Category Archives: Analysis & comment

‘Do Cameron’s Tories secretly admire Islam?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The question is posed by Damian Thompson, who claims that, when it comes to countering “the spread of Islamic ghettos” in the UK, “there’s so little to choose between the two main parties that I can’t see a case for voting Tory”. He continues:

“Conservative political correctness is normally more funny than alarming, especially when practised by deeply snobbish Old Etonians. But when it extends to taking advice from Muslim radicals about the correct posture to take towards the ‘religion of peace’, then it is positively dangerous. Leading Tories think that they can demonstrate their intolerance of Islamic extremism by fulminating against one or two loopy Jihadist pressure groups. It’s as if Margaret Thatcher, confronted by the threat of socialism in 1979, had simply called for the banning of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party. Expel Vanessa Redgrave from the country and the unions will come to their senses.”

Daily Telegraph, 27 December 2008

That would be the same Tory Party whose leader pledges to break up “Muslim ghettos” and regards “rising Muslim consciousness” as a threat to social stability, whose security spokesperson Pauline Neville-Jones produces reports labelling the Muslim Council of Britain as extremist and accuses the entirely peaceful and apolitical Tablighi Jamaat of association with terrorism, a party whose MPs include the likes of Philip Davies, Michael Gove and Patrick Mercer, and whose supposedly “pro-Muslim” wing enthusiastically adds its voice to the assault on multiculturalism.

If this is amounts to politically correct admiration of Islam, as Damian Thompson believes, then you wonder which political party is conducting an anti-Muslim campaign aggressive enough to meet with his approval. The obvious answer is the BNP, who only the other day approvingly reproduced another anti-Muslim piece by Thompson on their website. Perhaps they should consider sending him a membership form?

Update: Well, no actual invitation to join the party as yet, but the BNP have again reproduced Thompson’s piece on their website. See “Tories accused of ‘secretly admiring Islam’ by leading Daily Telegraph writer“.

9,000 Muslims in UK prisons for terror offences, claims BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“There are almost 10,000 Muslims in Britain’s jails – with 90 percent of them serving time for terror offences”, claims the BNP.

This is evidently taken from a News of the World report which states: “There are almost 10,000 Muslims in Britain’s jails – with 90 of them serving time for terror offences.” Even allowing that this figure is accurate (which we doubt – the total number of convictions under the Terrorism Act 2000 is far less than that) the BNP has contrived to increase it by 8,910!

However, it would perhaps be unduly harsh to accuse the fascists of manipulating statistics for political ends. A more charitable explanation would be that they’re just plain thick.

Fascists accuse anti-fascists of … supporting fascism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tyndall and fellow NazisThe fascist British National Party has produced a “briefing” on Unite Against Fascism. The document employs the now familiar tactic, adopted by the BNP in imitation of Le Pen’s Front National in France, of turning the accusations made by its political opponents against the accusers themselves.

Thus the BNP condemns UAF as “a racist organisation” whose members are “prepared to to embrace movements (or representatives of those movements) whose ideological roots are fundamentally based on fascistic ideology, and which have close and extensive historical links to Nazism”.

This sets a new standard in brazen hypocrisy, coming from a party whose constitution requires that all its members must be from the “Indigenous Caucasian” racial group and commits it to “stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration” and to restoring “the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948” – a party, moreover, whose founder and long-time leader was the notorious Nazi admirer John Tyndall (standing on the left of the photograph).

Who are the “fascist groups” that UAF has supposedly embraced? Predictably, they are grouped by the BNP under the heading of “Islamo-Nazism” – a category which, according to the BNP, prominently features the Muslim Council of Britain, the largest and most representative Islamic organisation in the UK. The BNP informs us that “the historical link between extremist Islam and Nazism is well known”, the “evidence” for this assertion being the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem’s attempts to build an alliance with Nazi Germany.

But where does the BNP get all this nonsense about “Islamic fascism” from, and the fantasy about the MCB being an extremist organisation? Well, the main source they cite is none other than Martin Bright. They footnote both his Observer article from July 2006, “Right showing left the way on radical Islam”, and his pamphlet When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries, published in 2006 by the right-wing think-tank Policy Exchange. (As we commented at the time: “When it comes to treating with reactionaries, Bright can evidently speak from first-hand experience.”)

