Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Uri Avnery on Pope’s speech

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Uri Avnery (2)Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery replies to Pope Benedict:

“The story about ‘spreading the faith by the sword’ is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims – the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

“Why did he utter these words in public? And why now? There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of ‘Islamofascism’ and the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ – when ‘terrorism’ has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush’s handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world’s oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers’ expedition becomes a Crusade. The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?”

Gush Shalom, 23 September 2006  Also on IkhwanWeb.com, 25 September 2006

The real Oriana Fallaci

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Fallaci seemed most concerned in her last days not to have her view of Florence marred by a minaret, as if that were as good a reason as any to unleash the dogs of war. In sum, it was otherness that revolted her. She admitted to hating Mexican immigrants in America as much as Muslims in Europe. Homosexuals were another bugbear. So were Jews. More grotesque supporters joined her new crusade. On her death September 15, unconditional praise for Fallaci came from La Padania, the organ of the hate-mongers of the xenophobic Northern League. Their language – just as hers in the end – resembled nothing so much as that of the Fascist rabble-rousers the girl Oriana went to war against in the 1940s.”

Peter Byrne at Swans.com, 25 September 2006

‘A closed door’ – US government continues to deny Tariq Ramadan a visa

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ramadan 5Tariq Ramadan outlines the latest developments in his appeal against the US government’s 2004 decision to deny him a visa:

“On September 21, 2006, after two years of waiting, an explanation at last arrived. The letter I received from the American embassy, though it refuses my visa application, puts an end to the rumours and baseless allegations that have circulated since my original visa was revoked. After two years of investigation, the State Department cites no evidence of ‘suspicious relationships’, of meetings with terrorists, of encouraging or advocating terrorism, or of so-called ‘doublespeak’. Instead, the State Department cites my having donated about 600 Euros to two humanitarian organizations (in fact a French organisation and its Swiss chapter) serving the Palestinian people.

“I should note that this was not something that the State Department’s investigation revealed. To the contrary, as the State Department acknowledges, it was I myself who brought these donations to the State Department’s attention. The U.S. government apparently believes that the organizations to which I gave small amounts of money have in turn given money to Hamas. But the organizations to which I donated are not deemed suspect in Europe, where I live. I donated to these organizations for the same reason that countless Europeans – and Americans, for that matter – donate to Palestinian causes: not to provide funding for terrorism, but because I wanted to provide humanitarian aid to people who are desperately in need of it.

“After two years of intense investigation, this is the explanation offered for the denial of my visa. I am of course disappointed in the government’s decision. At the same, time, however, I am glad that the State Department has abandoned its allegation that I endorse terrorism. While the State Department has found a new reason to deny my visa application, I think it clear from the history of this case that the U.S. government’s real fear is of my ideas. I am excluded not because the government truly believes me to be a national security threat but because of my criticisms of American foreign policies in the Middle East; because of my opposition to the invasion of Iraq; and because of my criticism of some of the Bush administration’s policies with respect to civil liberties. I am saddened to be excluded from the United States. I am saddened, too, however, that the United States government has become afraid of ideas and that it reacts to its critics not by engaging them but by suppressing, stigmatizing, and excluding them.”

Tariq Ramadan’s website, 25 September 2006

Disgraceful though it is, the US government’s decision does at least demolish Daniel Pipes’ slanders against Professor Ramadan.

For a recent interview with Tariq Ramadan, see Islam Online, 12 September 2006

Stations say ‘jihad’ car ads go too far

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Some Columbus radio stations have rejected as insensitive an advertisement for a car dealership that invokes Islamic references. The general manager of the dealership, though, says the promotions – which he called “tongue-in-cheek” – will air on some stations beginning next week.

In the spot, Keith Dennis of Dennis Mitsubishi talks about “launching a jihad on the automotive market.” Sales representatives “will be wearing burqas all weekend long,” the ad says. One of the vehicles on sale “can comfortably seat up to 12 jihadists in the back.”

