Fascists back Channel 4

Posted on August 9, 2007 by Bob Pitt

bnp-islam-poster When the Channel 4 documentary “Undercover Mosque” was broadcast last January it received an enthusiastic response from right-wing Islamophobes.

Guardian journalist Jemima Kiss reported that an online video of the Dispatches programme had been “leapt on by anti-Muslim bloggers, and the weight of traffic even threatened to bring down the infamous Little Green Footballs for a while”.

The British National Party was particularly taken with the documentary, which of course helped legitimise the fascists’ ravings about the Islamic threat to Western civilisation. The BNP website directed its supporters to a video of the programme, while Der Führer himself Nick Griffin sent off a pompous letter to West Midlands Police and the Met calling for the preachers “exposed” in the programme to be prosecuted and the mosques closed down.

So you can understand the fascists’ disappointment at the outcome of the West Midlands Police investigation. A news article on the BNP website solidarises with the progamme makers and expresses indignation that the police “at one stage bizarrely considered charging Channel 4 for broadcasting material likely to stir up racial hatred”.

Lib Dem MP defends right to incite hatred

Posted on August 3, 2007 by Bob Pitt

NF Islam Out of Britain Attacking Asghar Bukhari’s criticism of the decision to award Salman Rushdie a knighthood, Liberal Democrat MP and leading National Secular Society member Evan Harris writes:

“I will not tolerate the persistent demands, led by Muslim activists, for special protection for religious views. People should be allowed to attack religious ideas in ways which adherents may find offensive – whether by criticism, lampoon or even insult. I organised the Parliamentary campaign that last year voted down – by a margin of one – a Government plan to outlaw the incitement of religious hatred.”

National Secular Society website, 3 August 2007

So it’s not just just criticising, lampooning or insulting a religion that Harris defends but also the right to incite hatred against it. Little wonder, then, that his actions over the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill were applauded by the far Right, against whom the Bill was aimed. As one National Front activist wrote in appreciation of Harris’s efforts:

“Evan Harris is not a perfect MP but nevertheless he has spoken out on a number of important issues where others have remained silent. For instance he has campaigned against special religious education for minorities. He has opposed the hijab and was one of the few to criticise it in public. Harris is a defender of freedom of expression…. The government is attempting to legislate against ‘religious hatred’. All patriots must oppose this proposed law which could be used against us. You will find that Harris will be one of the most articulate spokesmen against this law.”

In his NSS piece Harris writes that he finds the ideology of the far Right loathsome and that he should be “entitled to incite hatred of Nazis”. Unfortunately, he also defends the right of Nazis to incite hatred of Muslims.

Ignorant nonsense

Posted on August 1, 2007 by Bob Pitt

“On June 30 I flew out of Glasgow airport approximately nine hours before the suicide bombing attempt…. Like most people, I was pleased to be able to watch a story of potential atrocity pass into one of black humour and farce, allowing us to depict the Islamist threat as no match for a Glaswegian baggage-handler, and to joke about the perpetrators as the first people to drive to Paisley in expectation of a rendezvous with 72 virgins.

“However, what has fairly ripped my knitting in the weeks since has been the concerted efforts to give religion an alibi for the whole undertaking, depicting it as merely misused by extremists and clinging to the idea that faith itself is a virtue, all the while ignoring the very simple equation that no belief in an afterlife equals no suicide bombers.”

Christopher Brookmyre in the Guardian, 1 August 2007

Which rather overlooks the use of suicide bombings by emphatically non-religious organisations like the LTTE and PKK, not to mention the detailed research of Robert Pape, who has stated unequivocally: “the facts are that since 1980, of suicide terrorist attacks from around the world over half have been secular. What over 95% of suicide attacks around the world [are about] is not religion, but a specific strategic purpose – to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly”.

But when did mere facts ever have any effect on the belief-system of dogmatic rationalists like Christopher Brookmyre?

Are Muslims being censored in the Conservative Party?

