Category Archives: Analysis & comment

‘We need conservative clerics on our side’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi 5Jerome Taylor takes up Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s call for the release of two Austrians, Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber, kidnapped in Tunisia by al-Qaeda. He writes:

“Qaradawi may support what he calls the resistance in Palestine and Iraq but compared to the violent extremist groups gaining in popularity throughout the Muslim world he’s a desperately needed voice of relative reason. And more importantly when he and others like him speak the wider Muslim world listens.

“The next time a Britain gets kidnapped I just hope we haven’t burned too many bridges with people like Qaradawi who may be able to help secure their release and are far better placed than our discredited governments to counter the kind of violent extremism in the Islamic world which leads to hostage taking in the first place.”

A good point, unfortunately undermined by the preceding comment: “Why would we want to let someone into the country who has said gay men and women living in countries that use Shari’a should be punished with death or that human bombs targeting civilians in Israel are acceptable?”

Of course, Qaradawi supports neither of these views.

Indyblogs, 17 March 2008

More merde from MacShane

Posted on by Bob Pitt

denis_macshaneOn the principle of “we read this reactionary crap so you don’t have to”, Islamophobia Watch has invested in a copy of Brother Tariq, the English language edition of Caroline Fourest’s attack on Tariq Ramadan, recently published by the right-wing Tory think-tank the Social Affairs Unit.

The book’s jacket features accolades from Peter Tatchell and Joan Smith. Tatchell poses the rhetorical question: “Is Tariq Ramadan an Islamic liberal or a clever Islamist strategist who uses the language of liberalism to disguise a fundamentalist agenda?” Fourest’s book, of course, comes down firmly in favour of the latter, and in recommending it Tatchell clearly does too. Smith, for her part, tells us that “political Islam, catalogued in this book in forensic detail, loathes the modern world” and recommends Fourest’s anti-Ramadan polemic as “an essential guide to decoding Islamist rhetoric, exposing the political project which lies behind contrived controversies such as the veil”.

As we have pointed out before, attacks on Professor Ramadan as a dangerous extremist are a sure sign that Islamophobia has reached the point where it has waved goodbye to any semblance of rational thought. So it is hardly surprising that Tatchell and Smith have joined the anti-Ramadan campaign.

Continue reading →

East London Advertiser wins ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cordoba FoundationFury has erupted after it emerged that Tower Hamlets council was proposing to fund a debate involving the British chairman of an Islamist organisation banned throughout much of the world.

The East London Advertiser discovered that Town Hall chiefs were planning to subsidise up to £19,000 for a public meeting with Dr Abdul Wahid, the head of the radical Hizb ut-Tahrir organisation, which wants to create a worldwide Islamic state. He was due to share a platform with prominent community leaders, including Labour peer Lord Ahmed, at the London Muslim centre in Whitechapel later this month.

The event is one of a series of debates being organised by the Cordoba Foundation and funded by Tower Hamlets council as part of its efforts to tackle extremism.

East London Advertiser, 18 February 2008

The meeting in question, at the London Muslim Centre on 26 February, is a debate on the subject “Has Political Participation Failed British Muslims?” (pdf here) and poses the question: “Should Muslims become more politically active or should they shun politics altogether?” So by their stupid witch-hunt of Hizb ut-Tahrir the East London Advertiser has in fact removed the opportunity for Osama Saeed to publicly take on and defeat HT’s abstentionist arguments. And who precisely will gain from that?

Update:  It now appears that Dr Abdul Wahid, the HT speaker, has been reinstated.

‘When religion means death’ (according to Maryam Namazie)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

namazie and racist placards 2Maryam Namazie of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran offers her thoughts (we use the word in its loosest possible sense) on the death sentence imposed on Parwiz Kambakhsh in Afghanistan. She writes:

“Many have rightly come to his defence and must keep the pressure on. But to defend Parwiz by saying he did not ‘intend’ to blaspheme misses the entire point. This is exactly what the likes of the Muslim Council of Britain say in order to conceal the responsibility of their political Islamic movement. For example, the MCB ‘greeted’ the release of Gillian Gibbons (the British schoolteacher who was imprisoned in Sudan for allowing her 7 year old students to name their class teddy bear Mohammad) by saying she had not ‘intended to deliberately insult the Islamic faith’.

“What they are basically saying is that victims and their ‘intentions’ are to blame for the injustices and barbarity of Islamic law. Moreover, they are implying that if someone knew they were blaspheming, or if their actions or statements were so clearly blasphemous that they should have known better, then the death penalty or calls for their death are permissible – or at the very least understandable. The smokescreen of ‘intent’ aims to conceal the real issue at hand, which is Islam in power….”

