Author Archives: Bob Pitt

David Davis renews attack on multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David DavisA month after the 7/7 bomb attacks in London last year, David Davis, the shadow home secretary, wrote in The Daily Telegraph that multiculturalism had failed Britain, called for Muslims to unite behind “common values of nationhood” and said the Government “should not flinch from demanding tolerance and respect for the British way of life”.

Last night, Mr Davis returned to the subject, more convinced than ever that urgent action was needed to slam the multiculturalism juggernaut into reverse. Multiculturalism had encouraged a divided society and led to a “splintering of loyalties which is a threat to modern society”, he said. “Britain has closed societies within an open society, and the situation has been made worse by the Government’s policy of neglect. For too long there has been a habit of tiptoeing around issues, particularly with respect to Muslim communities. This has led to the sort of problems that have fostered terrorism in our own country.”

Sunday Telegraph, 8 October 2006

More anti-Muslim propaganda from the Express

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims pledge to ruin StrawAnother characteristically stupid and provocative headline from the Sunday Express. The accompanying article asserts that “an unholy alliance of Muslims and far-Right extremists was last night threatening Jack Straw’s future as an MP”. Needless to say, no such alliance exists and the Express offers no evidence that it does.

The Blackburn Muslims interviewed are divided over expressing regret at Straw’s comments, asking for a discussion with him, calling for an apology and demanding his resignation. Only two of those interviewed adopt the latter position.

As for the BNP, it aims to take advantage of the anti-Muslim sentiments provoked by Straw’s comments by standing against him in the next general election. The fascists’ spokesman Phil Edwards is quoted as saying that Straw has played a “subtle” version of the race card in order to boost his standing with white voters. (The BNP, of course, will do the same thing but dispense with the subtlety.) Edwards adds: “We have been saying this about Muslim dress for some time. It’s all part of the problems of a multi-cultural Britain that he and the Labour Party helped to create.”

The article also quotes Tory defence minister Gerald Howarth as saying that parliament may be forced to change the law to ban the veil. “I don’t think we need to legislate today but the time may come – if this fashion grows – where we need to. It’s time we stood up for our Christian heritage.”

Sunday Express, 8 October 2006

Witch-hunt launched against Mohammad Khatami

Posted on by Bob Pitt

KhatamiSince Gemma Tumelty took over as president of the National Union of Students earlier this year the NUS has taken a sharp turn to the right. We’ve already witnessed the NUS executive voting down a motion that called for an immediate ceasefire during Israel’s war against Lebanon and censuring George Galloway for backing Hizbollah in its resistance to Israeli aggression. (The NUS executive evidently had no problem with anyone supporting Israeli state terrorism against the Lebanese civilian population.)

If further proof were needed of the mistake made by FOSIS in blocking Pav Akhtar’s election as president, we now have leading figures in the NUS calling for public protests against St Andrews University’s decision to award an honorary degree to former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami duting his visit to the UK later this month.

The first NUS executive member to be quoted in a Sunday Times article witch-hunting Khatami (“Fury as St Andrews honours Hezbollah backer“) is, significantly, Sophie Buckland – a supporter of the rabidly Islamophobic pseudo-left sect the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty.

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Shock over anti-Muslim graffiti

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kill Muslims graffitiA Teesside family have returned from holiday to find their house daubed with anti-Muslim graffiti.

The Joacph family home and its neighbouring garage, in the Saltersgill area of Middlesbrough, were covered with messages. These claimed that the family were terrorists, and also called for the killing of Muslims.

The Joacphs, who are practising Roman Catholics, say they are devastated by the incident. Originally from India, they have lived in the area for three years.

BBC News, 8 October 2006

Update:  See also “Anti-Muslim graffiti daubed”, Yorkshire Evening Post, 10 October 2006

Right-wing Danish youth mock Prophet

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Danish state TV on Friday, October 6, aired video footage showing young members of a Danish party mocking Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him).

Filmed in August, the video shows young adherents of the Danish People’s Party (DPP) – a political ally of the centre-right coalition led by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen – mocking Prophet Muhammad during a summer party, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Participants in the summer gathering were competing who could draw the Prophet in the most humiliating and laughable manner. One cartoon appeared to depict the Prophet as a camel, urinating and drinking beer. A song playing in the background contains the lyrics, “The camel Muhammad has four beers…” Some other participants portrayed the Prophet dressed in a turban and wearing a belt with explosives as others look on in laughter.

The video was filmed by Martin Rosengaard Knudsen who posed as a member of the party for several months to document attitudes among young members.

Islam Online, 6 September 2006

This is par for the course with the DPP. One of its spokespersons is on record as saying that “Muslim immigration is a way for Muslims to conquer us” and a DPP MP has compared Muslim women who wear headscarves to bikers who sport swastikas.

