Category Archives: Analysis & comment

Bishop of Rochester ‘doing the BNP’s work’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

nss2The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, this week claimed the influence of Christianity had been practically wiped out in recent decades, destroying Britishness and leading to the breakdown in family life and an increase in drunkenness and violence.

The bishop, a leading conservative who believes the Church of England should be doing more to convert Muslims, then warned that radical Islam is starting to fill the “moral vacuum” left by the decline in Christianity, which could lead to different values taking hold.

But his words have been condemned by some groups who have accused him of spreading fear and intolerance, and of putting across a similar message to the far-right British National Party.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “Dr Nazir-Ali’s remarks are ill-advised, dangerous and manipulative. He is playing a very dangerous game with these repeated scaremongering tactics against Muslims, and risks doing the BNP’s work for them. He risks creating even more hostility towards the Muslim community in this country – and community relations are already very fragile in some places.”

The NSS, which campaigns against what it calls the privileged position of religious groups in society, called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to discipline the bishop for his remarks and prevent him from making “further inflammatory statements”.

Daily Telegraph, 30 May 2008

We couldn’t agree more. However, we can’t avoid noting some double standards here. If the National Secular Society is genuinely concerned about irresponsible attacks on Islam giving assistance to the fascists they could start by dissociating themselves from NSS member Pat Condell, whose Islamophobic rants on YouTube have been applauded by Terry Sanderson. It would appear that the incitement of hostility towards the Muslim community is OK with Sanderson when it’s done by fellow secularists.

See also Inayat Bunglawala at Comment is Free and the excellent leader in today’s Guardian.

For the BNP’s endorsement of Nazir-Ali, see here.

Zionists against Islamism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mad Melanie Phillips tells us that there is no principled difference between Al-Qaeda and mainstream Islamists like the Ikhwan, it’s all just a division of labour in the campaign to destroy western civilisation:

“… there are Islamists who oppose al Qaeda and terrorist action in the UK as a tactical mistake but nevertheless subscribe to the same strategic goal – to restore the medieval Caliphate, overturn British and western society and institute the rule of Islam instead. This is because there are two arms to the jihadi pincer: terrorist attack and cultural attack; and the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists use either or both depending on circumstances and upon differing strategic points of view between groups under the same jihadi umbrella.”

And over at Democratiya, we find two members of the Community Security Trust making the same point, assuring us that “Qaradawi condemned the suicide bombings in London on 7/7, but it does not appear that this was based on a principled objection to the methods or goals of the global jihadist movement”.

Which would come as something of a surprise to the Al-Qaeda leadership. As one commentator recently observed in an analysis of a statement by Ayman al-Zawahiri: “Zawahiri’s condemnation of Yusuf al-Qaradawi is particularly protracted and probably demonstrates how threatening he considers the popular Muslim Brotherhood scholar to be.”

Goodman hits out at Cordoba Foundation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Paul Goodman 2Paul Goodman, Tory shadow minister for communities, speaking in the House of Commons debate on antisemitism:

“We believe that it is wrong for institutions to participate in events that are hosted by anti-Semitic parties such as the British National party. It therefore follows that it is also wrong for them to participate in events hosted by other anti-Semitic organisations, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir. I make that point because it was reported this week that John Holmwood, a sociology professor at Birmingham university, which is an excellent institution, spoke at a local debate that was organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir.

“It should also be unacceptable for local authorities to support groups that are willing to engage actively with Hizb ut-Tahrir, such as the Cordoba Foundation; we understand that that is the case in Tower Hamlets. The Cordoba Foundation appears to be involved in Campusalam – a Government-sponsored programme to tackle extremism on campus – so we would welcome clarification from the Minister on that.”

Hansard, 15 May 2008

The Cordoba Foundation in fact organised a public debate (see here, here and here) at the London Muslim Centre in which Osama Saeed and Lord Ahmed argued against the HT view that Muslims should not participate in electoral politics in Britain. Goodman, along with David Cameron, evidently prefers that such views should be left unchallenged – and, moreover, that organisations like the Cordoba Foundation that do challenge these views should be denied government support.

