Author Archives: Bob Pitt

‘The pope is no dhimmi’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

US right-winger Hugh Hewitt interviews Father Joseph Fessio, Provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida – mainly on the subject of the threat posed by Islam to the West. They both endorse Mark Steyn’s recent article claiming that higher birthrates among Muslim communities in Europe are bringing about the extinction of Western civilisation. Interesting insight into right-wing Catholics’ view of Islam – and that of Pope Bendedict in particular.

Hugh Hewitt blog, 6 January 2006

Robert Spencer welcomes the revelation that “the Pope is no dhimmi”. Dhimmi Watch, 6 January 2006

Capitalism, racism and Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… racism has continued into the 21st century – though today it typically justifies itself on ‘cultural’ grounds rather than crude biological claims. This continued existence of racism points to just how fundamental it is to the capitalist system. And some racist ideologies are more obviously generated by capitalism than others.

“Take anti-Muslim racism – also known as Islamophobia. We have seen an upsurge of such prejudice, often given a liberal gloss, over the last four years. It’s not hard to fathom why. It is basically the ideology used to justify the ‘war on terror’, which is itself part of the imperialist project of the US state to dominate the globe.

“We can compare the treatment of Muslims today with the treatment of Jews in the early 20th century. They were seen as an alien presence in European cities – a competitive threat to indigenous workers at home, and, in the crazed ideology of anti-Semites, a threat to the nation from without thanks to their supposed control of powerful institutions.

“It’s not just the hardened racists of the BNP who are targeting Muslims. So are the government and the establishment, in their own particular way. Instead of examining the real reasons for terrorism, which would lead to them having to denounce their own policies, they look to a ‘group’ explanation. There must be something wrong with Muslims, they say. The problem is ‘Muslim terrorism’. And Muslim, here, is essentially a racial category, as anyone who has been stopped and searched for ‘looking Muslim’ will tell you.

“You can see the way this leads to renewed racism just by contrasting the current approach to the response to the last bombings in London, in 1999. When BNP supporter David Copeland bombed Brixton, Brick Lane and Soho, there was no demand on the ‘white community’, or even the BNP, to apologise. But today Muslims have to come out again and again to show the world how sorry they are for the 7 July bombings, under threat of being seen as an enemy within if they don’t condemn louder than anyone else.

“So, beneath official talk of multiculturalism and opposition to racism is, in fact, the creation of racial prejudice and stereotyping because those responsible for the system cannot admit to its fundamental faults.”

Kerri Parke and Kevin Ovenden in Socialist Worker, 7 January 2006

Terror suspect facing US extradition

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terror suspect faces US extraditionPeace campaigners condemned a court ruling yesterday allowing the extradition of a British-born terror suspect to the US, where he risks an unfair trial and even torture.

District Judge Timothy Workman ruled at Bow Street magistrates court that Yorkshire-born Haroon Rashid Aswat, who is accused of trying to set up al-Qaida training camps in the state of Oregon between 1999 and 2000, can be extradited to the US.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke has up to two months to approve the extradition of Mr Aswat, who denies the charges. His lawyers have expressed grave concern that he could end up in the notorious Guantánamo Bay detention centre if extradited.

Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs chairman John McDonnell said that he was “appalled” by the court’s decision and agreed that “no-one can be sure that this British-born man will receive a fair trial in the US.”

Morning Star, 6 January 2006

The Muslim Council of Britain and Holocaust Memorial Day

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… the anti-semitic cabal running the MCB has announced that as the Holocaust Memorial Trust has not given in to their blackmailing, it will continue its boycott”.

Western Resistance, 5 January 2006

Ah yes, this would be the same “anti-semitic cabal” who, explaining why the MCB would not be supporting Holocaust Memorial Day last year, wrote:

“The Nazi Holocaust was a truly evil and abhorrent crime and we stand together with our fellow British Jews in their sense of pain and anguish. None of us must ever forget how the Holocaust began. We must remember it began with a hatred that dehumanised an entire people, that fostered state brutality, made second class citizens of honest, innocent people because of their religion and ethnic identity. Those who were vilified and seen as a threat could be subjected to group punishment, dispossession and impoverishment while the rest of the world stood idly by, washing its hands of despair and suffering….”

MCB statement, 24 January 2005

For an example of the views of those opposing MCB participation in Holocaust Memorial Day in its present form, see the comments by Osama Saeed of MAB. Rolled Up Trousers, 19 December 2005

Migration Watch chief ‘on brink of racism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Migration WatchImmigration campaigners accused Migration Watch chairman Andrew Green of “verging on the point of racism” yesterday after he called for harsh restrictions on arranged marriages.

