Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Earth calling Henry Porter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Henry PorterNot content with publishing Andrew Anthony’s paean to Ayaan Hirsi Ali (“Taking the fight to Islam”), today’s Observer gives over almost an entire page to a comment piece by Henry Porter, who complains – all evidence to the contrary – that Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary Undercover Mosque received little or no press coverage.

The reason for this, apparently, is that while the media are keen to criticise the Anglican Church, they are guilty of “tolerating intolerance” when it comes to the Muslim community. You really do wonder what planet Henry Porter lives on.

And yet again, we are offered a parallel between the BNP and sections of the Muslim community. It is the latter, and not the fascists, according to Porter, who pose “a very great threat to our whole community”. What a plonker.

For a reasoned – and admirably restrained – response to Porter by Osama Saeed of MAB, see Rolled Up Trousers, 4 February 2007

Tory lies fuel racism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Tory leader David Cameron has tried to cultivate an image of being a caring and socially liberal kind of guy. But he revealed his true colours with his remarks on multiculturalism, Muslims and immigration this week.

“Cameron began by attacking ‘Muslim extremists’, describing them as the ‘mirror image’ of the fascist British National Party (BNP). What he really means is that Muslims are the main enemy, not the Nazi BNP. This is borne out by the rest of Cameron’s speech, where he echoes the BNP’s racism, attacking multiculturalism as ‘divisive’ and scaremongering over ‘uncontrolled immigration’ – two favourite themes of the fascists.

“Tory think-tanks have also warmed to this theme, attacking young Muslims for becoming ‘politicised’.

“Politicians who pander to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment – whether Tory or New Labour – simply fuel the BNP by normalising its racist lies. Cameron’s concern for ‘community cohesion’ is a sham, and his words will lead to more division not less.”

Socialist Worker, 3 February 2007

Muslims are now getting the same treatment Jews had a century ago

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Migrants fleeing persecution and poverty settled with their children in the East End of London. As believers in one God they were devoted to their holy book, which contained strict religious laws, harsh penalties and gender inequality. Some of them established separate religious courts. The men wore dark clothes and had long beards; some women covered their hair. A royal commission warned of the grave dangers of self-segregation. Politicians said different religious dress was a sign of separation. Some migrants were members of extremist political groups. Others actively organised to overthrow the established western political order. Campaigners against the migrants carefully framed their arguments as objections to ‘alien extremists’ and not to a race or religion. A British cabinet minister said we were facing a clash about civilisation: this was about values; a battle between progress and ‘arrested development’. All this happened a hundred years ago to Jewish migrants seeking asylum in Britain.”

Maleiha Malik in the Guardian, 2 February 2007

Attacks on the MCB are unacceptable

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The attack on mainstream Muslim organisations this week in the wake of the document prepared for the Conservative party by Pauline Neville-Jones and the speech by David Cameron has been deeply damaging. Cameron’s speech equates the British National party with British Muslim organisations who want to separate Muslims from the mainstream. He did not name any groups directly. But his words and the Tory policy-review document combined have led to a maelstrom aimed at the Muslim Council of Britain, among others. On BBC News on Monday, for instance, Mark Easton reported: “Tonight the author of the report confirmed to me that they are likening the Muslim Council and the British National party.”

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Anger as papers reprint cartoons of Muhammad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Newspapers in France, Germany, Spain and Italy yesterday reprinted caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, escalating a row over freedom of expression which has caused protest across the Middle East. France Soir and Germany’s Die Welt published cartoons which first appeared in a Danish newspaper, although the French paper later apologised and apparently sacked its managing editor. The cartoons include one showing a bearded Muhammad with a bomb fizzing out of his turban.

