Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Muslim holiday at US factory provokes Islamophobic backlash

Posted on by Bob Pitt

RWDSU logoThe union that represents workers at a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Tennessee has negotiated a contract that substitutes a Muslim holiday for Labor Day as one of the eight paid holidays at the plant.

The provision, which was proposed by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, has delighted the plant’s Somali workers, who account for hundreds of its 1,200 employees. But it has infuriated many outsiders, leading some to denounce Tyson and the union alike.

“You are a union that is proud of achieving a Muslim holiday and prayer room?” one person wrote the union. “A union in the U.S.A., a country based on Christianity. You call yourselves Americans? Have you forgotten 9/11?”

Another wrote: “You had no right to drop Labor Day. Muslim employees must integrate Labor Day into THEIR lives if they are going to live in America.”

Stung by the criticism, Stuart Appelbaum, the union’s president, said the decision was fully consistent with the spirit of Labor Day.

“We in the labor movement have always understood that unions are only strong when we work to protect the dignity of all faiths, and that includes Muslims,” said Mr. Appelbaum, who also serves as president of the Jewish Labor Committee.

“What we negotiated was the will of the workers,” said Mr. Appelbaum, who added that his was the first union to negotiate a paid day off for a Muslim holiday and that he was sure Tyson would not be the last employer to agree.

New York Times, 6 August 2008

Over at Front Page Magazine Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch warns that this represents one more step down the slippery slope towards the Islamisation of the USA: “The problem is that the accommodation of Islamic holidays and practices abets, however unwittingly, an avowedly supremacist agenda that is directed toward supplanting American laws and mores and imposing Islamic law here.”

And the inimitable Debbie Schlussel writes: “Well, folks, here it is – the beginning (or maybe the middle) of the end of America as we know it…. Since I keep kosher, I don’t eat Tyson Foods products anyway, but I call on you my readers to boycott the company. It’s absurd to replace labor day with the holiday of those bent on our destruction. Any company that does that doesn’t deserve your business.”

Boris cancels Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ramadan 5Ken Livingstone has told his Leftwing supporters in City Hall to hang on in there, however unpleasant it may be working for a Tory Mayor such as Boris Johnson, because he intends to be back in 2012.

Among those who probably will not be able to survive the regime change at City Hall is the Lokahi Foundation, an outfit with extremist Islamist links that boasts academic Tariq Ramadan as a leading light.

Almost half a million pounds of council taxpayers’ money was handed over to its coffers under Ken. “The funding agreement ran out in July 2008 and I understand that all payments have been made,” says a City Hall spokesman.

Ramadan, Lokahi’s “Senior Research Fellow”, sparked controversy in the mayoral elections by signing a letter urging Muslims to vote for Livingstone without declaring the £450,000 his organisation had been paid by the then Mayor. He has been denied entry to the United States in the past because of allegations concerning his terrorist sympathies.

“Our funding has run out from the Greater London Authority,” Lokahi’s director, Gwen Griffith-Dickson, tells me. “There might be a problem about Tariq Ramadan’s personal letter urging people to vote for Ken Livingstone and the tug of war over some of his comments but he is one of a team.”

Evening Standard, 6 August 2008

Dawkins blames Muslims for ‘importing creationism’ into classroom

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dawkins God DelusionDevout Muslims are importing creationist theories into science and are not being challenged because of political correctness, one of the country’s most famous scientists said tonight.

Professor Richard Dawkins argued that as a result teachers were promoting the “mythology” of creationism over the science of evolution.

Professor Dawkins, a geneticist and author of the best-selling book The God Delusion, said:

“Islam is importing creationism into this country. Most devout Muslims are creationists – so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught. Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more but it doesn’t want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come.”

He added: “It seems as though teachers are terribly frightened of being thought racist. It’s almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country because if you do you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic.”

Daily Mail, 4 August 2008

On the other hand, there are those of us who would argue that paranoid delusions about the impact on educational policy of a minority faith community who comprise less than 3% of the population of the UK are quite accurately categorisable as Islamophobia.

See also the Daily Telegraph, which reports: “Prof Dawkins said the failure in classrooms meant religious fanatics had a chance to get hold. ‘Because we are all brought up to respect faith, it leaves open a gap through which fanatics can charge’, he said.”

