Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Nazis ask ‘Where are the moderate Muslims?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Yesterday we were treated to the sight of about 4,000 ‘moderate’ Muslims plus a few hundred Christian peaceniks holding a protest in Trafalgar Square….  The question has to be asked what about the rest? Yes where were the rest of Britain’s moderate Muslims? … Why did so many Muslims stay away from a protest on their very doorsteps? Is it because the event organisers are not representative of the wider Muslim community?”

The fascists utilise the media’s downplaying of the size and significance of yesterday’s impressive Trafalgar Square rally to imply that the ex-Al-Muhajiroun groupuscule Al-Ghurabaa (an organisation of perhaps fifty people) is more representative of British Muslims.

BNP news article, 12 February 2006

Mohammad cartoon protests aren’t unique to Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The violence linked to cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad is not unique to Islam, experts say, and the protests reflect political and cultural passions more than the faith’s core values.

Looking for distinct features that would make Islam liable for the cartoon-related violence around the world does little to explain it, said the Rev. Patrick Gaffney, an anthropologist and expert on Islam at the University of Notre Dame.

“There are parallel behaviors in every tradition,” he said. “Buddhism has a violent strain despite its pacifism … You think about Hinduism and nonviolence but (Mohandas) Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu.”

Other examples of religious violence involving various faiths abound in recent and past history. But attention has focused on Muslims this year as at least 11 people have been killed in protests in the Middle East, Asia and Africa after the publication of cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammad in newspapers in Denmark and elsewhere.

“You can’t say Islam has a gene for violence,” Gaffney said. “It has to do with the dynamics, political and economic, that are at play right now,” especially in Europe where there has been a long history of anti-Islamic prejudice that represents “an underlying kind of powder keg.”

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Muslims fly flag for peaceful protest against cartoons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Trafalgar Square rallyThousands of British Muslims flocked into Trafalgar Square yesterday to express their anger at the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist.

But they also voiced their rejection of the wave of violent protest that has swept the Muslim world during the past two weeks over the cartoons, first published in a small Danish newspaper.

“This is the Muslim community,” said the rally chairman, Anas Altikriti, of the Muslim Association of Britain. “Not a handful of people claiming vile things like those last Friday.” He was referring to protesters who took to the streets of London with placards embracing al-Qaeda and calling for the beheading of non-believers.

Five thousand men, women and children gathered in the square to listen to an array of speakers. Many shouted “Allah Akbar” (God is great) as people from many faiths addressed the crowd.

The organisers had carefully chosen calm, co-ordinated banners that were lifted in the air to create a sea of white and blue. The messages simply read: “United against Islamophobia, united against incitement, mercy to mankind and Muhammad, symbol of freedom and honour.”

Observer, 12 February 2006

The same issue of the paper features a letter pointing out that “Islamophobia is the new anti-semitism“, though this is more than offset by an article from the appalling Andrew Anthony entitled “The end of freedom?“. Anthony completely ignores the issue of anti-Muslim bigotry as a manifestation of racism, criticises British newspapers for their responsible decision not to re-publish the offensive cartoons, opposes yesterday’s Trafalgar Square demonstration, takes a swipe at multiculturalism, and offers yet another ignorant attack on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Predictably, it’s backed up with the usual favourable references to Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Kenan Malik.

Jihad Watch backs Hirsi Ali again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s intervention into the cartoons controversy has been rejected by Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende who said “we don’t have much use” for Hirsi Ali’s views and questioned “whether this will help the debate in the Netherlands”.

For this reasoned response Balkenende has been denounced by Robert Spencer: “Jan Peter Balkenende will go down in history as a Neville Chamberlain who chose to appease thugs rather than to resist them; Ayaan Hirsi Ali will go down in history as a heroic figure who tried to stem Europe’s headlong rush to suicide.”

Dhimmi Watch, 11 February 2006

More lying anti-Muslim propaganda from the right-wing press

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslims: Labour’s Patence Runs Out” reads the headline to a front-page article in today’s Sunday Express. The article begins:

“Leaders of Britain’s Muslims were accused by the government last night of pandering to extremists. Ministers’ patience with the Islamic community is running out. They accuse its chiefs of failing to deliver moderate leadership in return for major concessions by the Government over recent years, a Home Office source revealed. And now, the source claims, both Downing Street and the Home Office have given up hope that the self-appointed Muslim leaders can play any significant role in the fight against Islamic extremism.”

Another unnamed “source with close links to ethnic minority groups” is quoted as telling the Express: “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim leadership or community leadership.” And an Express editorial lectures Muslim representatives in the following pompous and ignorant terms: “Memo to the leaders of the Muslim community: it is time to stand up and take your place in the fight against terrorism now.” As if that isn’t what they’ve been doing all along.

