Alan Wilson, Area Bishop of Buckingham, shows how an article originating in the Bucks Free Press, “High Wycombe Cemetery extension agreed for Muslim burials”, was sexed up by the Daily Telegraph to produce a typical anti-Muslim piece headlined “Council spends £150,000 so Muslim graves can face Mecca”.
Bishop Alan’s Blog, 7 June 2010
Via The Wardman Wire
The English Defence League plans to whip up racism against one of Britain’s largest Muslim communities. It has announced plans to gather in Tower Hamlets, east London, on Sunday 20 June.
Unite Against Fascism and East End United have organised a national counter-demonstration with backing from local activists, the council, campaigners and mosques. The momentum is on the side of the anti-fascists. The EDL were heavily outnumbered in Newcastle recently and were sent packing in South Wales last week. EDL demonstrations have been getting smaller.
But there must be no complacency. Local trade unionists, anti-racist activists and campaigners sent an open letter to the Guardian newspaper and local press within days of the EDL’s plans becoming known. It reads, “The English Defence League is a violent, bigoted organisation. They should be condemned everywhere, but will be particularly unwelcome if they come to Tower Hamlets.”
Glyn Robbins, the local activist who organised the letter, toldSocialist Worker, “We have seen how destructive the EDL presence has been in other towns and cities. Now they are coming to our city, to our borough. We have a strong tradition of standing up to racism and fascism in east London – a tradition that goes back to the 1930s when people fought off Mosley’s fascist blackshirts. If the EDL comes here without being opposed, then they can go anywhere. We have to do everything we can, in every way, to oppose them.”
Musaddiq Ahmed, secretary general of the Tower Hamlets Council of Mosques, told Socialist Worker it is vital to defend Tower Hamlets multiracial and multifaith tradition.
He said, “We are black, white and Asian – Muslim, Sikh, Jew and Christian – people of all faiths living together. We live in an area where the east London mosque sits side by side with a synagogue – we are proud of the diversity in Tower Hamlets. It would be a disaster if the EDL come here. The EDL wants to use the recent rise in Islamophobic attitudes to paint a distorted picture of Islam in order to divide our communities.”
Socialist Worker, 12 June 2010
See also “Joint statement says: Keep the racist EDL out of east London!”, Unite Against Fascism, 7 June 2010
Almost 300 people held a peaceful demonstration outside Dewsbury Police Station on Sunday in protest of what they felt were racist and inflammatory comments made in a local newspaper.
In a brilliant exposé the Guardian reported how a lone man held up a pink triangle at a demonstration of the English Defence League – one of the most openly anti-immigrant and Islamophobic organisations in the country. When the reporter asked him what it was for he replied nervously: “This is the symbol gay people were made to wear under Hitler. Islam poses the same threat and we are here to express our opposition to that.”
Given fascism’s history of violent and outspoken homophobia, the news that the EDL would have a 115-strong lesbian, gay and transgender wing would appear, at the very least, incongruous.
But in fact it just the most glaring example of the misguided and ill-informed shift in our nationalist discourse that has moved the emphasis from creed to culture and race to religion in a bid to erect a moral rampart between the a mythological modern, enlightened, progressive west and the demonised medieval, backward, bigoted south. Far from being a contradiction confined to the far right, these issues have taken on totemic significance in the mainstream in the broadside against both multiculturalism in general and non-European immigration in particular as though they were inimicable with the principles of social equality.
Gary Younge in the Guardian, 7 June 2010
Mike Kelly’s report on the SIOA ‘Ground Zero mosque’ protest contains a revealing insight into the ugly emotions aroused by Geller and Spencer’s exercise in anti-Muslim bigotry:
At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims. “Go home,” several shouted from the crowd. “Get out,” others shouted.
In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry – were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called “The Way.” Both said they had come to protest the mosque.
“I’m a Christian,” Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face. But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.
Via LoonWatch
The charity watchdog today cleared two Islamic schools which the Tories had accused of being “front” organisations for extremists.
There was no evidence that the centres run by the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation had links to an extreme Muslim group, the Charity Commission said. The ruling is a blow to David Cameron, who last year accused Gordon Brown’s government of “funding extremists” by giving grants to the schools in Haringey and Slough.
In the Commons, Mr Cameron described the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation charity as “a front” for Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Not only a blow Cameron but also to Andrew Gilligan, whose witch-hunting article in the Sunday Telegraph provided the basis for the Tories’ now discredited claims. You do wonder what more Gilligan has to do before his reputation as a journalist is completely destroyed.
CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED AS POLL REVEALS MOST BRITONS LINK ISLAM WITH VIOLENCE AND EXTREMISM
A new awareness campaign to improve public understanding of Islam and Muslims has been launched in London as an opinion poll shows widespread public concern at Islam’s impact on Britain today (Monday 7th June).
The campaign – “Inspired by Muhammad” – showcases how Muslims are inspired by their faith to contribute positively to British society. The public campaign focuses on women’s rights, social justice and the environment.
It was launched by TV presenter Kristiane Backer in a London cab decorated with the campaign’s logo, in front of Tower Bridge on the River Thames.
