Author Archives: Bob Pitt

India protests Dutch handling of flight

Posted on by Bob Pitt

India has lodged a strong protest with the Netherlands at the way it handled Indian passengers from a Bombay-bound flight that returned to Amsterdam shortly after takeoff, a foreign ministry spokesman said. Dutch authorities detained 12 Indian passengers for more than a day and later released them after finding no evidence of a terrorist threat aboard the Northwest Airlines flight on Wednesday.

Relatives and friends of the men were angered by their treatment despite the release. In a housing block in Jogeshwari, a northern Bombay suburb where at least six of the passengers live, unhappy residents clustered in a parking lot to discuss the arrest. Special prayers for the men were held in a mosque in the housing complex.

“My brother is a businessmen traveling with colleagues and friends,” said Sanober Chotani, whose brother, Shaqeel, was among those held. “Indians talk more loudly than Westerners. So if you are happy, excited and Muslim, and don’t converse in English, you are a terrorist?”

Lubna Kulsawala said her brother-in-law, Ayub Kulsawala, 32, often flew abroad to sell garments. “He flies frequently for trade fairs and business. But he is Muslim, so he was arrested. Why should he be detained with no calls allowed to family?” she said. “My son is not a terrorist,” said Kulsawala’s 65-year-old father, Abdul. “I’m very upset and cannot eat properly after hearing of his arrest. We spend all the time before the television and phone waiting for more news.”

Flight NW0042 returned to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport escorted by two Dutch fighter jets after the crew reported passengers were behaving suspiciously. The 12 men were arrested after the emergency landing.

Forbes.com, 25 August 2006

Anti-semitism and Islamophobia in Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sharif Islam summarises Matti Bunzl’s comparative analysis of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Europe, as presented in an article in the American Ethnologist. Bunzl makes the point that anti-Semitism is fading, even among the parties of the far right, and Islamophobia has emerged as the dominant project of exclusion.

Sharif Islam writes: “Under the leadership of Jörg Haider, the Freedom Party opposed Austria’s membership in the EU on nationalist grounds. However, in 1995, after Austria’s inclusion in the EU, the politics of the party changed. The party began to accept Jews as potential leaders. According to Bunzl, this change is common among Europe’s far right-wing movements. He contrasts it with the dynamics of Islamophobia. He argues that Islamophobia is a genuine political issue, part of a wide-open debate on the future of Muslim presence in Europe. In contrast, there is no debate on the legitimacy of Jewish presence in Europe.”

MRZine, 23 August 2006

Cant on cohesion

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Ever since Margaret Thatcher’s comment in 1978, that the British people were worried that ‘this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture’, those on the Right of British politics have seen cultural diversity as a threat to national cohesion and security. But since 9/11, it has been parts of the ‘liberal’ Left that have attacked multiculturalism most forcefully, seeing in it the cause of segregation in Britain.

“…  a cacophony of voices has singled out Muslims in the ‘integration’ debate: it is their cultural difference which needs limits placed on it; it is they who must subsume their cultural heritage within ‘Britishness’; it is they who must declare their allegiance to (ill-defined) British values. In so doing, an idea that Muslims are inherently at odds with modern values, into which they need to be forcibly integrated, has been reinforced …. But it is entirely dishonest to pretend this is a demand for ‘integration’, when what is really being called for is assimilation.”

Arun Kundnani on the IRR website, 24 August 2004

Another case of secular bigotry

Posted on by Bob Pitt

wafThere was an interesting programme on Radio 4 last night, broadcast in the “Hecklers” slot, in which Gita Sahgal of Women Against Fundamentalisms (who is an atheist of Hindu origin) debated Tahmina Saleem, Tariq Ramadan, Lord Ahmed, Moazzam Begg and Daud Abdullah.

She was arguing, à la Martin Bright and John Ware, that by consulting with organisations like the MCB the government was merely encouraging “fundamentalism”. As is often the case these days, it was the self-proclaimed secular rationalist Gita Sahgal who came over as the ignorant dogmatic bigot.

‘Just because we’re Muslim, does not mean we are suicide bombers’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

plane 'bombers'Sohail Ashraf and Khurram Zeb, the two innocent Asian students marched off a jet at gunpoint because other passengers feared they were terrorists, have given an interview to the Mirror. They are remarkably restrained in their response.

Sohail is quoted as saying: “These are nervous times and I can understand why people are so panicked. All I would say is, ‘Don’t be paranoid. Don’t judge every book by its cover’. We might be Asian, but we’re two ordinary lads who wanted a bit of fun. Just because we’re Muslim, does not mean we are suicide bombers.”

Daily Mirror, 23 August 2006

Fascists in Belgium – they’re not far-right racists but Muslims!

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Vlaams BelangThe Wall Street Journal carries a piece by Bret Stephens reporting favourably on developments in the Belgian far-right party Vlaams Belang (formerly the Vlaams Blok, which officially dissolved itself in 2004 after being convicted of inciting racial hatred). Noting that the party has a history of Nazi sympathies and Holocaust denial, Stephens adds:

“But that’s changing. Younger party leaders, realizing their anti-Semitic taint was poison, began making pro-Israel overtures. And the party’s tough-on-crime, hostile-to-Muslims stance began to attract a considerable share of the Jewish vote, particularly among Orthodox Antwerp Jews who felt increasingly vulnerable in the face of the city’s hostile Muslim community. Today, Vlaams Belang is the largest single party in the country.”