The rightwinger said that the minimum age for admission to Britain for marriage should be raised from 18 to 21, with action taken to restrict the number of children born to foreign mothers. Regarding potential spouses who were born in a “particular country” or whose parents were born there, the minimum age for both parties should be raised to 24 if the other suitor came from that country, he claimed.

“We’ve seen the problems that can come from failure to integrate and we’ve got to look at this problem frankly and openly”, declared Mr Green, before trying to link immigration and terrorism. Asked if he was referring to the July 7 terror attacks on London, he replied: “What else has got to happen before we look seriously at the real problems of integration?”

Immigration Advisory Service director of operations Michael Pickett pointed out that Mr Green’s views appear to be incredibly bigoted. “When he refers to a ‘particular country’, he is referring to the Indian subcontinent, not to countries such as Russia and the Ukraine”, Mr Pickett noted.

“To make a connection between the July 7 terrorist attacks on London and arranged marriages is ludicrous”, a claim for which there is “not a single scrap of evidence”, he said. “The reason the bombers were able to go unnoticed is that they were fully integrated. It is a crap argument, once again verging on fantasy.”

Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants chief executive Habib Rahman said that it sounded as if Migration Watch was arguing that restrictions should be put on the right of British nationals to marry the person of their choice.

“Migration Watch’s claims do not seem to be underpinned by any systematic evidence”, he added. “For example, migration to Britain takes place from all over the world, so we cannot see any evidence of any special connection between arranged marriages and the rate of births to foreign mothers or the ability to integrate successfully with British society.”

“In the end, migrants’ integration should be measured by the values they hold, not their customs”, insisted Mr Rahman. “Participation in our society and attachment to principles of law-abiding and democratic behaviour should be the measures, not a marriage custom.”

Morning Star, 5 January 2005

For Osama Saeed’s comments, see Rolled Up Trousers, 5 January 2006

Migration Watch’s “findings” are enthusiastically endorsed by the fascists: “According to immigration think tank, MigrationWatch ‘chain migration’, mainly through bringing partners from overseas, produces even higher proportions of such births for communities of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, thus intensifying the formation of ghettos and setting back integration for a generation.”

BNP news report, 5 January 2006

The forgotten prisoners

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Forgotten PrisonersPeace campaigners accused the Blair government of complicity in the US “barbarities” at Guantánamo Bay yesterday and demanded the release or trial of British detainees held there.

Families and supporters of British residents held in Guantánamo Bay for the past three years without charge or trial demanded that they be either released or repatriated to face trial in Britain. The Save Omar Deghayes Campaign delivered giant postcards, depicting Home Secretary Charles Clarke, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Prime Minister Tony Blair as the Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Speak No Evil monkeys, to their respective offices to highlight their demand.

Today is the deadline for a High Court response to demands for a judicial review of the British government’s refusal to represent these men on the grounds that the refugees are not British citizens.

Morning Star, 5 January 2006

Battle waged in Boston over new mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Boston MosqueWorshippers at the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) still pack into their cramped mosque in Cambridge, Mass. The crowd spills out into the parking lot for the Friday prayer service. Their hopes of celebrating this past Ramadan in a brand-new mosque and cultural center were dashed.

The stated aim of the quarter-century-old society was to build a center for worship, education, and community outreach. Instead, the $24 million project in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood is snarled in accusation, acrimony, and lawsuits. It’s a microcosm of the suspicions about Islam that have played out across America since 9/11.

After the city of Boston conveyed a parcel of land to the ISB, articles appeared in the Boston Herald in 2003 linking society leaders to Islamic extremists. The ISB denied the story, responding in detail to what it saw as inflammatory distortions. “When you place a picture of Osama bin Laden next to a picture of our mosque, that is completely misrepresentative of who we are,” says Salma Kazmi, assistant project director.

Four years after 9/11, mosques in many communities continue to encounter wariness and resistance ranging from suspicions raised at zoning hearings to vandalism and worse. On Dec. 20, two pipe bombs damaged an Islamic center in an upscale neighborhood of Cincinnati. The FBI said the powerful explosion could have been deadly had people been present.

“It’s all part of the unfortunate temper of the times,” says John Esposito, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington. “There is such a thing as Islamophobia.”

Christian Science Monitor, 5 January 2006

Another plug for Anthony Browne from the fascists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anthony Browne,Prat of the YearIn fact the Nazis are so taken with Browne’s anti-PC diatribe The Retreat of Reason that they’re selling it through their online bookshop.

BNP news report, 5 January 2006

Mind you, the BNP’s press officer Phil Edwards is rather less enthusiastic, though he does have a personal axe to grind here:

“When I read Anthony Browne’s earlier book ‘Do we need Mass Immigration?’ (Published by Civitas in 2002) I was struck by how so much of it seemed to be cribbed from my writings, broadcasts and newspaper and radio interviews from around 1997 onwards.”

BNP website, 5 January 2006