Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Minaret ban in Switzerland?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Projects to build minarets in several communities in German-speaking Switzerland have come up against strong opposition from local residents.

On Monday the Zurich cantonal parliament said it would look into banning the construction of minarets across the canton. The decision came after parliament accepted an initiative from the rightwing Swiss People’s Party calling for the canton’s planning laws to be altered to forbid minarets.

The move has been condemned by centre-left and centre-right parties as well as by a leading Muslim organisation in the canton.

The Swiss Federal Commission against Racism last week called for more tolerance towards Muslims. It called on local authorities to show greater flexibility over building and zoning restrictions to allow the construction of religious buildings and to “reduce populist pressures”.

Swissinfo, 5 September 2006

Molly case reveals hidden prejudice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Against the background of shame and anger at what’s being done in our name in Iraq, and the consequent reprisals, many of those who hoped against hope that the degree of difference in the Scots’ attitude to Islam, and Muslims who’ve chosen to live in Scotland, would withstand the pressures dividing communities in England. But the reaction to the story of Misbah Iram Ahmed Rana, or Molly Campbell to us, sweeps away much of our proud claim to be more tolerant and understanding than is often the case in many English cities. Probably quite unwittingly, a 12-year-old Asian Scot has shown many of us to be suspicious and mistrustful of Muslims.”

Margo MacDonald in the Scotsman, 6 September 2006

Virulent Islamophobia experienced among UK Muslim communities

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has completed a tour of the UK, during which it found a further rise in Islamophobia among the country’s Muslim communities. “One concern that was voiced repeatedly throughout the cities visited was the specter of a still virulent Islamophobia which was raising its head still higher in the wake of the alleged plane plot of recent weeks,” the MCB reported Wednesday.

The five-week tour covered 22 cities, traveling from Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland to Batley, Bradford, Burnley, Dewsbury, Leeds, Blackburn, Wakefield, Manchester and Newcastle in northern England. It also visited Muslim communities in Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Walsall and Wolverhampton in the Midlands, Bristol, Gloucester in the southwest, Cardiff in Wales and Brighton, Luton and London in the southeast.

“The Muslim community fully shares the need to deal firmly with any plot against national security but as partner-citizens and not as a ‘generic suspect’ to be administered mass medication or collective punishment,” said MCB Secretary General Abdul Bari.

Bari said the tour was a welcome opportunity to listen to British Muslims from many different backgrounds all across the country speaking about their aspirations and concerns. He said that he was also delighted that following discussions many additional organizations have now agreed to affiliate to the MCB, which already embraces over 400 national and local Muslim organizations, charities, mosques and schools.

The MCB, which has been under criticizing from both politicians and the media to help the government counter-terrorism concerns, said that it would be producing a report about the tour to its Central Working Committee this month to consider recommendations.

IRNA, 6 September 2006

‘The State is saying that all Muslims are complicit in acts of terrorism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

imran khan with neville lawrenceImran Khan, lawyer for Stephen Lawrence’s family, speaks to the Independent Lawyer journal:

“The police and the Government are saying that all Muslims – and this generality is clear in some quarters – are all complicit in acts of terrorism either by not condemning or not revealing those who do it, or you’re planning it. In some way, you’re all complicit…. Senior government ministers simply don’t accept when I tell them what’s happening in Bradford, Leeds and elsewhere. When they talk about Muslims and terrorism, they don’t understand what impact that has. As one minister said, it is those communities committing those acts, so they’ve got to expect to be stopped and searched disproportionately. That sort of statement produces a self-defence mechanism. At meetings in Bradford, two or three hundred people are absolutely petrified. They don’t know what they can speak about, what they can publish, what sermons they can give at mosques. It gives comfort to white racists who want to attack them. I draw a parallel with Lawrence. Those who killed him did so in an environment where they knew they could get away with it. That’s what happening in the Muslim community.”

Times, 5 September 2006

The bigger cultural picture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Soumayya Ghannoushi“Is there anything inherently wrong in placing multiculturalism under the spotlight to critically examine it and assess its ills and virtues? The obvious answer is no. The problem is not with the question itself, but with its context, assumptions and terms.

“The current debate about multiculturalism takes place in the wrong context: terrorism. Like the non-heroes in Kafka’s tragic plots, who find themselves embroiled in situations in which they had no hand, multiculturalism has been dragged into the discussion of terrorism. It does not belong there.

“Those who have forced the subject into discussion start with a false diagnosis of the problem of terrorism. For example, that the problem is not political, but cultural. That policies and strategies are blameless. That culture and religion are culpable.

“The conclusion of this ostrich-like analysis is that the cultural pit must be drained if we are to get rid of the troublesome mosquitoes. Cultural diversity is at fault. It has allowed Muslims to continue behaving like Muslims.

“The now ubiquitous question about multiculturalism is, in reality, a question about Islam and Muslims. For ‘Has multiculturalism failed?’ read: ‘what is to be done about Muslims?’. The ‘multiculturalism problem’ is, in other words, a euphemism for ‘the Muslim problem’.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, 5 September 2006

Media stereotyping in the ‘Molly Campbell’ case

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Misbah and fatherMolly’s case holds lessons for us all

By Sarfraz Manzoor

Guardian, 4 September 2006

When the news first broke that a 13 year old girl called Molly Campbell – also known as Misbah Iram Ahmed Rana – had been “abducted” by her Pakistani father and taken to Lahore the media appeared certain what kind of story this was: a vulnerable Asian girl is plucked from her Scottish home and forced into an arranged marriage.