Bright, of course, has used the fascists’ own tactic of generating a smokescreen by accusing his opponents of the very political crimes for which he himself is responsible. A piece on his New Statesman blog, entitled “Where the hard left and extreme right meet”, drew a bizarre parallel between the Holocaust denier Michele Renouf and Islamophobia Watch. In response we pointed to the BNP’s support for Bright’s views and argued that it was more a case of “where liberal Islamophobes and the extreme right meet”. The fascists’ endorsement of Bright’s writings in their latest anti-Muslim rant reinforces that point.

Exclusive: over 60 per cent of Britain’s Muslim schools have extremist links

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Damian_Thompson“Britain’s Muslim schools have been sharply criticised in a controversial draft report commissioned by a leading think tank which suggests that over 60 per cent of them are linked to potentially dangerous Islamic fundamentalists.

“An early version of the report, entitled When Worlds Collide, alleges that of the 133 Muslim primary and secondary schools it surveyed, 82 (61.6 per cent) have connections or direct affiliations to fundamentalists. The 133 schools are in the private sector but supposedly subject to Ofsted inspection. The report also claims that some of these schools teach ‘repugnant’ beliefs about the wickedness of Western society and Jews.

“The claims in the report, written by Denis MacEoin in response to a commission from Civitas, will provoke ritual cries of ‘Islamophobia’ from the Muslim Council of Britain and fellow travellers such as Koran [sic] Armstrong.”

Yes, it’s yet another thoughtful contribution to interfaith dialogue from Catholic Herald editor Damian Thompson.

It tells you all you need to know about MacEoin’s political agenda that he has chosen a blog run by a reactionary bigot like Thompson as the vehicle for promoting his forthcoming report.

But why should MacEoin leak the draft report before it is published? Thompson provides the answer:

“Civitas, however, is not prepared to endorse MacEoin’s 61.6 per cent figure, which will not appear in the published version of When Worlds Collide. A spokesman for Civitas explains: ‘We want to concentrate on claims that are absolutely robust, rather than complicated material, some of it in Arabic, that might unjustly damage someone’s reputation’.”

In other words, even an Islamophobic right-wing think-tank like Civitas regards MacEoin’s central claim, which forms the basis for Thompson’s “exclusive”, as indefensible.

But then, you might have thought that any self-respecting think-tank would steer well clear of MacEoin, given the problems over The Hijacking of British Islam, the notorious and now discredited report he put together for Policy Exchange.

Update:  Predictably, the British National Party are eagerly publicising MacEoin’s report, which of course provides a “respectable” cover for their own hate-filled propaganda against Muslim communities in the UK.

Blind man’s guide dog barred from restaurant for offending Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A blind man has been turned away from a fashionable Indian restaurant because his guide dog offended Muslim staff”, the Telegraph reports.

Except that, when you get to the end of the article, you find the following:

“Shamin Ahmed, a partner in the restaurant, said that he had written to Guide Dogs for the Blind to apologise for the incident. He said that although the owners of the venue are Muslim, he insisted religion was not a factor in the decision to refuse Mr Elder-Brown. ‘We were worried about the hygiene, that is what happened, it was a mistake,’ he said. ‘I have had a letter from Guide Dogs for the Blind, I have sent a reply apologising about that…. we found out afterwards that guide dogs are allowed, I didn’t know that’.”

Still, never let facts spoil a good anti-Muslim story, eh?

See also the article “Prison chapel not to have a crucifix” which  reports: “A new prison chapel has been stopped from having a crucifix in case it offends Muslims.”

Has the Telegraph decided to try and outbid the Daily Star and Express in the promotion of “Muslims are taking over” shock horror stories?

Parents ‘would not want a Christian school and far less a Muslim one’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under the typically scaremongering headline “Learn the Koran: Muslims bid to teach your kids” the Daily Star reports on proposals for an Islamic faith school in Swindon (hat tip: ENGAGE).

