Category Archives: Analysis & comment

Observer stitches up MPACUK

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“One of Britain’s most prominent speakers on Muslim issues is today exposed as a supporter of David Irving, the controversial historian who for years denied the Holocaust took place. Asghar Bukhari, a founder member of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), which describes itself as Britain’s largest Muslim civil rights group, sent money to Irving and urged Islamic websites to ask visitors to make donations to his fighting fund.”

Jamie Doward in the Observer, 19 November 2006

Except that, if you read the article, you find that all this took place back in 2000. Bukhari says that at that time he didn’t realise who Irving was and now describes his actions as “gravely mistaken”. So, in other words, he clearly isn’t “a supporter of David Irving”.

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‘National Museum of Wales goes Islamic’, Nazis complain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Do the ordinary people of Wales really deserve their hard earned taxes to be squandered in grant aid to cultural bodies such as the ‘National Museum of Wales’; to be used by an apparently small out of touch elite, to promote what is seen by many as a politically motivated campaign of Islamic propaganda?”

The fascists of the BNP (“Cymru’s fastest growing and unashamably pro-Christian political party”) take exception to the staging of two exhibitions on Muslim culture at the National Museum of Wales.

BNP regional voices, 18 November 2006

Of course, we all know the distinctive contribution the BNP makes to Christian culture in Wales. Only two months ago one of their activists was convicted of racially aggravated disorderly conduct after screaming “Paki whore” and “Sieg heil” at a traditionally-clothed Asian woman in Swansea in June this year.

Tory MP shows ignorance of Islamism, wins support of Mad Mel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips applauds the contribution of Paul Goodman, Tory MP for Wycombe, to the debate on the Queen’s Speech. It is easy to see why, because Goodman accepts the equation of “Islamism” with “Islamist extremism” and even “Islamist terrorism” which is common currency among Islamophobes like Mad Mel and Martin Bright, whose Policy Research pamphlet When Progressives Treat With Reactionaries Goodman recommends in his speech.

Goodman states: “Islamism divides not on the basis of class or of race, but on the basis of religion. To this politician, it has three significant features. First, it separates the inhabitants of the dar-al-Islam – the house of Islam – and the dar-al-Harb – the house of war – and, according to Islamist ideology, those two houses are necessarily in conflict. Secondly, it proclaims to Muslims that their political loyalty lies not with the country that they live in, but with the umma – that is, the worldwide community of Muslims. Thirdly, it aims to bring the dar-al-Islam under sharia law.”

Perhaps Goodman should check out some rather more informed and balanced studies of Islamism – for example, The Future of Political Islam by Graham E. Fuller, who writes:

“In my view an Islamist is one who believes that Islam as a body of faith has something important to say about how politics and society should be ordered in the contemporary Muslim World and who seeks to implement this idea in some fashion. The term ‘political Islam’ should be neutral in character, neither pejorative nor judgmental in itself; only upon further definition of the specific views, means and goals of an Islamist movement in each case can we be critical of the process. I prefer this definition because it is broad enough to capture the full spectum of Islamist expression that runs the gamut from radical to moderate, violent to peaceful, democratic to authoritarian, traditionalist to modernist.”

Debating the veil in the Morning Star

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at the Shiraz Socialist blog Jim Denham of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, a pseudo-left sect whose Islamophobia is usually matched only by its Stalinophobia, applauds a letter in yesterday’s Morning Star from one Betty Tebbs on the issue of the veil.

Denham hasn’t actually read the letter Tebbs is replying to, but this staunch defender of Enlightenment values finds that unnecessary. Tebbs is, after all, a white former trade union activist, so according to Denham she’s entitled to adopt an attitude of cultural arrogance towards a minority ethno-religious community. As far as the original letter is concerned, Denham observes: “I think we can all guess roughly what it said (and that it came from patronising, middle-class scum)”.

For the benefit of readers who might actually like to examine the evidence before they reach a political conclusion, we reproduce the exchange from the Morning Star letters column.

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Double think on incitement

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In the wake of BNP leader Nick Griffin’s acquittal on a charge of inciting racial hatred against Muslims, editorials in both the Sunday Telegraph and the Observer come out against tightening the law.

Their arguments are ignorant – the Torygraph is evidently labouring under the impression that Mizanur Rahman was convicted of incitement to murder, when he was of course convicted of inciting racial hatred – and also incoherent. The Observer argues that Griffin’s case was different because his speech was made “in private” – though what that has to do with the issue of incitement is unclear. Does the Observer think it would have been OK for Griffin to incite people to go out and murder Muslims, as long as his speech was made at a BNP internal meeting?

Both the Telegraph and the Observer argue that words which fall short of actually inciting violence should not be criminalised – which is in fact an argument for abolishing most of the existing legislation against inciting racial hatred. No doubt the Telegraph would welcome such a step. We can only assume that the Observer agrees.

