Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Martin Amis on Islamism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

martin amis“Until recently it was being said that what we are confronted with, here, is ‘a civil war’ within Islam. That’s what all this was supposed to be: not a clash of civilisations or anything like that, but a civil war within Islam. Well, the civil war appears to be over. And Islamism won it. The loser, moderate Islam, is always deceptively well-represented on the level of the op-ed page and the public debate; elsewhere, it is supine and inaudible. We are not hearing from moderate Islam. Whereas Islamism, as a mover and shaper of world events, is pretty well all there is…. we respect Islam – the donor of countless benefits to mankind, and the possessor of a thrilling history. But Islamism? No, we can hardly be asked to respect a creedal wave that calls for our own elimination…. Islam, in the end, proved responsive to European influence: the influence of Hitler and Stalin. And one hardly needs to labour the similarities between Islamism and the totalitarian cults of the last century. Anti-semitic, anti-liberal, anti-individualist, anti-democratic, and, most crucially, anti-rational, they too were cults of death, death-driven and death-fuelled.”

Martin Amis in the Observer, 10 September 2006

Here, “Islamism” is ignorantly conflated with terrorism. Judging by the article, Amis’s sources of information on this question are Paul Berman’s book Terrorism and Liberalism and Sam Harris’s The End of Faith. Perhaps he should read a little more widely on the subject. He would discover that, to quote Soumaya Ghannoushi, “Islamism, like socialism, is not a uniform entity. It is a colourful sociopolitical phenomenon with many strategies and discourses. This enormously diverse movement ranges from liberal to conservative, from modern to traditional, from moderate to radical, from democratic to theocratic, and from peaceful to violent. What these trends have in common is that they derive their source of legitimacy from Islam….”

Richard Seymour describes Amis’s piece as “an utterly clueless essay that casually asserts this and that idiocy about the West and Islam with evidently no more thought than the average Sun leader writer”.

Update:  See Pankaj Mishra, “The politics of paranoia”, Observer, 17 September 2006

Former Iranian president urges US Muslims to fight Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

KhatamiIran’s former president decried a wave of “Islamophobia” that he said is being spread in the United States by fear and hatred of Islam in response to terror perpetrated by Muslims. “In the crime of 9/11, two crimes were committed,” Mohammad Khatami said. “One was killing innocent people. The second crime was masking this crime in the name of Islam.”

Under smothering security, with dozens of uniformed police and plainclothes American security personnel provided by the State Department, Khatami spoke Friday night at an event sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations called “The Dialogue of Civilizations: Five Years After 9/11.”

Associated Press, 8 September 2006

See also interview with Mohammad Khatami, Washington Post 5 September 2006

Fascists reject ‘appeasement’ of ‘barbaric medieval desert religion’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Islam Out of Britain“This is a conference of appeasement to the communities which harbour individuals who will stop at nothing to bomb our cities and kill innocent people to force their religion on an unwilling population…. Thousands of Londoners and visitors alike still bear the physical and mental scars of the 7/7 Islamic terror attacks on the Tube yet our well paid senior police officers sit down to cornflakes and toast with so-called community leaders representing ethnic and religious minority groups that are prepared to bomb, kill, rape and maim to get their way.”

The British National Party takes exception to the news that Tim Godwin, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, will be the special guest at the Second Annual London Peace Talks, a breakfast meeting for leaders of communities, faith groups, and public services at the Greater London Authority on Monday 11 September.

Instead, the fascists call for “a firm policy which can only come from a nationalist government that our capital city and our country is not up for discussion, not open to questions of ownership and that we are not going to make one single concession to those who choose to temporarily live here who adhere to a barbaric medieval desert religion”.

BNP news article, 8 September 2006

For Canadian Muslims, guilt by association

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When Ahmed Farooq crosses the Canada-U.S. border, he isn’t surprised when he is singled out for questioning. He is, after all, a young, single, Muslim man born in Saudi Arabia who fits the racial profile of would-be terrorists. But the fourth-year medical resident at the University of Winnipeg never expected to be hauled off a United Airlines flight for praying. That’s what happened last month, after a fellow passenger complained that Dr. Farooq was trying to ‘control the aisles’ when he exchanged seats to pray next to a window.”

Globe & Mail, 8 September 2006

US conservative says right-wing Islamophobes discredit conservatism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The most repugnant trend in the American shouting match that passes for a debate on the struggle with Islamist terrorism isn’t the irresponsible nonsense on the left – destructive though that is. The really ugly ‘domestic insurgency’ is among right-wing extremists bent on discrediting honorable conservatism. How? By insisting that Islam can never reform, that the violent conquest and subjugation of unbelievers is the faith’s primary agenda – and, when you read between the lines, that all Muslims are evil and subhuman.

“I’ve received no end of e-mails and letters seeking to ‘enlighten’ me about the insidious nature of Islam. Convinced that I’m naive because I defend American Muslims and refuse to ‘see’ that Islam is 100 percent evil, the writers warn that I’m a foolish ‘dhimmi’, blind to the conspiratorial nature of Islam. Web sites list no end of extracts from historical documents and Islamic jurisprudence ‘proving’ that holy war against Christians and Jews is the alpha and omega of the Muslim faith. The message between the lines: Muslims are Untermenschen.”