The piece concludes with a quote from Keith Porteous Wood, director of the National Secular Society, who says the school would be a “disaster” for the community. He adds: “I have great sympathy for local parents. A lot of them would not want a Christian school and far less a Muslim one” (emphasis added).

Strange isn’t it how secularist Islamophobes like Porteous Wood manage to combine a militant atheist hostility to all religion with an ingrained belief that Islam is significantly worse than Christianity? (Cf. Richard Dawkins)

Toube’s latest idiocy – now MPAC are jihadists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

There are few individuals in the blogosphere who combine ignorance and malice in quite the same poisonous mixture as David Toube of Harry’s Place. Having recently subjected Global Peace & Unity, Yasir Qadhi, Azad Ali and Salma Yaqoob to his venomous lying attacks, this obnoxious bigot has now turned his attention to the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (“MPACuk comes out for political violence“), whom he accuses of being “a Jihadist organisation”.

Anyone who has had the misfortune to follow Toube’s posts at Harry’s Place will be aware that he randomly applies the label “jihadist” (along with “fascist”) to pretty well any variant of political Islam. In MPAC’s case, his charge is that they posted a comment piece on their website making the point that violent oppression inevitably generates violent resistance.

As one commenter on Toube’s post points out: “I don’t see how explaining what they feel are the causes of political violence is the same thing as approving of political violence.” In another comment Sunny Hundal, no admirer of MPAC, to his credit dissociates himself from Toube’s absurd attack on them – “violent they’re certainly not”.

Toube’s ignorance knows no bounds. Even when there’s a basis for criticism of an organisation or individual his slovenly attitude to the facts leads him to make an idiot of himself. In another recent post, headed “Fascists and Trots debate at Hizb conference” Toube denounced as a Hizb ut-Tahrir front the 13 December conference on “The Global Financial Crash” organised by Global Vision 2000.

The sole basis for this charge is that HT have a speaker at the event. Applying that stupid criterion you might as well assert that Saturday’s conference has been organised by Stephen Schwartz’s neocon Center for Islamic Pluralism, on the basis that Irfan Alawi is listed as a speaker. Global Vision 2000 is in fact the brainchild of one rather cranky individual, who among other eccentricities is a 9/11 truther. In my opinion the left should give the event a wide berth.

But what about the “fascists and Trots” bit? Well, “fascists” is a reference to Holocaust denier Alistair McConnachie, who has been invited to speak at the conference, and the Trots are the Socialist Workers Party – except that there are no SWP speakers on the platform, so the “debate” between them and McConnachie is entirely a product of Toube’s imagination.

As we have remarked in the past about Toube, it’s a measure of the irrational discourse surrounding the subject of Islam and Islamism that this ridiculous little man is actually given a hearing in some circles.

‘One Law for All’ – another Islamophobic WPI fraud

Posted on by Bob Pitt

namazie and racist placards 2The One Law for All campaign – supported by the National Secular Society – is to be launched in the House of Lords on International Human Rights Day, 10 December.

According to campaign organiser, Maryam Namazie, “Even in civil matters, Sharia law is discriminatory, unfair and unjust, particularly against women and children. Moreover, its voluntary nature is a sham; many women will be pressured into going to these courts and abiding by their decisions. These courts are a quick and cheap route to injustice and do nothing to promote minority rights and social cohesion. Public interest, particularly with regard to women and children, requires an end to Sharia and all other faith-based courts and tribunals.”

The campaign has already received widespread support.

National Secular Society news report, 5 December 2008

Sure it’s received wide support. The campaign is backed by a total of ten organisations, five of which – Children First Now, the laughably misnamed Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran, the International Committee against Stoning and the Iranian Secular Society – are all front organisations for the Islamophobic far-left sect, the Worker-Communist Party of Iran. You do sometimes wonder whether the WPI has more front organisations than members.

School cancels Christmas nativity in favour of Muslim Eid celebrations

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Greenwood Junior School sent out a letter to parents saying the three-day festival of Eid al-Adha, which takes place between December 8 and 11, meant that Muslim children would be off school.