We already know that Cameron wants to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir and, if he wins the next general election, will no doubt proceed to do so. Of course, the double standards that allow the racist thugs of the BNP to operate legally while a peaceful Islamist organisation like HT is banned can only strengthen the arguments of the real extremists who preach the futility of non-violence.

The stupidity and irresponsibility of the Tories evidently knows no bounds.

Munira Mirza joins Boris’s team

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Munira_MirzaA glamorous young Muslim [sic] woman is the latest Cameron favourite to be parachuted in to keep a close eye on Johnson. Munira Mirza, who argues that racism in the UK is greatly exaggerated, is to serve as a cultural adviser to the mayor.

She is the third member of his new team to have worked for Policy Exchange, the organisation behind many of the policies adopted by Cameron’s Conservatives.

Mirza’s appointment will also be viewed as an attempt to neutralise any accusations that Johnson is racist, especially as he seeks to slash grants to fringe ethnic groups, many of which received lavish funding from Livingstone.

Mirza believes race relations policies based on multicultural ideas have been divisive.

Sunday Times, 11 May 2008

For more on Munira Mirza and Policy Exchange see here. Pointing to Mirza’s asssociation with the tendency around Spiked Online and the Institute of Ideas, which was formerly the Revolutionary Communist Party, we wrote that the ideology promoted by the ex-RCP these days “fits in quite well with Tory values”. And in another piece we observed that the RCP had “morphed into a bunch of right-wing libertarian individualists whose obvious natural home now is the Tory party”. How right we were.

Update:  See also Jenny Bourne’s comment piece on the Institute of Race Relations website.

Mad Mel warns against ‘the progressive Islamisation of London’s East End’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jamme Masjid mosque with minaret“From the East London Advertiser comes further news of the progressive Islamisation of London’s East End, and the lengths to which Ken Livingstone is going to court the Muslim vote for tomorrow’s mayoral election.”

Melanie Phillips responds to the report that – shock, horror – Ken Livingstone has pledged to help raise funds for a major revamp of the Jamme Masjid mosque in Brick Lane. And, what’s worse, the proposed development would feature a minaret.

“The height of this proposed minaret is no incidental matter”, Phillips informs us. “The fact that it would tower over Brick Lane is designed to make a powerful symbolic statement of the supremacy of Islam over that area and the subjugation of all non-Islamic creeds. Like the proposed vast Olympic village mosque, also in east London, it is thus in itself an act of jihad against British society. That is what Ken is endorsing.”

Melanie Phillips’s blog, 30 April 2008

Predictably, the fascists of the British National Party find common ground with Phillips on this issue.

See BNP news article, 27 April 2008

BNP replies to the BoD

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Loyal British Jews are our natural allies in the fight against the Islamic fundamentalists who want to destroy the Western civilisation so many of whose core values we hold in common. That is just one reason why many Jews will be voting for the BNP. Let’s remember also, however, that this is only one reason. Jews will be voting British National Party for other reasons too: because they are concerned about crime, because they are worried about the economic decline of our country, because they are concerned about the disintegration of community spirit and decent values. In other words for the same reasons as so many other British voters, including many Sikhs and Christian West Indians. As Martin Wingfield commented in our paper Freedom recently:  ‘today there are an increasing number of Jews campaigning for the BNP and feeling very comfortable with their political choice.’

“When the Chief Rabbi a few years ago wrote a book entitled ‘Will Our Grandchildren Be Jewish?’ he articulated precisely the same concern that we have for the future of our people in the same overcrowded multi-cult nightmare that threatens traditional Jewish and British identities alike.  Just because a Jew wants to preserve and celebrate his ancestral culture and identity doesn’t make him a ‘hater’ of Gentiles, and nor does our wanting to preserve and celebrate our ancestral culture and identity make us ‘haters’ of Jews, or any other ethnic group for that matter.”

The fascist British National Party continues its campaign to win support in the Jewish community on an anti-Muslim programme.

