Author Archives: Bob Pitt

‘Multiculturalism costs lives’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Multiculturalism is a divisive political doctrine that creates enormous costs, foments racial hatred, and may even have been complicit in cultivating the homegrown suicide bombers of July 7, according to a new report from the independent think-tank Civitas.”

National Secular Society news report, 3 October 2005

And what is this mild-sounding organisation Civitas that the NSS cites so approvingly? Well, actually, it’s a hard right anti-migrant outfit that numbers Anthony (“Islam really does want to conquer the world”) Browne among its leading contributors.

Civitas explains that the message of the report, The Poverty of Multiculturalism by Patrick West, is that “hard” multiculturalism has led “some Western intellectuals, who regard themselves as progressive, into the perverse position of defending cultures that condone the killing of homosexuals and the virtual enslavement of women, whilst denigrating the culture of the free societies of the West, inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment”.

Civitas provides the following quote from Mr West: “State-sponsored multiculturalism has led to cities such as Bradford, Burnley and Oldham fissuring along sectarian lines, and to heightening racial tensions between whites and Asians – with white people feeling ‘the other lot’ are getting favourable treatment from the local council…. The rise of the BNP in the north …  is the result of white people seeing themselves discriminated against by local authorities.”

Civitas press release, 30 September 2005

Where does terrorism start?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Soumaya Ghannoushi“It is interesting that while medieval Europe strove to dissociate the great achievements of the flourishing Islamic civilisation from the religion of Islam, today’s West insists on referring all Muslims’ ills, from democratic failure to economic decadence, to the Islam religion.

“The terrorist plague is no exception. Its agents, we are told, are the product of an ‘evil ideology which must be uprooted’. Even so, this is only half of the truth. The questions we can not avoid are: why are would-be bombers driven towards this evil theology and not any other, after all it is hardly the only one on offer within the intensely diverse intellectual and political Islamic map? What propels them to deviate from the mainstream body of Muslims and embrace a perverse interpretation that justifies the slaughter of innocent civilians? What triggers this radical ideology’s shift from the abstract realm of ideas to the concrete scenes of explosives, severed limbs and charred bodies?

“If we were Hegelians we would accept Blair and Bush’s explanations of historical phenomena by reference to ideology. I, however, prefer to do as Marx did and turn history from its head back on its feet. History is the generator of ideology not vice versa. Rather than explain, ideology is itself in need of explaining.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi writes: Aljazeera, 25 September 2005

From Private Eye’s ‘Street of Shame’ column

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The détente following the July bombings between the office of the Mayor of London and his arch enemy, the Evening Standard, was bound to be shortlived.

After the Standard wrongly accused a Muslim bookshop-owner of peddling hatred, Ken’s team used the September issue of The Londoner freesheet to take the Standard to ask, demanding an apology and an article to set the matter straight.

Staff at the Dar Al Taqwa bookshop, near Baker Street, have received threatening and abusive phone calls ever since the Standard published its address and phone number in its “Terror and hatred for sale in central London” article on 28 July.

Dar Al Taqwa, owned by Samir El-Attar, has sold books on the Qur’an, Arabic and travel to Londoners for more than 20 years, but none of the extremist books or videos pictured next to a photo of the shop has ever been sold on the premises. Mr El-Attar even points out that one of the items pictured was actually a DVD of an anti-terrorism lecture by Dr Zakir Naik.

The Standard has so far refused to run an apology, but it did print a clarification that “the videos and books pictured with the article” had never been on sale at Dar Al Taqwa.

Private Eye, 30 September 2005

(For earlier coverage see here, here and here.)

Recent attacks on Ahmad Thomson in the Tory press (see for example here) are perhaps not unconnected with the fact that he has represented Dar Al Taqwa in its dispute with the Standard (see here).

New MCB complaint over Panorama

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Muslim Council of Britain says it is to write to the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit about an edition of the current affairs programme Panorama. The announcement came after the editor of Panorama rejected an MCB objection that the programme was “deeply unfair”.

Panorama had quoted one of its founders as saying the body was “in denial” about extreme views among its members. The MCB said it was at the “forefront” of criticising extremism and it was “not satisfied” with the response. In its original complaint, the MCB claimed editors “deliberately garbled” interviews with Muslims in the programme.

BBC News, 30 September 2005 

Panorama rejects MCB complaint over Panorama programme

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John WareThe editor of BBC current affairs show Panorama has rejected complaints from the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) who said a programme was “deeply unfair”.

The MCB complained after Panorama quoted one of its founders as saying the body was “in denial” about extreme views that prevail among its members. The group claimed editors “deliberately garbled” interviews with Muslims.

But Panorama editor Mike Robinson has now said it was an “unwarranted and wildly inaccurate attack” on the show. “I have found there to be no truth in your claims that this programme was dishonestly presented, maliciously motivated or Islamophobic,” he wrote to the MCB.

BBC News, 30 September 2005

No doubt the programme’s reporter John Ware was equally innocent of bias when he headed an earlier Panorama Special in 2003, on asylum seekers, which the then home secretary David Blunkett denounced for “pursuing a Powellite anti-immigration agenda”. See here.

Or to go back earlier still, in 1987 Panorama was responsible for a programme entitled “Brent Schools – Hard Left Rules”. As Julian Petley recounts, in the recently published book Culture Wars: “This was introduced by John Ware who once, perhaps significantly, worked for the Sun…. it’s worth noting that this particular edition of Panorama provoked an unusually large number of complaints.”

