Sohaib Saeed reflects on the London bombings.
Monthly Archives: July 2008
‘Please can I have some money Boris?’ – Ed Husain marks 7/7
Just when you thought that opinion might be shifting towards a recognition of the existence of widespread and atrocious media bigotry against the Muslim community, in steps Ed Husain to assure everyone that Islamophobia is just a myth promoted by Islamist extremists.
In an article in today’s Evening Standard marking the third anniversary of the July 2005 London bombings, he writes:
“What has changed since 7/7 is the tactics and the public rhetoric of the extremists. Under pressure from Muslim activists, ‘Islamophobia’ has become accepted as a phenomenon on a par with racism, as examined in tonight’s Channel 4 documentary by political journalist Peter Oborne, for example.”
But it’s all nonsense, according to Ed:
“Outside a few flashpoints where the BNP is at work, most Muslims would be hard-pressed to identify Islamophobia in their lives. Yet that is the charge every time the extremists press for new ‘rights’ – over dress in the workplace, for example. If there is anti-Muslim sentiment, we Muslims have to ask what some of us have done to provoke such feelings in a country that is proudly multi-cultural. Islamist extremism might be a good starting point.”
And who are the proponents of “Islamist extremism”? Well, the people organising Islam Expo later this week are among them, according to Ed Husain. Because some of those involved in the event are supporters of the Palestinian resistance they are no different from the 7/7 bombers, in Husain’s analysis. And worse still, supposedly as a result of “a Ken Livingstone commitment to his friends”, the London Development Agency is one of the sponsors of Islam Expo.
Husain concludes with an appeal to the current Mayor of London: “Boris Johnson has a fresh mandate. He knows the organisers behind this week’s event are those that cry Islamophobia. Will he co-opt them, appease or oppose them? His starting point could be to expose their Westophobia, and empower the right side in this battle of ideas.”
Which I think could be translated as: “Please can I have some GLA funding for the Quilliam Foundation?”
‘Islamophobia … or cold, hard truth?’
Trevor Kavanagh replies to Peter Oborne’s Dispatches documentary.
For responses to Kavanagh see Obsolete and Lenin’s Tomb.
‘Official pandering to the Islamic hardliners is political cowardice’
“Question: ‘What is the definition of an Islamophobe?’ Answer: ‘Someone who objects to being blown up on the way to work.’
“The politically correct brigade might not like it but there is a large element of truth in that ‘joke’. In recent years we have had to endure a constant threat to our society from Muslim extremists who kill, maim and brutalise in the name of Allah. Yet, in the inverted moral universe created by our Left-wing political establishment, any criticism of Islam provokes indignant cries of ‘racism’ or ‘Islamophobia’….
“In the light of today’s third anniversary of the July bombings in 2005, the eagerness of Muslim representatives to don the mantle of victimhood is truly sickening. Last week, Minister for International Development and Dewsbury MP Shahid Malik had the nerve to claim that ‘Muslims feel like the Jews of Europe’ because of supposed persecution.
“Meanwhile, the Channel 4 Dispatches programme is tonight examining the phenomenon of so-called Islamophobia, claiming that Muslims are an alienated, vulnerable community under siege. The intellectually barren argument is that Islam ‘has an overwhelming message of peace and tolerance’. Try telling that to relatives of those killed in the Twin Towers or in the London bombings….
“It is obscene for political commentators to characterise as a disease or a prejudice the wish to preserve our civilisation in the face of barbarism. The real disease of modern Britain is the cringing of our cowardly political establishment towards Islam…. The political elite might blather about ‘rich cultural diversity’ but this is only a recipe for the destruction of our civilisation. In practice, its capitulation to Islam is a form of national suicide.”
Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express, 7 July 2008
The shameful Islamophobia at the heart of Britain’s press
When a tabloid newspaper reports that a ‘Muslim hate mob’ is daubing abuse, can we believe them?
The Independent publishes another extract from the pamphlet Muslims Under Siege: Alienating Vulnerable Communities, by Peter Oborne and James Jones.
