The Muslim Council of Britain’s new guidelines for schools can help pupils to feel fully and equally valued, argues Tahir Alam.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Muslim girl ejected from tournament for wearing hijab
Five young teams from across Canada walked out of a Quebec soccer tournament Sunday because a young Muslim girl was ejected for wearing a hijab.
Calling the rule banning the headscarf worn by Muslim women racist, four other teams followed Asmahan Mansour’s team, the Nepean Selects from Ottawa, after she was thrown out for running afoul of a Quebec Soccer Association rule.
“The tremendous support shown for the Muslim player is an indication that common sense and respect for religious differences are more powerful than arbitrary rules,” said CAIR-CAN Executive Director Karl Nickner.
CAIR news release, 26 February 2007
See also “Muslims decry soccer referee’s call on hijab”, Montreal Gazette, 27 February 2007
Ham & High editor defends BNP interview
Hampstead & Highgate Express editor Geoff Martin has defended his decision to publish a comment from the British National Party on its front page after coming under attack from Camden Council.
Deputy Labour leader at the council and former executive member for equalities and community development Theo Blackwell wrote a letter of complaint for publication in the paper after a member of the far-right party, Peter [sic] Edwards, was quoted on the front page opposing an ethnic majority school’s decision to serve Halal food.
In his letter, Blackwell said: “BNP leader Nick Griffin must have a grin as wide as a Cheshire cat that the views of his party are given prominence in Camden by the Ham & High.
“The serious investigation undertaken by The Guardian into BNP entryism in North London before Christmas seems to have passed you by, as does the fact that another article in your paper noted the rise of anti-semitism in the area. As a borough, Camden has a strong track record on community cohesion and we hope you will join us and so many others in questioning the BNP’s relevance in this matter.
“Your editorial decision to give the BNP prominence was wrong and we strongly urge you to revisit your policy as a matter of urgency.”
Blackwell told Press Gazette: “There was no quote from Labour, Conservatives or Liberal Democrats; that would have showed balance. The BNP has no relevance in Camden as it is not represented here.”
Preston teacher’s plea for veil
A woman embroiled in a bitter debate about wearing the niqab said the Muslim community has a duty to educate people about its use.
Ayshah Ismail, a teacher from Preston Muslims Girls School, took up wearing the niqab last year. She argued for the use of the veil during a public forum in the Gulf State of Qatar which branded the veil “a barrier to integration in the West”.
The 24-year-old, from Frenchwood, blamed the controversy on “ignorance and media hype”. She said: “I started wearing the veil a year ago because it was a natural progression of my faith from my understanding of Islam. I’m not imposing it on anyone. It was about taking a leap of faith for me.”
Ayshah, who was invited to go to Qatar after speaking out about the veil at Stop The War rallies, added:
“As for people who say the veil is a barrier to integration I go to the gym, I work, I drive, I pay taxes – what else can I do to integrate myself? We need to teach people more about the niqab and some of that duty lies with the Muslim community. It is about compromise. We are living together so how about helping each other understand what we’re about? We are lucky in Britain we can be diverse and celebrate our differences.”
The forum’s heated discussion, which will be broadcast by BBC World Service, revealed 57% per cent of the audience there thought the niqab hindered integration in the West.
The Doha Debate programme will be broadcast on Saturday March 10 at 12.10pm and 8.10pm and on Sunday March 11 at 1.10am, 8.10am and 5.10pm.
The myth of Muslim support for terror
Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria.
The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland’s prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that “bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians” are “never justified,” while 24 percent believe these attacks are “often or sometimes justified.”
Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world’s most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are “never justified”; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent.
Kenneth Ballen in the Christian Science Monitor, 23 February 2007
Robert Spencer is outraged: Jihad Watch, 25 February 2007
Met tried to ‘take out’ black officers
A senior Muslim policeman is to accuse several high-ranking officers at Scotland Yard of trying to “take out” members of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), in a book to be published next month.
