Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Contempt for our culture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslims are set to be the focus of political polarisation for years to come: every time under a new title, from terrorism, to integration, to faith schools, to the veil. This politically lucrative subject is favoured by politicians from the BNP to Blairites. Latest to join is the Conservative leader, David Cameron. Bar the warm words, his speech last week could have been delivered by a Howard or a Duncan Smith, betraying the same rigid notion of national identity, contempt for cultural pluralism and hostility to immigration.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi in the Guardian, 7 February 2007

Sarkozy defends Muhammad cartoons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French interior minister and presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has defended a weekly sued for printing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Two French Muslim groups are suing Charlie Hebdo magazine for defamation over the cartoons, printed a year ago. Mr Sarkozy noted he was often a target of the magazine but said he would prefer “too many caricatures to an absence of caricature”.

Mr Sarkozy’s letter drew concern from one of the Muslim groups behind the legal action. “He should remain neutral,” Abdullah Zekri of the Paris Grand Mosque was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. The official French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM) voiced anger at what it said was government interference and convened an emergency meeting.

Editor Philippe Val told the court the cartoons critiqued “ideas, not men”. Speaking at the opening of the hearing, Mr Val asked: “If we no longer have the right to laugh at terrorists, what arms are citizens left with? How is making fun of those who commit terrorist acts throwing oil on the fire?”

The illustrations originally appeared in the best-selling Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005 to accompany an editorial criticising self-censorship in the Danish media. One image shows the Prophet Muhammad carrying a lit bomb in the shape of a turban on his head decorated with the Islamic creed.

Muslim groups said Charlie Hebdo‘s decision to publish the cartoons “was part of a considered plan of provocation aimed against the Islamic community in its most intimate faith”. It was “born out of a simplistic Islamophobia as well as purely commercial interests”.

“This is an attack on Muslims,” UOIF President Lhaj Thami Breze told the court according to Reuters. “It is as if the Prophet taught terrorism to Muslims, and so all Muslims are terrorists.”

BBC News, 7 February 2007

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Flawed methodology behind Policy Research report

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In a letter to the Guardian, Tariq Modood and Ziauddin Sardar question the methodology behind the recent, much-publicised Policy Research report Living Apart Together. They point out:

“The Cabinet Office’s Equality, Diversity and Prejudice Survey 2006, produced by Professors Dominic Abrams and Diane Houston, confirms that out of all social groups Muslims are at a higher risk of stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination on all relevant markers. In this light, we would urge the media to act more responsibly in its dissemination of research on Muslims and Islam.”

The complete version of the Populus poll on which the Policy Exchange report was based is now available online, by the way.

A law unto themselves

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Welcome to Britain“The biggest press scandal of our time is not intrusion on royal privacy – which has just led to a reporter’s imprisonment – but the newspapers’ consistent and brazen disregard for the contempt laws. The police and the government, far from taking steps to apply those laws, have colluded in what amounts to a complete revision of British legal conventions. The Press Complaints Commission, always active in trying to protect the royals, has so far refused on this issue even to investigate.

“Take last week’s coverage of the alleged kidnap plans by Birmingham-based Muslims. ‘The execution plot: Terror gang planned to kidnap, torture and behead a soldier on our doorstep,’ announced the Sun. Just in case we wanted to know what an execution might look like, the front page showed the US hostage Nick Berg being executed in Iraq in 2004. The Times front page prominently quoted ‘a senior police source’, a ubiquitous and garrulous creature on these occasions: ‘This is Baghdad come to Birmingham … The soldier would have been filmed dressed up … like Kenneth Bigley.’ The Times duly printed a picture of Bigley, a Briton murdered in Iraq in 2004, in an orange jump suit.

“Under the sub judice laws, journalists are supposed, from the moment of arrest, to confine themselves to the barest details and to avoid publishing material which might prejudice a jury if the case came to trial. Judge for yourself whether the coverage fell within the laws.”

Peter Wilby in the Guardian, 5 February 2007

Via Indigo Jo Blogs

Bin Laden is the true representative of Islam, says Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yet another interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who states: “Bin Laden defined the world into Muslims and non-Muslims, and these had to either be converted or killed. I asked myself where I stood after I saw the pictures of people jumping out of the World Trade Center. As a Muslim I had to ask if I agreed with that. I was saddened to see Bin Laden’s citations were from the Koran and were consistent with the Islam I grew up with.”

She adds: “The 74 per cent of Muslims under 24 who said in a survey that women should wear the veil and want Sharia law to be introduced have gone for the consistency that Bin Laden offers.”

Asked if she sees any positive sides to Islam, she replies: “That’s like asking if I see positive sides to Nazism…”

Metro, 5 February 2007

For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 5 February 2007

Show British Muslims some respect, urges Roy Hattersley

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Roy Hattersley“… much of what is said and written about Muslim Britain carries a clear message. Live like us or risk being treated like pariahs….  was it necessary to spread the lurid stories about kidnapping, torture and beheading before it was clear that anyone would be accused of those abominations? The Muslim people of Birmingham, who are as horrified by such atrocities as residents in the home counties, did not regard the unattributable briefing as proof that the arrests were justified. They wrote them off as propaganda – propaganda against them. And, intended or not, it had the malign result of increasing the suspicion in which all Muslims are held.

“The way in which the police behaved in Birmingham last week won few, if any, recruits to the ranks of al-Qaida or its supporting cadres. But it did alienate a large number of basically decent young men who ought to be on the authorities’ side. The grandsons of immigrants – born and educated here – are not prepared to accept the slights of second-class status that their grandparents bore with fortitude. Convincing them that society wants Muslims to enjoy the full benefits of citizenship is not only a moral necessity. It is essential to the eventual triumph of the rule of law. All they need is a little respect. They received too little last week.”

Roy Hattersley in the Guardian, 5 February 2007

Anti-Muslim bigot goes into the oil biz

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terror Free Oil“The BBC reports that an outfit calling itself the ‘Terror Free Oil Initiative’ has set up a filling station in Omaha, Nebraska, touting oil not imported from countries which ‘support terror’ – meaning just about any Muslim country, in the Middle East or anywhere else. At the moment, they only use American and Canadian oil. (Clearly, they’re only talking about one sort of terror.) A few paragraphs into the report and we find out who their spokesman is: Joe Kaufman, the bigot behind ‘Americans Against Hate’, a group which dedicates itself to smearing Muslims and Muslim organisations.”

Indigo Jo Blogs, 3 February 2007