“Our prices are lower than the evildoers’ every day. Just ask the pope!” the ad says. “Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber swords for the kiddies.”

Jeff Wilson, general manager of Radio One stations WCKX (107.5 FM), WJYD (106.3 FM) and WXMG (98.9 FM), doesn’t intend to air the spot. “We won’t play that,” Wilson said. “With no disrespect to their creativity or their desire to build business, everything we’re about is promoting the values of diversity. To air things of that sort would go against our mission statement.”

Representatives of WSNY (94.7 FM), WBNS (97.1 FM), WWCD (101.1 FM), WJZA/WJZK (103.5/104.3 FM), and WODB (107.9 FM) also said they won’t air the ad.

But Aaron Masterson, general manager of Dennis Auto Point, which writes and produces its own commercials, promised that the commercial will air. “It starts next Friday morning,” Masterson said. “As far as I can see, the top 10 stations – minimum – in the market. We made it very clear we wanted market saturation to get the point across.”

Columbus Dispatch, 23 September 2006

Congressional report stitches up US Muslim community

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marc LynchThe House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has released a new report, “Al-Qaeda: The Many Faces of an Islamist Extremist Threat”. Marc Lynch is less than impressed:

“Some of the sourcing is hilarious. You’d think that the House Intelligence Committee could do a better job of sourcing a translation of a major statement by Osama bin Laden than the website jihadunspun (footnote 5), wouldn’t you? But there’s one place where the report does go a bit farther: on the alleged threat of homegrown American Muslim extremism. I’d go so far as to say that the lazily produced padding about al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiya, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (!), and even Iraq, was just thrown together as a vehicle to deliver a set of rather extreme views about the threat posed by the American Muslim community…. The whole narrative thrust of the report hypes the threat of homegrown terrorism and the need for more intense scrutiny of the American Muslim community.”

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‘Fury as BBC gives preacher of hate a platform’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abu IzzadeenThe Daily Mail reports: “The BBC sparked fury today for giving prime-time exposure to a known Islamic extremist. Abu Izzadeen appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme on the 8.10 slot normally reserved for ministers…. Listener Alan Newlands wrote saying: ‘I’m outraged by the amount of time you have given to this madman. I’m outraged by the insult to the Muslim community you perpetrated by allowing this man to appear to represent even a tiny minority.’ …  Dominic Grieve, shadow attorney general, said: ‘Abu Izzadeen is clearly a malevolent religious fanatic but he is certainly not representative of the Muslim community in Britain’.”

It’s not often I say this, but I agree with the Mail and Dominic Grieve. Muslims have repeatedly complained about the media coverage given to isolated lunatics like Abu Izzadeen and Anjem Choudary. Yusuf Smith recently commented:

“Until he sloped off to Lebanon, one of Omar Bakri’s ludicrous utterances after another were given front-page treatment by various newspapers and by the BBC, and other fringe figures were invited onto such shows as BBC Radio 4’s Today (particularly when Rod Liddle was in charge). These people are as significant as they are only because they are indulged by the media; their media profile is not matched by a similar standing in the community. The problem is that their demands are often seen by the public as ‘these Muslims’ demands’ when they are in fact the demands of a very small group.”

The neocons’ lexicon

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salim Muwakkil analyses the origins and meaning of the term “Islamofascism”:

“Many pundits trace the neologism to historian Malise Ruthven, who used it in a September 1990 article in the London Independent. But Ruthven used it to describe authoritarian Muslim states like Morocco, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Stephen Schwartz, the neocon author of Two Faces of Islam, insists that he is the first Westerner to use the term in the contemporary context.

“But the term gained its greatest currency in the lexicon of pro-war progressives Christopher Hitchens, Paul Berman and Ron Rosenbaum, to name three. They argued that the totalitarian aspirations of theocratic groups like al-Qaeda threatened the libertarian freedoms that are the legacy of the Enlightenment.

