Category Archives: Analysis & comment

‘Ziauddin Sardar explains the long history of violence behind Hizb ut-Tahrir’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thus the headline to an article in the New Statesman, 14 November 2005

And what precisely is this “long history of violence” on the part of Hizb ut-Tahrir that Ziauddin Sardar explains to us? Er … actually there isn’t one. He tells us that HT “has not, strictly speaking, advocated violence. But this does not mean that it is not a violent organisation.” Now there’s a reasoned argument for you. An organisation does not advocate (never mind practise) violence … but it’s violent all the same. Needless to say, this rubbish is applauded by the likes of Harry’s Place and Norman Geras.

A Muslim colleague recently told me that Ziauddin Sardar was almost as bad as Irshad Manji, and I thought that was an exaggeration (I quite enjoyed Desperately Seeking Paradise). But now I’m not so sure.

‘Muslim apartheid burns bright in France’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It is perhaps pointless to look back at the shamefully irresponsible immigration policies that have brought so many European countries to this explosive point…. However, we might at least recognise the problem. As usual a great many people are deliberately avoiding it, in particular by editing the word Muslim out of their debates, as if Islam had nothing to do with the dangerous mood sweeping Europe. Poverty and rejection have played a significant part, but there is an unmistakable sense in which the riots are Muslim, consciously so.

“Muslims vary and their beliefs vary. But the response of some Muslims to frustration – whether or not the fault of westerners – has been to retreat into more extreme forms of Islam and into the arms of fundamentalists. Yet although we know this, and despite the Salman Rushdie affair, despite the bombs and assassinations that led up to 9/11, despite the recent atrocities, we seem unwilling to recognise that what this can mean is deliberate separatism – apartheid. Islam in the European ghetto can mean an unwillingness to integrate at all, a desire to practise the faith with as little interference from the geographical host country as possible.”

Minette Marin in the Sunday Times, 13 November 2005

I mean, these foreigners, they come over here and insist on living in areas with the worst housing and, try as you might, you can’t dissuade them from taking low-paid jobs or remaining unemployed, which ensures that they can’t move out of those areas. For some unknown reason, some of them even see the need for the sort of defensive solidarity that results from living together with fellow members of their own oppressed minority community. And they even insist on the right to follow their religious beliefs free from state interference. Clearly the existence of ghettos is entirely the responsibility of the people who live in them and has nothing whatsoever to do with the racism of the “host” society.

UK policy ‘key factor’ in extremism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British foreign policy is a “key contributory factor” in driving UK Muslims to extremism, official Home Office advisers have concluded.

Working groups set up in the wake of the July 7 atrocities said the Government should learn from the impact of its foreign policies, particularly in the Middle East. The working groups’ final report said “radical impulses” among the Muslim community were often triggered by “perceptions of injustices inherent in western foreign policy”.

The report, compiled by seven committees appointed by the Home Secretary, said: “British foreign policy – especially in the Middle East – cannot be left unconsidered as a factor in the motivations of criminal radical extremists. We believe it is a key contributory factor. The Government should learn from the impact of its foreign policies on its electors.”

The Scotsman, 10 November 2005

What a pity these groups didn’t bother to consult Nick Cohen, that well-known expert on Islam. He could have told them that all Islamists are members of “psychopathic movements that are in the end beyond rational explanation”. See here.

Qaradawi appeals for calm

Posted on by Bob Pitt

YusufalQaradawiDoha-based religious scholar Dr Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi yesterday expressed his sorrow over the riots in Paris suburbs and other French cities having Muslim and African communities.

“We are vehemently sorry for the deterioration of the situation to the point which led to burning of cars, public utilities and harming interests of the people and the French state,” Qaradawi said in a statement to Qatar News Agency.

“While we are passing through such blessed days, we would have wished people exchanging peace, amity, felicitations with Eid al-Fitr,” he added. “We, as Arabs and Muslims, wish France and its friendly people security and safety, especially as France’s stand on Arab and Islamic causes is characterised by fairness, justice and liberation, to a reasonable degree, from the US subordination.”

