Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Migrants say discrimination undermines their sense of belonging in Britain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A report published today (19 March) found that nearly half of minority ethnic residents, including Muslims, said they had experienced race discrimination and 30 per cent of recent Muslim migrants had experienced religious discrimination. This was cited as a key barrier to a sense of belonging in Britain.

The report – Immigration, faith and cohesion – published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, was written by a team at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at Oxford University. It looked at what factors contribute to, or undermine, community cohesion in three urban areas in England with large migrant and Muslim populations.

Most migrants felt there was no conflict in having a sense of belonging to both Britain and their country of origin. Sixty per cent of long-term Muslim residents born outside the UK said the people most important to them were in Britain.

Co-author Hiranthi Jayaweera from COMPAS said: “Evidence suggests that it is discrimination and the perception of being unwelcome, rather than attachment to their country of origin, that reduces migrants’ sense of belonging in Britain.”

Joseph Rowntree Foundation press release, 19 March 2008

See also Daily Mail, 19 March 2008

Sun and Mail withdraw unfounded allegations by Policy Exchange

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Following a complaint by the British Muslim Initiative to the Press Complaints Commission regarding media coverage of the disgraced Policy Exchange’s unfounded report on alleged extremist literature in mosques, the Sun newspaper has withdrawn its coverage of the report from its website and published a clarification letter by BMI.

BMI press release, 18 March 2008

US paper distributes free anti-Prophet book

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Robert Spencer (4)A right-wing American weekly newspaper will distribute free copies of a book that insults Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and associates Islam with terrorism, Washington-based news agency America in Arabic reported.

The neo-conservative, Republican-oriented Human Events newspaper will distribute Robert Spencer’s The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion (2006), America in Arabic said. The book – regularly priced at 30 dollars – is released by Regnery, which has published a string of controversial neo-con books and is a division of Eagle Publishing, which owns Human Events.

Well-known British writer Karen Armstrong, author of Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Time, has said that the book is “written in hatred,” contains “basic and bad mistakes of fact” and that the author “deliberately manipulates the evidence”.

Al Arabiya, 16 March 2008

‘Christianophobia comes to the East End’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A clergyman in East London has been kicked in the head by Asian youths, one of whom screamed the words ‘f——- priest’ at him. Police are treating the attack on Canon Michael Ainsworth, vicar of Hawksmoor’s magnificent St George-in-the-East, Wapping, as a ‘faith hate’ crime. But was it? A lot hangs on the answer. Does the use of a single word automatically turn a savage but common assault into a new (and essentially artificial) category of crime, or has the tide of Islamic anti-Christian persecution reached these shores?

“… Tower Hamlets houses Muslim ghettos whose fundamentalist leaders are offended by the mere presence of a Christian place of worship in their community. The Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, Bishop of Hulme and a friend of Canon Ainsworth, reacted to the attack by calling for ‘condemnation of this cowardly behaviour by senior Muslims in the community’.”

Damian Thompson in the Daily Telegraph, 16 March 2008

For the response of local Muslim leaders to the attack, see the East London Advertiser, 17 March 2008

Update:  See also Inayat Bunglawala, “Jihad or alcohol?”, Comment is Free, 19 March 2008

Why Shariah?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… for most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world. Today, when we invoke the harsh punishments prescribed by Shariah for a handful of offenses, we rarely acknowledge the high standards of proof necessary for their implementation. Before an adultery conviction can typically be obtained, for example, the accused must confess four times or four adult male witnesses of good character must testify that they directly observed the sex act. The extremes of our own legal system – like life sentences for relatively minor drug crimes, in some cases – are routinely ignored. We neglect to mention the recent vintage of our tentative improvements in family law. It sometimes seems as if we need Shariah as Westerners have long needed Islam: as a canvas on which to project our ideas of the horrible, and as a foil to make us look good.”

Noah Feldman in the New York Times, 17 March 2008

Wilders’ anti-Islam akin to anti-semitism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Entertainment entrepreneur Harry de Winter has taken out a page-wide advert on the front page of Monday’s Volkskrant newspaper accusing MP Geert Wilders of racism.

“If Wilders said the same about Jews and the Old Testament as he does about Muslims (and the Koran) he would have been long picked up and sentenced for anti-semitism,” the advert reads. The advert is signed by the foundation “Another Jewish voice”, which De Winter helped found.