BNP leader Nick Griffin pays respect to killed activist
British National Party leader Nick Griffin visited North Staffordshire yesterday to pay his respects to the partner of activist Keith Brown. His visit marked one year since Mr Brown was killed by a neighbour.
And after commiserating with Julia Barker, he spent time with local party officials planning a national BNP rally scheduled for Stoke-on-Trent next month. Mr Griffin also thanked them for turning the city into “the jewel in the crown of the BNP”.
Mr Barker, of Uttoxeter Road, in Normacot, was stabbed to death on July 6 last year, by his Muslim neighbour Habib Khan, following a long-running dispute. Khan was convicted of manslaughter by reason of lack of intent and is still awaiting sentence.
Mr Griffin said: “Despite the manslaughter verdict we still regard Keith’s death as murder and we need to highlight how the police and criminal justice system fails to properly investigate such racially-motivated crime. We are expecting large numbers of people from around the country to converge on the city for the rally on August 9 when we shall be touring the estates and visiting large parts of Stoke-on-Trent.”
It is quite clear that racism – and anti-Muslim racism in particular – is absolutely central to the BNP’s political appeal across the country. Consequently, anti-racism has to be equally central to the anti-fascist movement.
Yet there are still those who try to avoid recognising this self-evident fact. A discussion article by Nick Lowles in the June 2008 issue of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, for example, argues that: “A cursory look at where the BNP is gaining support shows that race is not necessarily the dominant issue that it was in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford. There are very small non-white communities in Stoke-on-Trent, Barnsley and Nuneaton and Bedworth.”
How does this in any way demonstrate that racism is not still the defining factor in the rise of the BNP in those towns? It’s well known that le Pen’s Front National won support in areas where a high proportion of the inhabitants were of North African origin – Marseilles notably – but also in areas where the white “indigenous” French population was in a large majority. In both areas the FN campaigned on the basis of racism, winning votes by inciting hatred and fear of migrants.
Similarly in the UK, just because there is a small proportion of non-white people in a particular area it doesn’t mean that racism ceases to be central to the BNP’s appeal there. Indeed, in such areas racism can sometimes become a more effective mobilising ideology for the far right than it is in multi-ethnic towns and cities, because the white majority, having little direct experience of social interaction with members of minority non-white communities, are more susceptible to racist stereotypes and can be convinced that their culture and identity are under threat from an influx of “aliens”. Five years ago the BNP managed to get a councillor elected in Broxbourne on the basis of a scaremongering campaign about the town “filling up” with asylum seekers, when in reality there wasn’t a single asylum seeker living in Broxbourne.
Stoke-on-Trent may well contain “very small non-white communities” (at the time of the 2001 census, 95% of the population was white and only 5% non-white, while even the most ethnically mixed ward – Hanley – had a 76% white population). However, as is detailed in Peter Oborne and James Jones’ excellent new pamphlet (pdf) Muslims Under Siege, this hasn’t prevented the BNP from acquiring its base of political support and nine councillors …
“… in large part by fighting a vicious anti-Muslim campaign. Stoke has one of the lowest employment rates in the country since the pottery industry collapsed. The BNP have sought to link this decline to Muslim immigration. Their leaflets have shown a montage of pottery kilns, smiling white housewives and a church tower, with the caption, ‘HANLEY 70 YEARS AGO’. A second montage alongside showed silhouettes of mosques and a photograph of women in veils (taken in Birmingham) – one giving a V-sign – with the caption, ‘Is this what you want for our city centre?’
“Other campaigns have focused on planning issues over mosques – a flash point elsewhere too. The BNP accuse the Labour council of cutting special deals with Muslim groups in exchange for support. The BNP protested that the Labour majority council was renting a plot of land to Muslim developers for just £1 a year, amid suggestions that it could be sold to them for £72,000. The BNP even made an offer of £100,000 on the land. The mayor of Stoke, Mark Meredith, told us that these peppercorn rent deals are done with all community groups, and that in this case a plot of land that has been lying idle for decades will be put to good use and regenerate the area….
