Category Archives: Analysis & comment

‘Muslim anger’ over council school snub

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Osama_SaeedScotland’s biggest council believes that a state-funded Islamic faith school would lead to the “social isolation” of young Scottish Muslims, a secret document has revealed. Despite publicly saying it would consider a school if community leaders could prove the demand, a memo obtained by Scotland on Sunday shows that Glasgow’s education chiefs have voiced “serious concerns” about any such plans.

Muslim leaders have reacted with concern to the memo. Osama Saeed, Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, said: “It’s disappointing that they haven’t raised these concerns with us up to now, the issue has always been one of proving the demand, which we are confident we can do. The concerns are completely misplaced, studies of pupils from Islamic schools in England have shown that they are more tolerant and open than those not in Islamic schools.”

Scotland on Sunday, 29 October 2006

You’ll note that a quote from Osama saying that the failure to consult was “disappointing” becomes translated in the headline into “Muslim anger”. It appears that Muslims can’t express disagreement with anything, however politely and reasonably, without being accused of aggressive hostility.

Faith schools – they’re no threat at all … unless they’re Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Charles Moore 2Charles Moore argues that the history of Christian faith schools shows that they represent no threat at all to social cohesion, and that the government was mistaken in proposing a compulsory quota system. He continues:

“So what is behind all this anxiety? The answer, of course, is Islam…. There are said to be about 115 Muslims schools now seeking state money, on top of the half-dozen that already receive it. Most people do not like the idea of Muslim schools acquiring this status, but few, except Lord Baker, dare say so. In order to euphemise the problem, the Government thought up a general rule to apply to all religions, and so prevent the Muslim expansion that it fears. You could call it the veil wagging the dog.

“People are right to worry. Unlike church schools where, in the great majority of cases, the Government can deal with the clearly recognised command structures of bishops, Muslim schools have no such central authority. Sunni Islam is as fragmented as extreme Protestant sects: it will be very hard for the people paying out the taxpayers’ money to know with whom they are dealing.

“The more fundamental problem lies with the state of the religion itself. Just as, once upon a time, it was the case that being a Catholic in England put great strain upon your loyalty to the nation, so in Islam today. Although most Muslims seem pleased to be British, polls also show significant minorities who support or condone terrorism. Many repudiate the way of life, even the language, of the host nation.

“That is why the Archbishop of Canterbury is wrong to equate the wearing of a cross and of the veil. The first is not intended, in most cases, as an angry statement of difference. The veil is…. Inside Islam is a strong strand, currently growing stronger because of the propaganda of the radicals, which believes in ‘territoriality’. Such Muslims – for example, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, whom Mayor Ken Livingstone greets as a hero – reject the legitimacy of all non-Islamic society. They regard what they call ‘man-made’ laws as non-operative. Only the laws of God apply, and these laws, expressed in the Sharia, should turn our land Muslim by imposition. It would seem mad that people who believe such things should get state money to teach our fellow citizens.”

Daily Telegraph, 28 October 2006

From which you can only conclude that Moore hasn’t hasn’t made the slightest effort to acquaint himself with Qaradawi’s views. But why go to the bother of studying a subject when it’s so much easier just to rely on ignorant bigotry?

St Andrews’ Students Association rejects witch-hunt against Khatami

Posted on by Bob Pitt

KhatamiA storm of protest is expected to greet a controversial Iranian former president in Scotland next week amid growing opposition to his visit.

The move to honour Mohammad Khatami by St Andrews University has attracted a furious response from exiled Iranians, the Israeli government, politicians and students across the UK, who claim he ran a tyrannical regime.

He will receive an honorary degree when he officially opens the university’s Institute for Iranian Studies during his visit on Tuesday.

A university spokesman said Mr Khatami’s visit reflected the international standing of the institution and added that the historic seat of learning had received messages of support from senior government officers and politicians.

But angry cries were led by Laila Jazayeri of the Association of Anglo-Iranian Academics in the UK who attacked his human-rights record while in office.

She said: “Khatami has always been a central pillar of the theocratic and brutal regime in Iran, which is responsible for the execution of more than 120,000 Iranians.

“It is ironic that Khatami should be invited to St Andrews University when, during his presidency, the Iranian regime responded to the just demand of students for democracy by ordering vicious dawn attacks on dormitories.

“Students were beaten using knives, chains, and batons, resulting in fatalities and hundreds wounded. Some were even thrown out of the second and third floor windows.”