“These polemicists were less concerned (at least, originally) with the geo-strategic issues that preoccupied the administration’s neocon warmongers, so their arguments had some resonance on the secular left. After all, how could progressives oppose the theocratic agenda of the religious right within the United States and not reject similar developments elsewhere?

“In Hitchens’ last column for The Nation, he wrote ‘the theocratic and absolutist side in this war hopes to win it by exporting it here, which in turn means that we have no expectation of staying out of the war, and no right to be neutral in it’.

“By framing the war on terror as a struggle between the liberal soldiers of the Enlightenment and the dark forces of theocracy, these progressives gave cover to warmongers with rationales much less lofty. In fact, one of the major ironies is that their support has aligned them with right wing religious groups with their own theocratic agendas.”

In These Times, 21 September 2006

Muslims attack BBC for airing interview with extremist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The chief Muslim organisation in Britain has condemned the BBC for giving a well-known Islamic extremist who hijacked a speech by the Home Secretary a prime-time platform to air his views today.

The decision to interview Abu Izzadeen today during the key 8.10am slot on the agenda-setting Today programme was heavily criticised by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which described Abu Izzadeen as a “thug” and accused the BBC of deliberately trying to generate publicity.

“We have received phone call after phone call from moderate Muslims who are appalled that the Today programme gave such an utterly marginal figure this prime-time spot to spout his bile almost interrupted,” said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the MCB.

“There was no attempt to balance the interview or challenge his views by having a mainstream Muslim view featured. This really plays into the hands of those who think of Muslims as bigots. People are very upset about this misrepresentation of Islam.”

Times, 22 September 2006

Muslim schoolchildren ‘more liberal and tolerant’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim pupils are more liberal and tolerant than their white counterparts, according to a study released on Wednesday. Nearly a third of white youngsters questioned in Burnley, Lancashire believed that one race was superior, compared with 10% of Asians who thought the same. Almost half of the white pupils felt that respecting others regardless of religion was not important and a quarter did not feel it was important to tolerate people with different views.

More than 400 15-year-olds were surveyed about their attitudes towards race, religion and cultural integration earlier this year. The research was conducted by Lancaster University’s religious studies department. The pupils came from three unnamed non-religious schools, all in deprived areas. One in Burnley, attended mostly by white pupils, and two schools in Blackburn, where one had mostly Indian or Pakistani pupils and the other was ethnically mixed.

Study author Dr Andrew Holden said a “disturbing” finding of the survey was the response to the question of racial superiority. Nearly a third of the white pupils believed one race was superior compared with a tenth in the Asian school and under a fifth in the mixed school. Dr Holden said: “The greater degree of racial tolerance in an overwhelmingly Asian/Muslim populated school again calls into question the common sense assumption that mixed schools represent the most tolerant environments.”

TES, 20 September 2006

See also “Research reveals Muslim pupils more tolerant than non-Muslims”, Lancaster University news release, 20 September 2006

TV roles urged for women wearing hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim women wearing hijab, or headscarves, should be employed in front-line roles in the media, said a report published yesterday by Ruth Kelly, the minister for women. More women wearing hijab needed to be seen in the public eye, particularly on television, to encourage more Muslim women to put themselves forward, it said. Miss Kelly said the Government was giving priority to helping ethnic minority women to overcome discrimination at work and play a more prominent role in public life.

Daily Telegraph, 21 September 2006

Well, at least Ruth Kelly can get something right. Stand by for a spate of denunciations in the Torygraph’s letters column.

Our friend Giraldus Cambrensis provides an example of what to expect: “Ruth Kelly wants more hijabs on TV? Is she is an executive of a TV company? When Muslims comprise only 3% of the population, what do the other 97% of the population want on their telly? Hopefully her words will be treated as the vacuous inanities that they really are. What about the stamp-collectors in Britain? Why are they not represented on the television?”

Western Resistance, 21 September 2006