BNP website, 23 April 2008

See earlier comments by Henry Grunwald of the Board of Deputies here.

Of course, the idea that significant numbers of British Jews will be voting for a party whose leader Nick Griffin was convicted only a decade ago of inciting racial hatred, in an article that dismissed the Holocaust as the “Holohoax”, is laughable. What the BNP hopes to do is to attract a few disoriented right-wing individuals from the Jewish community, just as it has attracted the odd individual Sikh sympathiser, and publicise their support in an attempt to cover up its Nazi origins and continue the pretence that it is a mainstream political party.

Frontpage magazine: scientific racism

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Regular readers of Islamophobia Watch will need no introduction to Frontpage Magazine. For years now we have covered the ravings of Robert Spencer and his cronies as they take the language of hate and give it an air of respectability so that loons like Melanie Phillips aren’t forced to rely on BNP propaganda for their diatribes.

Today, though, our attention has been drawn to an article that is little more than a 21st century version of the scientific racism used to justify some of history’s most appalling acts of genocide and colonialism. At first we thought it was a spoof designed to discredit Spencer and his website but, no, it does appear to be genuine.

What Islam isn’t by Dr Peter Hammond.

‘Jails go soft on Muslim perverts’

Posted on by Eddie Truman

The Daily Star has a perfect storm of scare stories: sex offenders and Muslims.

In the latest instalment of The State Goes Soft On Muslims stories from the Richard Desmond owned rags, now it is the UK’s jails which are capitulating to Muslims.

Except they are not.

A Muslim has written a letter to the prisoners’ paper Inside Time but that doesn’t stop Shadow Justice Minister Nick Herbert providing the Daily Star with an outraged quote.

Daily Star, 10 April 2008

‘Get off my bus, I need to pray’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

81 busThat was the headline to an article in the Sun, which informed its readers that “a Muslim bus driver told stunned passengers to get off so he could PRAY. The white Islamic convert rolled out his prayer mat in the aisle and knelt on the floor facing Mecca. Passengers watched in amazement as he held out his palms towards the sky, bowed his head and began to chant.”

This story, along with the accompanying video clip, was widely circulated around the right-wing blogosphere, where it was presented as yet another example of the “Islamification” of the West. The Freethinker took it as conclusive proof that “the lunacy that is Islam has now insinuated itself into Britain’s public transport system”. Dhimmi Watch introduced the Sun report as a case “from our ever-expanding You Can’t Make This Stuff Up file”.

Continue reading →

‘Muslim cleric urges punishment for non-Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Battle for London has begun“At the same time as a Muslim leader at the East London Mosque was sent to 27 years in jail for a rape, a prominent Islamic cleric and lawyer has been exposed as supporting extreme punishment for non-Muslims – including killing and rape. A question-and-answer session between a member of ‘Islam Watch’ and Imam Abdul Makin in the same East London mosque, saw the Imam asked why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters. ‘Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet,’ the Imam says, according to the report. ‘If you don’t believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain.’ The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam’s position, saying that all Muslims are innocent.”

BNP news article, 2 April 2008

This story, which originates with Fox News and is based on a recent post at the Islam Watch website, has been doing the rounds of the right-wing blogosphere. It appears to have escaped the BNP’s attention that the “Imam Abdul Makin” referred to in the Islam Watch piece is the same Abdul Mukin Khalisadar who was convicted of rape. He is neither an imam, nor a “prominent Islamic cleric”, nor a “leader” at the East London Mosque.

The mosque’s legal representatives have already written to the Sun in connection with its defamatory report of the rape case. Perhaps they should do the same to the BNP.

As for Anjem Choudary, who heads a tiny group of nutters deriving from the now-banned Al-Muhajiroun, the revelation that he is “the top Muslim lawyer of Britain” at least has the merit of giving us all a good laugh.

And in view of its recent troubles over its London organiser and Assembly candidate Nick Eriksen, you might have thought that the BNP would steer well clear of the subject of rape.