Author Archives: Bob Pitt

The new chauvinism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

George Monbiot“Out of the bombings a national consensus has emerged: what we need in Britain is a renewed sense of patriotism. The rightwing papers have been making their usual noises about old maids and warm beer, but in the past 10 days they’ve been joined by Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian, Tristram Hunt in the New Statesman, the New Statesman itself and just about everyone who has opened his mouth on the subject of terrorism and national identity. Emboldened by this consensus, the Sun now insists that anyone who isn’t loyal to this country should leave it. The way things are going, it can’t be long before I’m deported.”

George Monbiot in the Guardian, 9 August 2005

Labour MPs turn on Blair’s 12-point proposal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Labour MPs are concerned that Tony Blair’s sweeping 12-point plan for tackling the threat posed by Islamist terrorism may hinder the very goals he seeks to achieve.

A former Home Office minister, the level-headed John Denham who now chairs the home affairs select committee, has expressed dismay that the government has abandoned the cross-party approach it pursued after the London bombings.

“The government responded to the bombings initially with a very measured approach, a very serious approach, good coordination across government,” he told the BBC.

“The last few days really give this sense that the government have got into a real state of nerves about the whole thing; it is displaying a lack of confidence in its own strategy and I think they’ve got to get a grip on it very, very quickly, stop floating half-baked ideas and get back to proper cross-party consensus on the serious measures that need to be taken.”

Labour backbenchers fear that Mr Blair is responding to tabloid criticism, exacerbated by militant comments on BBC Newsnight last week, and doing what he often does for good and ill – prodding a cautious Home Office into taking what may prove unwise steps.

What they see as Mr Blair “grabbing the agenda before it grabs him”, No 10 regards as a prudent attempt to address voters’ legitimate feelings. “Why the hell can’t we do something about these people?” as one senior MP puts it.

Guardian, 9 August 2005

See also Independent, 9 August 2005

Ann Cryer ‘defends’ multiculturalism (with friends like these …)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“For too long we have been urged to ‘celebrate diversity’. How can it be helpful to highlight the differences between us?”

Ann Cryer makes her usual helpful contribution to the defence of multiculturalism. Mind you, compared with some of her other interventions (see here and here) her Evening Standard piece is relatively restrained.

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How to nuke Mecca

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslim survivalists will only force the end to the terrorist activities springing up from amongst them when made to pay a terrible price. One ‘terrible price’ currently under debate is a nuclear attack on Mecca should any 9/11 scale attack (or larger) occur on US soil. I am in favor of such planning in the event of a catastrophic strike against America, because I believe the burden of loss needs to be shifted decidedly to fundamental Muslims themselves (and what they value most) if there is to be any hope of ending all this madness. To yield to Islamists’ demands and take the option off the table would be strategically stupid….

“But as has been pointed out by Robert Spencer, nuking Mecca could also be seen by Islamists as a weak action and could serve to unify Muslims and increase Jihad. But this is only true if not done properly and the city is left salvageable within a few years. Once devoted Muslims carry out their next major strike on America, the Mecca plan should be carried out without hesitation or warning. No Hiroshima class atomic wimp-weapon will do, only the 1,000 times more powerful hydrogen fusion device will work for this important job…. The strike is then repeated every 5 years or so if any kind of clean-up is attempted. Medina needs one too, to prevent Arabs from declaring the transference of the holy site to the secondary location.”

Vernon Richards at FaithFreedom.org, 6 August 2005

Letter to Guardian defending Hizb

Posted on by Bob Pitt

I agree with the two Muslim MPs who oppose the banning of Hizb ut-Tahrir (Islamist clerics face treason charges, August 8). As a scholar who has some knowledge of their operations in the UK and abroad, I am convinced their modus operandi is through traditional political campaigning, not violence. Believing that nation states in the Middle East are artificial creations of western powers to divide Muslims and exploit oil resources, they seek social justice through the formation of a single Islamic state that serves the poor rather than corrupt clients of foreign powers. They argue that violence cannot be used to take control of the state, but the state can use the military to defend itself against other states.