It is understood that Ch Supt Ali Dizaei will claim that certain colleagues in the Metropolitan Police Force oversaw efforts to use an internal inquiry into claims that he had used drugs, visited prostitutes and taken bribes to incriminate his fellow members of the NBPA, a body established to protect the rights of black and Asian officers.
The book will suggest that some of the Met’s senior officers had been angered by NBPA claims that they had failed to embrace the recommendations of the Macpherson Report into the botched investigation of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
Hate crimes against mosques and Muslims
Video evidence of the rise in Islamophobia in the US.
John Gray in the Speccie
“When my copy of The Spectator arrived earlier this week, my heart sank to see the now rather hackneyed image of a niqabi woman’s eyes staring out from the front cover. ‘Oh no,’ I sighed. ‘It’s going to be an article against the veil. Again. However, the piece by John Gray, described by The Spectator as ‘Britain’s foremost political philosopher’ is actually quite good.”
David Conway is not impressed: Civitas Blog, 15 February 2007
Mum subjected to Islamophobic taunts in Hackney
A niqab wearing mum has claimed she was called a “Paki” and “terrorist” in front of her children during her routine school run.
Ruby Sandhu, a Muslim convert was driving in a quiet neighbourhood off Jenner Road in Hackney, East London, on February 7, when she was blocked off by a scaffolding truck. Realising she was late, Sandhu requested the driver move his vehicle, at which point the driver’s passenger got out of the truck and approached her car and demanded she got off her phone.
Sandhu relates to The Muslim News what happened: “I said to him, say ‘please.’” At the time she was on the phone to her friend, when the man demanded she, “Get off the f***ing phone.” Ruby shaken replied, “You racist” To which he replied, “You must be a right old ugly b****, or a smelly Paki. Is that why you wear a mask?”, referring to the niqab that Sandhu wears. Sandhu said she was shaking at that point.
After repeatedly accusing him of racism the accused told her to “stop blowing up, you’re good at blowing up, why don’t you go blow up somewhere else. You’re a terrorist.” Sandhu said what disturbed her most that it was, “done in front of my children. He didn’t care that my kids were in the car.”
Imposing Islamic law
“I saw something eerie this week. It wasn’t an apparition exactly, but rather a head-spinning blur of headlines about global jihad that, rather incredibly, began to take on the unmistakable shape of a British old school tie.
“How? Maybe I should start by explaining it was the old school tie that came to mind first in the form of a new publication on British education: namely, a 72-page manifesto (sorry, ‘guidance’) from the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) on how British state schools might better accommodate children from the Muslim community, which, according to the 2001 census, makes up 2.7 percent of the British population.
“Did I say ‘better’ accommodate their Muslim pupils? I mean, much, much better accommodate them. In fact, if the British were to adopt half of the MCB’s recommendations for making British schooling Muslim-friendly, they might as well re-issue the 19th-century boy’s school classic as Abdullah Brown’s School Days. At the crux of the Muslim council’s document is a call for special treatment for Britain’s Muslim students that is so special as to reorient the entire British system according to Islamic law….
“And what does all of this have to do with that blur of jihad stories mentioned at the top of the column? First, consider the headlines. In Pakistan, a liberal-minded minister (and wife and mother of two) was assassinated for not wearing a veil. (The shooter reportedly said, ‘I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah’s commandment’.) Also in Pakistan, barbers received threatening letters warning them against continuing their ‘anti-sharia work’ cutting customers’ beards. (One barber told the Associated Press that two dozen barbers have responded by asking customers not to request shaves.) In London, a Muslim father killed his wife and four daughters (ages 16, 13, 10, and 3) because, according to the Telegraph, ‘he could not bear them adopting a more westernised lifestyle’.
“What is quite eerie about these horrific crimes is the striking fact that the perpetrators, who acted to avenge various infractions of Islamic law, would likely feel right at home in a British state school that had adopted the Muslim Council of Britain’s recommendations. In other words, the outlaws and the advocacy group are working in their different ways to enact Islamic law. Which should teach us all a lesson – if we bothered to learn it.”
Diana West in the Washington Times, 23 February 2007
For further comment on the MCB report, see Rolled Up Trousers and Indigo Jo Blogs.