Mad Mel rejects ‘Jewish/fascist axis’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In the Communist Party’s Morning Star newspaper last September, Geoff Brown cited both the BNP’s support for Israel against Hezbollah, and chairman Nick Griffin’s support for the Jewish writer Bat Ye’or who has warned of an Islamist takeover of Europe, as evidence of a Jewish/fascist axis. As was clear from this article, such a vicious attempt to link the Jews with the fascists was prompted in large measure by an attempt to bury the link between Islamic fascism and the left.”

Melanie Phillips in the Jewish Chronicle, 10 November 2006

In fact Brown’s article was mainly a critique of the ludicrous claim made by the All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism (under the influence of Searchlight) that the far right has allied itself with Islamists in order to incite hatred against the Jewish community. Brown pointed out that, as far as its public propaganda is concerned, the BNP has almost entirely ditched anti-semitism in favour of inciting hatred against Muslims, and in doing so openly promotes the Islamophobic rantings of Bat Ye’or.

Addressing the future evolution of the BNP under Griffin’s leadership, Brown wrote that “the possibility of the BNP making a pitch for the support of a right-wing minority within the Jewish community on an anti-Muslim programme, as the far-right party Vlaams Belang has successfully done in Belgium, cannot be excluded” (emphasis added). How exactly does that amount to “a vicious attempt to link the Jews with the fascists” or to “smear Jews … as being the neo-fascists’ natural allies”?

You can understand why Mad Mel might be a bit sensitive about the idea of fascists finding common ground with right-wingers in the Jewish community. Last year a BNP writer name-checked Phillips as one of the newspaper columnists whose opinions BNP supporters “feel most closely match their own”.

We have to deport terrorist suspects – whatever their fate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nick Cohen 2“Everyone now condemns past governments for allowing London to become ‘Londonistan’, a centre for Islamist exiles”, Nick Cohen tells us. Do they, now? And would those “Islamist exiles” include people like Rashid al-Ghannoushi, perhaps? Presumably so, because as far as Cohen is concerned there is no principled difference between democratic Islamists and Al-Qaeda supporters.

Cohen continues: “A foreigner who MI5 says is a threat to national security has no right to refugee status.” Such touching faith in the reliability of Britain’s security services. And none of your liberal whingeing about people being entitled to a fair hearing, or having a right to question the evidence MI5 might claim to have against them.

No, Nick’s quite clear about it. There is no realistic alternative – the suspects will simply have to be deported back to their countries of origin. And if those countries are headed by dictatorial regimes that habitually use torture against oppositionists … well, that’s just tough.

Observer, 5 November 2006

See also Lenin’s Tomb, 5 November 2006

Sun scaremongers over ‘Hook son’s job on the Tube’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hook's Son“The terrorist son of hook-handed Abu Hamza has been working on London’s Tube, The Sun can reveal. Mohammed Kamel Mostafa, 25 – a convicted fanatic who has glorified suicide attacks like the 7/7 slaughter – was rumbled by Underground workmates when they saw his picture in The Sun.

“They went straight to bosses, who told Mohammed Kamel Mostafa, 25, to sling his hook. But last night fury erupted over the security shambles that led to the convicted terrorist being granted astonishing access to London’s Tube network.”

The Sun, 31 October 2006

The “convicted terrorist” label stems from the fact that Mohammed Kamel Mostafa served three years in prison in Yemen from 1999-2002 for a terrorism-associated offence. Regarding this case, the US State Department wrote:

“Eight Britons and two Algerians who were arrested in December 1998 were tried from February to August 1999 in Aden on charges of possessing illegal weapons and explosives and conspiring to commit terrorist acts. The 6-month trial did not meet minimum international standards for due process. Defense lawyers claimed that the prosecution lacked adequate evidence, and that the defendants were tortured, sexually abused, and denied access to their lawyers….”

US State Department reports on human rights practices, 2000: Yemen

Mangera Yvars interviewed by Guardian

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abbey Mills Islamic CentreJonathan Glancey interviews Ali Mangera and Ada Yvars Bravo, the architects responsible for designing the proposed Markaz at West Ham.

The piece is informative, and broadly sympathetic. “We’re trying to design a welcoming and beautiful building,” Mangera is quoted as saying, “yet at times I feel I’m being accused of designing a bomb factory.”

But you do despair of ever reading an article on this issue which avoids recycling the stuff about the FBI claiming that Tablighi Jamaat is a recruiting ground for al-Qaida, or how 7/7 bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan reportedly attended the Dewsbury Markaz.

Guardian, 30 October 2006

Muslim Brotherhood rejects taxi cab slur

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamist taxi cartoonIn the US over the past few days a popular anti-Muslim scare story has concerned the alleged refusal of Somali taxi drivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to pick up passengers carrying alcohol.

The right-wing blog Power Line opined that “the airport taxi controversy exposes one template for the Islamist imperial project forcing the acceptance of Sharia law by the infidels”. And, basing itself on an article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Little Green Footballs announced: “Muslim Brotherhood behind airport taxi controversy.”

In response, the Muslim Brotherhood has issued a statement denying that it was in any way involved:

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