Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Islamophobia doesn’t exist, claims ex-leftist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Furedi“In recent years the term Islamophobia has been frequently invoked to silence criticism of Islam. Criticisms of any aspect of Islam are looked upon as expressions of a new form of racism. In reality, critics of Islam are questioning the values associated with the religion rather than the racial status of Muslim people. Today, promoting the concept of Islamophobia is about setting up Islam as a criticism-free zone. Recent claims about an ‘epidemic of Islamophobia’ are based on very impressionistic and subjective methodology.”

Frank Furedi, formerly of the Revolutionary Communist Party, in Spiked, 21 May 2007

Perhaps Furedi should have a word with BNP führer Nick Griffin who last year recommended that the fascists should seize “a great political opportunity to surf our message into the public mind on the back of a media tsunami of ‘Islamophobia’.”

The differences between Islam and Christianity

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Great Divide“Alvin J. Schmidt, Ph.D., provides extensive documentation from history, the Koran, and the Bible that there are indeed chasm-wide differences between the two religions – and between the societies where they hold sway. ‘Islam is not just a different religion’, argues Professor Schmidt, ‘but interwoven with it is also a very different culture.’

“In comparison to the Christian West, he shows, Islamic nations throughout history have been culturally sterile, technologically backward, materially impoverished, prone to barbarism and cruelty, and almost perpetually at war not only with their non-Muslim neighbors but with each other.”

Human Events reviews The Great Divide: The Failure of Islam and the Triumph of the West by Alvin J. Schmidt.

Bishop suggests closer monitoring of Swiss mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

One of the Catholic Church’s leading experts on Islam says the Swiss authorities need to keep a closer eye on the country’s mosques. Pierre Bürcher, assistant bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, tells swissinfo it is what goes on inside mosques rather than the construction of minarets that poses a greater threat to peace. His comments come just weeks after a group of rightwing politicians launched a nationwide campaign to ban the construction of minarets.

Swissinfo, 20 May 2007

Australian Muslims slam ‘divisive’ test

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims are outraged that prospective citizens will have to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian tradition as the basis of Australia’s values system. Australia’s peak Muslim body said the proposed citizenship question was disturbing and potentially divisive. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Dr Ameer Ali said the “Abrahamic tradition” or “universal values” would be less divisive ways of describing the nation’s moral base.

Dr Ali was backed by Democrats senator Lyn Allison, who said the answer to the question was highly debatable. But Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews stood firm on the merit of the question. Mr Andrews said Australia’s Judeo-Christian heritage was indisputable historical fact. But Health Minister Tony Abbott confused the issue, saying the modern Australian values system was secular, or of no particular religion.

Herald Sun, 19 May 2007

Denmark: Proposal to ban veils

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Danish People’s Party wants a total ban on veils in Denmark, but both the opposition and the government don’t support it. Pia Kjærsgaard, leader of the Danish People’s Party, said in an interview: “I want the headscarf to be completely banned in Danish society. It is oppressive and I cannot tolerate it.” She suggested to start with schools and institutions. Kjærsgaard is not talking about Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses, saying they’re not the same and are not religious laws. According to a survey 46% of Danes support a ban on veils in schools.

Islam in Europe, 19 May 2007

FBI agent threatened Muslim student at University of Calfornia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nearly a year after a top FBI official said the agency does not monitor students at UCI, police are investigating an incident in which a Muslim student says he was threatened by a federal agent. The incident occurred Monday night in view of campus police and dozens of Muslim student spectators, who were helping to disassemble a large wooden representation of the wall that Israelis have built in occupied Palestine.

Orange County Register, 18 May 2007

Mad Mel explains Islamism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Londonistan“Islamism is the politicised version of Islam which mandates jihad, or holy war against the infidel and conquest of the non-Islamic world for Islam. I’m well aware of the argument that there’s no difference between Islamism and Islam: that’s a theological argument for others to have….

“The Islamist goal is to destroy the virus of freedom and modernity before it infects the Islamic world, and to replace it with Islam. That is the core of the profound threat it poses to the west, a threat mounted through the pincer movement of both terrorism and cultural takeover. This cultural takeover, or the aim to Islamise the west, was explicitly laid out in a programme of subversion for Europe by the Wahabbi [sic] Muslim Brotherhood almost 30 years ago….

“And for Islamists there is no room in a liberal society. True liberals never thought they had a duty to accommodate fascism. True liberals always fought it. So must we do with religious fascism.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 18 May 2007

OIC deplores Islamophobia, discrimination against Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM) on Thursday adopted the “Islamabad Declaration”, deploring the bogey of Islamophobia and discrimination against Muslims.

“We condemn the growing trend of Islamophobia and systematic discrimination against the adherents of Islam. We call upon the international community to prevent incitement to hatred and discrimination against the Muslims and take effective measures to combat defamation of religions and acts of negative stereotyping of people based on religion, belief or ethnicity,” the declaration said.

Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri read out the declaration at the concluding session, chaired by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. “We request the Secretary General to continue the OIC initiatives to effectively counter Islamophobia through discussions and debates at various international fora,” it said.

IRNA, 17 May 2007

Bernard Lewis’ latest call to arms

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Bernard Lewis’ op-ed piece in the May 16, 2007 issue of the Wall Street Journal deserves swift rebuttal. This is the same man who advised President Bush prior to the Iraq war that the only language Arabs understood was the language of force. While Presidents may self-select advisors who tell them what they want to hear, these advisors bear as much responsibility, specially when they pose as ‘experts’…. Lewis’ op-ed article is a call to arms against Islam.”

Badruddin Khan writes in Counterpunch, 17 May 2007

In an article entitled “Islam’s War for World Mastery” Efraim Karsh takes up Lewis’s arguments. He writes:

“Mr. bin Laden and other Islamists’ war is not against America per se but is rather the most recent manifestation of the millenarian jihad for a universal Islamic empire, the umma. As the preeminent world power for quite some time, and the only remaining superpower after the collapse of the Soviet empire, America blocks the final realization of this goal and hence is a natural target for aggression. In this sense, the House of Islam’s war for world mastery is a traditional, indeed venerable, quest that is far from over.”

New York Sun, 18 May 2007