Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

FBI invite to Robert Spencer condemned

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jihad Watch dhimmitude billboardThe decision by the FBI’s Indianapolis office to bring in author Robert Spencer to talk to its anti-terrorism task force has a Plainfield-based Muslim organization concerned that the bureau is listening to an “Islamophobe” who distorts its faith.

The FBI had planned to bring in Spencer this week to speak to Indiana’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. His appearance was postponed because he had a scheduling conflict. Both Spencer and the FBI hope to reschedule.

Louay Safi, director of leadership development with the Islamic Society of North America, said bringing Spencer in to talk of Islam is akin to bringing an anti-Semite to talk about Jews or a Ku Klux Klan member to talk about race.

Indianapolis Star, 18 March 2007

Florida bus driver fired over Muslim jokes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ORLANDO, FL (AP) – A bus driver was fired after a Muslim couple complained that he insulted members of their religion over the loudspeaker.

The driver, whose name was not released, was fired Thursday after Hilal Isler of upstate New York said she and her husband, Volkan Isler, were offended. The Turkish-American couple say he launched into a monologue after they boarded the I-Ride Trolley bus March 5.

Hilal Isler said he greeted passengers, told a blonde joke and then one about Muslims.

“And now they’re telling us we’re supposed to be nice to these Muslim terrorists who are trying to kill us all,” Hilal Isler recalled him saying. “Here in America, we call them ‘rag-heads’ or ‘towelheads,’ but that’s not right. What they wear on their heads is more like a sheet. We should be calling them sheetheads.”

After returning to New York, Hilal Isler, who is Muslim but does not wear a traditional head scarf, reported the incident to the Orlando Sentinel and the International Drive Master Transit and Improvement District, which owns I-Ride.

Luann Brooks, executive director of the transit company, told the Sentinel that the driver had been identified on Thursday and dismissed. Brooks said while the driver’s “conduct is not going to be tolerated,” drivers for the service are encouraged to interact with passengers and play the role of ambassadors to the area.

Associated Press, 16 March 2007

Representing Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Naima Bouteldja“Timothy Garton-Ash is obviously right in his assertion that ‘what has characterised the Muslim world throughout history is the great diversity of what Muslims say and do under the banner of Islam’. One could even afford a smile, if it was not so worrying, that this idea, considered self-evident for any other ethnic or religious group, is proclaimed as if a groundbreaking discovery. What it shows, yet again, is that when it comes to issues related to Islam and Muslims, the world has gone slightly mad.

“Take the word ‘Islamism’, which represents a political momentum that emerged in the Muslim world within the context of western colonial expansion during the 19th and 20th centuries. Islamism, when used by politicians or media pundits, is rarely defined and is often rashly substituted for terrorism. Yet, most in-depth research on political Islam illustrates that Islamism is not a monolithic, static, insular movement but one with multiple threads and tendencies that varies from country to country, depending on internal political and economic characteristics, as well as the wider, regional and international geopolitical environment….

“The question of who represents the true version of Islam is not as interesting as the answers indirectly supplied by the mass media and what they reveal about the ‘us’, as opposed to the ‘them’. For instance, it would be naive to attribute the dizzying ascension of a figure like Ayaan Hirsi Ali in politics and the media solely to her talent or the popularity of her struggle. Today, like yesterday, the ruling elites choose from the side of the Other the pawns best-positioned to support their own visions of the world and their interests.”

Naima Bouteldja at Comment is Free, 16 March 2007

Muslim schools ‘help integration’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim schools could be a positive addition to the educational system and an effective way of integrating religious minorities into British citizenship, a Bristol University study found.

Muslims in Britain are currently subject to attention that has often focused upon citizenship and integration, with Muslim schools often seen as an obstacle to social cohesion.

The study, by Nasar Meer, research assistant in the Department of Sociology and the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the university, said there were only seven state-funded Muslim schools compared to over 4,700 Church of England schools, 2,100 Catholic schools, 37 Jewish and 28 Methodist schools.

Muslim parents want more Muslim schools so that more aspects of Islamic culture are feature within the teaching and ethos of the school their children attend.

Muslim educators argue that one of the most effective ways to pass on knowledge about different people is through teaching. And Nasar Meer said: “Contrary to the current movements seeking a ‘retreat’ from multiculturalism, more multicultural accommodations of this kind will be beneficial.”

Western Daily Press, 17 March 2007

See also “Muslim schools make a positive contribution”, University of Bristol press release, 16 March 2007

Inayat Bunglawala on Muslim-Jewish relations

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain calls for better understanding between Muslim and Jewish communities: “… both communities are concerned that antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise. Some Jewish groups believe that anti-Jewish prejudice is being incited by Muslim extremists, while some Muslim groups believe that some Jewish columnists and editors have been deliberately trying to foster an anti-Muslim climate in the UK. Muslim communities must take more responsibility to ensure that criticism of Israel’s policies does not slide into casual antisemitism. The best way to encourage this is to ensure that grassroots ties prosper between our communities.”

