Category Archives: Multiculturalism

‘The veiled conceit of multiculturalism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Australian offers its contribution to the veil “debate”:

“Religious beliefs are by definition sacred, and as much as possible they should be a private matter. But when an individual or a community feels that their personal practices should trump widely held values while also setting themselves apart, the question arises as to whether those people would not be more comfortable in a place where such behaviour is the norm.

“At its heart is the question of where tolerance should end and the old adage, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans’, should kick in. While tolerance is certainly a positive virtue that should be strived for, it cannot be a cultural suicide pact…. Disappointingly, those who have traditionally been a positive force for the liberation of women against oppression in other spheres have here largely been silent on the question of Islam’s beliefs concerning half of humanity.

“… what confronts the West today is not so much a clash of civilisations as a clash of centuries. The jumbo jets that have enabled the mass immigration from Muslim countries to the West are, in effect, time machines that have brought millions of people from a pre-Enlightenment world – where men are the unquestioned bosses, stoning and forced amputation are punishments rather than crimes, and sectarian differences are worth dying over – to secular, liberal and postmodern democracies such as ours.”

Editorial in The Australian, 24 October 2006

BBC ‘biased in favour of Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

“A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror. It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

“At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

“One veteran BBC executive said: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it’.”

Mail on Sunday, 22 October 2006

Sweden’s Muslim minister turns on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nyamko SabuniThe latest media darling of Scandinavian politics is not only black, beautiful and Muslim; she is also firmly against the wearing of the veil.

Nyamko Sabuni, 37, has caused a storm as Sweden’s new integration and equality minister by arguing that all girls should be checked for evidence of female circumcision; arranged marriages should be criminalised; religious schools should receive no state funding; and immigrants should learn Swedish and find a job.

Supporters of the centre-right government that came to power last month believe that her bold rejection of cultural diversity may make her a force for change across Europe. Her critics are calling her a hardliner and even an Islamophobe.

Sunday Times, 22 October 2006

Looks like Sweden has found its own Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Sabuni has already received the endorsement of Little Green Footballs and Dhimmi Watch.

Update:  And Western Resistance and Pickled Politics.

Muslims can never conform to ‘our’ ways

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Ministers appear whimsically to be shifting from the multi-cultural society towards an integrated one. They are whistling in the dark if they think that will play well with the followers of Islam in our midst. Muslims are rooted in their faith and it governs the way they live. It is the only faith on Earth that persuades its followers to seek political power and impose a law – sharia – which shapes everyone’s style of life….  It is vain to say: ‘Well, if they come here, they must conform with British society and its easy ways’. Muslims will not do that. Their religion forbids it.”

Bill Deedes in the Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2006

Blair says veil is a mark of separation, Cruddas launches campaign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tony Blair has said that the veil worn by many Muslim women in Britain is a “mark of separation” that makes people from other backgrounds feel uncomfortable. The Prime Minister came off the fence in the heated debate over Muslim customs by urging them to integrate more fully into British society. His remarks confirmed a significant shift in the Government’s thinking amid fears that its support for multiculturalism may have encouraged the growth of “parallel lives” that never meet.

At his monthly Downing Street press conference, the Prime Minister was asked if a woman who wore the veil could make a full contribution to British society. He paused before replying: “That’s a very difficult question. It is a mark of separation and that’s why it makes other people from outside of the community feel uncomfortable.” He added he was not suggesting women should be ordered to remove their veils. “No one wants to say that people don’t have the right to do it, that’s to take it too far, but I think we do need to confront this issue about how we integrate people properly with our society,” he said.

Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham, who will formally launch his campaign to become Labour’s next deputy leader today, will accuse ministers of playing “fast and loose” with religious tensions during the row. He will say: “The solution does not lie in an ever more muscular bidding war among politicians to demonstrate who can be tougher on migrants, asylum-seekers and minorities. Nor is it in using racial or religious symbols to create controversy. That only makes the situation worse. It is not the role of politicians to play fast and loose with symbols of difference, especially when they drive the political centre of gravity to the right as a consequence.”

Independent, 18 October 2006

‘Our failure to confront radical Islam is there for all to see’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“At long last, the debate on Islamism as politics, not Islam as religion, is out in the open. Two weeks ago, Jack Straw might have felt he was taking a risk when publishing his now notorious article on the Muslim veil. However, he was pushing at an open door. From across the political spectrum there is now common consent that the old multicultural emperor, before whom generation of politicians have made obeisance, is now a pitiful, naked sight.”

