“A recent government report on how Islam is taught in British universities signals another step towards the Islamisation of Britain and its education system.” The right-wing evangelical Christian pressure group, the Barnabas Fund, responds to the Siddiqui report.
Read the report (pdf) here.
BERLIN — In statements endorsed by the ruling Christian Democratic Union party and harshly criticized by MPs, Germany’s top cardinal has warned against “uncritical tolerance” which could lead to Islam enjoying equal standing with Christianity in the country, Deutsche Welle reported Friday, June 22.
“The neutrality of the state regarding individual religions must not be confused with indifference and uncritical tolerance toward the impact of religions on society,” the German news network quoted Cardinal Karl Lehmann as saying. Lehmann, the head of the German conference of bishops, expressed concern about religious freedom leading to all faiths being treated equally regardless of the size of their flock and their history. He pointed to Christianity’s role in shaping European history and even its legal culture.
Ronald Pofalla, the general secretary of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union party, said Lehmann was right to say Islam could not be afforded the same legal standing in Germany as Christianity. “Unlike Christianity, Islam is not in Europe’s cultural centre and is not reflected in everyday life in the same way,” Pofalla said in a statement.
The leader of the Green party’s parliamentary group, Volker Beck, said Germany’s constitution required Islam be treated the same as Christianity. “The Cardinal is wrong if he concludes that Europe’s or Germany’s undoubtedly Christian character infers a legal discrimination of other religious communities,” Deutsche Welle quoted him as saying.
Lale Akgün, a Social Democratic parliamentarian in charge of Islam issues, said Lehmann’s statements were unrealistic and explosive. “Whoever says that Islam cannot be put on an equal legal footing (as other religions) is stoking social unrest,” she said.
Rod Liddle explains why the Left has little time for Salman Rushdie: “It has long carried a torch for Islam, despite the misogyny, homophobia and authoritarian impulses of the ideology – a political mispositioning occasioned, first and foremost, by the doctrine of multiculturalism.”
A new group of secular-minded former Muslims in the UK has urged the government to cut all state funding to religious groups and to stop pandering to political Islam.
The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, launched yesterday in London, opposes the interference of religion in public life. Its spokeswoman, Maryam Namazie, said the group provided an alternative voice to the “regressive, parasitical and self-appointed leaders” from organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain and the “oxymoronic” Islamic Human Rights Commission.
“We want to challenge the Islamic movement,” she said. “It does not surprise me people are afraid to criticise Islam. There has been too much appeasement from the government. There are specific policies and initiatives aimed at Muslims and this approach divides society.”
The council’s manifesto calls for the freedom to criticise all religions and the separation of religion from the state and legal system. Another aim is to break the taboos that come with renouncing Islam.
Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “We’re not taking them seriously. I don’t think Muslims will have time for this.”
The launch of a Central Council of Ex-Muslims in Berlin has inspired similar groups in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The British branch has 25 members who are prepared to have their names and photographs published.
As we’ve already pointed out, the Council of Ex-Muslims is a complete fraud. It’s a front organisation for the Worker Communist Party of Iran, an ultra-left sect most of whose leaders were never Muslims in the first place. It’s just an excuse for the WPI to indulge in their obsessive and destructive propaganda against Islam.
Unfortunately the Council of Ex-Muslims has been given credibility by having its launch at the House of Commons yesterday (I suspect Lib Dem MP Evan Harris was involved in this) and has been treated seriously by the media, who have shown no interest in investigating the origins of the organisation.
Update: Read the National Secular Society’s report of the event here. Note that the so-called ex-Muslims referred to in the NSS piece – Maryam Namazie, Mina Ahadi and Mahin Alipour – are all leading figures in the WPI.
Michael Winterbottom’s true-life drama A Mighty Heart, about the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was at the centre of a fresh controversy last night following a preview screening in Los Angeles.
At a post-film panel discussion featuring representatives from Muslim, Jewish and Christian groups, a Jewish activist denounced the event saying, “The only reason [Muslims] like this film is because it’s about a dead Jew.”
The activist said the participation of members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was like “David Duke co-sponsoring Schindler’s List”, referring to the former Klu Klux Klan Grand Master and Louisiana politician.
Other invited panelists included Progressive Christians Uniting, Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, and the film’s producer Dede Gardner.
A spokesperson from the film’s US distributor Paramount Vantage said the event was designed to promote harmony. “Vantage went into the screening tonight with the best intentions,” the spokesperson said. “Like the film, this was designed to celebrate dialogue of people of diverse backgrounds and faith.”