Posted on July 30, 2007 by Bob Pitt

A comment on the Muslim Public Affairs Committee website attacks the Conservative Party leadership for refusing to take on board criticisms of the “interim report” Uniting the Country (pdf here – MCB’s response here) which was issued in January by the Tories’ policy group on National and International Security, chaired by Dame Pauline Neville-Jones:

“When the report was first published, a leading group of Muslim Conservatives came together to offer a response to their party’s policy group. They were scathing in their attack of what they considered to be a ‘weak and damaging document which made unsubstantiated comments’. Authors of the report included Lord Sheikh, Kabir Sabar, Imtiaz Amin, Yousif Miah, amongst others. Their comments were dismissed out of hand. Muslims within the party who voiced concern at the tone of the report found themselves sidelined from an increasingly influential set of people around Cameron.”

The expanded version of Neville-Jones’ report, published last week as An Unquiet World (pdf here), shows how contemptuously criticisms were dismissed. “Uniting the Country” is incorporated unchanged into the new publication. The attack on Muslim Council of Britain is retained (see the MCB’s response here), the division of Islamists into two groups – those who aim to destroy Western society by violent means and those who seek to achieve the same objective by exploiting “democratic freedoms” – is repeated word for word, and there is the same ignorant attack on Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who it is claimed is a follower of Sayyid Qutb and was supposedly banned from entering the UK when Michael Howard was home secretary.

However, Dame Pauline’s report has met with an enthusiastic reception from Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society, who welcomes the Tories’ insistence that “the Government is wrong to communicate with people from ethnic minorities as though they were members of groups rather than individual citizens”. A principle which, if applied literally, would of course deprive minority ethnic communities of any opportunity of collectively influencing the government. Would Sanderson apply the same reasoning to secularists? Evidently not, because the NSS energetically demands the right to be consulted over state policy on religious issues. Yet, in Sanderson’s view, minority communities (and their faith-based organisations in particular) should be excluded from collective representation in the public sphere.

‘Wearing of burkas is a threat to our way of life’

Posted on July 19, 2007 by Bob Pitt

Outrageous In today’s lead article the Daily Express tells its readers that the burka (they mean the niqab – but, hey, why bother with accuracy when it comes to “foreign” clothing) “is becoming the Islamic equivalent of the mugger’s hooded top or the armed robber’s balaclava. Anyone sincerely wishing to integrate into the British way of life would never wear such an alien and threatening outfit…. Make no mistake, the proliferation of burka-wearing is a direct threat to the British way of life and in all too many instances is intended to be just that”.

The front page is devoted to whipping up panic over the Al Muhajiroun demo outside the Old Bailey: “This was the extraordinary scene on the streets of Britain yesterday as burka-clad protestors demanded the release of four extremists. Swarming outside the Old Bailey, the Muslim hate mob poured scorn on the nation that guarantees their freedoms.”

Judging by the Express‘s own photographs, the “mob” that was “swarming” outside the court would appear to have consisted of about six people. And of course the Express fails to inform its readers that Al Muhajiroun is a tiny and irrelevant group whose supporters these days can probably be numbered in dozens.

Check out the comments following the article for the sort of far-right racists who are encouraged by this disgraceful, irresponsible excuse for journalism.

‘Scotland’s nationalist-Muslim embrace’

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Bob Pitt

Well, at least this makes a change from the usual “Left-Islamofascist alliance” nonsense. Tom Gallagher has identified an equally dangerous political bloc in Scotland between the SNP and “unapologetic advocates of hardline Islamism” like Osama Saeed. According to Gallagher, this raises the nightmare prospect of an independent Scotland becoming “a northern version of Ken Livingstone’s left-leaning multicultural metropolis in London”.

Open Democracy, 11 July 2007

Ed Husain completely loses the plot

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Bob Pitt

Hizb So who’s responsible for comparing Hizb ut-Tahrir to the Nazis and issuing the hysterical warning that we must consider HT “a subversive fifth column in our midst, awaiting instructions from a coming caliph before they turn to mass suicide bombings”? Mad Melanie Phillips, perhaps? Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch? Nah, it’s Ed Husain, author of The Islamist, writing at Comment is Free. But what can you expect from a man who refers approvingly to Channel 4’s The War on Britain’s Jews? as “Richard Littlejohn’s excellent television documentary”?