He called upon the Muslim community in France to resort for calmness and tackle the situation with wisdom and rationality and urged Muslim religious and political leaders to intensify peace efforts.

He also called upon the French government not to deal with the situation from the security point of view but through dialogue with the country’s religious and political leaderships and try to find a common degree of understanding to resolve problems.

Gulf Times, 8 November 2005

And how does David T summarise Qaradawi’s statement? “So, here’s the deal. If Qaradawi approves of your country’s stand on Arab and Islamic causes abroad, he’ll use his influence to call for calm. In parallel, the Government should partner with the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in seeking a solution to France’s social problems at home.”

Harry’s Place, 9 November 2005

The worst thing about Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“To me, the worst thing about Muslims, aside from their longing to be returned to the good old days of the eighth century, and to drag the rest of us, kicking and screaming, along with them, is the fact that far too many politically correct imbeciles feel compelled to accommodate them and to find rationales for their violence. Two such enablers who come to mind, I’m sad to say, are George Bush and Condoleezza Rice. Both have promoted the lie that Islam is a religion of peace and good will. Perhaps in some parallel universe where day is night, up is down, and love is hate, it is so. But here on planet Earth, Islam is a religion whose mullahs preach sermons of death to the infidels. And just in case you haven’t noticed, that includes everybody who doesn’t spend several minutes every day bowing down to Mecca.”

A message from Burt Prelutksy, who evidently inhabits his own parallel universe, one in which the architects of the war on terror are politically correct Islamophiles.

World Net Daily, 9 November 2005

Robert Spencer enthusiastically endorses this racist diatribe. Jihad Watch, 9 November 2005

Yes, that the same Robert Spencer who indignantly rejects CAIR’s accusation that he is among those responsible for “the growing level of Islamophobic rhetoric in American society [which] prompts some individuals to turn their hate-filled views into violent actions”. Jihad Watch, 9 November 2005

‘Muslims are an ethnic group’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

So Alasdair Palmer claims in the Spectator, 5 November 2005

He refers to the 1983 Mandla vs Dowell Lee case, which provides the basis for Sikhs being recognised as an ethnic group entitled to protection against racial hatred under the 1986 Public Order Act. Palmer declares that on the basis of the same legal ruling “the existing legislation covers Muslims in exactly the same way that it covers Christians, Jews and Sikhs”, so the government’s argument that the racial hatred laws protect members of mono-ethnic faith groups but not those of multi-ethnic faiths is “entirely spurious”.

For the reasons why Muslims are not covered by the law against incitement to racial hatred, see here. Or for Lord Fraser’s ruling in Mandla vs Dowell Lee see here. It will be noted that, among Fraser’s criteria for qualification as a distinct ethnic group, Muslims lack a common geographical origin, descent from a small number of common ancestors or a common language.

Update:  See the reply by Sher Khan of the MCB in the Spectator, 12 November 2005

‘Eurabia on the rampage’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mad Mel offers her take on the French riots, drawing her inspiration from Jihad Watch and Bat Ye’Or. “Multiculturalism, the doctrine that governs Britain and Europe and which grew out of a war upon their values from within by allowing the values of minorities to trump the majority, has been applied by the west to appease an ideology that has declared war upon its values from without.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 4 November 2005

Of course, the distinguishing feature of French policy is in fact that it rejects multiculturalism in favour of secular nationalism. As a number of commentators have pointed out, this is a contributory factor in the current unrest, as it is difficult for the government to address the problems of oppressed communities when officially these minority cultures do not exist – everyone is supposed to be a French citizen and by definition enjoys equal rights.

When Melanie Phillips and her fellow right-wingers rail against multiculturalism, it’s clear that what they’re really having a go at is the existence of a multicultural society rather than multiculturalism as a policy. It is essentially a racist argument against the very existence of minority communities – at least when those communities are Muslim, that is.