The Independent quoted Molly’s grandmother claiming the schoolgirl had been taken to Pakistan and forced to marry a 25 year old man. Meanwhile, in the Times, Mary Ann Sieghart was bemoaning how “even the Outer Hebrides failed to provide sanctuary for Molly Campbell against a father determined to take her off to Pakistan”. Fellow columnist Camilla Cavendish waded in, noting that Molly’s “abduction” raises “fundamental issues of equality that cannot be swept under the carpet to protect ‘cultural sensitivities’.”

Cavendish was right that the alleged abduction raised fundamental issues, but wrong about everything else. On Friday afternoon Molly appeared on television with her father to announce she had left Scotland of her own free will and that she wanted to stay in Pakistan because she wanted to remain with her father. When the reporters continued referring to her as Molly she told them: “My name isn’t Molly, it’s Misbah.”

What I find particularly powerful about the case of Molly/Misbah is that it illustrates the dangers of racial profiling as practised by some of the media. No sooner had the story emerged than the news editors were preparing special reports on abductions and child brides, and the white middle-class columnists were busy revealing their lack of insight.

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US Muslims see a growing media bias

Posted on by Bob Pitt

On a typical workday, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations talks to a dozen or so print and broadcast reporters.

“The vast majority does a pretty good job and they need to be congratulated,” he said.

It’s another story when Hooper watches cable TV commentators, listens to talk radio or surfs hundreds of anti-Islamic Web sites. “The level of anti-Muslim rhetoric is growing in quantum leaps since 9/11,” he said.

Hooper and other experts addressed “Islamaphobia” in the media during a panel discussion Sunday at the Islamic Society of North America’s annual convention at the Donald E. Stevens Convention Center in Rosemont.

Web sites are especially virulent, Hooper said. Consider these comments recently posted on the blog of Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

• “If I happen to wax hateful and angry from time to time when it comes to the subject of Islam, that is the fault of Islam and its thriving terrorist establishment. . . . It is good to hate your enemies: We are going to have to kill them.”

• “Islam is not only a cult, it’s a political movement. As such it contravenes the constitution and espouses treason.”

• “I hate is-lame with an incandescent intensity.”

(Spencer says he does not hate Muslims. Postings from others “are unmoderated and do not necessarily reflect the views of Jihad Watch or Robert Spencer.”)

Anti-Islamic prejudice “is increasingly bleeding into mainstream media,” Hooper said. After Sept. 11, columnist Ann Coulter wrote, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

Before Sept. 11, Coulter “would have faced swift repudiation from her colleagues,” Hooper said. “Now it’s accepted as legitimate commentary.”

Chicago Sun-Times, 4 September 2006

Basildon Islamic Centre gutted by fire

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sarfraz Sarwar and Basildon Islamic CentreBasildon’s Islamic Centre has been almost destroyed in a suspected arson attack.

The fire raged through the Triangle Community Hall in High Road, Laindon, which is leased to the Muslim community group, at about 3.30am yesterday. A large crowd gathered to watch as five crews of firefighters battled to contain the blaze. It severely damaged about one-third of the building, with the roof worst affected.

Sarfraz Sarwar, the centre’s founder and leader, said: “We are just lost for words at the moment. The building is completely gutted. The police think it was arson. But my aim is to get this busy place sorted out one way or another, and to keep on working. We are not going to run away or be defeated. We would like to carry on our community services as usual in a small corner of the town.”

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US Muslims plagued by discrimination after 9/11 attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Discrimination and harassment by law enforcement have come to plague American Muslims in the years since the terrorist attacks of September 11. There have been suspicious looks, slurs, physical attacks, extra screening at airports and arrests on groundless charges. And it seems to be getting worse. A recent Gallup poll showed that 39 percent of Americans admit to being prejudiced against Muslims and that nearly a quarter say they would not want a Muslim for a neighbor.

“Most Americans don’t know Muslims except for those they work with in an urban environment so all the information they get is through the media,” said Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

After having shown some restraint in his rhetoric after 19 Muslim men affiliated with Al-Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush has of late been using far more inflammatory language such as “Islamofacists”, Walid said. “When the religious and political leaders use polarizing language these are the unfortunate side effects. It stretches from the likes of (Christian Coalition leader) Pat Robinson all the way up to President Bush.”

AFP, 3 September 2006

Charles Johnson is not impressed, seeing this as yet another example of the mainstream media falling for “CAIR’s spurious claims of an ominous rise in ‘hate crimes’ against Muslims”.

Little Green Footballs, 3 September 2006

The Clash of Civilizations doesn’t exist … yet

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“‘Seriousness’ has become the word of the day for the Islamophobic set. According to some of our more serious hawks, anyone who doesn’t buy that the liberal democracies of the West are engaged in a death-match with hordes of dusky Muslim fanatics is ‘unserious’ about America’s security and can’t be trusted. It’s the latest in a series of attempts to forestall any meaningful discussion of the causes of violent Islamist ideologies, much less how the United States should respond to them. It locks us into the global ‘war on terror’.

“Unfortunately, all too many otherwise sane people seem to accept the terms. But it’s hard to imagine anything more profoundly unserious than taking a dozen complex conflicts that originated in a dozen countries, stripping them of all historical and political context and lumping them together in an amorphous blob called the ‘Clash of Civilizations’. But that’s exactly what we’re talking about.”

Joshua Holland at AlterNet, 1 September 2006