Thus the headline to an article in today’s Daily Mail reporting on this evening’s Channel 4 Dispatches documentary “What Muslims Want“.
Author Archives: Bob Pitt
Fascists recommend ‘Dispatches’ documentary
“We rarely recommend that our readers should watch television – a mind numbing activity at the best of times but we feel compelled to suggest that readers tune into Channel 4 this evening (7th) for a Dispatches programme which tackles one of the most difficult and controversial questions facing our country today: ‘to what extent do Muslims in Britain pose a threat to this country and its values?’
“Jon Snow presents findings which C4 admit are ‘startling’. Once again we witness an establishment organisation playing ‘catch up’ to the BNP [which] was ahead of the game. As long ago as 2001 we were warning of the threat radical Islam poses to Britain and British society. In 2004 BNP Leader Nick Griffin addressed a meeting in West Yorkshire where he described Islam as a wicked faith and faces a retrial in the autumn for sounding this warning.
“The programme will help raise awareness of the serious threat we now have in our midst thanks to an open door immigration policy from successive Labour and Tory governments.”
Yasmin A-B on ‘Dispatches’ documentary
“The latest Channel 4 expose makes excitable and contradictory claims. In a sample of 1,000 Muslims, one-in-four said the London bombings were ‘justified’ yet only eight people ‘maintained a very hard line’. Eighty per cent apparently said anyone who protected a terrorist was as guilty as the perpetrator…. the programme shows many Muslims believe we have not been given the whole truth about 11 September and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Millions of non-Muslims are sceptical too – including beef eating, American mid-westerners.
“Snow – a journalist I admire unreservedly – is reported as saying: ‘For the moment, British Muslims are on side.’ What side? I am not on side, if it means agreeing to the immoral and racist foreign policies of the UK and US axis. Many militant Muslims are not ignorant, fanatical worshippers, but people with eyes wide open, staring at political duplicity…..
“To claim, as our power merchants do, that only murderous Muslims are furious about western actions serves our leaders well. To dwell on Islam and Muslims as the causes of all turmoil, to paint us as malevolent deviants serves them better still, permitting them to scythe through freedoms and choices which otherwise would never be surrendered in democratic societies.
“In his sober essay ‘In the Streets of Londonistan’ (London Review of Books) the lawyer John Upton wrote: ‘A black cloud of Islamist terror is said to be hanging over the Western world and specific causes of violence and discontent have disappeared into it. Instead we promote the idea that all acts of violence involving Arabs or Muslims, if seen from the correct (that is to say US inspired) angle, will fit together like a jigsaw to form an image of Osama bin Laden… If this is a war, as the Neocons and Blairite hawks would have us believe, it is being fought as much in the realm of ideology and words as in the realm of explosive shoes and ricin laboratories. It is a propaganda war of shadowy unprovables….’
“And part of this propaganda war of shadowy unprovables is to pore over and pronounce endlessly on Muslim alienation to prove that we are indeed aliens, unable to live as quiet citizens, always suspect, devious and determined to destroy the place that once gave us shelter.”
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the Independent, 7 August 2006
Italian beaches under Islamic law – shock revelation by FrontPage Magazine
“Europe’s transformation into Eurabia is still dismissed as absurd by many Europeans who choose to ignore the effects of unassimilated Muslim populations in their cities. But it’s the absurd – as seen in some recent accommodations to Muslims – that might finally force them to avert their eyes no more. The wandering eyes of men will no longer be a concern for certain women in a popular Italian resort on the Adriatic Sea. The city council of Riccione has come up with a way to enable Muslim women to enjoy the sand and sea without being fully clothed: opening sections of the beach exclusively for their use.”
Aaron Hanscom in Front Page Magazine, 7 August 2006
‘Muslim integration has come to a halt’
Jon Snow gives us a foretaste of this evening’s Dispatches documentary.
For an excellent response by Sunny Hundal (and it’s not often I get to type those words) see Pickled Politics, 6 August 2006
For Osama Saeed’s comments, see Rolled Up Trousers, 6 August 2006
US ‘told Blair to sack Straw after Condi’s Blackburn trip’
Dramatic new evidence that Cabinet rebel Jack Straw was sacked as Foreign Secretary as a result of pressure from George W. Bush has been revealed. Senior sources close to the US Government told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Straw’s outspoken opposition to America’s policies on the Middle East was discussed by White House aides weeks before his shock dismissal by Tony Blair in May. It follows the disclosure that the Bush Administration feared Mr Straw was in the pocket of Muslims in his Blackburn constituency. And it gives further credence to claims that he was fired because of his refusal to back America’s all-out support for Israel.
Who’s the extremist?
“While constantly pointing the finger at Muslims and denying any part in the spread of terrorism, this arrogant rhetoric of neoliberal militantism, which goes hand in hand with military aggression on the ground, is terrorism’s chief recruiter and the greatest threat to Britain’s national security.”
Soumaya Ghannoushi replies to Blair’s “arc of extremism” speech.
‘Root out the true enemy’
“America, awake. We are in the early stages of a war between Western civilization and the militant Islamic fanatics who control the Arab world. We have had our second Pearl Harbor on 9/11, and still we sleep. The current Lebanon-Israeli conflict is yet another instance in which radical Islam has displayed its intentions and hatred of world democracies. In the past quarter century, America has been under attack by the Islamic world. Thousands of Americans have died as a result of Muslim hatred directed against the US….
“I am not a Bush supporter, but I applaud his courage and integrity in supporting our Israeli allies during this latest Islamic outrage against Israel. We are engaged in a war with Islam regardless of the reluctance of our leaders and allied leaders to call it as it is. We won World War II by crushing our enemies, not negotiating with them.”
Mel Goldstein in the Roanoke Times, 2 August 2006
‘Islam or else?’
“Of course, God can change the human heart and wash away any past sins – and thus cause to emerge a completely new creature – quite separate from their past. But Islam is not in that group. Islam is a force for evil that opposes all who do not embrace it. Much like the homosexual agenda, all who oppose Islam must be silenced by whatever means. That is at the heart of Islam – convert to the worship of Allah or else slay all those who reject Islam….
“Dr. Keyes basically says that he has no illusions about the threat posed by Islam, and that Islam will remain at odds with all other religions, unless Islam is effectively held in check through ‘wise policy and action’. In my opinion, I think that such ‘action’ may well include war — if things persist. I see no other option since Islam itself urges its followers: ‘Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them.’
“So unfortunately, it’s either kill or be killed.”
Guy Adams at Renew America, 3 August 2006
Bright and the Right: An unholy alliance
“Martin Bright says he feels ‘rather awkward’ about his newfound friends. So he should: anybody who claims to be on the left and finds their arguments being championed by a bunch of warmongering neocons should pause and reflect how they got themselves in that position.”
Salma Yaqoob replies to Martin Bright.
Guardian Comment is Free, 2 August 2006