Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Diversity – ‘a recipe for anarchy’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The sharp increase in Scots who feel distanced from Muslims, as revealed in a survey conducted before the foiled attack on Glasgow Airport in June, has produced remarkably similar responses from members of the Scottish establishment. Communities Minister Stewart Maxwell has promised ‘leadership’ to fight prejudice and Osama Saeed of the Muslim Council of Britain has called for ‘educating the wider public’.

“Can the fact that 50% of Scots are uncomfortable with more Muslims coming to the country be ascribed wholly or mainly to racism or Islamophobia? Might it have something to do with certain Muslim leaders demanding more special rights or demands for ethical autonomy that are incompatible with the western design for living? …

“I was shaken by the insistence of Morag Alexander of the Equality and Human Rights Commission that it is necessary to ‘create a Scotland that is at ease with all aspects of diversity’. This is a recipe for anarchy….”

Letter from Tom Gallagher in the Herald, 15 December 2007

Poisonous and dangerous

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Seumas Milne“This week’s forensic exposure by the BBC programme Newsnight of the apparent fabrication of evidence underpinning an inflammatory report into British Muslims by the Tory-linked think tank Policy Exchange has revealed the soft underbelly of what has become an increasingly poisonous and dangerous campaign.

“Throughout this year, a steady stream of hostile and sensationalised stories about the Muslim community in both press and television – often based on research by apparently reliable think tanks – has helped feed anti-Muslim prejudice to the point where Britons were found this summer by a Harris opinion poll to be more suspicious of Muslims than Americans or citizens of any other major west European country.”

Seumas Milne at Comment is Free, 15 December 2007

‘Geert Wilders is evil, and evil has to be stopped’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Doekle TerpstraThe welcome campaign launched by the prominent Christian Democrat and former trade unionist Doekle Terpstra against anti-Muslim racist Geert Wilders has been roundly denounced by the Right.

At Pipeline News Bella Rabinowitz (who finds it significant that the campaign is supported by “the ultra-left Amnesty International”) denounces Terpstra’s initiative as an attempt to deny freedom of speech to Geert Wilders and claims that “the assault on Wilders is reminiscent of the hysteria which led to the assassination of another Dutch politician, Pim Fortuyn”.

Over at the Brussels Journal Thomas Landen opines: “Last month one of Holland’s most prestigious institutes, the University of Leiden, appointed the Islamist ideologue Tariq Ramadan to the post of professor of Islamology. Mr Ramadan is at least as controversial as Mr Wilders. One wonders why Mr Terpstra, contrary to Mr Wilders, did not oppose Mr Ramadan’s appointment. Mr Terpstra did not make any effort to say ‘Tariq Ramadan is evil, and has to be stopped’. Why has no-one heard him call upon his countrymen ‘to rise in order to stop Ramadan’?”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: neocon in black face

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Ayaan Hirsi Ali first came to fame in the Netherlands, after emigrating there from Somalia. She was elected to the Dutch parliament and became known for criticizing that nation’s Muslim immigrant communities, especially for their treatment of women and girls. The story of a young, pretty, African woman finding success and prestige in a foreign land was tailor made for Hollywood, or for right-wingers looking for the perfect person to excuse government sponsored mass murder…. She has become well paid and famous because she demonizes her fellow Muslims. As with black Americans or any other group of despised people, the self haters, the Uncle Toms, are given a clear path to fortune and favor.”

Margaret Kimberley in Black Agenda Report, 12 December 2007

Policy Exchange exposed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“On the basis of the evidence presented by Newsnight, what we appear to be dealing with here is not flawed methodology, errors or inconsistencies, but wilful distortion and fabrication committed not against an individual, or an institution, but against an entire social group. The consequences go beyond the community in question to the wider society, given the report’s exploitation by the media and political class, and aggravation of the existing climate of tension, anxiety and suspicion…. Coming on the heel of another report on on extremism among British Muslim youth, the report is yet another attempt to erase distinctions between mainstream and extreme Islam. Targeting mosques is no coincidence.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi at BLINK, 13 December 2007

The rights of women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It was Katha Pollitt, writing in The Nation last month, who made me see it. Pollitt, a noted feminist writer, wondered why the American liberal-turned-neocon David Horowitz – founder of the bizarrely named Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week – had suddenly developed an interest in the rights of women. Specifically, Muslim women. ‘Life is not a picnic for women in China, India, Africa and Latin America’, wrote Pollitt. ‘Why no interest in them?’ She speculated that by focusing on the oppression of women, Horowitz had found an easy way to target the Muslim world.

“In his ‘age of horrorism’ essay last year, Martin Amis also developed a feminist sensibility. Amis, whose novels so often feature flat, cartoon-like women, connected the failure of Islamic states with the ‘obscure logic that denies the Islamic world the talent and energy of half its people … the suppression of its women’. Well, there is definitely work to be done regarding the rights of Muslim women, but a lot also needs to be done for all the non-Muslim women oppressed around the globe.”

Noorjehan Barmania in the Guardian, 14 December 2007

Evidence of extremism in mosques ‘fabricated’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Euston MosqueA rightwing thinktank which claimed to have uncovered extremist literature on sale at dozens of British mosques was last night accused of basing a report on fabricated evidence.

The report by Policy Exchange alleged that books condoning violent jihad and encouraging hatred of Christians, Jews and gays were being sold in a quarter of the 100 mosques visited. But BBC2’s Newsnight said examination of receipts provided by the researchers to verify their purchases showed some had been written by the same person – even though they purported to come from different mosques. Several receipts also misspelled the names or addresses of the mosques where the books were supposedly sold.

The report, the Hijacking of British Islam, was based on the work of four teams of two researchers each who visited 100 mosques. They claimed to have found the controversial material in bookshops attached to 25 mosques, including one at Regent’s Park, London, and others in Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Oxford and High Wycombe.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “Policy Exchange produced a report that was given a lot of publicity, and Newsnight deserve credit for exposing the incredibly shoddy and dubious methodology that Policy Exchange have resorted to. It would seem that Policy Exchange had already decided what they wanted to say about mosques and just went out to find or should I say invent the evidence to justify their prejudices.”

Guardian, 13 December 2007

For Osama Saeed’s comments, see Rolled Up Trousers, 12 December 2007

The Newsnight investigation concentrated on mosques in and around London but, as Osama points out, questions about the credibility of the Hijacking of British Islam report were raised at the time by the Edinburgh Central Mosque – where nobody had come across the literature that Policy Exchange claimed to have discovered on their premises.

For some useful background on Dean Godson and Policy Exchange, see Tom Griffin’s article at SpinWatch.