Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Uncovering being Muslim in post-9/11 Melbourne

Posted on by Bob Pitt

With a predominantly Islamic population, Indonesia’s Muslims see their faith reflected at every turn: in media, in government policy, in education, even in fashion and food. But next door in Australia things are very different.

With little more than 1 percent of its population Islamic, there is little or no reflection of Australian Muslim society, except when something goes wrong. And that lack of positive societal recognition for one particular religious group is causing social ostracism for many Australian Muslims, particularly in these years following Sept. 11, 2001.

The fallout from that disaster half a world away has shaken Australia’s multicultural foundations, with ordinary Australian Muslims made social pariahs, as Chinese-Indonesians were denied Indonesian citizenship rights until recently, and as many Australian Aborigines are given unequal treatment simply for being black.

Jakarta Post, 24 April 2007

French presidential election: Muslims reject Sarkozy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim electors in France shunned rightwing presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy and opted in droves for Socialist candidate Segolene Royal in the first round of voting on Sunday, according to a newly published CSA-CISCO poll commissioned by Catholic daily La Croix. Just one percent of Muslims cast their ballot for crime busting free marketeer Sarkozy, compared with a massive 64 percent for Royal and 19 percent for centrist candidate Francois Bayrou.

AKI, 24 April 2007

Mosque at Abbey Mills

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“There has been a deliberate attempt to sensationalise this issue and it has been done on the basis of limited knowledge and misinformation. Some of the consequences, whether they were intentional or not, have been to create fear and anxiety to polarise people within our wider community.”

Transform Newham, 24 April 2007

The article also contains some interesting information about leading anti-mosque campaigner Councillor Alan Craig:

“His letter to the ‘Newham Recorder’ was published on 20th June 2001 ‘Unless there are safety or other technical objections the Muslim community should be allowed to build the mosque at West Ham’. He wrote on  27th February 2002 ‘I argued publicly that the council should give the go-ahead to the West Ham mosque’. He wrote this of the same Muslim group that in 2006 he was accuse of involvement in terrorism.”

‘In this country we are able to dress, or undress, exactly as we see fit’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Manal OmarIn a letter to the Guardian, one Linda Allan of Bath responds to Manal Omar’s article detailing the hostility she faced when wearing an “Islamic-style” swimsuit at a fitness club in Oxford:

“I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t go swimming like this in Britain; it’s because women in this country are equal to men and are not obliged to cover themselves up when swimming – or indeed at any other time – because some men somewhere have decided that’s how it has to be.

“Women in Britain fought for and died for the right to be equal. In this country we are able to dress, or undress, exactly as we see fit. If that’s not your choice, poor you. But don’t be surprised when people mock you and pass comment on your totally inappropriate clothing for swimming.”

Happily, most of the other letters are in support of Manal Omar.

Swedish security police ‘harasses Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A major crisis management training exercise taking place in Stockholm next week will contribute to further stigmatization of Muslims, according to two leading members of the Green Party. “The security police constantly engages in harassing Muslims and actively contributes to fuelling Islamophobia,” wrote Stockholm’s opposition vice mayor Yvonne Ruwaida and member of parliament Mehmet Kaplan on Dagens Nyheter‘s opinion page.

The politicians believe that the crisis exercise which the Swedish Emergency Management Agency (Krisberedskapsmyndigheten) is starting on Wednesday will follow this pattern. Around 4,000 people will participate in the exercise and the scenario which they will attempt to deal with is described as “a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction”.

The terrorists in the exercise have been given the fictional name of ‘Bogalanders’. They live in one of the predominantly immigrant “Million Homes” areas, their religion is split into two factions and they are protesting against the occupation of holy ground in “Bogaland”. “The parallels with Muslims and Islam are not exactly hard to find,” wrote Kaplan and Ruwaida.

The Local, 22 April 2007

Far right Danish MPs compare Islamic veil to Nazi swastika

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Three Danish lawmakers, all members of the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, have been reported to police for making remarks comparing Muslim women’s headscarves with swastikas. Parliament member Soeren Krarup was cited in daily Politiken and other Danish media on April 18 as saying that Muslim women’s headscarves, like Nazi Germany’s swastikas, symbolized totalitarian repression. Fellow lawmaker Morten Messerschmidt and a party representative in the European Parliament, Mogens Camre, repeated Krarup’s comments in Danish media today.

Krarup made his comments after Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, a Muslim politician from the Red-Green Alliance Party, said she would wear her headscarf if elected to Denmark’s parliament. Krarup confirmed today on his party’s Web site that he believes there are “common features between the Muslim veiling of women and other totalitarian symbols. The Danish People’s Party would like to underline that this is not a critique of the individual woman, who may wear a headscarf, but a general critique of Islam’s veiling of women,” he said.

Bloomberg.com. 20 April 2007

See also DPA, 20 April 2007