Letters in response to Will Hutton’s article last week (see here) on the new anti-incitement bill.
Category Archives: Liberal
‘We’ oppose an anti-incitement law, says Will Hutton
“Being a Muslim, especially a Muslim woman, in Britain is for many a dispiriting and occasionally terrifying experience. The society that prides itself on tolerance has lost its bearings over Islam. On the streets, the prejudice that Islam is irrationally and murderously violent and menacingly foreign has spawned a subculture of hatred and abuse. If you are a woman in a hijab, being jeered at, even spat at, is routine. Many never venture from their houses.
“This is fertile ground for widespread racism and where the law is currently uncertain. Harassment and abuse are certainly illegal, but the threshold that incurs legal action is very high; equally illegal is the expression of hatred, or views that might incite hatred, towards a group or individual for their race.
“But the woman in a hijab could be African, Asian or Middle Eastern. It is not her race that makes her the object of hatred; it is her religious belief and culture that require her to dress in such a conspicuously different way and make her part of the hated group. The law, as currently framed, offers her no systematic protection, and no explicit penalty for a political party, say the BNP, that chooses to make such hatred a central plank of its electoral pitch.”
Thus Will Hutton in the Observer, 19 June 2005
The Left and Islam: a ‘modern day Hitler-Stalin pact’
Carol Devine-Molin joins the chorus of right-wingers who applaud the role of former US radical David Horowitz in exposing “the collaboration that exists between Islamo-fascists and Leftists”.
Shamefully, these Leftists have opposed “a righteous war to liberate the Iraqi people from tyranny, enforce UN resolutions, stabilize a region, and oust a dictator that was clearly funding and harboring terrorists”. By contrast, “the Bush administration and its supporters believe that democratization of the Middle East and concomitant free markets will provide Muslims with greater opportunities and improvement in their overall quality of life. And the majority of Iraqis are clearly on the same wavelength and conducive to the Bush plan”.
Yeah, sure. That must be why the majority of those Iraqis who voted did so for parties calling for an end to the US occupation and opposing the handover of Iraq’s assets to foreign corporations.
But the “Hitler-Stalin pact” business – that rings a bell. Where have we heard that one before? Oh yes, I remember. It was our friend Nick Cohen, berating the Left for engaging with the leaders of faith communities that are under attack: “You have to go back to the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939 to find a similar accommodation with the dictatorial right.”
So Cohen finds himself in a bloc with the most viciously pro-imperialist, neo-conservative, Islamophobic right-wingers … in accusing the Left of forming a bloc with the Right!
A difficult question
“Race and religion are different – which is why Islamophobia is a nonsense and religious hatred must not be outlawed.” Thus the standfirst to an article in today’s Guardian.
Now, who do you think wrote this article? Was it:
a) a Muslim of South Asian/Middle Eastern/African origin with direct experience of the association between racial and religious hatred, manifested in Islamophobia; or
b) a white secularist who has suffered none of this sort of hatred and never will?
Difficult, I know, so we have provided a picture clue.
Defending an anti-incitement law
Thoughtful reply to Polly Toynbee at Talk Politics:
“Underneath it all the fundamental principle of the bill, that we should offer some protection to law-abiding citizens against personal attacks predicated on their holding particular religious beliefs is basically sound. How can any reasonable person argue otherwise if they’ve ever seen the likes of Nick Griffin skirting around current race relations legislation simply by substituting the word ‘muslim’ for ‘paki’. Its an unsustainable position however you look at it – unless you’re a member of the BNP.”
… or a blogger at Harry’s Place.
Liberal joins neocons in anti-Amnesty campaign
The speech by Amnesty general secretary Irene Khan describing Guantánamo as the “gulag of our times” (see here) reduced the US right to apoplexy. From Donald Rumsfeld down, they united to deny there was any parallel between incarcerating millions of Soviet citizens and locking up a mere 600 Muslims. See here, here, here, here, here and so ad infinitum.