The high profile media campaign, commissioned by the Exploring Islam Foundation, will include adverts at bus stops, tube stations and on London’s iconic cabs. A new website www.inspiredbymuhammad.com has been launched to explain Islam’s ethical principles and core beliefs.
Alongside the launch, a YouGov national opinion poll commissioned by the EIF at the end of May 2010 has been published. It shows:
EIF is a charity established in 2009, to challenge popular stereotypes about Islam.
EIF press release, 7 June 2010
One of Wales’ biggest-ever police operations yesterday saw three events in the capital pass off without serious incident yesterday. The rival rallies between the UAF and EDL had the most potential for trouble but police said that, despite security fears, they had made just four arrests and were pleased with the way the day went.
Nearly 400 UAF supporters marched from Cardiff Bay’s Millennium Centre through Riverside and the city centre in protest at the EDL rally, and arrived at City Hall shortly before 1pm. Roughly 200 EDL activists were later bused in to a nearby rallying point at 2pm and verbal exchanges and scuffles broke out.
Former First Minister Rhodri Morgan, wife Julie, MP for Cardiff South and Penarth Alun Michael and MP for Caerphilly Wayne David joined the UAF march, holding banners and chanting with protesters.
Mr Michael said: “It has been a terrific turnout and a very strong and positive message about the nature of Cardiff as a multi-racial city which is determined to maintain harmony. The whole city is increasingly multi-racial and proud, and confident in it. It is a quiet, peaceful demonstration that has real authority – we don’t need conflict with the EDL, we just need to demonstrate Cardiff is not an environment in which they can flourish.”
Unemployed Jamie O’Brien, 30, left Newcastle at 3am to get to Cardiff to support the EDL. He said: “We want to keep the Muslim bombers off our streets – they are getting away with blue murder. We’re ultimately cast as racists by the UAF but they haven’t got a clue. I’m sick of seeing these Muslims – why do they want to change our country to suit them?”
See also Unite Against Fascism, Welsh Icons and the Morning Star.
Activists, journalists and trade unionists have urged communities nationwide to fight the “last socially acceptable form of racism” – Islamophobia.
At Saturday’s Stop Islamophobia conference, supported by an array of organisations including Stop the War Coalition, the British Muslim Initiative and Unite, speakers highlighted the relationship between daily attacks on Muslims promoted by mainstream politics and the media and the “war on terror.” Conference heard that paranoia over Islam and the “mushrooming” of the English Defence League “were no accident.”
Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob said Islamophobic attitudes were not just the preserve of far-right parties like the BNP and Ukip but were entrenched in mainstream political discourse. “It’s shocking that a country like Switzerland that we associate with being neutral and progressive is so paranoid that it is banning the building of any more mosques with minarets, even though there’s only four in the country,” she said.
Journalist Seumas Milne said the current situation where “white male politicians in Europe are dictating to women what to wear in the cause of freedom and liberal values” evoked British and French colonial history in north Africa. He said:
“They were trying to ban the hijab in the supposed cause of progress and freedom, but actually in the cause of empire and repression. In its modern incarnation Islamophobia is the direct result and ideological underpinning of modern imperial wars, of occupation and intervention.”
The English Defence League, the extreme right-wing anti-Islamic-fundamentalism group, has launched a “Jewish division”, encouraging members of the community to “lead the counter-Jihad fight in England”.
It has signed up hundreds of followers on Facebook since the launch last week. Supporters include an ex-Community Security Trust volunteer who claims “a lot of Jewish guys want to get stuck in”.
One follower wrote on Facebook “we are all Shayetet 13”, in support of the IDF naval special forces unit involved in the Gaza flotilla incident.
But Jewish community organisations responded to the initiative with shock, saying the EDL intimidated Muslim communities and claiming its support for Israel was “empty and duplicitous”.
The former CST member, Mark Israel, claimed Jews should back the EDL as an alternative to existing community groups. He said: “I’ve been involved with groups like CST and the 62 Group for 40 years. At first I thought the EDL was an off-shoot of the BNP but I have been investigating them. They are very pro-active, unlike the Board of Deputies. They are our allies. We have a common cause. These guys want to have dialogue with the Jewish community.
“I know a lot of Jewish guys who want to get stuck in and want to support a physical presence. It is not your typical thing people want to be associated with, but in this day and age we need something like this. Is the CST enough?”
The EDL mission statement says the new division is for “Jewish supporters of the EDL, and supporters of Jewish people everywhere. We are non-racist/fascist and anyone is welcome if they want to live under English values and fully integrate into our way of life”.
Last September the EDL brandished the Israeli flag at a demonstration and called on supporters to launch a counter-protest against a pro-Hizbollah march in Trafalgar Square.
Mark Gardner, CST communications director, said: “The EDL intimidate entire Muslim communities, causing tension and fear. Jews ought to remember that we have long experience of being on the receiving end of this kind of bigotry.”
Jon Benjamin, Board of Deputies chief executive, said: “The EDL’s supposed ‘support’ for Israel is empty and duplicitous. It is built on a foundation of Islamophobia and hatred which we reject entirely. Sadly, we know only too well what hatred for hatred’s sake can cause. The overwhelming majority will not be drawn in by this transparent attempt to manipulate a tense political conflict.”