You might ask why Husain, a man who became an Islamist for a few brief years as a confused teenager during the early 1990s, hasn’t been active in any Islamist organisation since leaving HT around 1995, and spent most of this century living abroad, should suddenly be adopted as the media’s favourite self-styled expert on Islamism in Britain. Well, of course, it’s because he tells them what they want to hear. Echoing the arguments of Martin Bright and John Ware, Husain enthusiastically contributes to the prevailing Islamophobic discourse. And he seems to be building a successful career out of it.

Bright holds out hope for ‘process of reform’ at MCB

Posted on July 10, 2007 by Bob Pitt

Blimey. Martin Bright graciously concedes that there may yet be hope for the Muslim Council of Britain.

True, as you might anticipate, Bright attacks Madeleine Bunting’s article in yesterday’s Guardian for capitulating to Islamofascism – “treating international Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami as if they are the primitive products of third world victims of colonialism rather than sophisticated totalitarian movements”, as he puts it. Bright also declares himself “delighted” at the thought that his anti-MCB propaganda may have resulted in the government cold shouldering the most representative Muslim organisation in Britain and transferring its support to an utterly fraudulent outfit like the Sufi Muslim Council (yes, well done there, Martin).

But, credit where it’s due, Bright does believe that, as far as the MCB is concerned, “the process of reform is beginning”. Which does represent a rather more liberal stance than the one adopted by the rabid anti-Islamist bigot Dave T over at Harry’s Place. Admittedly, that isn’t difficult.

Postscript: David T is not happy about being characterised as a “rabid anti-Islamist bigot”, which he describes as “a rather strange turn of phrase”. Well, how else would you characterise someone who has described Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain as “a piece of scum” and Osama Saeed of the Muslim Association of Britain as a fascist? The recent juvenile abuse of Salma Yaqoob is one of the milder examples of the obsessive and ceaseless attacks on politically engaged Muslims by Harry’s Place.

Scroll down through the comments and you’ll find Martin Bright asserting that “Islamophobia is a daft term”. Odd, then, that Bright told a FOSIS conference in August 2005 that he had no problem describing himself as an Islamophobe “because there is a lot in Islam to be fearful of”. Bright also wants to know “why calling the Sufi Muslim Council a ‘fraudulent outfit’ doesn’t count as Islamophobia. Or don’t Sufis count as Muslims?” They certainly do, but they never elected Haras Rafiq and Azhar Ali as their representatives. Even the government has evidently reached the conclusion that the SMC is a waste of space and has now shifted its patronage to Khurshid Ahmed’s British Muslim Forum.

Combating terrorism – conference at Islamic Cultural Centre

Posted on July 9, 2007 by Bob Pitt

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, delivered the opening address at the Islamic Cultural Centre conference on Saturday.

MCB news report, 9 July 2007

‘Muslim extremists are the only ones trying to blow up Britain today’

Posted on July 9, 2007 by Bob Pitt

PD*1006852 “Mr Brown thinks we upset decent Muslims by referring to bombers as ‘Islamic fanatics’ even if they shout ‘Allah is great’ as they blow us to pieces…. Some sensible Muslims are more prepared to call a spade a spade than our own mealy-mouthed politicians. It was Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, of Al-Arabiya TV, who first told the embarrassing truth after 9/11. ‘It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists’, he said. ‘But it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.’

“He was right then and he’s right now. When did a Jew or Sikh last put on a belt of explosives and blow himself and others to smithereens? Or a Hindu protester put a bomb in a mosque?

“If Gordon’s ‘New Speak’ encourages Britain’s three million Muslims to play their part in ending terrorism, I’m all for it. But rebranding won’t alter the fact that Muslim extremists are the only ones trying to blow up Britain today. They are infiltrating our police, spy agencies, universities and government offices with the express purpose of imposing their own view on our world. Sadly, the courageous Muslims who are ready to risk their own lives by saying so can be counted on the fingers of one hand.”

Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun, 9 July 2007

“Muslim extremists are the only ones trying to blow up Britain today”? Well, apart from far-right racists like Robert Cottage of course. And how many op eds has Kavanagh produced on that? Answer: none. Indeed, how much coverage has the Cottage case received in the Sun? Three short reports back in February, and that was it.

And in answer to Kavanagh’s question as to when a Hindu protestor last put a bomb in a mosque, this would appear to be a likely candidate.

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