Petley writes of Ware’s interview with Brent council leader Merle Amory that “quite clearly, the sole purpose behind Ware’s interviewing techniques was to get Amory to make an incriminating remark about Trotskyist penetration of Labour”. Amory and other councillors “were never allowed freely to put their own or the council’s point of view, unlike those critical of the council’s policies – their function in the programme was simply to stand at the receiving end of criticisms levelled by their opponents and reinforced not only by Ware himself but by the very manner in which they were actually interviewed.”

I imagine Iqbal Sacranie knows exactly how they must have felt.

Keith Shilson reinstated

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Good news – following a disciplinary hearing this morning, Middlesex University authorities have reportedly lifted the suspension of students union president Keith Shilson, imposed as a result of his invitation to Hizb ut-Tahrir to participate in a “Question Time” on campus. The authorities are, however, insisting on upholding their ban on HT.

See Polly Curtis in the Guardian, 30 September 2005

Religious hatred bill: ‘censorship by stealth’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Condemning the religious hatred bill, Mike McNair claims that “the chilling effect of the new act will be considerable. Behzti and Jerry Springer, the Opera would not be staged; Monty Python’s Life of Brian might be filmed in the US, since the first amendment is robust, but would not be shown by British cinemas, and a great deal of the television series would not be broadcast; Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses might well be de facto banned by English law”.

Weekly Worker, 29 September 2005

This is not only hysterical nonsense, it’s also unbelievably ignorant. The staging of Behzti was already covered by the provisions in the 1986 Public Order Act dealing with incitement to racial hatred, as Sikhs are held (on the basis of case law) to be members of a mono-ethnic faith. The extension of those provisions to cover religious hatred, as is proposed in the present bill, would make zero difference to whether or not Behzti could be prosecuted for inciting hatred. The effect of the bill is simply to extend to other faiths (notably Muslims) the defence already available to Sikhs and Jews under existing law.

In another article in the same issue Jack Conrad approvingly quotes Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews: “… there is a profound difference between hatred based on race, sex or age – all of which are thrust upon us; we have no choice – and on religion, which is not thrust upon us. Religion is a matter of choice.”

This argument was demolished by Sadiq Khan MP in the same House of Commons debate: “The idea that one cannot choose one’s race but can choose one’s religion so that the former but not the latter should get protection is absurd. Some people talk about religion as a lifestyle choice, but what is being suggested – that Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims should convert to Christianity or become atheists?”

NUS response to ‘When Students Turn to Terror’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Commenting on the Glees report into extremist groups operating on university campuses, When Students Turn to Terror, NUS National President Kat Fletcher and NUS Black Students’ Officer Pav Akhtar said:

“The paper offers nothing to the serious debate about how to address terrorism in society.

“No evidence is presented to support the view that campus life contributes to students becoming involved in terrorism, other than that some individuals who have been, or are alleged to have been, involved in terrorist activity also attended a UK college at some point.

“The report proposes imposing quotas on the number of ethnic minority students attending any individual university; abolishing the ‘clearing’ system that allows students to find an alternative university if they have not achieved the grades needed for their first choice; forcing all student societies to include dons on their committees; and restricting academic discussion on certain topics.

“NUS fears that the report’s unsubstantiated claims have the potential to endanger Muslim students by inflaming a climate of racism, fear and hostility, and place a cloud over perfectly legitimate student Islamic societies.

“NUS is calling on its members to work together to engage all students and defend the rights of faith and cultural groups to self-organise as societies. Unions are encouraged to support minority student groups including the Islamic society, against any backlash or exclusion. We encourage student officers to meet with their Black and minority ethnic groups on campus at the beginning of term to ensure access to welfare and support provisions is clear and that students report any incidents of hate crime.”

Posted on educationet, 28 September 2005

Aussie Muslims say targeted by new terror laws

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australia is to impose draconian counter-terrorism laws after Prime Minister John Howard won unanimous support from state premiers Tuesday, September 27, for the laws dubbed unfair by Muslims.

Trying to justify the new laws, Queensland state premier Peter Beattie told a news conference, “In many sense the laws that we have agreed to today are draconian laws, but they are necessary laws to protect Australians,” Reuters reported.

Describing the legislation as “unusual laws because we live in unusual circumstances”, Howard said the London bombings in July had brought home the “chilling reality” that “terrorist attacks” could be staged by a country’s own citizens, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“We are worried there are people in our country who might just do this,” Howard told a news conference after a meeting with the Council of Australian Governments.

The laws include tighter checks on citizenship applicants, jail terms for inciting violence, detention of suspects without charge for up to two weeks, and curtailing suspects’ movements and contacts for up to a year.

They also will provide police with greater stop, search and question powers. But they will be reviewed after five years and include a 10-year “sunset clause”, after which they would have to be dropped, altered or renewed, Howard said.

A prominent moderate Islamic leader, Keyser Trad of the Islamic Friendship Association, immediately condemned the laws and said they targeted Muslims. “They have the potential of creating a fascist state and have the potential to divide society dramatically,” he told AFP.

“I am quite frightened by these laws,” he said, suggesting that they could be used against people who criticized government policy such as the deployment of troops to Iraq.

Islam Online, 27 September 2005