Now here’s a test for you. Which journalist on a liberal Sunday newspaper could be relied upon to echo the anti-Amnesty propaganda of the US neocons?
Another secularist rant from Nick Cohen
In today’s Observer, Nick Cohen rallies to the defence of Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who published a book immediately following the Madrid bombing in which she argued that Muslim immigration is turning Europe into “an Islamic province, an Islamic colony” and that “to believe that a good Islam and a bad Islam exist goes against all reason”. In an earlier book, published after 9/11, she wrote that Muslim immigrants in the West have “multiplied like rats”. (See here.)
Cohen takes a relaxed view of this racist filth. He opposes a decision by the Muslim Union of Italy to take legal action against Fallaci, portraying it as an attempt to suppress free speech. “What she says may not be true”, he concedes (may not be true?!), but he defends her right to say it. “Fallaci is a raging prima donna. Still, since when has it been a criminal offence for prima donnas to sing, however tunelessly?”
Would Cohen take a similarly relaxed view of a book which claimed that Jews are breeding like rats and turning Europe into a Jewish colony? I think not. In any case, under existing race relations legislation, the author of that sort of writing would be open to prosecution in this country. If that happened, I rather doubt that Cohen would write a column for the Observer condemning legal action being taken.
Nick Cohen and Bethnal Green
Philip Dore writes:
Hi
Just drawing your attention to an error on your website.
The entry “Nick Cohen – telling lies about Bethnal Green (2)” (Islamophobia Watch, 12 May 2005) states that Oona King’s press release on the attack of Jewish mourners by Muslim youths makes no mention of the attackers spitting, throwing eggs or shouting “you fucking Jews”.
There are in fact news reports of such actions having taken place. You can find a report detailing this here.
I draw your attention to the following paragraph: “One theory is that the abuse was directed at Oona King (…). However, quite a number of the attendees were wearing kippot (skull caps), and some of the abuse shouted was vocally anti-Semitic. I heard people shouting ‘you f***ing Jews’, he declared.”
I would also draw your action to a Guardian report on the incident here which reports those mourners present as stating that they believed they were attacked because they were Jewish, rather than because they were with Oona King. It also quotes a local youth as telling the reporter, “There’s a lot of hatred towards the Jewish. We’ve got hatred towards them.”
Given these two reports providing evidence of antisemitic attitudes, you might wish to consider removing or amending this post. Also, since the post accuses Nick Cohen of “telling lies”, I strongly suggest you remove that before he sees it, since the corroboration of his claims makes your post a defamatory one.
Cheers
Phil Dore
‘The woman who went to war with Islam’: Guardian boosts Ayaan Hirsi Ali
“While it may appear easy to dismiss Hirsi Ali as the migrant who has reacted against her ‘traumatic’ background and become a reactionary as a result, it is only possible to do so without actually listening to her.” Alexander Linklater gives a major boost to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the right-wing Dutch MP and friend of the late racist Theo van Gogh.
Following the media splash on Irshad Manji last week, it’s clear that there’s a booming market for Muslims slagging off Islam – for reasons that will be obvious to anyone familiar with our site.
Nick Cohen: telling lies about Bethnal Green (2)
An entry from Oona King’s campaign diary: “Last week, I was ‘attacked’ at the anniversary of the bombing of Hughes Mansions. The last V2 rocket to fall on London during the Blitz killed 130 people in these flats. Nearly all those who died were Jewish, some of them soldiers home on leave. The eggs and vegetables hurled from the surrounding brick balconies didn’t hit me. They only splattered my jacket, but hit a Jewish war veteran and an elderly Jewish woman. It was disturbing: the kids disrupting the event have no idea that the people they hit are the people who gave us the freedom to be here. After all, neither Bengalis nor black Jews would have lasted long under the Third Reich.”
A fair point, and nobody could fail to condemn the behaviour of the young people who disrupted the ceremony. But it’s worth noting that Oona makes no mention of Nick Cohen’s claim that “Muslim youths spat and threw eggs at the mourners and shouted: ‘You fucking Jews’.”
See here.