Category Archives: Analysis & comment

More self-promoting stupidity from Tatchell

Posted on by Bob Pitt

OutrageWe have already covered the ludicrous, divisive and objectively pro-Nazi campaign waged by Peter Tatchell and Outrage against the participation of the Muslim Council of Britain and its general secretary Sir Iqbal Sacranie at yesterday’s Unite Against Fascism conference (see here and here). As it turned out, Sacranie had another engagement, and his place was taken by Daud Abdullah, assistant general secretary of the MCB, who addressed the opening session of the conference.

Tatchell, whose capacity to delude himself about his own importance evidently knows no limits, announced that Sacranie’s absence was all down to his campaign. “This climbdown is a victory for humanitarian values over homophobic prejudice,” he pontificated. “We believe the organisers realised they could not secure the acceptance of a homophobe at an anti-fascist conference, so they dumped him.” (Outrage press release, 18 February 2006)

In fact, the demand that Tatchell and Outrage had raised was for the MCB as an organisation to be banned from the conference platform. “Sir Iqbal is leader of the anti-gay Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)”, they declared. “Sir Iqbal’s homophobic views, and the MCB’s opposition to gay equality, echo the prejudice and discrimination of the BNP…. We urge you to withdraw your invitation to Sir Iqbal and the MCB…. The MCB is not a liberal, progressive organisation. It represents only conservative, reactionary opinion. It is not a suitable partner organisation for the movement against fascism.” (Outrage press release, 14 February 2006)

Yet, in the outcome, the invitation was not withdrawn and the UAF conference was addressed by an assistant general secretary of the MCB, rather than by its general secretary. So, a bit of a limited victory there then, eh Peter?

Tatchell calls for UAF ban on MCB

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP leaflet 3Under the headline “Muslim leader echoes homophobia of the BNP“, the gay rights group Outrage has condemned the decision to invite Sir Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, to speak at the Unite Against Fascism conference on Saturday.

Not that Peter Tatchell is opposed to Muslims speaking at the meeting, of course. He’s prepared to welcome individuals such as “Ziauddin Sardar, Sheikh Dr Muhammad Yusuf or Munira Mirza”, who represent nobody but themselves, while demanding a ban on the MCB, an umbrella body with over 400 affiliates which is the most representative Muslim organisation in Britain. Now there’s a strategy for engaging Muslim communities in the struggle against fascism!

Outrage’s intervention is particularly irresponsible, given that the BNP has announced that it intends to turn its campaign in the May local elections into a “referendum on Islam”. Yet Outrage proposes that UAF should exclude from its conference the main organisation of the Muslim communities who are the direct victims of the BNP’s racism. Some might suspect that Outrage are acting as paid agents of the BNP, trying to disrupt the unity of anti-fascist forces in order to assist the Nazis. But that would be unfair. Outrage in fact provide this service to the BNP for free.

For details of Saturday’s conference, see the UAF website.

More lying anti-Muslim propaganda from the right-wing press

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslims: Labour’s Patence Runs Out” reads the headline to a front-page article in today’s Sunday Express. The article begins:

“Leaders of Britain’s Muslims were accused by the government last night of pandering to extremists. Ministers’ patience with the Islamic community is running out. They accuse its chiefs of failing to deliver moderate leadership in return for major concessions by the Government over recent years, a Home Office source revealed. And now, the source claims, both Downing Street and the Home Office have given up hope that the self-appointed Muslim leaders can play any significant role in the fight against Islamic extremism.”

Another unnamed “source with close links to ethnic minority groups” is quoted as telling the Express: “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim leadership or community leadership.” And an Express editorial lectures Muslim representatives in the following pompous and ignorant terms: “Memo to the leaders of the Muslim community: it is time to stand up and take your place in the fight against terrorism now.” As if that isn’t what they’ve been doing all along.

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that the anti-Muslim propaganda in the Sunday Express and Sunday Times is designed to negate the message of peace and moderation sent out by the thousands of British Muslims who attended yesterday’s mass rally in Trafalgar Square.

Continue reading →

Muslims go home

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslims should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock Mohammed to their heart’s content, in any way that they wish: that Islam and Muslims have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else….”

Yes, the usual racist crap. This time from Theodore Dalrymple.