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Muslim groups decry Quebec’s treatment of prison guard

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Quebec government is turning a blind eye to sensible alternatives by forcing a Muslim woman to choose between her hijab or prison guard training, say Muslim groups. Sondos Abdelatif, 19, was told that she would have to remove her hijab in order to continue with the training program at Montreal’s Bordeaux jail. She chose to withdraw from the program instead.

Quebec’s Public Security Department said the Muslim headwear could pose a threat to Abdelatif’s safety should prisoners get hostile. “As a security measure, the hijab cannot be accepted as an element of the uniform to execute the functions of a correctional officer,” department spokesman Real Roussy said Thursday.

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Defamed mosque secretary awarded damages

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A former staffer at a Sydney mosque has been awarded $125,000 in damages after being defamed by a newspaper report that claimed he was a supporter of terrorism.

Two articles and an editorial in News Limited’s The Australian newspaper in June 2003, claimed the then secretary of the Dee Why mosque, Romzi Ali, was involved with the terrorism linked group Laskar Jihad.

Handing down his judgment in the NSW Supreme Court today, Justice Bruce James said reading the articles had affected Mr Ali’s health and that he was “frightened, alarmed, shaken and broken”.

One article said Mr Ali was raising money for Laskar Jihad operations in 2000, adding that he had denied the claims.

In the defamation case against Nationwide News in 2005, a jury found the article contained meanings that Mr Ali was a supporter of terrorism and “that he has raised money for the operations of Laskar Jihad, an organisation which does not worry about doing killing in pursuit of its political objections”.

Justice James said the meanings were “serious” and had even caused Mr Ali to think about leaving Australia.

AAP, 15 March 2007

Think-tank says Muslims in Germany facing social discrimination

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Germany’s leaders should concentrate on the practical problems that undermine social cohesion – political alienation, over-zealous policing and economic inequality – and avoid the temptation to score domestic political points with hardline rhetoric about Turkish and other Muslim immigration, recommends the Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG).

In its latest report titled ‘Islam and Identity in Germany’, the ICG explores issues that must be addressed effectively if the integration of Muslim immigrants and the country’s native-born, necessary to ensure social cohesion and political stability, is to be achieved. “The fundamental problems of Turkish Germans and other Muslims are rooted in disenfranchisement, social discrimination and the lack of economic and political integration, not religion,” notes the report.

“Germany has accepted its status as a country of immigration and is now struggling to define what kind,” says Jonathan Laurence, ICG consultant. “However, the view that integration and the demonstration of `German-ness’ should precede naturalization remains a formidable brake on the process.”

The report says the proposed use of demanding naturalization questionnaires requiring applicants to agree with current German public opinion on certain questions leads the authorities to stigmatize as inherently “un-German” immigrant opinion that subscribes to entirely non-violent varieties of Islamist thinking.

IRNA, 15 March 2007

See also ICG press release, 14 March 2007

Israeli ‘expert’ on Islam draws sell-out audiences in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Raphael Israeli (2)Controversial Islam expert Professor Raphael Israeli has delivered two sell-out lectures in Melbourne – but avoided the question of whether his grim warnings about Muslim population growth in Europe also applied to Australia.

Professor Israeli, a Hebrew University academic with more than 20 books to his name, told more than 360 people on Sunday night that Islam was at odds with the fundamental pillars that support a democracy.

In a talk sponsored by Issues of Concern for Justice and Society (ICJS), he said a clash between the Koran and democratic principles was inevitable because of Islam’s rigid adherence to shari’a law. Earlier, he told a separate audience of about 350 people that Turkey’s possible entry into the European Union (EU) could cause a major headache for Europe, effectively doubling the EU’s Muslim population.

The two talks proceeded despite a major controversy over Professor Israeli’s visit, triggered when the visiting academic told the AJN he believed the Australian Government should place a cap on Muslim immigrants.

One of the primary sponsors of the trip, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, withdrew its support following a storm of protest over the comments. But the State Zionist Council of Victoria (SZCV) and the Australian Friends of the Hebrew University continued to back the scholar, as did the Shalom Institute at the University of NSW, which initially brought the academic to Australia as a scholar-in-residence.

Members of Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror protested the SZCV’s support of Professor Israeli last Wednesday night, handing out flyers critical of his remarks and the council’s decision to give them voice.

“As an affiliate of the SZCV, we express our deepest disappointment at the council’s decision to co-sponsor this event,” the flyer said. “The suggestion that Australia should cap Muslim immigration to our country is racist and an allegation that we find deeply offensive and counterproductive.”

Australian Jewish News, 15 March 2007