Author Archives: Bob Pitt

The war against the west (part 597)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

bnp-islam-posterMelanie Phillips replies to Maleiha Malik’s excellent Guardian article which draws a comparison between the anti-semitism of the early 20th century and Islamophobia today.

Mel takes particular exception to the notion of “anti-Muslim racism”:

“Since when were Muslims a race? Islam is a religion. It is the Jewish people who are victims of something well-nigh identical to racism. But of course, in order to appropriate to Muslims the victimisation of the Jews, Muslims have to be presented similarly as the victims of ethnic prejudice.”

According to this argument, the British National Party’s vile anti-Muslim propaganda is not racist, because how can there be racism towards adherents of a particular religion? The fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims come from minority non-white ethnic communities is mere coincidence, apparently.

This is of course exactly the same argument that the BNP itself uses. It’s no wonder that the fascists list Phillips as one of the newspaper columnists “whose opinions … most closely match their own“.

Anti-Muslim bigot goes into the oil biz

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Terror Free Oil“The BBC reports that an outfit calling itself the ‘Terror Free Oil Initiative’ has set up a filling station in Omaha, Nebraska, touting oil not imported from countries which ‘support terror’ – meaning just about any Muslim country, in the Middle East or anywhere else. At the moment, they only use American and Canadian oil. (Clearly, they’re only talking about one sort of terror.) A few paragraphs into the report and we find out who their spokesman is: Joe Kaufman, the bigot behind ‘Americans Against Hate’, a group which dedicates itself to smearing Muslims and Muslim organisations.”

Indigo Jo Blogs, 3 February 2007

‘Taking the fight to Islam’

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“Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not the only critic of Islam who lives with round-the-clock protection. But surely none wears their endangered status with greater style. The Dutch Somali human-rights campaigner looks like a fashion model and talks like a public intellectual. Tall and slender with rod-straight posture and a schoolgirl smile, she is a thinker of stunning clarity, able to express ideas in her third language with a precision that very few could achieve in their first. This combination of elegance and eloquence would be impressive in any circumstances. Under threat of death, it is nothing short of incredible.”

Andrew Anthony in the Observer, 4 February 2007

Another gushing tribute to the appalling Hirsi Ali who, to general relief among the Dutch Muslim community, has now left the Netherlands to work for the right-wing US think-tank the American Enterprise Institute – which is exactly where she belongs.

‘Is justice served by these tales of beheading?’ asks Nick Cohen

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Nick Cohen 3Nick Cohen writes: “Last week’s papers were full of accounts of the supposed plot by nine men held in raids in Birmingham. Every type of paper, upmarket and down, ran headlines such as ‘Terror gang planned to kidnap, torture and behead a soldier on our doorstep’ or ‘Terror hitlist named 25 Muslim soldiers’ with barely an ‘alleged’ thrown in to hint that none of the claims had been proved in court.”

Observer, 4 February 2007

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More irresponsible gibberish from Joan Smith

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Joan Smith displays her ignorance about the meaning of political Islam, and fingers veil-wearing Muslim women as terrorist pawns. Political Islam in all its variants is “an authoritarian political ideology based on a literal reading of the Koran”. What Islamists “want to replace is liberal secular democracy”. In furtherance of that aim, they are “trying to create as much dissension as possible, training young British men in foreign terror camps, facilitating terrorist attacks in the UK and hoping the wider Muslim community feels victimised when the police claim to have uncovered another terror cell. They’ve had some success in persuading Muslim women to adopt the niqab and jilbab…”

Independent on Sunday, 4 February 2007

Government accused of appeasing Muslims, discriminating against Catholics

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I’m wondering if we had Muslim adoption agencies in this country which had objected to having to consider gay couples as adoptive parents whether this Government would have stuck two fingers up at their beliefs in the way they have at Catholic adoption agencies.

“Last week those agencies – who on the grounds of conscience and belief had asked to be excluded from new gay rights laws forcing them to consider homosexuals as adoptive parents – were told: ‘You’re not going to be excluded so either get over it or close down.’

“Had a Muslim organisation been told that there’d have been rioting in the streets. There’d have been endless newspaper stories, and TV debates about the rights of a religion to flourish in a democracy. But because this was about Catholics, this Government knew there wouldn’t be any riots or the burning of effigies, so they decided the Catholic Church – its doctrines and its objections – just weren’t valid.

“In not wanting to deal with homosexual couples as adoptive parents, the Catholic Church wasn’t being discriminatory – it was simply following its teachings. Just as Muslims believe you can get divorced by saying three times: ‘I divorce you’, just as they can take four wives, just as they believe women should be covered up, Catholics believe a child should have a mother and father – not terribly radical in this day and age.

“And this Government should be ashamed for dumping on Catholic beliefs when we all know they’d bust a collective gut to allow Muslims in this country to practise their faith however they want.”

Carole Malone in the Sunday Mirror, 4 February 2007

Earth calling Henry Porter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Henry PorterNot content with publishing Andrew Anthony’s paean to Ayaan Hirsi Ali (“Taking the fight to Islam”), today’s Observer gives over almost an entire page to a comment piece by Henry Porter, who complains – all evidence to the contrary – that Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary Undercover Mosque received little or no press coverage.

The reason for this, apparently, is that while the media are keen to criticise the Anglican Church, they are guilty of “tolerating intolerance” when it comes to the Muslim community. You really do wonder what planet Henry Porter lives on.

And yet again, we are offered a parallel between the BNP and sections of the Muslim community. It is the latter, and not the fascists, according to Porter, who pose “a very great threat to our whole community”. What a plonker.

For a reasoned – and admirably restrained – response to Porter by Osama Saeed of MAB, see Rolled Up Trousers, 4 February 2007

Stop bleating about terror raids, McKinstry tells Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Here we go again. The anti-terror police raids in Birmingham have prompted the usual outpouring of grievance from Muslim community leaders and activists. The airwaves have been full of the predictable accusations of Islamophobia against the police and the Government, with endless bleating about the alienation and stereotyping of Muslim youths.

“Once more we hear the moans about British foreign policy, while some conspiracy theorists have even come up with the absurd idea that the police took action just to distract attention from the cash-for-honours scandal engulfing Downing Street.

“Yes, there is a conspiracy but it is a real one, organised by radical Muslims bent on the destruction of Western civilisation and the ultimate triumph of fundamentalist Islam over our freedom and democracy.”

Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express, 2 February 2007

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