on her clothes. You can’t tell me a man would be refused nationality for his clothes. For me, the decision is anti-feminist, unacceptable and sets a bad legal precedent….

“The reasoning behind the judgement alleges that this woman can’t possibly be thinking with her own brain, which is an anti-feminist insult in itself. Fadela calls herself a feminist but what she and the rest of the people involved in this decision are really doing is reinforcing the patriarchy in keeping this mother down. Shame on her. Shame on them.”