Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Canadian town tells migrants: you can’t kill women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HerouxvilleImmigrants wishing to live in the small Canadian town of Herouxville, Quebec, must not stone women to death in public, burn them alive or throw acid on them, according to an extraordinary set of rules released by the local council.

The declaration, published on the town’s Web site, has deepened tensions in the predominantly French-speaking province over how tolerant Quebecers should be toward the customs and traditions of immigrants.

“We wish to inform these new arrivals that the way of life which they abandoned when they left their countries of origin cannot be recreated here,” said the declaration. “Therefore we consider it completely outside these norms to … kill women by stoning them in public, burning them alive, burning them with acid, circumcising them etc.”

Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, said the declaration had “set the clock back for decades” as far as race relations were concerned. “I was shocked and insulted to see these kinds of false stereotypes and ignorance about Islam and our religion … in a public document written by people in authority who discriminate openly,” he told Reuters.

Reuters, 30 January 2007

See also BBC News, 31 January 2007

Cameron fails to understand threat of fascist BNP to British society

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UAF_logoAnti-fascist campaigners have criticised David Cameron’s attack on the Muslim community organisations, which he compared to the BNP. Weyman Bennett, Joint Secretary of UAF said:

“The BNP represent the real threat to community cohesion, with their racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic politics. The BNP whips up racist hatred and division for electoral gain, leading to attacks on all minority communities in areas they target.

“It is deeply offensive to liken the BNP to minority community organisations, particularly to Muslim groups who are the prime target of the BNP’s racism. Muslim communities experience racism and discrimination at all levels of society. They are being vilified and targeted daily.

“Mainstream parties have a responsibility not to provide succour to fascists: today, the BNP welcomes David Cameron’s comments on its website as a ‘propaganda victory’ for them and takes the opportunity to spread further Islamophobic bile against Muslim communities. Attacking multiculturalism is pandering to the BNP.”

Unite Against Fascism news report, 30 January 2007

Cameron’s speech misses the point, says British Muslim Initiative

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The BMI is deeply concerned with Conservative party’s and its leader David Cameron’s renewed attack on Muslim organisations and on Multiculturalism. It is their attack on Multiculturalism and freedom of religion that will divide Britain and weaken national cohesion. In stating that those who call for considering the religious duties of Muslims, as others, within the law are trying to divide the community, Mr Cameron is being both obtuse, ignorant and over simplifying the issue.

“Muslims, as is the case with their religious groups and minorities, have certain religious practices that should be upheld in the interests of respecting freedom of religion. These practises are not against the law. Mr Cameron failed, for example, to criticise the Jewish organisations over its imposition of Judaic laws and practices within their communities, while denying the exact same rights to Muslims by suggesting they divide Britain ,” stated Ihtisham Hibatullah of the BMI.

Mr Cameron has failed to correctly identify those individuals who preach hatred, violence and divisions within all communities while instead has chosen to attack mainstream Muslim organisations. His speech and announced polices have only one meaning: he is not keen to deal with the core issues or to build bridges with all communities, that is why he is not trustworthy not only by British Muslims but by all.

British Muslim Initiative press release, 30 January 2007

The point about Judaic laws and practices is well made. The Tory Party report Uniting the Country (pdf here), which Cameron launched, refers to the alleged danger posed by reformist Islamists who are “prepared to use democratic freedoms” in order to establish “a parallel system … of religiously derived law”. They are condemned for pursuing “goals which are destructive of a tolerant and liberal democracy”. Yet I don’t recall the Tory Party denouncing the Jewish community as a threat to western liberal values when the United Synagogue successfully lobbied for an Eruv in Golders Green. If they had, they would have been accused, quite rightly, of pandering to anti-semitism.

Tories set sights on ‘separatist’ British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Conservatives will today accuse Islamic groups including the high-profile, mainstream Muslim Council of Britain of promoting separation and ignoring the wishes of the people they represent.