See also Variety, 21 June 2007
The Jewish activist was one Allyson Rowen Taylor. Last year when the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission voted to give an award to a local Muslim leader, Dr Maher Hathout, Taylor accused them of bowing to Muslim intimidation: “They’re afraid of the Muslim community burning cars, burning effigies and burning synagogues.”
Please click on the link below and sign the petition to demand the government stops the extradition of British citizen Babar Ahmad to the US and puts him on trial in the UK.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BabarAhmad/sign
See also Socialist Worker, 23 June 2007
BBC News gives favourable publicity to the launch of the Worker Communist Party of Iran’s fraudulent front organisation, the so-called Council of Ex-Muslims (which claims that it “represents the views of a majority of secular-minded Muslims in Europe”), as does the Washington Post and the Daily Telegraph. See also A.C. Grayling’s ridiculous remarks (“a torch of hope in a dark quadrant of the world’s affairs”) at Comment is Free. Meanwhile, frothing-at-the-mouth right-wing US Islamophobe Michelle Malkin has hailed Maryam Namazie and her comrades as “the bravest of the brave“, who are “putting their necks on the line for Western civilization”. Malkin urges her readers: “Find a way to show your support.”
WASHINGTON – A former member of the Dutch parliament whose life has been threatened by Muslim radicals warns that Islam is incompatible with Western civilization.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was raised as a Muslim in Somalia, but renounced Islam and moved to Europe, a story she recounts in her autobiography, titled “Infidel.” She moved to the United States last year.
In a speech Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, Ali urged journalists to recognize that all religions are not equal, and that Islam is violent, intolerant and oppresses women.
Ali said she was brought up believing in “a ferocious aggressive god,” but is now an atheist. She said Islam is growing because Saudi Arabia and Iran finance Muslim schools and mosques, while Christian churches have lost their missionary zeal.
Read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s speech here
For the impact of Hirsi Ali’s visit to Australia, see Herald Sun, 20 June 2007
Over at the neocon blog Harry’s Place, Brett Lock of gay rights group OutRage! finally gets round to addressing the disgraceful campaign in Israel to ban the Jerusalem Pride march, which takes place tomorrow.
Brett omits any condemnation of, or indeed reference to, the threats of violence from Orthodox Jews or the appeal by the Mayor of Jerusalem to Israel’s High Court to stop the march, and it is now fully two weeks since the anti-Pride bills successfully passed their first reading in the Knesset.
This tardy and rather half-hearted response by Brett – and the failure of OutRage! or the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association to make any statement at all on the issue – stands in sharp contrast to the energy with which they all laid into Russia’s grand mufti last year over Moscow Pride. Somehow, OutRage! and GALHA seem to find homophobia so much more worthy of denunciation when it’s Muslims who are responsible for it.
In fact one might suspect that Brett’s belated post at Harry’s Place is little more than an attempt to cover OutRage! against criticisms by the Lesbian and Gay Coalition Against Racism, who issued a statement last weekend accusing Brett and his chums of hypocrisy. We can only endorse those criticisms.
Prime Minister Tony Blair was accused Tuesday of rekindling the 18-year old controversy over Salman Rushdie by his government’s decision to give the notorious author a knighthood.
“Many will interpret the knighthood as a final contemptuous parting gift from Tony Blair to the Muslim world,” said secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Abdul Bari.
Bari said that the Indian-born author earned “notoriety among Muslims for the highly insulting and blasphemous manner in which he portrayed early Islamic figures much-loved and honoured by them.” “The insensitive decision to grant Rushdie a knighthood can therefore only do harm to the image of our country in the eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world,” he warned.
Labour peer Lord Ahmed described Blair’s decision to approve the honor just before his steps down from power next week as double standards. “It’s hypocrisy by Tony Blair who two weeks ago was talking about building bridges to mainstream Muslims, and then he’s honouring a man who has insulted the British public and been divisive in community relations,” Ahmed said.
Bradford Council for Mosques in northern England also criticized the knighthood as an insult to Muslim religious sensibilities and as an endorsement of the author’s views. “The British government has acted extremely irresponsibly in knighting Rushdie at a time when it should be seeking to restore and strengthen the confidence of its Muslim subjects that it has their best interests at heart,” said council spokesman Ishtiaq Ahmed.
See also Inayat Bunglawala at Comment is Free, 19 June 2007