New Statesman blog, 5 February 2008

In fact, the MCB did not merely “greet” the release of Gillian Gibbons but declared that her prosecution was “a disgraceful decision and defies common sense” and called for the charges to be dropped. Like many self-styled defenders of the Enlightenment, Namazie doesn’t allow objective evidence to interfere with her own prejudices.

BNP flyers circulated in Burnt Oak

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP changing face of london leafletThe Hendon & Finchley Times has reported that racist leaflets promoting the far-right British National Party have been distributed in Burnt Oak and Colindale in north London.

The flyers contrast a scene from 1950s Britain with three women in Islamic veils. Under the 1950s picture of an all-white street party the leaflet states: “… this is the way London used to be… If you would like London to be like this again, then support the British National Party.”

The paper states that the likely source of the flyers is the BNP presence in Harrow, where the fascists stood a candidate in a council by-election in December. Their candidate, Howard Studley, received 56 votes and finished last.

As Henry Grunwald of the Board of Deputies pointed out, the BNP’s aim in contesting that election was to win support within the Jewish community on an anti-Muslim programme, and their leafleting in Barnet may well have the same objective.

The Hendon & Finchley Times quotes Shakil Ahmed, of the Hendon Mosque, as saying that relationships between different communities in Barnet are good, but that there are always concerns about such views spreading.

He told the paper: “We don’t know what affect this is going to have. The worry in view of the nature of the flyer is that the hatred is going to be targeted at Muslim women on the streets dressing in this particular way. I don’t think we’ve had that many incidents in Barnet, but I’ve heard of things in Brent, where women in headscarves have been attacked for nothing. That’s not far away, so it is a concern.”

Barnet councillors have said that they will investigate whether the BNP flyers breach anti-racism laws.

Don’t vote for Ken says Bright

Posted on by Bob Pitt

martin_brightMartin (“I could think of nothing worse than to support Boris Johnson”) Bright has now come off the fence. A mere four days ago he was suggesting that voters should do no more than reconsider voting for Ken Livingstone in the London Mayoral election in May. Yet in today’s issue of the Tory rag the Evening Standard (or the Evening Boris, as it has recently become known) Bright tells his readers:

“I now believe Ken Livingstone is a disgrace to his office and not fit to be Mayor of London. Any Londoner with a progressive bone in his or her body should not consider voting for him in the forthcoming mayoral elections.”

At least this has the merit of consistency. And it’s entirely in line with Bright’s argument that the “left” (a term he laughably applies to himself and the likes of Nick Cohen) should form an alliance with the anti-Muslim right – hence his association with the right-wing think-tank Policy Exchange.

Give it another four days and no doubt we’ll see Bright officially signed up to Boris Johnson’s election campaign.

Postscript:  The exposure of Livingstone’s leftist allies at City Hall is a bit old hat, by the way, having been accomplished successfully several years ago.

Another dubious tale of cultural ‘surrender’ to Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Daily Express carries a report that a Muslim shop assistant at a Marks & Spencer store in Reading refused to serve a customer buying a children’s book on Christianity on the grounds that it was “unclean”. Except that, even by the Express‘s own account, this story is disputed. A “source close to the shop assistant” is reported to have said that there has been a misunderstanding. “I think there was some confusion over what the customer heard”, she is quoted as saying.

Not that this leads the Express to question the accuracy of its report, of course. An editorial, headed “Surrender to minority is a parable for our times“, states:

“That a Muslim shop assistant working for Marks & Spencer should feel entitled to refuse to serve a customer buying a book of Bible stories says a lot about what is wrong with Britain today. The absurd culture of political correctness does not only hold the public sector in its grip but is now increasingly dominant among large private sector companies, too…. The incident hints at a workplace culture in which the unreasonable demands of a minority group routinely hold sway…. Every time our institutions surrender to the unreasonable demands of minorities to be excused tasks which the majority are expected to perform, they hammer another nail into the coffin of harmonious race relations.”

And the Express is of course well known for its consistent promotion of harmonious race relations.

Meanwhile the Daily Star opines: “So, here’s the latest news from the frontline of multicultural Britain. A Muslim working as a Marks & Spencer checkout operator refused to sell an ‘unclean’ book of Bible stories. It’s a pity she wasn’t sacked on the spot.”

Update:  The Daily Telegraph reports: “Shop sources said the assistant may have been referring to her hands which were dirty and she did not want to touch the book for fear of marking it. A Marks and Spencer spokesman said: “We are surprised by the allegation and are investigating it thoroughly. It appears there has been a misunderstanding over what was said.”