Daily Telegraph, 17 October 2006

Melanie Phillips, perhaps? No, the appalling Denis MacShane – the man who chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism that issued the ludicrous report claiming that Islamists in Britain are in an alliance with the BNP.

In 2003 MacShane delivered a speech in which he said: “It is time for the elected and community leaders of the British Muslims to make a choice – the British way, based on political dialogue and non-violent protests, or the way of the terrorists, against which the whole democratic world is uniting.” In response, his constituency party passed a resolution stating: “Denis MacShane is inciting racial and religious hatred, by publicly implying in the press that the Muslim community elected members and leaders are in favour of terrorism and being anti-British.”

Guardian, 28 November 2003

Mad Mel fights for ‘cultural survival’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

madmelMelanie Phillips subjects us to yet another episode of her paranoid “Eurabia” ravings, according to which 1.6 million British Muslims are engaged in the “Islamicisation” of a country with a total population of 60 million:

“The Christian values that once defined national identity have simply collapsed, creating a cultural vacuum which Islam – Britain’s fastest-growing and most assertive religion – is busily filling.

“Those who defend the Muslim veil are grossly misreading the situation. It is not some picturesque religious garment equivalent to the often curious attire worn by members of other religions. It is associated instead with the most extreme version of Islam, which holds that Islamic values must take precedence over the secular state. Only a small minority of British Muslim women choose to wear this veil. But unlike other religious attire, it is thus inherently separatist and perceived by some as intimidatory. That is why it is unacceptable.

“Belatedly, there seems to be a dawning recognition in Government of the extreme danger into which British society has been placed both by the doctrine of multiculturalism, which holds that upholding majority values is somehow illegitimate, and by the official policy of appeasing Islamic extremism. Hence Mr Woolas’s remarks, the show of ministerial support for Jack Straw, and the threat last week made by Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly to withhold funding from Muslim institutions that do not combat extremism….

“This is not about prejudice or discrimination. It is about cultural survival.”

Daily Mail, 16 October

The BNP and BA

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It is now becoming a daily event to report yet another skirmish in the clash of civilisations, another casualty in the war between (on one side) Islamic intolerance, their collaborators in the liberal-leftist ruling ‘elite’ who want to promote multiculturalism or post-multicultural integration and the forces of tradition, democracy, nationhood and sovereignty on the other.”

Fascists offer their take on the BA crucifix row.

BNP news article, 15 October 2006

Mayor defends multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Interviewed on this morning’s Today progamme, Ken Livingstone was asked: “Which do you think is more important: the freedom of religion and cultural identity which encourages many young Muslim women to wear the veil, or a sense of integration in a society in which everybody has fundamentally some kind of common commitment to that society and its values?” The Mayor replied:

“But I think we’ve got that. We have here – and London typifies it more than almost anywhere else in Europe – a whole group of shared values, but at the same time people can continue to carry on with their cultural difference. Step back and think, if we had said, over a hundred years ago to the great wave of Jewish refugees fleeing anti-semitism in Russia, ‘you can come here but you’ve got to leave your religion, you’ve got to leave your form of dress’, we would have been immeasurably diminished as a society. That community gave a vast amount to London.

“I don’t hear politicians saying that they feel intimidated or cut off because Orthodox Jews dress the way they do. We fought a long time ago to get the right for Sikhs to wear their turban while they’re in the police force or on the buses. It seems there’s a different standard being applied to Muslims. And it’s nothing to do with domestic politics. It’s the background of war and oil and international politics that drives that agenda.”

Islamophobia is part of the ‘war on terror’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SW War and Racism“For many Muslim women in Britain and Europe, the decision to wear a veil is not about ‘internalising oppression’. It is a statement of identity adopted in the face of rising Islamophobia and government demands to step through yet one more hoop to prove you are a ‘good Muslim’.

“Muslim women have been to the fore in the anti-war movement – something that has truly brought people together in common cause and given confidence to Muslim women to speak out.

“It ill behoves middle class Westerners, whether Jack Straw or supposed feminists, to dictate what women should wear. What’s at issue is not women’s rights, but an Islamophobic agenda which is the battle cry of the US led global ‘war on terror’.”

Editorial in Socialist Worker, 14 October 2006

See also “Stop scapegoating Muslims – it’s war and racism that fuel division“, “Jack Straw’s veil comments are ammunition for racists” and “A right wing attack on multiculturalism“, plus reports on the Blackburn demonstration against Straw and the so-called “race riot” in Windsor.