A report by the party’s policy group on national and international security will tear into the MCB as part of a generalised attack on the concept of multiculturalism, which it says has divided people rather than simply respecting their differences. The report will underline comments made by the party’s leader, David Cameron, who warned yesterday that separatist Muslims who promote sharia law and demand special treatment for their faith are the “mirror image” of the British National party.

In an attack on the MCB – which was until recently feted by government ministers – the report says: “Its hardline members tend to dominate policy and crowd out more moderate and varied voices. As a result the MCB’s claim to ‘foster good community relations and work for the good of society as a whole’ is hard to reconcile with some of the positions it has taken.”

Last night Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, the former diplomat who chairs the policy commission, said multiculturalism “has tended on the whole to emphasise differences between us rather than actually creating a framework in which difference flourishes”.

While stressing that the group was not singling out Muslims, she did criticise the MCB’s approach. “We would like it to say that they actually stand specifically and explicitly for integration,” she told BBC2’s Newsnight. But it “does not in our view take a sufficiently strong stand against that kind of view”. She attacked the MCB’s supportive references to the conservative Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

But on the same programme, Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary of the MCB, said Mr Qaradawi had spoken out against extremism. “In the report, in all its mentions of the Muslim Council of Britain, there’s no mention of any of the positive work we’ve done,” he said. “The MCB is proud to stand for integration. We want British Muslims to play their full role in all aspects of British society, we want obstacles to be removed.”

Guardian, 30 January 2007

For the MCB’s defence of multiculturalism see (pdf) here.

Blink trashes Policy Exchange report

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An opinion poll claiming to show that multiculturalism has driven Muslim youth to extremism dominated yesterday’s news headlines. But further investigation has shown the Policy Exchange report to be little more than a sham. The first warning signs were the refusal of the think tank to reveal their methodology and the questions they asked.

Closer analysis of the “Living Apart Together” report indicates a high level of spin in the conclusions. Experts say that far from being an “independent” think tank, Policy Exchange is actually a right-wing neo-Con leaning outfit, a reality that journalists failed to spot amid a blitz of media coverage yesterday.

While Policy Exchange claimed 13% of Muslims aged 16 to 24 years old supported Al Qaeda’s war against the West, The 1990 Trust’s survey showed just 1% of those surveyed supported the 7/7 bombings. Ruhul Tarafder, the lead author of the Trust’s report, said:

“Our questions and methodology is in our report for all to see, so there can be no spin. Whereas The 1990 Trust report received little press attention, it is worrying that the media have leapt upon the Policy Exchange report despite so many doubts about the organisation and its findings.

‘When the Policy Exchange claim that 37% of Muslims between 16 and 24 support sharia law, I ask: why is the meaning of sharia not explained in their report? Like the word Jihad, it has a much wider meaning than the Western stereotypes. And did they try to find out the level of understanding about sharia from the people they interviewed? I suspect not.

“This is a deeply flawed report, tailored to fit a right-wing agenda, with its real conclusions hidden from public view.”

BLINK news report, 30 January 2007

Read the 1990 Trust’s survey Muslim views: foreign policy and its effects here.

Cameron: Radical Islam is mirror-image of neo-Nazis

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cameron - Radical IslamDavid Cameron today attacked radical Muslims as “the mirror image” of the neo-Nazi British National Party. He used a keynote speech on race and integration to signal plans for tough measures against extremists on both sides.

Attacking the BNP for preaching “pure hate”, he went on: “And those who seek a Sharia state, or special treatment and a separate law for British Muslims are, in many ways, the mirror image of the BNP.”

Speaking this afternoon at the New Testament Church of God in Handsworth, Birmingham, Mr Cameron was set to say that many barriers to integration were the fault of politicians. Multiculturalism, he was due to say, was “manipulated” to separate communities rather than help them live together.

Evening Standard, 29 January 2007

See also BBC News, 29 January 2007

For the text of Cameron’s speech, see here.