In an interview with the paper, De Winter says that Wilders’ approach to Islam is like the build-up of anti-Jewish sentiment before World War II. “I see no difference between a skull-cap (worn by Jewish men) and a headscarf,” De Winter said. “I hope we get support from across the Jewish community because they should recognise this like no-one else.”

Dutch News, 17 March 2008

For Wilders’ recent speech to the Dutch parliament (“The Koran is above all a book of war – a call to butcher non-Muslims”), see PVV website.

Ramadan wants Muslims to ignore far-right Dutch film on Koran

Posted on by Bob Pitt

As the premiere of the long-awaited Koran film by far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders nears, it’s not uncommon to hear Muslims call for some way to censor what they expect to be a blistering condemnation of their faith. But not all see the film – now expected to be broadcast by the end of this month – as an opportunity to revive the polarisation of the Prophet Mohammad cartoons clash in 2006, when freedom of expression and respect for faith were presented as implacable opposites.

Tariq Ramadan, one of Europe’s most prominent Muslim intellectuals, has never shied from confronting the critics of his faith. But his approach to the Wilders film aims to avoid a repeat of the cartoons controversy. At a recent conference in Sweden, he told Reuters that people could not be prevented from publishing material like the Wilders film and the Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that triggered protests across the Muslim world. Ramadan went on: “My advice (to Muslims) is take an intellectual critical distance towards this. Say ‘we don’t like it’ but go ahead and just ignore it.”

Reuters blogs, 17 March 2008

‘We need conservative clerics on our side’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi 5Jerome Taylor takes up Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s call for the release of two Austrians, Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber, kidnapped in Tunisia by al-Qaeda. He writes:

“Qaradawi may support what he calls the resistance in Palestine and Iraq but compared to the violent extremist groups gaining in popularity throughout the Muslim world he’s a desperately needed voice of relative reason. And more importantly when he and others like him speak the wider Muslim world listens.

“The next time a Britain gets kidnapped I just hope we haven’t burned too many bridges with people like Qaradawi who may be able to help secure their release and are far better placed than our discredited governments to counter the kind of violent extremism in the Islamic world which leads to hostage taking in the first place.”

A good point, unfortunately undermined by the preceding comment: “Why would we want to let someone into the country who has said gay men and women living in countries that use Shari’a should be punished with death or that human bombs targeting civilians in Israel are acceptable?”

Of course, Qaradawi supports neither of these views.

Indyblogs, 17 March 2008

Are Muslim enclaves no-go areas, forcing other people out, asks historian

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The majority of Muslims do not kill women for running away from brutal husbands and forced marriages, nor are they terrorists, yet moderate Muslims nevertheless appear to be creating divisive enclaves within this country as a result of routine Muslim religiosity and lifestyle….  The overall picture is of cumulative assertiveness, but there is evidence too of proselytising aggressiveness … the Muslim group Tablighi Jamaat is proposing to build the largest mosque in Europe, for 12,000 worshippers at a time, close to the London Olympic site. The organisers aim to convert Britain to Islam.”

John Cornwell in the Sunday Times, 16 March 2008

White lies

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ruqayyah Collector“Last Orders promoted many racist myths unchallenged. The BNP was the party favoured by most of those who mentioned voting in the programme, unchallenged by the narrator, who failed to point out it wants an all-white Britain and has a history of leading members with convictions for inciting racial hatred and violence.

“Instead, we see myths about Asians and Muslims presented as fact, the culmination of which is a young BNP supporter in front of a union flag with a swastika saying: ‘If I saw a young Paki getting kicked and knocked over, I would not blink an eyelid, I hate them so much.’

“This was not debate, but allowing a space where such attacks go unchallenged on mainstream television. The prophesising of a war coming to Bradford would have been chilling for any Asian person watching. In my experience, debunking the myths displayed here is the first step to challenging and eradicating the racism and violence that it breeds….

“There is in reality a growing climate of hostility which blames Muslims for ‘changing the complexion’ of Britain, in much the same way that the migrant Jewish community was attacked at the start of the last century. The isolation resulting from racism is what underlies the issues, which the White season fleetingly dabbles with. It singles out Bradford, where racism in housing and poverty and economic disadvantage has created barriers…. the BBC must do more to challenge racist myths, especially as they tend to gain currency, which is exploited by the far right in the runup to elections.”

Ruqayyah Collector responds to the BBC’s “White season“.

Comment is Free, 13 March 2008