Monthly Archives: October 2008

MPACUK criticises Woolas appointment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Phil WoolasMuslim groups expressed anger last night after a Labour politician who has been at the centre of a series of race controversies was made Immigration Minister.

Phil Woolas, previously an Environment Minister, was handed the brief despite infuriating the Pakistani community earlier this year by warning they were fuelling birth defects by inter-marrying. He also caused anger following the Oldham race riots by calling for “the reality of anti-white racism” to be acknowledged.

Last night, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee condemned his appointment. A spokesman said: “Phil Woolas has a track record of insensitive, inappropriate outbursts that have verged on Islamophobia. He is a Minister clearly out of his depth. We will monitor his work for any more signs of his all too obvious antipathy towards British Muslims.”

Mail on Sunday, 5 September 2008

Another ‘free speech’ controversy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lenin’s Tomb on the Jewel of Medina controversy:

“The mundane truth is that one publisher protected its reputation by postponing and then cancelling publication of a putatively offensive anti-Muslim novel, while another intends to build on its reputation by publishing said material…. Despite the energetic efforts of polemicists and hacks to produce a dense collage of imagery and associations whose total effect is to incriminate Muslims in particular as an egregious threat to free expression, this is not about courage or Enlightenment or ethics, but about strategies for conquering market share. As far as I know, neither publisher has been the recipient of a legal threat, and the current publisher is protected by the state in the unlikely event that a handful of sad young arsonists tries to burn his house down again.

“There has not been any censorship worth the name. If there were to be censorship, perhaps in the form of a legal challenge to prevent publication, then there would be an argument. And if a court decided that the book was actually in violation of the law – unlikely given the law’s bias against Muslims – one could then talk about whether censorship was justified, what the limits on free speech should be, etc. As it is, 99% of this melodrama has been concocted by overheated imaginations.”

Proof that vilification leads to violence?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“My contention has been that media vilifications of ethnic or religious groups can lead to violence, and said as much in my letter two months ago to Standpoint, which they finally got round to printing in the most recent edition. While they printed most of the letter, they omitted that bit, despite the low hum of violence which has sounded for the last few years: an imam blinded in London, another suffering brain damage, a mosque being destroyed in Basildon, a man threatened with a chainsaw in Bolton, and this past weekend, a Muslim cemetery vandalised in Southall, west London….

“Recently, a pro-Israeli group paid various newspapers in ‘swing’ states in the upcoming American Presidential election, including Ohio, to distribute a propaganda DVD called Obsession, which features interviews with one anti-Muslim ‘expert’ after another and essentially portrays Muslims as Nazis. Some editors have refused to distribute it, and have faced accusations of ‘censorship’, as if newspapers did not have to make judgements from day to day (or week to week) on what to publish and what to hold, and as if the film cannot be downloaded for free off YouTube. It’s such a coincidence that last Friday night, a mosque was attacked in Dayton, Ohio. The thugs – terrorists, to some minds – who did this did not just pour petrol through the letterbox at night and set fire to the place; oh no, they sprayed a ‘chemical irritant’ into the building while people were praying their taraweeh.”

Yusuf Smith at Indigo Jo Blogs, 30 September 2008