“The determination to scapegoat Muslims has meant they even champion animal rights, targeting halal food as inhumane in a campaign that BNP Councillor Michael Coleman admitted to us was not their natural territory.
“The BNP told us on our recent visit that they are about to launch a new nationwide anti-Muslim campaign from Stoke. The launch pad for this new era of hostility will be the sentencing of Habib Khan, who was charged with murdering his neighbour, Keith Brown, a BNP activist. Brown is to be promoted as the first ‘BNP martyr’.”
And this, according to Searchlight‘s leading theoretician, is a town where “race is not necessarily the dominant issue” in the rise of the BNP!
What explains this peculiar blind spot on the part of Nick Lowles? Some of us might point to Searchlight‘s traditional reluctance to mount an ideological and cultural challenge to racism within the white majority community. Plus, of course, the Zionist politics of Searchlight‘s leadership makes them resistant to campaigning against anti-Muslim bigotry in co-operation with the representative organisations of the community who are the victims of that bigotry.
Misreporting Muslims
As tonight’s Dispatches shows, the media’s coverage of Islam alienates and demonises a vulnerable British minority.
Mehdi Hasan at Comment is Free, 7 July 2008
Watch ‘Dispatches’ tonight on Channel 4 urges Respect
Don’t miss tonight’s Dispatches, on Channel 4, 8pm, which is billed as a counterblast to rampant Islamophobia.
It is presented by Peter Oborne, who has also written a pamphlet on the question. Oborne is a conservative commentator, which means that his intervention against what he calls “Britain’s last remaining socially acceptable form or bigotry” is therefore all the more newsworthy.
Salma Yaqoob, Birmingham Respect councillor, said:
“This is a very welcome pamphlet by Peter Oborne and it was pleasing to see his piece in the Daily Mail. While there is a deluge of negative images and reports about Muslim communities – as a study this week by researchers at Cardiff University has again detailed – there are voices speaking out. Tonight’s Dispatches programme on Channel 4 at 8pm looks set to be another powerful intervention.
“We in Respect are especially pleased by these developments as we see building a broad coalition against Islamphobia as critical to pushing it back.”
Letters from today’s press
In the Independent, responding to Peter Oborne’s excellent article, Kate Francis condemns violence against Muslims but goes on to oppose the “blanket application of the pejorative term ‘Islamophobic’ to anyone who has voiced concerns about the long-term capacity of Islam to coexist successfully in a secular state where the rights of women are protected by law. As a feminist, I have deep concerns about this, as I do about any group (religious or otherwise) that appears to enshrine misogyny in its cultural values…. it’s no wonder that writers are prefacing their comments with ‘I am an Islamophobe’ and ‘Count me in’.”
Another correspondent, one Dominic Kirkham, writes: “The remark of Shahid Malik that British Muslims now felt like ‘aliens in their own country’ (4 July) is problematic…. In seemingly every area of cultural contact, however open and welcoming, Muslims choose to distance themselves from the generality on the basis of ‘their religion’. Unless they themselves are prepared to question the arcane prejudices that lie at the root of ‘their religion’ they will continue to feel like aliens in normal society by their own choice.”
And here’s Shaaz Mahboob, of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, in the Daily Telegraph:
“The assumption by Lord Phillips (report, July 3) that interpretations of Sharia could become an alternative form of conflict resolution for British Muslim communities will merely result in further alienation and segregation. Only hardline groups, such as the Muslim Council of Britain and the Sharia Council, have been demanding the introduction of Sharia as a parallel justice system. In a democratic society, paying heed to, and endorsing the views of, minority but vocal pro-segregation Muslim groups is nonsensical, and could be disastrous for a cohesive society.”
‘Remarkably little animosity’ towards Muslims, says Mad Mel
Bigotry and hatred against Muslims? According to Melanie Phillips “… there is remarkably little animosity towards them, considering the fact that, according to the head of MI5, there are currently some 2000 known British Muslim terrorist suspects – and in reality probably twice that number – and that according to opinion polls, hundreds of thousands of British Muslims would support terrorist violence against British institutions.”