The move has also infuriated Scottish Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson, who described the decision as a slur on Scotland. He said: “St Andrews University should be ashamed. Khatami’s presence in Scotland would be an insult to freedom, democracy, and human rights. I call upon Sir Menzies Campbell as chancellor of St Andrews University to withdraw the invitation to this odious man.”

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‘Fury as BA says it would allow Muslim veil but not cross’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“British Airways has been accused of appalling double standards after admitting Muslim staff may be allowed to wear veils – just weeks after it sent a Christian home for wearing a cross. Check-in worker Nadia Eweida has been on unpaid leave for a month after the airline banned her from wearing her tiny cross on a necklace over her uniform…. She demanded to know why she had to hide her faith from the public when Muslims and Sikhs can openly display theirs by wearing hijabs, turbans, and possibly a full-face veil.”

Daily Mail, 26 October 2006

Of course, the answer is that Muslim women who wear the hijab or Sikh men who wear a turban do so because they believe it is a requirement of their faith. So far as I know, no Christian denomination requires its adherents to display a cross.

Nevertheless, BA’s stupidity in denying Nadia Eweida the right to do so has simply opened the door for racists in the right-wing press to take up the refrain about favours being granted to minority ethno-religious groups that are supposedly denied to the white Christian majority.

Media ‘bullied’ into not discussing Islam, according to Mad Mel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

madmel“The head of Britain’s Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, was one of the first in the governing and quangocrat class to sound the alarm over multiculturalism some fourteen months ago when he warned that Britain was ‘sleepwalking to segregation’. He has also said that mass immigration is changing the face of Britain and that Muslims wanting to live under Sharia law should leave the UK….

“But now, Phillips’s position appears to have shifted. Last weekend, he said he was disconcerted that the debate about the veil seemed ‘to have turned into something really quite ugly’ and descended into ‘bullying’. He told BBC One’s ‘Sunday AM’ show: ‘I, this morning, really would not want to be a British Muslim because what should have been a proper conversation between all kinds of British people seems to have turned into a trial of one particular community, and that cannot be right.’

“Ugly? Bullying? ‘A trial of one particular community’? Surely, it’s those who draw attention to Islamic extremism who are mostly on the receiving end of ugly bullying. Any mention of ‘Islamic terrorism’ produces instantaneous denunciation as an ‘Islamophobe’, racist, bigot and all the rest of it – backed up by the implicit threat of violence, a state of affairs which started with the fatwa against the life of Salman Rushdie. As a result, the British media are now so cowed and intimidated they refuse to publish much vital discussion about Islam, to the terrible detriment of free and vital debate.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 24 October 2006

Regular readers of this site will of course be well aware of how “intimidated” the British media has been when it comes to attacking Islam and Muslims, particularly in recent weeks during the outburst of racist hysteria provoked and legitimised by Jack Straw’s comments on the veil.

Martin Bright backs Kelly

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When, in last May’s reshuffle, Tony Blair appointed Ruth Kelly to deal with Islamism, I was sceptical, I admit…. I have been forced to reconsider. Kelly’s recent statements show a sea change in government policy, driven by her determination to tackle the ideology of radical Islam head-on. Her speech on 11 October to groups representing British Muslims was a wake-up call not just to them, but to Britain at large….

“The MCB will receive no more state funding, she says, until it can show that it shares the common values of a democratic society: freedom of speech, equality of opportunity, tolerance, and respect for the rule of law…. Kelly has made a bold decision to take the ideological battle to radical Islam…. I am told that she spent recent months reading widely on the history of modern political Islam and that she has become fascinated by the subject. One publication she has read is a short pamphlet I wrote for the think-tank Policy Exchange, When Progressives Treat With Reactionaries.”

Martin Bright in the New Statesman, 23 October 2006

Bright must be really pleased with himself. He has helped persuade Kelly to sideline the most representative Muslim organisation in Britain and turn instead to the fraudulent pro-government Sufi Muslim Council.

Covered faces, open rebellion

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Having spent time getting to know young British Muslims, I believe that comments like Straw’s will be counterproductive. That is because the niqab is a symptom and not a cause of rising tensions. Few young Muslim women in Britain are forced by their families to wear the niqab. British Muslims come predominantly from South Asia, where the prevalent school of Islam, Hanifi, makes no insistence on a woman fully veiling herself. Indeed, only one of the four schools within Sunni Islam, Hanbali, which is followed in Saudi Arabia, requires women to completely cover up….