That meant planning for the traditional nativity play were shelved because the school felt it would be too difficult to run both celebrations side by side.

The move has left parents furious. Janette Lynch, whose seven-year-old son Keanu attends the school, in Sneinton, Nottingham, said: “The head has a whole year to plan for Eid and so she should be able to plan for both religious festivals. I have never heard of this at a school. It is the first year my son has been there and a lot of the mums like me were really looking forward to seeing the children in the nativity.”

Daily Telegraph, 3 December 2008

See also the Daily Mail, 4 December 2008

Yes, it’s another of those seasonal “Christmas banned because of Muslims” stories. However, according to a Press Association report, the performance has not in fact been cancelled but only postponed till January – and it’s not a nativity play but a pantomine (Cinderella, since you ask). A spokeswoman for Nottingham City Council is quoted as saying that in December the school will be staging “a range of events, including a Christmas carol concert and Eid celebrations”.

Predictably, the story has been seized on by the BNP. Under the headline “Nottingham school cancels Christmas to make way for Islam“, the fascists declare that “such outrages will inevitably progress from the exception to the norm, if Britain fails to embrace the BNP and continues its present headlong plunge into the abyss”.

The Nottingham Evening Post reports that Greenwood Junior School has received phone calls from BNP members accusing the school of responsibility for the “erosion of Christian values”. In other words, we have here yet another example of the mainstream media’s biased and inaccurate reporting giving a boost to the far right.

Inspector Andy Townsend, the local area commander, is quoted as saying: “There have been a lot of angry people phoning the school, some of whom are claiming to be from the BNP. Other agencies including the national press have contacted the school, including one journalist pretending to be a social worker. There’s also been vans pulling up and people taking pictures. We are dealing with the potential for disorder. No actual criminal acts have been committed but we are increasing patrols in the area around the school to keep the peace.”

Update:  Needless to say, this distorted report has spread across the right-wing blogosphere. Here is a characteristic comment, by Phyllis Chesler: “Muslim fanatics are also demographically populating beachheads deep in the West where they are also demanding that their holidays be recognized in a more paramount way than Christian holidays are. Just yesterday, in England, a Nativity play was cancelled at a primary school because it interfered with the Muslim celebration of Eid.”

Scotland’s first Muslim police association launched

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Strathclyde PoliceScotland’s first Muslim Police Association has been launched in Glasgow. Strathclyde Police Muslim Association will look at boosting the recruitment and retention of Muslim officers. It will also aim to improve understanding of the faith with the public and tackle “Islamophobia”.

Scotland’s first Muslim police officer, Pc Amar Shakoor, will act as chair of the newly-established group, which aims to recruit up to 50 members. Pc Shakoor said the Strathclyde force employed about 55 Muslim police officers and civilians, who he hoped would become involved.

“We hope that the association will help to recruit more officers and civilian staff for Strathclyde Police from a Muslim background,” he said. “The aim is to build bridges with the Muslim community and work better with all people for the future.”

First Minister Alex Salmond, who attended the launch, described it as a “significant step forward in strengthening relations between Strathclyde Police and Muslim communities”.

“Scotland’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths and it’s important we encourage dialogue and partnership across all faiths if we are to make Scotland a safer and stronger society,” he said. “The association is a positive step towards making Strathclyde Police more effective in understanding and responding to community concerns.”

BBC News, 3 December 2008

See also Scottish Government news release, 3 December 2008

There’s one person who won’t be happy at this news: “According to Munira Mirza, the Mayor of London’s adviser on cultural affairs, by creating a separate tier of police to liase with Muslims, it encourages many of them to believe that they cannot approach non-Muslim officers with their culturally-specific problems: ‘this reinforces tribalism and division, rather than helping us to overcome it’.”

Given Boris Johnson’s newly discovered commitment to diversity, you do wonder why he saw fit to appoint as his director of culture someone who publicly condemns the self-organisation of minority communities as “tribalism”. Does this reflect his administration’s view of the role played by the Association of Muslim Police in the MPS?