Stephens continues: “Meanwhile, the real fascists in Belgium are gaining strength, largely protected from scrutiny by the country’s ‘anti-racism’ legislation. At Brussels’s Imam Reza mosque, a preacher commemorated the 17th anniversary of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s death: ‘The enemies cannot extinguish the light of the Islamic Revolution.’ And in Molenbeek, the newspaper Het Volk published a study of the local Muslim population: The editor, Gunther Vanpraet, described the commune as ‘a breeding ground for thousands of Jihad candidates’.”

Wall Street Journal, 22 August 2006

‘I know who I’d rather sit beside on a flight’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

monarch airline“Two young men flying from Malaga to Manchester last week were not quite up to speed with our new, unwritten laws…. They found themselves being removed from Monarch Airlines flight ZB613 because other travellers, very possibly white travellers, developed suspicions. A three-hour delay developed because the fearful refused to fly unless the pair were taken from the aircraft.

“They were ‘possibly’ in their 20s, after all, and ‘possibly’ of Middle Eastern – or was it ‘Asian’? – appearance. Someone said they looked constantly at their watches. Someone else thought they heard a language that may have been Arabic. Even holidaymakers are profilers these days, but only the white ones have legitimate reasons, apparently, for checking the time impatiently on a holiday flight.

“Monarch, at the time of writing, has been unable to confirm the grounds for these deep suspicions. The two men were removed, nevertheless, and charged with no crime whatever. They merely faced public humiliation, questioning and severe disruption to their own travel plans….

“What does the low-grade hysteria of those Monarch passengers achieve if not another small, useful publicity coup for extremism? What message does a lynch-mob mentality convey to a young Muslim who fears even to board a flight? How many more ‘mistakes’ can John Reid’s department afford? And where does any of it leave our fragile, assailed multi-culturalism? … The real risk now is that Britain, never a model of unity, will be deeply and permanently divided for reasons of race and faith.

“Mr Blair has said recently that there is an argument to be won, and that military means alone will not secure a victory for his ‘values’. I agree with the statement, but doubt his intentions. He can lecture Britain’s Muslims, by all means, on the subject of rights and responsibilities, but it is time that he also began to lecture the non-Muslim majority, and some of his own Ministers, on the meaning of civilised values.

“The concept is being eroded with each passing month. Who would you rather sit beside on a flight from Malaga? An obnoxious Mancunian drunk, or a pacific, and perfectly innocent, young Muslim? One might deserve the attentions of suburban vigilantes; the other certainly does not.”

Ian Bell in The Herald, 22 August 2006

Some good points, though it’s probably just as well the Herald doesn’t have a wide circulation among the people of Manchester.

Don’t blame multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Commission for Racial Equality boss, Trevor Phillips, opened the floodgates to this erroneous debate about multiculturalism two years ago. Like the BBC newsreader George Alagiah, writing in yesterday’s Daily Mail, he blamed the ‘policies of multiculturalism’ for the alienation and radicalisation of British Muslims. Both men are prominent, powerful public figures and their views make front-page news. The damage they are causing to good race relations cannot be underestimated. ”

Simon Woolley at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, 22 August 2006,

You are now entering Eurabia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Long before the September 11 attacks, conservative intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic had begun to present the ‘green peril’ of Islamic fundamentalism as an existential threat to Western civilization comparable to communism and Nazism. In the 21st century however, a new school of thought has begun to emerge, which depicts Europe as a continent on the brink of imminent cultural and political subjugation to Islam. The more pessimistic exponents of this thesis have argued that Europe’s civilizational collapse is now so far advanced that Europe has effectively become a cultural and political hybrid called ‘Eurabia’.”

Matt Carr’s article from the July issue of Race & Class.22

MCB criticises lenient sentence for racist attacker

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Furious Muslim leaders last night criticised magistrates after a man escaped custody following a disgusting racist attack on two women. A court heard how jobless Daniel Thackray, 19, of Hen Felin, Aber, near Bangor, spat on two Muslim woman and then pushed one who was heavily pregnant. He received a six months’ custodial term suspended for 18 months which angered the Muslim Council of Britain.

Speaking after the case a Muslim Council spokesman said: “Society shows its revulsion at certain crimes by the way in which it sentences people. This almost gives a green light to hate crimes. Spitting at and pushing a pregnant woman is revolting. Spitting at anyone is a disgusting crime.”

Thackray will also have access to alcohol counselling. He must pay £100 compensation each to the pregnant Turkish mother, aged 46, and her 18-year-old daughter. He admitted two counts of racially aggravated common assault.

Prosecutor James Neary said at Llandudno Magistrates Court that the drunken teenager had said “f***ing Muslim” during the trouble at a bus stop in the centre of Colwyn Bay. He had pushed the mother after she went towards him. She fell backwards but was caught by her daughter. They went to the nearby police station and Thackray was arrested when he passed it.

Court chairman Owen Evans told Thackray: “This was disgraceful behaviour against two vulnerable victims.”

Daily Post, 22 August 2006