Row as Christmas lights renamed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Christmas is bannedA decision to call Christmas lights “Winter Lights” in south London has been condemned as showing a “total lack of respect” for Christians.

Advertisements for the switch-on of the lights in multi-cultural Lambeth have renamed them, apparently for fear of offending other faiths.

Tory councillor Bernard Gentry told the BBC: “Christmas appears to have been cancelled in our borough”.

BBC News, 2 November 2005

However, a council spokesman was quoted as making the not unreasonable point: “The term winter lights simply reflects the fact that a number of religious festivals take place over the winter period when the lights are switched on.”

The Times, 2 November 2005

Predictably, this produced the usual Islamophobic response in the right-wing press, with the Express splashing the story under the headline “Christmas is Banned: It Offends Muslims”. In fact the other obvious winter festival involving the display of lights is Diwali. So it would appear that the change of terminology was motivated more by the desire to avoid offending Hindus. And why not? You can imagine the outcry from the Tory press if the winter lights used at Christmas were described as “Diwali lights”.

More nonsense from the pro-imperialist ‘Left’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Left anti-Zionism inflates Israel into a symbol for all that is wrong with a world dominated by US imperialism…. It is Manichaeism: the world is a great struggle between heroes and villains, only to be resolved by a great revelation and final undoing…. Some on the left seem to think that the only role that Muslims are able to play in this global showdown is to transform themselves into human bombs. They imagine glorious and tragic deaths as the only option left open to Muslims.”

Jane Ashworth and David Hirsh in Progress magazine, November 2005

Oddly enough, I’ve yet to meet anyone on the Left who supports “suicide bombing” as a tactic in Palestine/Israel or anywhere else, still less anyone who holds that this is “the only role that Muslims are able to play” in the struggle against US imperialism. I didn’t come across any leftists trying to dissuade Muslims from participating in the mass political protests against the Iraq war on the grounds that they would be better occupied turning themselves into human bombs. Perhaps I lead a sheltered life. Alternatively, it could just be that, to adopt their own terminology, Ashworth and Hirsh are intent on attacking “symbolic” leftists rather than real ones.

As is usual in the outpourings of pro-imperialists, “left” and right, who of course have their own list of heroes and villains, the Mayor of London’s welcome to Yusuf al-Qaradawi is held up as an example of leftist capitulation to anti-semitism: “Some recent incidents … are open to other than anti-semitic interpretations. But Ken Livingstone’s warm embrace, on behalf of London, of Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an openly anti-semitic cleric, shows a disregard for the importance of anti-semitism.”

That would be this Yusuf al-Qaradawi, would it? Furthermore, if willingness to engage in dialogue with Qaradawi is a sign of softness on anti-semitism, then the Foreign Office are clearly anti-semites too. See (pdf) here.

Continue reading →

Lords defeat for religious hatred bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Islam Out of BritainA new clash between the House of Lords and the Commons looks increasingly likely after peers voted overwhelmingly last night to amend the planned law against religious hatred to introduce safeguards protecting freedom of speech.

Although ministers indicated that they were prepared to compromise on aspects of the controversial proposals, the government appeared determined to reverse at least some elements of the Lords vote.

During a committee stage debate yesterday the Lords backed an all-party amendment substantially restricting the grounds on which the law could be applied. The government defeat, by 260 votes to 111, toughens the bill so that prosecutors must prove intent to cause religious hatred.

The amendment, which was sponsored by Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers as well as the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, also tightens up the definition of language needed to bring a prosecution. This is now restricted to “threatening” rather than “insulting and abusive” language.

Guardian, 26 October 2005

In other words, if their lordships’ amendment were accepted, material such as the BNP leaflet referred to below would probably still not be liable to prosecution because it restricts itself to inciting hatred against Muslims by means of abuse and insults, rather than through explicit threats of violence. The present disparity between the legal protection provided to Jews and Sikhs against incitement to hatred, and the much weaker protection provided to Muslims and Hindus, would remain.