Inayat Bunglawala replies to the distorted reporting about “sharia courts” in the UK.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
The dehumanization of American Muslims
“Dehumanization is defined as a process by which members of a group of people assert the ‘inferiority’ of another group through subtle or overt acts or statements. Dehumanization may be directed by an organization or may be the composite of individual sentiments and actions.
“A coalition of anti-Muslim bigots have formed that sit at their computers full time seeking out news – no matter how vague – of bad Muslim behavior to demonstrate to their growing numbers of readers that all Muslims are irreparably evil…
“Their blogs are growing in readership. They are coming out with more and more best selling books smearing and slandering Islam and the Muslims, and are continuously invited back to major media outlets to promote their books and offer their ‘expertise’ on Islam.”
Tariq Nelson at The American Muslim, 11 December 2006
See also “Dennis Prager’s rant exposes raw hate”, by Ahmed Rehab of CAIR.
‘Tis the season to bash Muslims
Sunny Hundal responds to the spurious “Christmas is Banned” stories:
“Christmas is the perfect season for two things: re-runs and silly publicity stunts. Combine the two in media-land and what do you get? The annual slew of screaming ‘Christmas has been banned!’ headlines of course, which now resurface as regular as clockwork. Usually all ‘ethnics’ and their politically correct co-conspirators are blamed.
“This year, given the spotlight they have been placed under, it has almost universally been made into a Muslim issue. The farcical charade usually plays out as follows. A tabloid makes the outraged claim on its front page. Muslims complain they have nothing to do with it. ‘Oh yes you have’, say the press, pointing to the fictitious PC brigade apparently too scared to offend anyone with anything as scandalous as some tinsel and flashing lights.”
Welcome to Planet Blitcon
Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan dominate British literature – and they’re convinced that Islam threatens civilisation as we know it.
Ziauddin Sardar writes in the New Statesman, 11 December 2006
Over at Harry’s Place Marcus writes that Sardar’s piece “reminds me why I rarely bother reading that journal anymore”.
Successful anti-fascist demonstration in Dagenham
“It was a brilliant protest yesterday – well done to all who came along. We heavily outnumbered the racists – there were several hundred of us and about 50 of them. We should do this everytime they try to hold a public rally and show them they will not get away with this sort of hate-mongering.”
Just who do we think we are?
Peter Beaumont questions the self-congratulatory rhetoric about the superiority of British values. He writes: “This is a country where casual Islamophobia finds expression across the political divide, to a degree that even liberal intellectuals are unembarrassed to make remarks that you could not imagine being made about Jews or other races without a reaction of absolute horror.”
Anti-fascists to unite in battle against BNP in Dagenham
Anti-fascist campaigners and trade unionists called on the people of east London to mobilise against the racist British National Party’s (BNP) plans to hold a public demonstration in Dagenham on Saturday. Organised by Unite Against Facism (UAF), trade unionists, anti-fascists and anti-racist groups will assemble at 1pm at the Civic Centre in Dagenham.
In May this year, the BNP gained 12 seats on the Barking and Dagenham Council. It has whipped up racist lies against black, ethnic minority and immigrant communities in the area. This includes pushing the false claim that the area’s housing shortage is the fault of the local black community. In the last five years since the BNP has been targeting the borough, racist attacks have increased against black and ethnic minority people.
Dagenham Labour MP Jon Cruddas warned that the BNP was “seeking to divide us and we should resist them by joining together against a party based upon fascism and racism. I believe this counter-mobilisation is very important to show we represent the majority – our multicultural and multifaith society.”
University College Union (UCU) joint general secretary Paul Mackney vowed that his union would fight the BNP across Britain’s colleges and universities. “It is very disturbing to see that they now feel able to parade their racist poison in public spaces. UCU is fully behind this peaceful opposition to the BNP,” the staunch anti-racism campaigner added.
Morning Star, 8 December 2006
Further information on UAF website.
The phoney war on Christmas
“Luton council, we are told, has banned people from celebrating Christmas. Birmingham has renamed the season Winterval. A Reading man has been told to take his decorations down. There’s only one problem with the ‘PC campaign’ against Christmas – it’s pure nonsense.”
Oliver Burkeman demolishes the “Christmas is Banned” headlines, which have been used to stoke up hatred of Muslims and other minority ethnic communities.
None of which has prevented Jack Straw joining the spurious campaign against “politically correct nonsense” over Christmas. See Daily Mail, 8 December 2006
Bikini march sparks retort
Muslims, socialists, unions and other groups will conduct a counter-rally against bikini protesters who plan to march on a Brunswick mosque on Saturday. Police will monitor the demonstrations, with white supremacists claiming to have infiltrated bikini protest ranks, increasing the potential for confrontation.
Organisers of the “Great Australian Bikini March” had planned to march against the Michael St mosque last Saturday, anniversary of the Cronulla riots in NSW. Though the bikini march has been postponed until Australia Day next year, some supporters say they will still hold the rally on Saturday. The march has been promoted on white supremacist websites.
In response, the Islamic Information and Support Centre and the Socialist Party Australia are organising a barbecue and mosque open day for Saturday at the same time.
In defence of faith-based identity
An excellent piece by Madeleine Bunting arguing, against Amartya Sen, that the rise within minority communities of organisations based on faith rather than ethnicity is not the product of some top-down plot implemented by the government but has rather arisen as the result of bottom-up spontaneous self-organisation.