For Osama Saeed’s comments see Rolled Up Trousers, 29 January 2007

The appalling Martin Bright declares his support for Cameron (“His comments on radical Islam being the mirror image of the BNP are spot on”) at the New Statesman, 29 January 2007

For the fascists’ response see BNP news article, 29 January 2007

‘Crusader’ Cameron puts his foot in it with Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David_CameronHapless Tory leader David Cameron put his upper-class foot in it with Britain’s Muslim population on Sunday when he declared a new “crusade for fairness.”

Mr Cameron attacked “clunking” government attempts to promote community cohesion, such as urging Muslim parents to spy on their children or encouraging people to fly the union flag on their lawns. “It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is being said. “We can’t bully people into feeling British – we have to inspire them,” he said.

He pledged to tackle the oppression of Muslim women who are prevented from going out to work or attending university. But, by invoking the language of the bloody Medieval crusades, he risked antagonising the very community that he was seeking to win over.

Muslim Association of Britain spokesman Osama Saeed said that Mr Cameron’s use of the word “crusade” was “extraordinarily sloppy” and warned that it risked undermining his central message.

“We do see prominent leaders in the West use this word. George Bush launched his ‘crusade’ against terrorism a few years ago and I do not understand their fixation with it. It is not a nice word and nice things do not happen on the back of crusades,” said Mr Saeed. “Whatever David Cameron’s message was today – and I agree with much of it – it will be lost amid words like this. It devalues his message.”

Morning Star, 29 January 2007

For further comments by Osama Saeed see Rolled Up Trousers, 29 January 2007

Obama-bashing a new low for Fox

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ObamaOn Jan. 19, Fox News’ morning show “Fox and Friends” took a turn for the worse when one of the most recent, inexcusable examples of yellow journalism and “Islamophobia” occurred by an attempted exploitation of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama’s childhood.

Obama, a converted Christian, was smeared as a potential covert anti-American terrorist with the announcement that Obama had attended an Islamic madrassa more than 35 years ago while living with his Muslim stepfather in Indonesia.

Madrassa literally means “school” in Arabic, but Fox took this news as if Obama is a potential threat to America’s security as a potential president while continually announcing that Obama’s middle name is Hussein.

“Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocy said the first thing they teach in madrassas is to “hate America” and said that Obama’s first 10 years of his life were spent in Indonesia hating America.

Daily Aztec, 25 January 2007

IHRC report reveals negative media stereotypes of Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Western movies from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to “Aladdin” promote negative stereotypes of Muslims by casting them all too often as villains, a British Muslim pressure group said on Thursday.

“There is no such thing as a Muslim good guy,” said Arzu Merali, co-author of a report by the Islamic Human Rights Commission that argued that movies played a crucial role in fostering a crude and exaggerated image.

The commission’s study, based on soundings taken from almost 1,250 British Muslims, also found that 62 percent felt the media was “Islamophobic” and 14 percent called it racist.

“Cinema, both in Hollywood and Britain, has helped to demonise Muslims. They are portrayed as violent and backward. That reinforces prejudices,” Merali told Reuters. “This stretches back before the 9/11 attacks in the United States,” said Merali, head of research at the campaigning body.

The report pointed the finger of blame as far back as the 1981 blockbuster “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in which “the cultural stereotypes and scenarios are patently obvious” as veiled women hurry through the bazaar to snake-charming music.

The 1998 film “The Siege” starring Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington was accused of reinforcing “the monolithic stereotype of the Arab/Palestinian/Muslim being violent and ready to be martyred for their cause.” Disney’s cartoon was criticized for describing Aladdin’s homeland as “barbaric.”

The report called for British film censors to be given greater power to cut out “objectionable material” and said media watchdogs in Britain should be more effective in ensuring “responsible coverage” of Muslims.

Reuters, 25 January 2007

See also Guardian, 25 January 2007 and IHRC press release, 25 January 2007