Guardian, 2 February 2006

The Guardian includes an excerpt from an article in France Soir defending the decision to publish the cartoons, on the basis of exercising “freedom of expression in a secular country”. In this connection, the IRR website has an interesting article from the forthcoming issue of Race & Class which demolishes the rosy view of French secularism held by some people on the Left:

“Some of the roots of the recent unrest in France unquestionably lie in the country’s hysterical obsession with secularism and an associated state-sanctioned Islamophobia. The separation of religion and state is one of those valeurs républicaines (Republican values) which everyone has been referring to since ‘les émeutes‘. But secularism in France seems to be going horribly wrong. Indeed, la laïcité (secularism) seems to have become a form of fundamentalism itself which discriminates against the country’s Muslims. Numerous politicians and intellectuals claim that Islam, France’s second religion, is incompatible with les valeurs républicaines.”

The BNP have also published some of the cartoons on their site, assuring their followers that “we certainly will not be grovelling to anyone who cannot tolerate important western democratic values such as freedom of speech, freedom of expression and those who fail to appreciate a sense of humour”. Ah, the famed BNP sense of humour, manifested in waggish remarks about blowing up Bradford’s mosques with a rocket launcher.

BNP website, 2 February 2006

NUS black students officer defends mainstream Muslim organisations

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ruqayyah CollectorTory attacks on mainstream Muslim organisations are unfounded. Far from promoting separatism or sharia law, organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain have worked hard to engage the Muslim community with the British political process.

It is telling that while David Cameron attacked both multiculturalism and immigration as causes of division, he had nothing to say about the rising racism that British Muslims have to confront. In comparing Muslim organisations to the fascist British National Party he risks legitimising an organisation that really is committed to separation and division.

Misrepresenting Muslims in this way will do nothing to promote community cohesion or to tackle the terrorist threat.

Ruqayyah Collector NUS black students officer

Letter in the Guardian, 1 February 2007

See also the letter from Aliyyah Balson.

Madeleine Bunting on sharia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Madeleine Bunting (2)“In the last few days, sharia has been much in the news; David Cameron accused Muslim groups who promote sharia law of being the ‘mirror image’ of the British National party and a poll by the Policy Exchange thinktank, which showed that 40% of young Muslims wanted to live under sharia law, was widely reported.

“Just in case readers weren’t sure what sharia was, the Times gave a summary: ‘Sharia covers topics including marriage (allowing a man to have four wives, and stoning to death for adultery), criminal justice (hand amputation for theft) and religious affairs (death penalty for leaving Islam).’ Stoning, hand chopping: that just about sums up the widely held view of what sharia is all about.

“I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people refer to sharia in this way – as a barbaric ancient set of laws with horrific punishments. But such a definition would horrify many of the young Muslims who were polled. The problem about David Cameron and many, many others is that they have only a Taliban understanding of sharia.”

Comment is Free, 1 February 2007

Andrew Murray replies to Nick Cohen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Cohen’s central charge against the left, by which he in effect means the anti-war movement, is that we compromised our principles by demonstrating alongside people who are not liberals or socialists. This is buttressed by the creation of a spurious ‘Islamofascism’, which no one has yet defined satisfactorily, and no conceivable definition of which fits the many Muslims I have campaigned alongside. Its promiscuous use by the pro-war party in Britain amounts to little more than an attempt at political intimidation directed against an already racially oppressed minority…. In his demonology, all the baddies are of the the same faith. Any of you out there who were proud to march with hundreds of thousands of British Muslims in 2003 – you were fooled. In the world of Nick Cohen, they really want to stone you to death for adultery.”

Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop the War Coalition, responds to Nick Cohen’s new book What’s Left?

Comment is Free, 1 February 2007

Terror arrests anger community

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Al Qaeda Behind Plot

One day after the nine terror arrests in the Birmingham area, the local communities have been assessing the impact of the police operation. Some claim the arrests and the vast amount of media coverage are likely to cause lasting damage to community relations.

BBC News, 1 February 2007

See also Independent, 1 February 2007

And see also the piece by former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg, who points out that the sensationalist reporting of an alleged terror plot in Birmingham plays on popular prejudice – and puts any possibility of justice at risk.

Comment is Free, 1 February 2007