More than two years of a rocky path behind it, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro celebrated its opening Sunday with food, fellowship and special guests.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
University of Virginia: Martha Nussbaum berates Western Islamophobia
Renowned philosopher Martha Nussbaum addressed a packed auditorium Friday afternoon, berating Western Islamophobia, a problem Nussbaum said continues to plague the country today.
“Once, not very long ago, Americans and Europeans prided themselves on their enlightened attitudes of religious toleration, although everyone knew that the history of the West has actually been characterized by intense religious animosity and violence,” she said.
Nussbaum, a service professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago, said blatant legislative discrimination against Muslims in the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, and Spain, among other countries, requires examination.
“Our situation calls urgently for critical self examination as we try to uncover the roots of ugly fears and suspicions that currently disfigure all Western societies,” Nussbaum said.
Oklahoma Muslim on no-fly list to return to U.S.
On Monday, November 19, representatives of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) will meet a Muslim Air force veteran who had been barred from returning to Oklahoma when he finally arrives at Will Rogers World Airport.
“We welcome the positive development in this case and hope Mr. Long will not face any bureaucratic difficulties when he returns to his native land,” said CAIR-OK Executive Director Adam Soltani.
Following intervention by CAIR-OK, Saadiq Long, a U.S. citizen and Air Force veteran living in Qatar, was allowed to board a Delta Airlines flight (3316) due to arrive at 5:02 p.m. on Monday. He has been struggling to return home for six months after being denied boarding on two previous flights to visit his terminally-ill mother, apparently because he had been placed on a government no-fly list.
CAIR press release, 18 November 2012
See also “Oklahoman on ‘no fly’ list allowed to fly home”, KOCO.com, 18 November 2012
Knowing Islamophobia when we see it
Islamophobia as a concrete and usable social scientific concept can be the foundation for more informed public debates, argues Erik Bleich.
Fourth far-right protest at Sunderland mosque site
A fourth protest at the site of a new mosque in Sunderland ended with no violence and with only two arrests.
Around 40 officers policed the demonstration on St Mark’s Road in Millfield.
Between 50 and 60 protesters gathered and one man was arrested for breach of the peace and another for racial chanting.
Harry’s Place witch-hunts Mohamed Ali Harrath
ENGAGE responds to the attack on Islam Channel CEO Mohamed Ali Harrath by the racist-promoting, terrorism-supporting Zionist blog Harry’s Place.
Islamophobia Awareness Month launch event at the London School of Economics
Islamophobia Awareness Month launch event @ LSE
Tuesday, 20th November 2012, 6pm
At the Quad, East Building, LSE Students’ Union, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE
With Islamophobia entering the mainstream of politics across Europe and with increasing concerns over the penetration of Islamophobia in universities, the LSE Students’ Union is providing a forum for discussion on the nature and extent of the problem and what can be done to challenge it.
Speakers:
• Myriam Francois-Cerrah: Journalist and Academic
• Dr Leon Moosavi: University of Liverpool
• Aaron Kiely: National Union of Students
There will also be an exhibition on Islamophobia in the Quad from Monday 19th November until Friday 23rd November.
TV chef attacks Muslim ‘ghetto’ in Leicester
A celebrity chef has come under fire after making “hurtful” comments about the city’s Muslim community. In her new book, Clarissa Dickson Wright describes a visit to Leicester “as one of the most frightening experiences of my life”.
The 65-year-old dedicates a chapter of Clarissa’s England: A Gamely Gallop Through the English Counties to each county in England, discussing their culinary, cultural and historical merits. On Leicestershire, she writes of the city’s “ghetto”.
She describes coming off the ring road to escape a traffic jam and becoming lost. “I found myself in an area where all the men were wearing Islamic clothing and all the women were wearing burkas and walking slightly behind them,” she wrote. She said the men would not talk to her “because I was an English female and they don’t talk to females they don’t know”.
Grooming: An open letter to Nick Lowles
Liz Fekete replies to Nick Lowles’ article on grooming in the November-December issue of Hope Not Hate:
The way you have broken down Ministry of Justice figures on convictions of sex offences as a whole (8 per cent of which were Asian) to isolate the specific offence of ‘on-street grooming’ so as to reveal a 28 per cent Asian conviction rate (which rises to a 45 per cent conviction rate three lines later in the article) filled me with dismay. It recalled for me the time in the 1980s when the media and the fascists were creating the spectre of the ‘black mugger’ and the Metropolitan police added to the moral panic by isolating ‘assault or threat of violence upon a person, especially with intent to rob’ from all street crime and then providing the ethnicity of the perpetrators. Then, young African-Caribbean men were being accused of racially-motivated attacks on ‘little white old ladies’ in much the same way as Muslims as a whole are accused of anti-white sex crimes. But would we have said, ‘yes the National Front has a point, young black men are muggers – it’s in Jamaican culture, to be violent. Look here are the stats.’ No, as anti-fascist/anti-racist educators, we tried to show how racialised moral panics were created and how statistics could be used to bolster them.
Up yours, Sweden Democrats!
Following Sweden’s 4-2 victory over England in yesterday’sinternational friendly in Stockholm, in which Sweden’s captain Zlatan Ibrahimović played such a spectacular role, his teammate Pontus Wernbloom has taken the opprtunity to have a go at the anti-migrant, Islamophobic Sweden Democrats. He tweets: “What does the SD have to say after The Zlatan Show today? It is an honour to play in the same team as the man.”