Spectator, 11 February 2006

I recall that, back in 2003, the Independent was accused of publishing an anti-semitic caricature of Ariel Sharon. As it turned out, the Press Complaints Commission ruled, rightly in my opinion, in favour of the Independent. But can you imagine the Spectator publishing an article reading: “Jews should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock Jewish leaders to their heart’s content, in any way that they wish: that Judaism and Jews have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else….”?

Abu Aardvark on the cartoons crisis

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marc LynchMarc Lynch writes: “By emphasizing angry voices on both sides, but especially on the Muslim side, the media is playing into the hands of extremists. It’s typical of the media – sensationalism sells papers, and gets viewers. But it isn’t constructive.

“When Qaradawi says that Muslims should be angry and should boycott, but should not engage in violence, don’t report the first and ignore the second…. this is not a clash of civilizations, and we should stop treating it as such. Yes, most Muslims I know are angry and genuinely offended, but they aren’t violent about it.

“If a similar cartoon had been run about Jesus, or Anne Frank … or Martin Luther King, lots of Americans would be angry and genuinely offended. By focusing on the extreme voices, the media really does an injustice to the legitimate, human feelings and ideas of that vast majority of Muslims who deserve the right to be heard without being reduced to some cliche of Muslim rage.”

Abu Aardvark weblog, 9 February 2006

Somebody should point this out to Anthony Garton Ash, who in yesterday’s Guardian endorsed the prominent media coverage given to irrelevant and totally unrepresentative nutters like Omar Bakri and Anjem Choudary.

A reply to Sunny

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics has asked, in connection with the provocative idiocies of former Al-Muhajiroun supporters on the demonstrations at the Danish embassy in London: “why can’t these inbreds be locked up? That’s what I want to know. I’d like to see Martin Sullivan comment on that.” Sunny goes on to say that “the only people who can really deal with these extremists are Muslims themselves, yet most of the time they’re too busy defending these idiots”.

What planet does Sunny inhabit? The actions of these lunatics have been condemned by everyone from the MCB to MPAC to Hizb ut-Tahrir. Nobody has defended them. My own view, for what it’s worth, is that the police should have intervened and arrested the provocateurs, and prosecuted them under the Public Order Act.

More slander against Qaradawi from Harry’s Place

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi2Those great defenders of democracy over at Harry’s Place evidently dismiss the democratic right to protest when it’s Muslims who are exercising that right:

“This Danish cartoon business is rapidly turning into mainland Europe’s version of the Satanic Verses affair. Here’s how a man Ken Livingstone described as a moderate reacted yesterday to the escalating tension: ‘The wave of protest was triggered by Sheikh Yussef al-Qaradawi, head of the International Association of Muslim Scholars, who last night called on Muslims all over the world to observe ‘an international day of anger for God and his prophet’.”

Harry’s Place, 3 February 2006

Predictably, the right-wing press took the same line, referring to Qaradawi as a “leading hard-line Muslim cleric”.

Daily Telegraph, 3 February 2006

This would of course be the same Dr al-Qaradawi who has condemned violent demonstrations and called on Muslims to “express their anger in a prudent manner”.

See Islam Online, 6 February 2006

‘How can we have respect for Islam?’ Muriel Gray asks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muriel Gray writes: “… what of moderate Islam? British Muslims are represented by the unelected Sir Iqbal Sacranie, a man at the forefront of the book-burning mob who threatened Rushdie’s life, when Sacranie declared: ‘Death, I think, is too easy for him.’ For this part in incitement to murder, Sacranie was awarded not the stiff custodial sentence one might expect, but a knighthood.”

Sunday Herald, 5 February 2006

I particularly liked Gray’s reference to “the Western values so vigorously and courageously fought for over two bloody world wars”. So World War I was fought in defence of “western values”, was it? Although, on reflection, she does have a point here. “Western values” do indeed include a tendency to heap up vast piles of corpses as imperialist powers pursue their interests through military aggression without the slightest concern for the human consequences.

Elsewhere in the same paper, Torcuil Crichton writes: “Yesterday Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist organisation that believes in a Muslim Caliphate, demanded that European governments exert pressure on their media outlets to retract the offensive caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, apologise for the offence caused and guarantee no further repetition of such abuse. The demands reflect those of the gunmen in Gaza who threatened to bomb the EU presence in Palestinian Authority.” Which of course omits to mention the minor difference that Hizb didn’t threaten to bomb anyone.

Sunday Herald, 5 February 2006