For the Muslim Brotherhood’s view, see Ikhwanweb.com, 7 October 2006

Beneath contempt

Posted on by Bob Pitt

None of Straw's BusinessThe attempts by Jack Straw’s apologists to pass off his comments on Muslim women who wear the full face veil as an attempt to initiate a discussion are beneath contempt.

Mr Straw knew exactly what he was doing and why.

The Leader of the House had seen John Reid stage a political stunt in east London, using Muslim community leaders as a backdrop for TV cameras and enlisting the involvement of a seriously unwell convert to Islam to rant and rave at him for primetime news coverage.

Mr Reid then took full political advantage of the stunt to flaunt his “courage” in declaring that there would no no-go areas for his campaign against Islamist extremism.

Most of the media came along for the ride in the latest example of government ministers lecturing Britain’s Muslims on how to conduct themselves and how to ensure that their children behave.

All of a sudden, the Home Secretary was a statesman waiting to happen and, on the basis of telling Muslims where to get off, a possible candidate for Labour leader.

Put bluntly, Mr Straw saw this and wanted his turn in the spotlight, possibly as a prelude to standing for Labour Party deputy leader.

What a condemnation it is of the current state of politics today that the best way of gaining media attention and plaudits is by putting the boot into a religious minority that is based, largely, on ethnic minorities.

Editorial in the Morning Star, 7 October 2006

Incitement to hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Watching the news or reading the papers, you’d think that Muslims were Britain’s No 1 problem. Everyone, it seems, is frantically racing to offer magic cures for this chronic disease. Islam and Muslims are only ever invoked as objects of fear and horror: terrorism, forced marriage, honour killing and fanaticism. Over the past few days, hostility to Muslims has dominated the media: from the saga of the Muslim policeman excused guard duty outside the Israeli embassy to the violent attacks on a Muslim-owned dairy in Windsor and Jack Straw’s complaints about Muslim women who cover their faces. An ominous climate is being created.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi in the Guardian, 7 October 2006

‘Veil is a banner of political Islam’, ultra-left sectarian claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The veil is not merely a piece of ‘cloth’, but a sign of the oppression of women, control over their sexuality, submissiveness to the will of God or a man. The veil is a banner of political Islam used, to segregate women born by historical accident in the so-called ‘Islamic World’ from other women in the rest of the world….

“Jack Straw’s government has always been proud of its ‘multicultural society’, in which all kinds of backward and anti-human cultures are respected and given space by the state…. Celebrating ‘different cultures’ the existence of mosques and religious schools is a place for brainwashing the young people with Islamic values which can only produce political Islamists.”

Houzan Mahmoud at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, 7 October 2006

I note that comrade Mahmoud’s profile states that she is an activist in the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, but avoids mentioning that she is a member of a bizarre ultra-left sect called the Worker Communist Party of Iraq, of which the OWFI is just a front.

A wave of Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John McDonnellJohn McDonnell MP writes:

“If anyone doubted that Islamophobia existed in our country they should be in no doubt after reading and listening to the torrent of bigotry and prejudice pouring out of some of our national press and from our main media outlets over the last 48 hours….

“We are clearly in the middle of one of those regular episodes, launched by the unsavoury alliance of media and politicians, of attacking the latest vulnerable minority.

“The historical parallels with the persecution of the Catholic minority in this country three centuries ago and the Jews even further back in our history are striking.

“This week saw the commemoration of the ‘Battle of Cable Street’, when socialists, trade unionists and people of good faith stood up to the emerging Nazi threat in this country and stood in solidarity with the Jewish community against the despicable attacks on it by Mosley’s fascists.

“It is now our time to stand up in solidarity with Muslim members of our community.”

John McDonnell’s blog, 6 October 2006

‘Whatever happened to free speech in Britain?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“With the ink hardly dry on his words, Jack Straw is plunged into a maelstrom of denunciation for daring to suggest that Muslim women should discard the veil. Many of his constituents in Blackburn are vociferous in their dismay.

“The Lancashire Council of Mosques says he is ‘very insensitive and unwise’. The Islamic Human Rights Commission accuses him of ‘selectively discriminating’. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee attacks his ‘headline-grabbing’….

“But if this is the reaction to a calm and measured critique of Islamic culture – and one that is intended to open up a dialogue – what hope can there be of mature debate between the communities? Whatever happened to free speech Britain?

“Sadly, the pass was sold long ago. For years, this Government has actively promoted multiculturalism, encouraged Muslim ‘ghettoes’ and set its face against greater integration. Anyone who dared to question this new apartheid was routinely denounced as a ‘racist’.

“Britishness? Who cares? For New Labour – yes, including Mr Straw – it became an article of faith for the ethnic minorities to celebrate their own languages, culture and traditions, at the expense of shared values. There could hardly be a more effective recipe for division.

“Is it really surprising that some Muslims are now pressing for Sharia law in their own communities? Or if they see Mr Straw’s views on the veil as a juddering reversal of all that has gone before?”

Daily Mail, 7 October 2006