Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Westerners, Muslims share negative views: poll

Posted on by Bob Pitt

While many in the West see Muslims as fanatical, violent, and intolerant and Muslims generally view Westerners as selfish, immoral and greedy, European Muslims seem to represent the middle ground between the two extremes, according to a new global poll.

“After a year marked by riots over cartoon portrayals of [Prophet] Muhammad, a major terrorist attack in London, and continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, most Muslims and Westerners are convinced that relations between them are generally bad these days,” said a survey by the American Pew Global Attitudes Project involving 14,000 people in 13 countries and posted on its website.

About 83 percent of Spaniards and 78 percent of Germans seem Muslims as fanatics, showed the results. Nearly half of the French and Britons interviewed, 50 and 48 respectively, share the same view. In the United States, the percentage went slightly down with 43 percent of those surveyed associating Muslims with fanaticism. Similarly, sixty percent of Spaniards and 52 percent of Germans believe that Muslims are violent people, according to the poll. The numbers went down in the US, France and Britain to 45, 41 and 32 percent respectively.

Despite the negative trait attributions, solid majorities in France, Britain and the US still retain overall favorable opinions of Muslims. The Germans and Spanish express much more negative views of both Muslims and Arabs than do the French, British or Americans.

Islam Online, 23 June 2006

The Pew Centre report can be downloaded (pdf) here.

Arab News on Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The announcement that the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations is to launch a media campaign to create a better understanding of Islam and Muslims in the US is welcome, though not before time. The cancer of anti-Muslim feeling in the US had begun to spread well before 9/11. Since then, it has been on the rampage. If anything, the assessment in a recent Cornell University survey that around half of Americans have a negative view of Islam and want the US government to curb the political activities of Muslims in the country is almost certainly a considerable underestimation of the problem.

“Islamophobia is a double poison. If not stopped it will so destructively impact relations between the US and Muslim countries that the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Not that Islamophobia is purely an American problem; it is active in Europe, India, parts of Africa, and in too many parts of the non-Muslim world. There, in its second venomous outpouring, it is at its most cruel. It is Muslims in non-Muslim societies who feel the effect; traditionally dressed Muslim women screamed at in supermarkets in middle America, spat at in parks in middle England, their veils torn from their faces in France or Australia or Netherlands; it is Muslim homes daubed with offensive slogans, mosques vandalized, a community fed a constant diet on TV and in the press on how backward Muslim society is. This is Islamophobia is action.”

Editorial in Arab News, 23 June 2006 

Media campaign in US to dispel Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A survey conducted by Cornell University recently found that around half of Americans have a negative view of Islam and would like the US government to curtail the political activity of Muslims in the US.

Addressing a press conference at the headquarters of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), Paul Findley, a former US Congressman, said that the cancer of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiments was spreading in American society and requires corrective measures to stamp out this malaise.

It was also announced that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) would be launching a massive $50 million media campaign involving television, radio and newspapers as part of its five-year program to create a better understanding of Islam and Muslims in the US.

Referring to the anti-Islamic sentiments in the US, Findley said that the campaign was being spearheaded by a tiny but influential section of society, including some politicians, academics and opinion-makers.

Arab News, 21 June 2006

Muslim conference decries Western ‘Islamophobia’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BAKU — A conference of Muslim countries in Azerbaijan this week has decried growing Islamophobia in the West in the wake of a furore sparked by the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in several European newspapers.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) blamed anti-Muslim sentiment on “the rising dominance of the extremist right wing in Europe” in a report obtained by AFP and addressed to Muslim diplomats.

The document, which conference delegates are expected to approve as a resolution ahead of the close of the three-day meeting on Wednesday, described Islamophobia as “spreading” through Western media.

“This phenomenon has been spreading in the impactful areas of information, education and art, which are fertile grounds for the dissemination of the open hostility to Islam and the entrenchment of hatred against it,” it said.

The OIC chief described a “pathological fear” of Islam caused by “cases of total ignorance of Islam and its teachings” in Western public opinion stemming from rivalries between Christians and Muslims that have existed since the Crusades.

In order to counter Islamophobia, Ihsanoglu called on OIC members to support Islamic non-governmental groups in Europe and strengthen ties with international bodies such as the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

He urged Muslim countries to enact a “new media strategy” to highlight the “true image of Islam” and said pro-Islamic television programs should target a Western audience.

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Cohen gets it wrong again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nick Cohen, with characteristic disdain for the facts, tells us in connection with last Sunday’s demonstration outside Scotland Yard: “… in the event, only a hundred or so people turned up, many of whom were white Islamists from the Socialist Workers party. Since then, nothing.”

Observer, 18 June 2006

Yusuf Smith replies: “Sorry Nick, but as one who was there I can say that the majority of attendees by far were Muslims. Yes, the usual contingent of Marxists of various hues, or perhaps I should say tones, was in attendance, some of them trying to push bits of paper under our noses (though interestingly, I didn’t see any copies of Socialist Worker), but most of the demonstrators were Muslims who were demonstrating against attacks on Muslims. As for the ‘since then, nothing’ bit, there is another demo planned for today in Plashet Park, which is as it happens very near to Forest Gate. The likely reason why last Sunday’s event was not as well-attended as some might have hoped (though it was a couple of hundred at least, not just 100) was that the local community had decided to make their views known at Plashet Park.”

Indigo Jo Blogs, 18 June 2006

Blame it all on multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… both Canada and Britain need to face the fact that multiculturalism, which for both countries is an article of faith, has brought havoc in its wake. This doctrine holds that all minority cultures must enjoy equal status with the majority, and that any attempt to impose the majority culture over those of minorities is by definition racist…. In the wake of the London bombings, people came up with a litany of excuses – such as the war in Iraq, poverty or Islamophobia – to explain what had happened. There was a widespread determination to avoid discussion of the actual cause: religious fanaticism. The orthodoxy of minority rights means any criticism of minorities is deemed unsayable…. The greatest exponents of this morally upside-down grievance culture are those Muslims for whose pathological inferiority complex it seems to be tailor-made.”

Melanie Phillips offers her thoughtful advice to Canadians following the arrest of 17 suspected terrorists in Ontario.

National Post, 16 June 2006

Meanwhile, Matthew Norman has his own advice for Mad Mel: “I beg Melanie to learn meditation, yoga or some other technique for finding inner calm. This constant hysterical raging cannot be good for the health.”

Independent, 19 June 2006

Thousands march with family raided by police

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Forest Gate demonstrationThousands of protesters led by members of the family caught up in the anti-terrorist raid in east London two weeks ago demanded an apology from police yesterday for their “barbaric and unacceptable” treatment.

The march ended in a demonstration outside Forest Gate police station, where protesters attacked the leaking of “lies and misinformation” after the arrest and questioned the failures of intelligence which led to the disastrous raid.

“The police are doing their job, but they should be doing it properly,” said Muddassar Ahmed, a spokesman for the march organising committee. “The intelligence agencies have much more to answer for.”

March organisers estimated that 5,000 gathered for yesterday’s protest, which was the first mainstream demonstration to take place near the scene of the raid. It drew together a diverse coalition including moderate Muslim groups, Respect, the Conservatives and Stop the War.

Two elderly white women wearing floral print dresses mingled with women in hijab and men in white shalwar kameez. One of the women, Madeline Channer, 63, said: “The police were very heavy-handed and abused these two young men. I was brought up to respect the police but this sort of behaviour eradicates that respect.”

Guardian, 19 June 2006