Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

US senator rejects Bush’s ‘Islamic fascists’ slur

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called on President Bush to refrain from using the phrase “Islamic fascists,” saying it was offensive to Muslims and has nothing to do with terrorists fighting the United States.”We must avoid using misleading and offensive terms that link Islam with those who subvert this great religion or who distort its teachings to justify terrorist activities,” Feingold said Tuesday in a speech to the Arab American Institute on Capitol Hill.

The Wisconsin senator, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, said the label “Islamic fascists” makes no sense and doesn’t help the U.S. effort to combat terrorism. “Fascist ideology doesn’t have anything to do with the way global terrorist networks think or operate, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world who practice the peaceful teachings of Islam,” Feingold said.

Associated Press, 12 September 2006

Stand by for a denunciation at Dhimmi Watch.

Attacks on multicultural Britain pave the way for enforced assimilation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Now, after 7/7, despite the discovery that the suicide bombers were homegrown and wholly British, the thinking in the UK is to embrace the backward and undoubtedly Islamophobic discourse issuing from mainland Europe. Cultural pluralism has gone too far; it threatens our values and our national safety. A line has to be drawn on difference. Ethnic minorities have now, in the domestic context of the war on terror, effectively to subsume their cultural heritage within Britishness.

“Going against the grain of its history, the UK has taken a leaf out of Europe’s monoculturalist book and descended into nativism – conflating multiculturalism with culturalism and ethnicism, assimilation with integration, and extolling British values to the exclusion of all others – foreshadowing a monolithic society and a centralised state.”

A. Sivanandan in the Guardian, 13 September 2006

An interesting article, though some might question his negative view of ’80s multiculturalism. But the last bit hits the nail on the head.

Workers’ Liberty rejects MCB-TUC alliance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

You might have thought that the TUC/MCB joint statement opposing Islamophobia and encouraging Muslim workers to join trade unions would be welcomed by all anti-racists as a progressive alliance between the labour movement and an oppressed minority community. But apparently not. Over at the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Janine Booth complains: “the statement was a liberal mush through which the MCB gets itself a new ally and the TUC promotes a religious organisation with an anti-gay stance.”

AWL website, 12 September 2006

5 years on, US Muslims decry prejudice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Five years after the terrorist 9/11 attacks, many American Muslims complain they continue to face discrimination and stereotyping because of their Islamic attires or identities, while others blame the problem on the misconception of Islam and urge fellow Muslims to work hard to reflect the right picture of their faith.

“The prejudice against Muslims is widespread since 9/11,” Dr. Siraj Islam Mufti, a retired faculty from the University of Arizona and a retired chaplain from the US Department of Justice told IslamOnline.net. “Some advocate profiling based on ethnicity, religion and even identification cards. As a result, there is an increase in a variety of hate crimes committed against Muslims,” added Mufti, now a Contractor to the Federal Correctional Institutions as Imam and a contract Imam with the Corrections Corporation of America in Arizona.

“I experienced some difficult moments of racial profiles,” insists hijab-clad Iman Hadi, remembering she faced her worst experience at the JFK airport in her way back from Egypt. “We were singled out and were detained for about 6 hours for no reason,” she complained. “They took us to a room where I found tens of Arabs and Muslims, even Egypt Air’s pilots were waiting there. They asked us several questions and treated us in a very aggressive way. And the officer was very rude and was trying to humiliate us.”

For Hadi, this was the moment when she felt stranger and unsafe in her own country where she lived for more than 20 years.

Islam Online, 12 September 2006

Martin Amis: aimless and confused

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“As well as neglecting the impact of the Iraq war and delivering a tendentious account of Qutb’s radicalisation, Amis also indulges in a display of casual prejudice: ‘No doubt the impulse towards rational inquiry is by now very weak in the rank and file of the Muslim male’. No doubt.”

Inayat Bunglawala replies to Martin Amis’s piece in last Sunday’s Observer.

Guardian Comment is Free, 12 September 2006

Protestors hang Bin Laden effigy outside US mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bin Laden effigy hangedActivists hanged an effigy of Osama Bin Laden across the street from a Southern California mosque Sunday to protest radical Islam on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

With a crowd of about 100 people shouting “Remember 9-11!” and “No more Jihad!” two men on the back of a pickup truck slipped a noose around the neck of a dummy wearing a Bin Laden mask and strung it up, while the crowd pelted the effigy with shoes.

The protest was organized by the United American Committee, a group that says it promotes awareness of internal threats facing America.

About 70 counter-protesters described the King Fahd Mosque as a peaceful center for area Muslims and yelled “racists go home!” during the ritual. A group of clergy joined hands with some of the mosque’s worshippers and stood in a circle in front of the mosque.