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that the anti-Muslim propaganda in the Sunday Express and Sunday Times is designed to negate the message of peace and moderation sent out by the thousands of British Muslims who attended yesterday’s mass rally in Trafalgar Square.

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Muslims go home

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslims should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock Mohammed to their heart’s content, in any way that they wish: that Islam and Muslims have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else….”

Yes, the usual racist crap. This time from Theodore Dalrymple.

Spectator, 11 February 2006

I recall that, back in 2003, the Independent was accused of publishing an anti-semitic caricature of Ariel Sharon. As it turned out, the Press Complaints Commission ruled, rightly in my opinion, in favour of the Independent. But can you imagine the Spectator publishing an article reading: “Jews should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock Jewish leaders to their heart’s content, in any way that they wish: that Judaism and Jews have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else….”?

How many were in Trafalgar Square?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Trafalgar Square rally (2)Richard at Lenin’s Tomb takes issue with the initial BBC report that no more that 4,000 attended the rally in Trafalgar Square. He writes:

“It was easily much larger than the four thousand being claimed by the media, but probably not the forty thousand claimed by the organisers. At a pinch, and based on previous demonstrations in the same location, I would guess it was around 10-15,000 at its peak. That’s a large turnout by anyone’s standards. And the square was packed, and overflowing, and loud. And what is more, I’ve noticed the coverage of the protest on teevee appears to be speaking of the putatively low turnout (‘only a few thousand’) in connection with the organisers’ aims of expressing anger about the cartoons in a peaceful manner that represents mainstream Muslims. Well, excuse me, but how many turned out for the Danish Embassy protest in Knightsbridge last week? The one that caused all the offense and got acres of newsprint and hours of television coverage? A hundred? If that. A small protest organised by a phone-box organisation, and probably half of those were intelligence assets. That’s worth media alarm. Thousands of British Muslims denouncing Islamophobia in a dignified and impassioned way and all it’s worth is a few seconds, some unflattering footage and a mournful sigh from the journalist. Okay, I get it: if it isn’t panto Evil Doers, it isn’t news.”

Lenin’s Tomb, 11 February 2006

No clash of civilisations – Anas Altikriti

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anas Altikriti“The furore around the cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has brought forth claims that we are at the centre of a long-heralded clash of civilisations.

“Richard Littlejohn even wrote in the Daily Mail this week that this is war, adding ruefully that ‘we’ are losing it. I don’t believe we are witnessing a clash of civilisations, nor do I think such a clash is imminent or necessary. But when people of such varying backgrounds live together, a clash of sorts can be expected. And it is the appreciation of each other’s backgrounds and sensitivities that keeps those conflicts civil, peaceful and even productive….

“Is it so difficult to digest that Islam considers insulting the prophets of God a profound violation of what is sacred, just as Europe rightly regards denial of the Nazi Holocaust? Indeed, if freedom of speech were really the non-negotiable absolute in the west it is now claimed, then we would expect there to be uproar at legal bans on Holocaust denial or laws against incitement to racial hatred.

“Those who claim to uphold freedom of speech by defending the right to reproduce insulting depictions of the prophet are in effect saying to Muslims that what they hold dear and sacred is far more worthy of protecting than what Muslims hold dear and sacred. The cartoons had more to do with incitement of hatred, racism and Islamophobia than with freedom of expression.”

Anas Altikriti of MAB in the Guardian, 10 February 2006

Stand by for David T of Harry’s Place to post a denunciation of the Guardian for providing a platform to Islamic fascism, theocratic reaction etc etc.

Media a ‘platform for racists’ in cartoon row, says Ken

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MayorThe Mayor of London Ken Livingstone spoke at a press conference in City Hall today alongside Muslim leaders and urged that the views of mainstream Islam be heard in the current debate about the publication of the Danish cartoons that have caused offence around the Muslim world.

The press conference was called in support of this Saturday’s rally ‘United against Incitement and Islamophobia’, the aim of which is to explain the views of the mainstream Muslim community in condemning the publication of the Islamophobic cartoons, and to dissociate the mainstream Muslim community from the tiny minority of extremists who have been given media coverage out of all proportion to their numbers.

The Mayor said: “I am supporting this event because, unlike some of the BBC’s coverage, it will allow the views of the mainstream Muslim community to be properly heard. Too many media outlets have given excessive weight to the fringes of this argument including giving a platform to racists.

“The publication of these cartoons was a deliberate and gratuitous insult to the Muslim community, designed to destroy trust and understanding. Had such images, bordering on racist, been used to portray other groups they would rightly have been condemned as racist or anti-Semitic.

“There is no excuse for breaking the law and anyone who does so should and will face the prospect of prosecution, but there is no getting away from the fact that this whole episode has allowed much of Europe’s media to engage in an orgy of Islamophobia. The only beneficiaries will be the racists and Al Qaeda. It should stop now.”

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