“Frustrated by unemployment rates more than double those of members of other religious groups, put off by stereotyping in the news media, and estranged from British foreign policy, many alienated Muslims have turned to more overt forms of religiosity to express a contrarian identity. Says Murad Qureshi, the only Muslim councilor in London’s Assembly: ‘Girls are choosing to reaffirm their Muslim identity because the community feels a sense of besiegement.’

“… Calls by British politicians for Muslim women to stop wearing the niqab will only enhance the political symbolism of this act and make its practice more widespread. Instead, what is needed is an ambitious program to address the core grievances of Britain’s young Muslims, for example by creating economic opportunities and tackling discrimination.”

Paul Cruickshank in the New York Times, 23 October 2006

This is a lot more informed than some of the condescending rubbish you read in the UK press from the likes of Johann Hari, who sees in the veil only a “misogynistic cultural practice” forced on oppressed Muslim women by tyrannical men. But Cruickshank still takes a negative view of young Muslim women who have chosen reaffirm their Muslim identity, in the face of a hysterical and increasingly violent racist campaign against Muslim communities, by wearing the niqab. At the very least, he could give them credit for their courage. Cruickshank has also swallowed the nonsense about how a quarter of British Muslims supposedly agree with the 7/7 bombings – when, as the recent 1990 Trust poll has confirmed, the actual figure is between 1% and 2%.

Al-Qa’eda is winning the war of ideas, says Reid

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John ReidJohn Reid has issued a dire warning that the Government risks losing the “battle of ideas” with al-Qa’eda. The Home Secretary spoke out at an emergency meeting of ministers and security officials amid an ever-growing threat from home-grown Islamist terror groups.

He called for an urgent but controversial escalation in the propaganda war and said al-Qa’eda’s so-called “single extremist narrative” was proving ever more attractive to young British Muslims. The Government needed to do much more to win the “battle of ideas”, Mr Reid said.

The meeting came as ministers – including Jack Straw, Ruth Kelly and Phil Woolas – started to take a much more aggressive stance against radical Islam.

Sunday Telegraph, 22 October 2006

If Al-Qaeda is indeed “winning the war of ideas” among young British Muslims, it’s odd that the recent 1990 Trust poll of Muslim opinion found that less than 2% of respondents agreed with the 7/7 bombings. In fact, if anything is likely to broaden the terrorists’ minuscule base of support within Muslim communities, it’s the sort of Islamophobic hysteria that has been unleashed and encouraged by the irresponsible statements of Labour politicians in recent weeks.

NSS on the Aishah Azmi case

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When I was the Chief Officer of an organisation (a Council for Racial Equality in Yorkshire as it happens) I would not have tolerated any member of my staff wearing a niqab, or any other kind of non-medical mask over their face. Had I ever been approached by a woman wearing a niqab (though I never was) I would have done exactly as Jack Straw claims he would do, and politely asked her to remove it.

“I do not know Ms Azmi or her personal circumstances but I do have some familiarity with the various communities in Kirklees. I was a founder member and the first Secretary of the Kirklees Community Law Centre but I resigned from the Management Committee over a decade ago because the other members were not willing to stand up to the unreasonable demands of the leaders of the local Pakistani Community Association.

“These so-called community leaders were so used to being indulged and deferred to in all matters relating to ‘their’ communities that their response to any opposition was to bully and bluster. I suspect that some of these same people will be bending the ears of the local authority at this very moment, demanding all sorts of concessions and assurances about future practices in schools and other areas of the public sector.”

Steve Radford on the National Secular Society website.

The worrying thing is that someone like this was ever responsible for racial equality in the first place.

Mail discovers ‘Veil teacher link to 7/7 bomber’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Muslim teacher suspended for refusing to work without her veil is connected to a hardline mosque where the ringleader of the July 7 bombers worshipped, it has emerged.

“The family of classroom assistant Aishah Azmi, 24, plays a key role at the fundamentalist Markazi mosque in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire – which was attended by suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan. Until recently, Miss Azmi’s father was joint headmaster of the secondary school attached to the building. The family are known to worship there and may have encountered Khan before his terrorist act.”

Daily Mail, 21 October 2006

Well, if Sidique Khan did attend the same mosque (and given the gulf that separated his methods from the apolitical approach of Tablighi Jamaat, I’ve always thought that was questionable) I suppose they might have met him. However, given that the Dewsbury Markaz holds 3000 people, statistically the chances of bumping into him would have been rather slight. As attempts to imply guilt by association go, this really is the pits.