Leon Moosavi has an article on the Liverpool University websitetitled “Islamophobia in contemporary Britain”. Among the points he makes the following in particular is worth highlighting:

Keith Vaz MP tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament suggesting that Islamophobia be recorded by police forces across Britain so that it can be better understood. This would be a significant step forward it understanding the way Islamophobia operates in British society.

Yet, there is still much to be done to raise awareness of the seriousness of Islamophobia, as many seem not to be convinced that it is as serious an issue as similar prejudices like anti-semitism and racism. Perhaps that is why, up until now, only 24 out of 650 MPs have signed the EDM for Islamophobia to recorded by police forces.

To put that neglect into perspective, 90 MPs have signed an EDM against turtle farming and 73 MPs have signed an EDM calling for elephant protection. The Islamophobia petition has only managed to receive as many MP signatures as a petition against dog attacks on postmen!

The point here is not that turtles, elephants and postmen don’t matter, but that it appears as though there is reluctance from the most influential figures in society to acknowledge that the 3 million Muslims living in Britain are at risk of discrimination. This attitude of denial is rather disturbing, especially since it resides with the well-educated and well-briefed elite.

You can find the EDM “Recording Islamophobia as a crime” here. If your MP hasn’t yet signed it you can contact them here.

Tory MEP Daniel Hannan shows that there are at least some members of his party who don’t automatically lose their grip on reason when faced with the phenomenon of political Islam (as commentators at, say, Conservative Home invariably do). In a post on his Telegraph blog Hannan notes:

Many North African governments include what might loosely be termed Islamist groups: the PJD in Morocco, Ennahda in Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and so on. Yet the idea, sometimes promulgated by Western writers, that these parties are branches of a single Islamist movement, is quite misleading. Despite facing similar challenges, and sharing a language, they are almost wholly focused on their domestic affairs, and have little to do with one another. They vary enormously in their approaches to politics. Indeed, the more you discover about them, the more you realise that Islamist is a wholly inadequate label. To posit a continuum between salafist radicals, who want a sharia-based theocracy, and pluralist Muslim parties that see themselves as local equivalents of Europe’s Christian Democrats, is preposterous.

Paul Goodman (who holds the view that “Al Qaeda and the [Muslim] Brotherhood aren’t separated by a firewall in ideological terms. Rather, they’re like different rooms that are linked none the less by a common corridor”) might perhaps take note.

Last Friday Newham People’s Alliance, which is committed to “fighting the institutional social and religious cleansing of Newham”, organised a well-attended demonstration outside Newham Town Hall protesting against the local council’s treatment of the Riverine Centre.

Continue reading →