California Republic, 8 September 2006

‘Most Brits don’t trust Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Daily Star reports an opinion poll revealing that 79% of respondents said they’d feel uncomfortable living next to a Muslim. The Star has no doubt where the blame for this lies. In addition to the effects of 7/7:

“Many moderate Muslims seem intent on leading separate lives. They send their children to faith schools, clad their women in burqas and talk of bringing Sharia law to Britain.”

The incitement of anti-Muslim bigotry by right-wing rags like the Star of course plays no role at all.

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‘Burka’ is the mark of female oppression – Express columnist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A burka is the mark of female oppression

By Virginia Blackburn

Daily Express, 7 September 2006

I LIVE in a nice part of London known as Little Tehran. The place has a pleasant atmosphere – the Iranians who live here arrived after the 1979 revolution and are sympathetic to the West.

They brought much that is good with them, including a couple of excellent Persian restaurants, shops where you can buy caviar at about a tenth the price of elsewhere and a work ethic that means they are determined to succeed in their new life.

But, just occasionally, I see something that chills me as much now as it ever did: a woman wearing the full burka.

Even the most politically correct of people know in their hearts that the burka is possibly the strongest visual indication of female oppression in the world.

In countries where it is commonplace, and in some cases mandatory, women are not allowed to vote, drive or leave the house unaccompanied by a male relative.

Adultery, like homosexuality, is punishable by death. Forced marriage, an event better classed as rape, is common – as is female circumcision. Rape itself is almost impossible to prove and shames the victim, not the criminal.

The burka is the sign of a medieval society – although even in the Middle Ages in this country, women were treated better than they are now in certain countries in the Middle East.

But no one has been allowed to say any of this for fear of being labelled racist, dismissive of another culture, or a Little Englander. Only a very few who saw what was really going on looked on and despaired.

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Media is warned over its coverage of Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The British media needs to be more balanced in its coverage of Islam, according to members of Christian-Muslim dialogue groups.

On the fifth anniversary of the atrocities of 9/11 in New York, suspicion of Islam in the UK is higher than ever, as shown in a recent YouGov poll in which 53 per cent of respondents felt they thought Islam was a threat to Western liberal democracy. Meanwhile 65 per cent of those surveyed said security services should focus anti-terrorism intelligence on Muslims.

Ibrahim Mogra, chair of the interfaith relations committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the media in the UK too often presented a distorted view of the religion. He said:

“Not all of the media is bad but some sections present Islam in a very negative way which is not practised by the majority of Muslims in this country. The media should be going out and talking to mainstream and ordinary Muslims and presenting that to the nation, rather than a perverted view. How many Imams have we see on the front pages talking about compassion and love, there are hundreds of them.”

Mr Mogra added that he felt that 9/11 had led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and that the media needed to ask more questions about British foreign policy, which he feels motivated the 7/7 bombers.

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All-party parliamentary inquiry distorts Qaradawi’s views

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi and MayorSummarising the contents of a report published today by the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, the Telegraph says the report claims “that anti-Semitism is no longer the sole preserve of the political far-Right, but occurs across the political spectrum, including the Left.

The MPs cite concerns about the decision of Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, to host an event attended by the Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who has reportedly banned Muslims from any dialogue with Jews”.

Daily Telegraph, 7 September 2006

For the report itself, see (pdf) here.

The attack on Dr al-Qaradawi by the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry is just ignorant. He is described as “a controversial Muslim cleric” (there are no clerics in Sunni Islam) who “has reportedly forbidden Muslims from engaging in dialogue of any kind with Jews”.

And where was this accusation “reported”? By the Middle East Media Research Institute, of course. (See here.)

Ironically, MEMRI itself was responsible for publishing a much longer transcript of an interview from Qaradawi’s Al-Jazeera programme (see here) in which he outlined his views on relations between Islam and Judaism in detail. (This was in February 2005, shortly after the Mayor of London had launched a public attack on MEMRI for their distortions of Qaradawi’s views, and presumably they were trying to cover themselves.)

In this interview Qaradawi expressed the same views that he did during his visit to London in July 2004 on the duty of Muslims to respect Jews. “Jews lived among Muslims for centuries, even when Europe persecuted them and expelled them…. They found a safe haven in Muslim territory…. Islam welcomes those who believe in the [Jewish] religion. Moreover, the Jews are probably the closest to Muslims in terms of faith and law, even more than Christians.” Qaradawi added: “There is a difference between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political movement….”

On the subject of interfaith dialogue, Qaradawi stated that he objected to dialogue with people like Israel’s chief rabbi because “he supports the murder of Palestinians on a daily basis, supports the destruction of homes and the eviction of people, and supports the crimes and the barbaric slaughter that are taking place every day. How can I shake his hand and sit down with him?”

But Qaradawi added that he had no problem engaging in dialogue with representatives of the Jewish community who oppose the repression of the Palestinians: “I welcome Jews who dissociate themselves from what Israel is doing, and I welcome being with them.”

He summarised his views as follows: “I oppose dialogue with Jewish rabbis living in Israel, who support the crimes committed by Israel. With them there is no possibility [of dialogue]…. We will hold a dialogue with those who are reasonable among them, as well as with the Christians, as indeed I have been present at a number of conferences for Islamic-Christian dialogue. But with those ‘who do evil’, as Allah said, we shall neither argue nor shall we have any dialogue.”

Obviously the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism didn’t even bother to check their facts before repeating Qaradawi’s “reported” views on relations with the Jewish community.