Category Archives: Analysis & comment

Champagne Peter denounces mayoral capitulation to homophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

outrageprotest2The Daily Telegraph (30 June 2005) reports: “Ken Livingstone is ever eager to ingratiate himself with London’s gay community. But his antics appear to cut little ice with gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, who was attending the the mayor’s Pride event on Monday night.

“‘This all about ticking boxes on a page’, opined Tatchell, sipping on a glass of pink champagne. ‘Ken just wants to be able to say he supports gay rights, but when it comes to the crunch it’s all meaningless: he’s still more than happy to welcome a homophobe like Yusuf al-Qaradawi to City Hall’.”

And apparently also happy to welcome an Islamophobe like Peter Tatchell – who proceeds to knock back the free champagne and while slagging off his host to the Tory press.

Perhaps Tatchell should ponder the comments of a member of Imaan, the lesbian and gay Muslim group: “It can be argued that over the years Ken Livingstone’s record on empowering Gay and Lesbian Rights is more impressive than Peter Tatchell’s, which frankly, at times, has been more self-indulgent than effective.”

Robert Spencer’s ongoing, unshakeable quest for self-publicity

Posted on by Bob Pitt

spencerbook2Yet another plug from Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch for his forthcoming book ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)’.

Jihad Watch, 29 June 2005

The book description on Amazon reads: “Islam expert Robert Spencer reveals Islam’s ongoing, unshakable quest for global conquest and why the West today faces the same threat as the Crusaders did – and what we can learn from their experience.”

The back cover informs us: “Everything (well, almost everything) you know about Islam and the Crusades is wrong because most textbooks and popular history books are written by left-wing academics and Islamic apologists who who justify their contemporary political agendas with contrived historical ‘facts’.”

As distinct, presumably, from the scrupulous commitment to historical objectivity which characterises the writings of raving right-wing Islamophobes.

In defence of the religious hatred bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

George Carty emails us to ask: “How can you brand opponents of the [religious hatred] bill in general as Islamophobes, given that Amir Butler (very sympathetic to the Islamist cause) opposed similar laws in Australia?” (For Butler’s views see here.)

I suppose there are several answers to this.

First, there are also Muslims who oppose the religious hatred bill in Britain – Dr Siddiqui of the Muslim Parliament is one, and I believe the Islamic Human Rights Commission takes a similar position.

But these are hardly mass organisations. The Muslim Council of Britain is the umbrella body for the majority of Muslim organisations in the UK, with over 300 affiliates, and it is solidly behind the bill. I suspect that you will find that Amir Butler’s views are those of only a minority of Australian Muslims.

Also, the arguments used by the likes of Amir Butler, Dr Siddiqui and the IHRC are essentially pragmatic – that the legislation will act to the detriment of Muslims – which is rather different from the arguments put forward by non-Muslim opponents of the bill.

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Opposition to anti-incitement bill defeated

Posted on by Bob Pitt

So the predicted backbench rebellion failed to materialise, and yesterday the new bill outlawing incitement to religious hatred passed its second reading in the Commons by 303 votes to 247. Interesting that the Lib Dems found themselves in a bloc with the Tories in opposing the bill.

It’s not every day that this member of the Islamophobia Watch collective applauds the politics of Gerald Kaufman MP, but I can’t help approving of the attack he launched on the Tories in the course of the debate:

“The problem with interventions by Conservative Members is they are totally unrepresentative of the population as a whole in that hardly any of them are open to the kind of humiliation that many members of our communities are open to. If they were, they would not be criticising this legislation.”

He went on to refer to “the case of Mrs Shahzada, a constituent of mine who went to a shop in central Manchester soon after 9/11. She wears a veil over her face, and the shopkeeper refused to serve her because she was, to his perception, a Muslim. That was hatred against an individual, not a criticism of Islam. It is about time that we had an Opposition who understood the kind of country that we live in today.”

Hansard, 21 June 2005

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‘We’ oppose an anti-incitement law, says Will Hutton

Posted on by Bob Pitt

willhutton“Being a Muslim, especially a Muslim woman, in Britain is for many a dispiriting and occasionally terrifying experience. The society that prides itself on tolerance has lost its bearings over Islam. On the streets, the prejudice that Islam is irrationally and murderously violent and menacingly foreign has spawned a subculture of hatred and abuse. If you are a woman in a hijab, being jeered at, even spat at, is routine. Many never venture from their houses.