Update:  Predictably, Dawkins’ views are approvingly reproduced by the British National Party. Of course, the BNP’s own position is that they’re defending “Christian civilisation” against Islam. But they’re prepared to overlook minor differences like that when it comes to whipping up hatred against Muslims.

Update 2:  See Terry Sanderson, “Is Bob Pitt a new McCarthy?”, National Secular Society, 8 August 2008

Policy U-turn on hijab in Irish schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Department of Education outlined its policy on students wearing hijab in a letter to a Dublin school as long ago as 2005. It told a Dublin teacher that she should allow a student to wear the hijab, a Muslim headscarf covering the head but not the face, during PE.

The clearly defined policy contrasts with the lack of guidance given to a principal in Gorey Community School last year when the same issue arose. He was told that it was up to the school’s board of management to decide whether pupils could wear Muslim headdress.

The advice issued in 2005 is contained in a letter released under the Freedom of Information Act. Brian Hayes, Fine Gael’s education spokesman, said it showed that the department had shifted opinion on the wearing of the hijab since first issuing advice three years ago. “It shows that instead of drawing up clear guidelines and sticking to them, the department has just confused its position in the intervening period,” he said.

In 2005, Matthew Ryan, the principal officer in the department’s post-primary administration section, issued a clear directive to Our Lady’s Grove in Goatstown. In a letter he stated: “Where a school admits a person of a religious denomination but then seeks to impose a dress code requirement which runs contrary to that student’s religious beliefs, it may constitute unlawful discrimination against that student.”

The letter states that the Equal Status Act 2000 prohibits a school from discriminating against a student on religious grounds. “It follows that this department would expect schools to allow students of that denomination to wear the hijab and indeed it is our understanding that this approach is being followed by schools,” the department wrote at the time.

Liam Egan, the father of the girl from Gorey Community School whose wearing of the hijab prompted her principal to seek advice from the department, said that equality legislation had not changed since 2005. “The law has not changed, so why has the department changed its position? Since 7/7, this has become more of a political issue. My daughter wore the hijab all through her first year in school and it was not contentious. Then, at the end of the year, it suddenly became an issue,” he said.

Sunday Times, 3 August 2008

The disgusting misrepresentation of British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The picture that the evidence paints is a disturbing one. It suggests a network of hard-right islamophobes engaged in an organized propaganda campaign to raise fears about Islam. It’s a network that is able to reach the public easily through connections with mainstream media outlets like The Telegraph and The Daily Mail, who seem more than happy to amplify the noise the network generates. Far from promoting social cohesion, these people appear to be promoting the breakdown of British society.”

Martin Robbins takes on the Centre for Social Cohesion.

The Lay Scientist, 31 July 2008

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Islam on Campus: letters from the Sunday Times

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Islam on Campus report and the way it was promoted by the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) has been criticised by universities, students and academics (Muslim students back Islamic killings, News, last week). The 120-page report concludes that “British Muslim students hold a diverse and broad range of opinions. The majority of Muslim students have tolerant ideas towards other minorities, reject violence in the name of their faith and support Britain’s secular and democratic society as well as its system of governance”.

The University and College Union (UCU), like the majority of people, takes the threat of terrorism seriously. We welcome the recent emphasis the government has put on community cohesion in regards to tackling violent extremism, but we reject the headline-grabbing tactics of groups such as CSC.

Sally Hunt, UCU general secretary

I am a lecturer in history at Queen Mary University of London, born, raised and educated in Israel. I teach the history of medieval Islam (society, culture and politics) to Muslim and non-Muslim students alike. The students contribute to debate about Islam from their diverse backgrounds and perspectives. The article published last week bears no similarity to my own experience at Queen Mary; it disparages the intellectual integrity of the young men and women who study with me and can only make open discussion more difficult.

Yossi Rapoport, Department of History, Queen Mary University

Sunday Times, 3 August 2008

Oklahoma Muslim denied job because of Islamic scarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) announced today that it has filed an EEOC complaint on behalf of a Muslim woman who was allegedly denied employment at an Abercrombie Kids store in that state because of the applicant’s religiously-mandated headscarf, or hijab.

The woman told CAIR-OK that a district manager claimed he could not hire her because her Islamic headscarf “does not fit the Abercrombie image.”

“Employers have a clear legal duty to accommodate the religious practices of their workers,” said CAIR-OK Executive Director Razi Hashmi. “To deny someone employment because of apparent religious bias goes against long-standing American traditions of tolerance and inclusion.”

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