“The situation is not irrecoverable. If mistakes were made in the latest operation, it is better for the police to admit to them frankly. There is a lot of goodwill out there. But after the fatal shooting of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, any attempt to mislead the public could well have bad consequences for us all.”
Inayat Bunglawala on the consequences of the Forest Gate police raid.
“For a long time now, I have been meaning to take a cool, reflective look at Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji. The ordeal of keeping calm long enough to write about them and avoiding serious damage to my blood pressure at the same time was mainly what prevented me.”
Excellent post by Brian Whitaker at Comment is Free, 5 June 2006
See also the article by Laila Lalami that Whitaker recommends, in The Nation, 1 June 2006
THE FUTURE OF EUROPE IN ISLAM
Panel Debate – Wednesday 7th June (18:45-20:45)
UCL Chemistry Auditorium
Christopher Ingold Building
20 Gordon Street
London WC1H 0AJ
This panel discussion aims to explore the future of Europe in Islam. Islam is frequently cited as Europe’s fastest growing religion, and its followers have increasingly been in the spotlight. The rise of the far right across Europe together with a growing confident Muslim identity raises interesting questions about the role that Europe is playing in shaping the future of Islam and Muslims living in the west.
The invited panel of speakers will set out their vision for the future of Europe in Islam and engage with each other in a lively debate and discussion. Members of the audience will be able to put forward their questions for the panellists to discuss.
Panel Members:
Dr Hisham Hellyer, Warwick University (Chair)
Professor Tariq Ramadan, Oxford St. Anthony’s College
Dr Abdul Wahid, Hizb ut Tahrir
Dr Yahya Michot, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
Huda Jawad, UK Programme Director, Forward Thinking
Mehdi Hassan
Tickets can be booked online at: www.myh.org.uk/events.htm
All proceeds generated from this event will go toward supporting the work of Muslim Youth Helpline.
A young Muslim man shot by police on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist chemical plot last night protested his innocence and alleged that police failed to give warning before opening fire.
Solicitors for Mohammed Abdul Kahar and his brother Abul Koyair, who was also seized in a dawn raid on Friday involving 250 police officers, said they denied any wrongdoing.
A family who live next door to the brothers alleged that they were also arrested and assaulted, leaving one man with a head injury and needing hospital treatment.
For comment, see Rolled Up Trousers and Lenin’s Tomb.
Meanwhile, Melanie Phillips is demanding that MPACUK should be prosecuted for “incitement to riot – or worse” because they called on Muslim youth to protest against the shooting.
Melanie Phillips’ article in last week’s Observer stating that Islam in Britain has become “fused with an agenda of murder” has prompted the following letter in response:
Melanie Phillips (Comment, last week) may be right about the radicalising impact of The Satanic Verses and the Bosnian war on many Muslims, but her continued penchant for blaming the religion of Islam and depicting all Muslims as extremist murderers is a disgrace. Imagine her horror if someone wrote that Judaism had become fused with murder. It is naked incitement to argue that Islam and all Muslims in Britain are intent on killing when this only applies to a very small, albeit very extreme, minority.
If Phillips’s nonsense was even partially accurate, we would have mass murders and bombings every day as one million British Muslims fulfilled their divinely ordained mandate. This anti-Islamic invective is no less despicable than the anti-semitism that Phillips regularly castigates others for.
Chris Doyle
London EC4
“The problem lies in a refusal to acknowledge that Islamist extremism is rooted in religion. Instead, ministers and security officials prefer to think of it as a protest movement against grievances such as Iraq or Palestine, or ‘Islamophobia’. They simply ignore the statements and signs which show unequivocally that the aim is to Islamicize the west.”
Melanie Phillips rants on, this time in the New York Post, 4 June 2006
Ten percent of Dutch people admit to having racist opinions – that is, they consider themselves to be more intelligent than foreigners – according to a poll published on Saturday.
The survey by the Motivaction polling agency was published in the protestant daily Nederlands Dagblad.
The poll found that half of the people in Holland have an aversion to Muslims, 43% think Islam is a threat to peace and two-thirds feel the faith is at odds with modern life in Europe.
However, 73% denied being racist and said they favoured a multicultural society.
Another plug for Bruce Bawer’s hysterical Islamophobic rant, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West From Within, this one by Andre Zantonavitch:
“While Europe Slept argues that while Europe is currently only about ten percent Islamic – vs. two percent for America – if present trends continue it will only take a generation or two for Muslims to become the majority. The once-noble Continent will become what Bat Ye’or in 2005 called ‘Eurabia’. The shocking claim by Gary [sic] Bawer is that well before 2050, most of Europe is likely to become an outpost of Islamdom governed by Sharia.
“The second theme is that Europe today is a hellhole of leftist multiculturalism, far worse than anything in America, and even far worse than almost anyone in America suspects. American expatriate Bawer – who has lived the past ten years in various European countries, mostly Holland and Norway – is almost uniformly horrified by every country he resides in or visits. According to him, political correctness and multiculturalism are ‘a habit of thought that in America is an annoyance but in Europe is a veritable religion’.
“Bawer excoriates his European friends for their propensity to display phony ‘respect’ and ‘understanding’ of the various foreigners in their midst, especially Muslims.”
Peace campaigners backed Muslim leader Sir Iqbal Sacranie’s comments yesterday that the London bombings would not have happened if Britain had not invaded Iraq.
The outgoing Muslim Council of Britain secretary-general told BBC radio that “we are suffering the consequences” of the illegal war and occupation.” Asked specifically whether a terror attack, as seen in London on July 7 2005, would have happened if Britain had not entered Iraq, he replied: “I personally don’t think that would have happened.”
Stop the War Coalition convenor Lindsey German said that Sir Iqbal was “absolutely right” and renewed calls for a complete withdrawal of all British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. “Only Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cronies are in denial of a link between the bombings and his illegal war against Iraq and Afghanistan,” she added.
Media Workers Against the War chairman Dave Crouch accused the media of “complacency” in the government’s denial of a link despite growing public opinion and even intelligence findings pointing to British foreign policy in the Middle East as the main factor. “The media has not reported the extent of the atrocities of the war,” he said.
“It has depicted the alleged Haditha massacre as an exceptional case, when, in reality, it is part of a pattern of brutal violence meted out by US and British troops in Iraq,” Mr Crouch said. He added: “The war has fuelled resistance in Iraq and angered the Muslim community in Britain and across Europe. This anger and frustration can be manipulated by people who believe that terrorism is the answer.”
He backed the call for troop withdrawal as “the first and essential step” towards resolving the crisis and lowering the risk of future attacks in the West.
Morning Star, 3 June 2006
Remember Cardinal George Pell, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, who was recently condemned for arguing that Islam is an inherently violent religion that poses a threat to Western democracies? Well, he’s at it again, telling an interviewer that “Islam is a much more war-like culture than Christianity”. Well, who could disagree? We can only be thankful that the West is governed by peace-loving Christians like George Bush and Tony Blair.