As a political geographer and Christian socialist, I believe their historical analysis is correct and their conclusion well-reasoned. I cannot share their vision, for it ultimately maintains the Quranic commitment to just war theory that is as much part of the Middle East’s problems as the variants deployed by George Bush and Tony Blair. However, they are not terrorists and parliament must resist this unreasonable attack on freedom of speech.
Dr Nick Megoran
Cambridge University

Letter in Guardian, 9 August 2005

Muslims and non-Muslims rally to support Hizb ut-Tahrir

Posted on by Bob Pitt

After Prime Minister Tony Blair’s announcement that Hizb ut-Tahrir would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, many Muslim and non-Muslim groups and personalities have expressed amazement and shock that a non-violent political party could be targeted in this manner. Moreover several UK national newspapers and leaked government documents have revealed that even the UK Home Office has stated that Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a terrorist party or a violent organisation.

Dr Imran Waheed, Media Representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, said, “Since the statement of the Prime Minister, we have received dozens of messages of support from leading Muslim and non-Muslim groups and personalities. Not everyone may agree with our politics but everyone agrees that banning a non-violent political party is injustice and will set a very dangerous precedent.”

Hizb ut-Tahrir press release, 9 August 2005

Cruel confinement of ‘enemy combatant’ in United States

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A lawsuit filed against U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reveals the gratuitous cruelty inflicted on a foreign student held without charges for more than two years as an “enemy combatant” in a South Carolina naval brig, Human Rights Watch said. Although three men have been confined in the United States after being designated “enemy combatants” by President George Bush, the complaint by Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri provides the first look into the treatment of any of them in military custody.

“It is bad enough that al-Marri has been held indefinitely without charges and incommunicado,” said Jamie Fellner, director of Human Rights Watch’s U.S. Program. “Now we learn that his life in the brig has also been one of cruelty and petty vindictiveness. Whatever the Bush administration believes he has done or wanted to do, there’s no excuse for how they are treating him.”

HRW news release, 8 August 2005

More on Outrage! and Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Further to Outrage’s widely circulated, but entirely false, accusation that Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for the Crown Prince of Qatar to be stoned to death, anyone who wants an illustration of the sort of racist bigotry provoked by Outrage’s Islamophobic propaganda should take a look at the discussion of the Outrage press release at Gay.com.

A thread entitled “More Muslim savagery” contains this exchange of views:

“Is it just me or is anyone else sick to death of islam and it being constantly on our news and current affairs progs??? The murderers who placed those bombs on the London tubes and buses have certainly achieved one thing : to barrage us with endless islamic bullshit.”

“I totally agree with you. All the late night chat shows are now propoganda about how peaceful and tolerant Islam is!? If you believe that you’ll believe anything! Like that programme fronted by terry Christian on C4 in the week, ‘Sharia TV’, where we have to sit and listen to a load of Islamic (so called) moderates telling us how wonderful Islam is!? It makes me sick. Now this is a Christian country (at the moment) why not some late night programmes about Christianity or Judaism for a change instead of all this Islamic rubbish??????”

Another thread features the following exchange:

“Why don’t we set up a stoning of our own. Grab as many Moslems as you can find, take them to Trafalgar Square and announce that they will be publicly stoned for some trumped up charge, say adultary, then go down to Brighton and collect a few bucket load of stones and invite the audience to chuck a stone for Allah!… I firmly believe that Moslems clearly have an execution fetish and need help for it. Hangings, stonings, beheadings, whippings all sounds kinky to me!!!! Why the hell don’t these advocates of execution and torture get themselves off to the nearest rent boy who will fulfill their fetish, get a bloody good whipping and leave the rest of us alone! in peace?”

“Robert, dear, what self-respecting rent boy would want to provide Muslims a service? Anyway, goats are more up their street.”

Muslim public holiday? Appeasement of Islamist fanatics, says Mark Steyn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Responding to Islamist terrorism in Britain and elsewhere, Germany is considering introducing a Muslim public holiday. As Mathias Dopfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, put it: ‘A substantial fraction of Germany’s government – and, if polls are to be believed, the German people – believe that creating an official state Muslim holiday will somehow spare us from the wrath of fanatical Islamists’. Great. At least the 1930s’ appeasers did it on their own time. But, in recasting appeasement as yet another paid day off, the new proposal cunningly manages to combine the worst instincts of the old Europe and the new.”

In an article that is even more incoherent and rambling than usual, Mark Steyn fulminates against the “German Islamist Appeasement Bank Holiday Weekend”.

Daily Telegraph, 9 August 2005