‘Muslim Britain is becoming one big no-go area’ – Shiraz Maher backs Nazir-Ali, and is joined by Ed Husain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Perhaps it had to be someone like Michael Nazir-Ali, the first Asian bishop in the Church of England, who would break with convention and finally point out the elephant in the room.

“His comments last week about the growing stranglehold of Muslim extremists in some communities revived debate about the future of multiculturalism and provoked a flurry of condemnation. Members of all three political parties immediately clamoured to dismiss him. ‘I don’t recognise the description that he’s talked about – no-go areas and people feeling intimidated’, said Hazel Blears, the communities secretary.

“A quick call to her Labour colleague John Reid, the former home secretary, would almost certainly have helped her to identify at least one of those places. Just over a year ago Reid was heckled by the Muslim extremist Abu Izzadeen in Leytonstone, east London, during a speech on extremism, appropriately. ‘How dare you come to a Muslim area’, Izzadeen screamed.”

Former Hizb ut-Tahrir member Shiraz Maher in the Sunday Times, 13 January 2008

Is Maher really so stupid that he believes the rantings of an isolated and unrepresentative nutter like Abu Izzadeen tell us anything about the attitudes of the Muslim population of Leytonstone?

Meanwhile over at the Sunday Telegraph another former HT member welcomes Nazir-Ali’s intervention. Ed Husain writes:

“Our political class, media and civil society are dominated by good-hearted, middle-class people who do not wish to admit that a well-intentioned idea – multiculturalism – can have such devastating effects. A weekly curry in Brick Lane is not enough to understand the the underworld that extremists manipulate to ensure that their version of a rigid, soulless political ideology – Islamism – reigns supreme in so-called ‘Muslim areas’….

“In the name of multiculturalism, we have created monocultural ghettoes. A shopper in London’s Green Street or Birmingham’s Alum Rock Road may as well be somewhere in India.

“My objection is not to a cluster of retail outlets specialising in ethnic attire – much like, say, Jermyn Street in Piccadilly for men – but to the surrounding communities where people languish for decades without access to English, education, social mobility or contact with mainstream Britain. The uncontrolled arrival of new immigrants only compounds the insularity.”

For Yusuf Smith’s response to Husain (“I do not see a debate about multiculturalism: I see an orchestrated attack on it, based on exaggerations and untruths”) see Indigo Jo Blogs, 13 January 2008

‘Balls steps back from faith schools plan’, Torygraph claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The spread of faith schools across the country has been shelved because ministers fear they could help create a new generation of Muslim extremists, it was claimed last night. In a Commons committee on Wednesday, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, appeared to take a step back from plans to create more. He said ministers had no ideological commitment to faith schools, in which children are admitted on the basis of their parents’ beliefs.

Last night it was claimed the Government may have woken up to the potential dangers of Islamic schools. At present, there are seven state-run Muslim faith schools and more than 100 in the independent sector. Keith Porteous Wood, the director of the National Secular Society, said that the Government now appeared willing to consider the negatives of faith schools.

He claimed the Government may have abandoned its drive for faith schools in general because of concerns about Muslim schools in particular. “This Government has gone down the faith school route and they find it very difficult because there will be pressure for them to have Muslim schools,” he said. “I hope that they have the courage to say ‘no more faith schools’.”

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families insisted that the Government had not changed its policy on faith schools of any denomination.

Daily Telegraph, 11 January 2008

In fact Ed Balls stated back in September last year that the government had “no policy to increase the number” of faith schools.

What the government’s 2007 report Faith in the System does do is recognise that “in relation to the overall size of their populations there are relatively few faith school places in the maintained sector available to Muslim, Sikh and Hindu children compared to the provision available for Christian and Jewish families”. The report goes on to commit the government to “encourage independent schools to enter the maintained sector in their existing premises”.

So what we are likely to see in the immediate future is not more faith schools as such but rather some of the hundred-odd independent Muslim schools being brought into the state sector. We can undoubtedly expect campaigns by anti-Muslim bigots against this process. And it is equally predictable that these campaigns will win the enthusiastic support of the National Secular Society.

More dangerous nonsense from Bishop of Rochester

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Nazir Ali 2The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, is peddling more dangerous nonsense in the Sunday Telegraph today.

We’ve already covered his call for Muslim women to be banned from wearing the veil in public here and his claim that Muslims who convert to other faiths risk being killed here.

The Bishop’s latest intervention moves into territory that chimes perfectly with the BNP’s narrative of ‘no-go’ areas for non-Muslims and the far right racists website is using the story to full effect.

The Sunday Telegraph print edition carries another Muslim scare story on the same page, quoting residents of Oxford worrying about the possibilities of “population shift”, or a “Muslim ghetto” in racist newspaper speak, if a mosque is allowed to broadcast a call to prayer.