“This is fertile ground for widespread racism and where the law is currently uncertain. Harassment and abuse are certainly illegal, but the threshold that incurs legal action is very high; equally illegal is the expression of hatred, or views that might incite hatred, towards a group or individual for their race.

“But the woman in a hijab could be African, Asian or Middle Eastern. It is not her race that makes her the object of hatred; it is her religious belief and culture that require her to dress in such a conspicuously different way and make her part of the hated group. The law, as currently framed, offers her no systematic protection, and no explicit penalty for a political party, say the BNP, that chooses to make such hatred a central plank of its electoral pitch.”

Thus Will Hutton in the Observer, 19 June 2005

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Terrorist sympathiser at Chatham House!

Posted on by Bob Pitt

muslimsinfranceMad Mel denounces the Royal Institute of International Affairs for inviting Tariq Ramadan to address a Chatham House conference on “Is Islam a threat to the west?”

Haven’t they read Daniel Pipes’ informed and balanced account of Professor Ramadan’s career? You know, his meetings with Ayman al-Zawahiri, his financing of Islamist terrorist groups, his plot to destroy western civilisation?

Thank goodness there are commentators like Melanie Phillips who are alert to the danger such Islamist extremists pose to our national security.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 15 June 2005

Islamophobe cries calumny

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A recent post here on Tariq Ramadan included, as an example of the sort of company Professor Ramadan’s leftist critics find themselves in, a link to the Fire Tariq Ramadan blog. This prompted an indignant reply from the site’s owner: “Allegations of ‘Islamophobia’ made by goose-stepping Islamist sympathizers to equate any critique of radical Islamists with hatred of an entire group of people. This borders on calumny.”

Fire Tariq Ramadan, 8 June 2005

And this from a blogger whose response to Tariq Ramadan’s observation that Muslims have an increasing presence in Europe was: “I’m sure Theo van Gogh is happy about that. So are the victims of the gang-rapes in Sweden.” (See here.)

Bizarrely we are told that the Islamophobia Watch collective “must be Islamophobes themselves, considering they probably have a low opinion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali”.

Well, speaking personally, I have an extremely low opinion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. However, given that she has publicly renounced Islam and spends her time attacking her former co-religionists, it’s difficult to see how contempt for this appalling right-winger, who plays a major role in stoking up anti-Muslim racism in the Netherlands, amounts to Islamophobia.

Postscript:

For a reply from Fire Tariq Ramadan, see here.

Rebecca ‘Oops’ Bynum pays tribute to David Horowitz

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“As we confront Islamists and their fellow travelers … we should remember that the choice between Islam and reason was made long ago…. The question before us now is, will Islam win against reason today? Let us hope that with valiant truth seekers like David Horowitz in our corner, the light of reason will prevail and go on to eventually triumph in the end.”

So writes Jihad Watch’s news editor Rebecca Bynum in a gushing review of David Horowitz’s memoirs. Yup, the same Rebecca Bynum who derives amusement from the fact that US forces target Al-Jazeera’s offices and kill its journalists (see here). Such a sensitive soul. Who could be better qualified to pay tribute to the “intimate immediacy” of Horowitz’s book?

Front Page Magazine, 13 June 2005

Pipes denounces knighthood for Iqbal Sacranie

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Iqbal Sacranie“Sacranie has been one of the most important advocates of radical Islam in the United Kingdom…. Among Sacranie’s actions: calling for censorship of religious speech, trying to change the plot of the action series 24, boycotting Holocaust Remembrance ceremonies, denying the existence of Islamic terrorists, interpreting the Bush administration’s true agenda as the ‘recolonization and the re-mapping of the Middle East’, and accusing Israel of genocide.”

Daniel Pipes takes exception to Iqbal Sacranie of the MCB being included in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Among the authorities Pipes cites for evidence of Sacranie’s extremism is Militant Islam Monitor. Well, you can’t find a much more reliable source than that, can you? And to think there are sceptics who question Pipes’ standing as an expert in Islamic studies.

Daniel Pipes’ blog, 12 June 2005

A difficult question

Posted on by Bob Pitt

toynbee“Race and religion are different – which is why Islamophobia is a nonsense and religious hatred must not be outlawed.” Thus the standfirst to an article in today’s Guardian.

Now, who do you think wrote this article? Was it:

a) a Muslim of South Asian/Middle Eastern/African origin with direct experience of the association between racial and religious hatred, manifested in Islamophobia; or
b) a white secularist who has suffered none of this sort of hatred and never will?

Difficult, I know, so we have provided a picture clue.