“I think it’s crazy,” said mosque spokesman Usman Madha. “We have never encouraged extremism. We were the first mosque that condemned the Sept.11 atrocities and we kicked out a few people that protested that condemnation.”

In 2003, Jewish Defense League activist Earl Krugel pleaded guilty to conspiring to bomb the mosque along with the office of San Diego congressman Darrell Issa.

Associated Press, 10 September 2006

Robert Spencer can’t understand why supporters of the mosque should object: “… why is it that when the United American Committee hanged Osama in effigy, the members of the King Fahd mosque didn’t eagerly join in, happy for the chance to show that they’re patriotic Americans who are outraged at what bin Laden and his ilk have done to their faith? Why instead did they mount counter-protests crying racism?”

Jihad Watch, 11 September 2006

For photos of the protest and counter-protest, see LA Indymedia, 10 September 2006

Culver City anti-racists

Radical Islam’s War With the West? Or Radical Judaism’s War With Islam?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sheila Musaji reports on the showing of an Islamophobic “documentary”, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War With the West , by the Orthodox Jewish outreach and educational organisation Aish HaTorah in St Louis.

“Over 1,000 people (including children) attended the screening, among them was our little group of 6 Muslims. Fortunately, we sat together because as the evening progressed we drew comfort from each others presence. The audience seemed to be primarily Jewish, but with a large Christian contingent also. The film was a classic propaganda piece – in its 1 hour and 17 minutes, except for a disclaimer that this was not meant to be about all Muslims, the balance of the film was relentless in its depiction of issues, political movements, individuals, and positions as connected to the religion of Islam….

“Bigotry and hatred can be found in all communities – for every photograph or speech in this film another could be shown just as virulent from another community, e.g. American protestors burning the American flag, Jewish Israeli children signing missiles with love, photos of Christian clergy with Hitler, Hitler’s statements about Christianity, Nazi insignia with Christian symbols, statements by Meir Kahane or other Jewish Defense League members, or by Christian white supremacist clergy, Jewish Israelis having a party to celebrate the Hebron massacre. Statements by extremist rabbis that during time of war the enemy has no innocents, or that call for the extermination of the enemy. Signs in a U.S. shop window calling Palestinians pigs and cockroaches. The list is long, and the effort to demonize each other pointless….

“Two weeks after the event we are still experiencing physical and emotional distress primarily due to the positive reaction of the audience – including applause and standing ovations, and to some of the hateful comments we overheard from individuals sitting around us. The fact that some of us saw people we knew, who saw us and said nothing and avoided eye contact was very disturbing….

“Aish HaTorah, the producers of this film say that their objective as an organization is to revitalize the Jewish people by providing opportunities for Jews of all backgrounds to discover their Jewish heritage in an atmosphere of open inquiry and mutual respect…. Can one people be ‘revitalized’ by the demonization of another?”

The American Muslim, 11 September 2006

Californians asked to repudiate mayor’s anti-Muslim remarks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV) has called on Californians to repudiate remarks insulting to Muslims made by a mayor in the northern part of that state.

CAIR-SV said that Redding, Calif., Mayor Ken Murray claimed Shia Muslims “believe it’s acceptable to lie, cheat, steal and kill as long as it ultimately glorifies Allah.”

“Folks, they’re not like us,” said Murray.

When asked about his offensive remarks, Murray drew a distinction between “mainstream” and Shia Muslims, who he called “wing nuts.”

“Either the Judeo-Christian philosophy will survive or the Islamic philosophy will survive,” said Murray.

“The unthinking bigotry and ignorance of such remarks are unworthy of an American public official and should be repudiated by all those who seek tolerance and mutual understanding,” said CAIR-SV Executive Director Basim Elkarra.

CAIR news release, 11 September 2006

Islam Online interviews Dr Bari

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dr BariThe Blair government is marginalizing the major Muslim organizations in Britain for the sake of unrepresentative bodies and individuals and its domestic and foreign policies risk radicalize more Muslims, which harms the British social harmony and peace, said the Secretary General of the Muslim umbrella group in Britain.

“The government is marginalizing major Muslim organizations, including the MCB, and it seems that new organizations are being brought up in the house of parliament where they don’t have any base,” Muhammad Abdul Bari told IslamOnline.net in an exclusive interview. “It is a perception in the community that they [the government] are trying to divide the community along sectarian lines – that is the perception I have heard in different places.”

He said the government is now reaching out to obscure Islamic organizations and shunning the representative one. “So the government now is talking to something called Sufi Muslim Council founded a month ago,” Abdul Bari said.

The MCB leader, who has a PhD and a PGCE from King’s College London and a management degree from the Open University, said it seems that the government wants to talk to people who “simply listen to them and who do not criticize.”

Islam Online, 11 September 2006