Author Archives: Bob Pitt
Why ‘divisive Islam’ is a threat – Trevor Kavanagh explains
In an op ed in the Sun, Trevor Kavanagh sends season’s greetings to Muslim communities in the UK:
“In the spirit of Christmas, here is a festive quiz – with just one question. As the infamous Noughties draw to a close, what do these two Sunday paper stories have in common?
“Anti-censorship champ Jonathan Dimbleby vetoes cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a campaigning magazine, in case his staff are attacked by enraged Muslims. Christian teacher Olive Jones is sacked for offering a prayer for a sick child – an act deemed as ‘bullying’.
“The answer is simple and alarming. They show the Noughties as the decade when the once-mighty Christian West bowed before Islam.”
He continues: “Police say London is being set up for a murderous attack by extremists. ‘Mumbai is coming to London’, warned a senior detective from the S015 counter-terrorism squad, in a reference to the 2008 massacre in India.
“Meanwhile, we learn at least one Muslim woman a month is the victim of so-called ‘honour killings’. In a year, that’s as many as perished under serial killer ‘Ripper’ Peter Sutcliffe’s hammer. Countless more are beaten and forced into unwelcome marriage, often to ageing strangers. Countless wives and daughters, barred from learning English, live in secret terror of their own fathers, brothers and male cousins.
“Yet, apart from rare cases such as Mehmet Goren, jailed for life last week for slaughtering his teenage daughter, they rarely end in court. We don’t like trespassing on the way of life and death in this so-called ‘community’.”
62% of Germans worried about growth of Islam
Most people in Germany express a certain degree of anxiety over the growth of the Islamic religion and culture in the country, according to a poll by Infratest-Dimap released by ARD. 33 per cent of respondents are very concerned about this matter, and 29 per cent express moderate concern.
Another Quilliam witch-hunt
“In recent years, several leading UK Muslim organizations have moved away from hosting extremist foreign clerics and have instead begun promoting UK-born and -educated speakers who can facilitate the growth of a native, harmonious Western Islam.
“Next week, however, a major Birmingham institution, the Green Lane Mosque (headquarters of the national Markaz Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith organization) will host two extreme Wahhabi clerics who bolster al-Qaeda narratives…. The Green Lane Mosque has previously been exposed as a centre of hate-preaching. Muslims need to challenge the hateful and divisive rhetoric of such extremist Saudi clerics and those people who promote them.”
Students condemned for ‘racially offensive’ fancy dress stunt
Students who dressed up as prisoners from Guantanamo Bay and “blacked-up” their faces for a Christmas party have been accused of racism.
The students, part of the rugby team from the London School of Economics (LSE), were in costume for the annual “carol” last Friday, an “all-day drinking” event organised by the university’s Athletics Union. They wore orange jumpsuits, with some painting their faces brown and drawing on beards.
At around 1pm, outside the Student Union bar, in full public view, they proceeded to imitate Muslim prayer while other team members dressed as American soldiers shouted orders at them. It took place just as Muslim students were leaving the nearby Old Building after Friday prayer.
West End Extra, 17 December 2009
See also “‘Racist, religiously insensitive and demeaning’: LSE athletes’ Christmas party”, London Student, 11 December 2009
Season’s greetings from the National Secular Society … as long as you’re not an immigrant
National Secular Society president Terry Sanderson delivers his “seasonal message”:
While we know that the traditional places of worship – the Church of England and the Catholic Churches – are declining rapidly, further evidence has emerged this month showing that immigrants are importing their own brands of religion into Britain. They generally take their faith more seriously than the “I’m spiritual but not religious” brigade that makes up the majority of the population in Britain (or the “fuzzy faithful” as they’ve been called).
Muslims from Pakistan and India, Catholics from Poland and evangelical Protestants from Africa and the Caribbean are bringing with them unpleasantly conservative religious beliefs that sometimes shock and repel the majority. They often seem primitive, hysterical, fanatical and alien, full of hatred and intolerance and crazy, senseless rules. Honour killings, violent, sometimes fatal, exorcisms, denial of medical treatment to children on the assumption that prayer will be sufficient, the treatment of women as chattels and the spouting of unvarnished hatred of non-believers, gays and Jews from the pulpits of mosques.
Racist faces prison term
A 55 year old man who sang a racist song after an Asian male got on the bus has been warned he faces a prison sentence.
Blackburn magistrates heard that David Thompson made several references to the Taliban after Ibrahim Mulla got on the bus from Darwen to Blackburn. The court was told Thompson, who has a swastika tattooed on his arm, maintained his racist rendition throughout the 20 minute journey, until his target reacted angrily. Mr Mulla had to be restrained by the driver and other passengers as he challenged Thompson to “say it to his face”.
After he was arrested Thompson admitted to police he was racist, that he didn’t like Asians and he didn’t want them in his country. Thompson, of Glebe Close, Accrington, pleaded guilty to racially aggravated threatening behaviour. He was remanded on bail for the preparation of a pre-sentence report.
Scott Ainge, prosecuting, said Mr Mulla finished work in Darwen and shortly after 7 pm got on the bus to Blackburn. Thompson got on shortly after and started staring at Mr Mulla before singing; “Hey Mr Taliban give me a banana” or “Hey Mr Taliban give me Bin Laden”. He repeatedly shouted “Taliban, Taliban”.
“Mr Mulla tried to ignore him but the abuse continued all the way from Darwen to Blackburn,” said Mr Ainge. “Mr Mulla accepts that he became angry and challenged the defendant. He didn’t see why he had to tolerate such racist abuse.”
Andrew Church-Taylor, defending, said the offence was regrettable and it was accepted it had caused offence.
French minister wants to deny citizenship to Muslim women wearing veils
France’s immigration minister said Wednesday that he wants the wearing of Muslim veils that cover the face and body to be grounds for denying citizenship and long-term residence.
Eric Besson said he planned to take “concrete measures” regarding such veils, which are worn by a small minority of women in France but have become the object of a parliamentary inquiry into whether a ban should be imposed. Besson spoke during a hearing before the panel of lawmakers as their nearly six-month inquiry draws to a close.
Besson said he believed a formal ban on veils that cover the face and body seemed to him “unavoidable,” with a ban in public services as a minimum step. Whether such veils are banned or not, he said he intends to personally move forward to ensure that women wearing such veils and seeking French nationality or residence cards are denied.
“I want the wearing of the full veil to be systematically considered as proof of insufficient integration into French society, creating an obstacle to gaining (French) nationality,” he said. He said he would advise prefects, the highest state representative in the various French regions, that the wearing of such veils is a motive for not delivering 10-year residence cards.
Besson said he was prepared to put the measures before parliament to make them law. In November, Besson ordered a nationwide debate on the French identity, to conclude by the end of January with possible measures.
Muslims don’t actually want to live in ghettos, shock survey finds
Most of Europe’s Muslims want to live in mixed communities, not segregated neighbourhoods, a new report says.
The work by the Open Society Institute (OSI), an independent think-tank, looked at the social integration of Muslims in 11 West European cities. It calls for improved efforts to tackle discrimination.
Europe’s Muslim population is expected to double by 2025 and could reach 40 million. But data on them is very limited, OSI says.
The report says religious discrimination remains a critical barrier to their participation in European society, and the situation has worsened in recent years. The OSI says its aim is to promote tolerance and fairness.
Nazia Hussein, who supervised the work, says many Muslims are still seen as outsiders.
“The majority of Muslims that we’ve spoken to across 11 cities feel very strongly attached to their neighbourhood and city, they feel quite strongly attached to their country,” she told the BBC. “But at the same time they don’t believe that their fellow countrymen or the wider society sees them as either German or French or English.”
The report offers a series of snapshots from: the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Rotterdam), Belgium (Antwerp), Germany (Berlin and Hamburg), Denmark (Copenhagen), the UK (Leicester and London), France (Marseille and Paris) and Sweden (Stockholm).
French debate on national identity turns into culture war
Comments by a French junior minister about young Muslims in France have provoked a firestorm of criticism and put the spotlight on a controversial debate on national identity that threatens to spin out of control.
In one of the many local debates scheduled to be held as part of the nationwide discussion on what it means to be French, the junior minister for families, Nadine Morano, suggested Tuesday to a young Muslim that he should change his behaviour. “What I want of a young Muslim is that he loves France when he lives here, finds work and does not speak in slang. And that he doesn’t wear his cap back to front.”
“This brings back the ethnic vision of the nation, the one that took place at (the pro-Nazi puppet government of) Vichy,” opposition Socialist law-maker Arnaud Montebourg said. The president of the NGO Movement Against Racism (MRAP), Mouloud Aounit, told the online edition of the daily 20 Minutes that Morano’s words “are especially dangerous and extremely violent … I think today there is a terrible increase in Islamophobic statements.”
Criticism also came from conservatives who are growing increasingly afraid that the debate on national identity is turning into a clash of cultures between mainstream France and the large French Muslim community, which numbers about 5 million.
Monsters and Critics, 16 December 2009
See also Nabila Ramdani’s post at Comment is Free, 16 December 2009