Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Why the jig is up for Hirsi Ali in Holland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Why the jig is up for Hirsi Ali in Holland

She catered to the worst prejudices about Muslims, Islam says Haroon Siddiqui

Toronto Star, 21 May 2006

The sudden fall from grace of Dutch Muslim MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali offers a cautionary tale about Western gullibility in these Islamophobic times.

She has been exposed as the equivalent of such Iraqi exiles as Ahmad Chalabi and Iyad Allawi. They told the tall tales the Bush administration wanted to hear to wage war. She told the stories the Dutch, and many Europeans, craved, to confirm their anti-Muslim prejudices.

Like the Iraqi exiles, she knew exactly which buttons to push.

She was an abused wife who had fled a forced marriage and also her vengeful family and clan. An “ex-Muslim,” she was out to liberate Muslim women and tame Islam to her liking and those of her benefactors.

She wrote and narrated the Theo Van Gogh documentary Submission about the subjugation of Muslim women that led to his murder and to death threats against her, placing her under 24-hour guard.

Along the way she let it be known she had lied about her name, age and how she had entered Holland in 1992, not directly from her homeland of Somalia but via Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Germany, a fact that would have undermined her claim, rather than expedited it.

The Dutch didn’t mind. Many refugee claimants embellish their stories. Besides, she was a heroine they had embraced, a “moderate” Muslim waging war against “fanatical” believers.

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Islamophobia, double standards and discrimination in British legal system

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A new report by the  Islamic Human Rights Commission examines Islamophobia, double standards and discrimination in the British legal system.

“The results show that whilst an overwhelming 91% of respondents respect British law, most of those who were questioned in detail stated that they believed the law is unfair and furthermore only a handful feel protected by the law. Respondents mainly cite the police to be the greatest cause of conflict. There was an overwhelming response that the law neither recognised nor protected Muslims and that it was hostile to Muslims as a result of their faith.”

IHRC press release, 18 May 2006

Salma Yaqoob replies to Nick Cohen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Last week a little piece of history was made in Sparkbrook as I was elected to serve as Respect’s first Birmingham city councillor. For Respect, it was an important breakthrough. But it was significant too that I became the only female Muslim councillor in the city. This was a small step to the left in a city where too many people turned to the far right. Not for Nick Cohen, who sees only ‘…a slice of the electorate in a poor part of Britain that is so lost in identity politics and victimhood that it will vote for those who stoke their rage, no matter how worthless they are.’ This bigoted perception of Muslims has nothing in common with the realities of our lives or our struggles.”

Comment is Free, 13 May 2006

Criminalising dissent in the ‘war on terror’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In practice, the introduction of the new offence of glorification is likely to widen the net beyond incitement but in an entirely arbitrary way. Noticeably, the whole debate on the glorification clause has been conducted on the tacit assumption that only Muslims will be prosecuted. Charles Clarke makes much of the idea that juries know instinctively what glorification means and will take notice of the context in assessing whether glorification has occurred. In fact, given the arbitrary nature of terms like ‘glorification’, juries will be forced to make entirely subjective decisions and, in the current context of Islamophobia, it is likely that they will be much readier to convict someone who has already been labelled a Muslim extremist by the press.”

Arun Kundnani argues that the new crime of “glorifying” terrorism, recently introduced under the Terrorism Act 2006, will lead to the suppression of legitimate debate on the causes of terror.

IRR news, 2 May 2006

Islamophobia, a retrospective

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“If propaganda is a weapon of war, Islam is under carpet bombing. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels described the methods, which define those used today: ‘Concentrating the fire of all the media on one particular point – a single theme, a single enemy, a single idea – the campaign uses this concentration of all media, but progressively…’

“Theme: ‘War on Terror’ Enemy: Muslims. Addressing the 2006 AIPAC ‘Now is the Time to Stop Iran’ Conference, Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Daniel Gillerman summarized the Idea: ‘While it may be true – and probably is – that not all Muslims are terrorists, it also happens to be true that nearly all terrorists are Muslim.’ Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami put it another way: ‘the West needs an enemy, and this time it is Islam. And Islamophobia becomes part of all policies of the great powers, of hegemonic powers’.”

Trish Schuh in Counterpunch, 6 May 2006

German minister wants to end discrimination against Muslims … by banning hijab from schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Muslim minority in Germany is suffering from a growing religious discrimination with many Germans wrongly associating Islam with terrorism, a federal minister admitted on Sunday, May 7.

“Muslims are lately being confronted with mounting rejection which feeds from fear,” Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries told the weekly Welt am Sonntag. She said many Germans were not able to properly distinguish between Islam and terrorism. “As a consequence many Muslims are faced with discrimination because of their faith as some people link the Muslim faith automatically with Al-Qaeda and terrorism,” added Zypries.

The Interior Ministry is sponsoring a mobile exhibition touring the country to draw the line between Islam as a faith and the practices of some Muslims. It aims to distinguish between Islam as a religion that preaches peace and tolerance and parties condoning violence in the name of Islam, said the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the sponsor. The exhibition would visit universities, schools, parliaments, municipalities and cultural centers in the different states.

European officials said recently that the bloc is set to remove derogatory terminology about Islam like “Islamic terrorism” and “fundamentalists” in its new lexicon of public communication.

The minister proposed the introduction of school uniforms to avoid sparking furor over Muslim students wearing hijab. “All school pupils should wear the same school uniform,” she said. The minister believes such uniforms would also help prevent religious and social discrimination in Germany.

Islam Online, 7 May 2006

Observatory on Islamophobia established

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Organisation of Islamic Conference has formed the OIC Observatory on Islamophobia at the general-secretariat in Jeddah, which is mandated to monitor and document all activities indicating hatred of Islam around the world, particularly in Europe, according to Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.

Addressing the senior officials’ preparatory meeting to the 33rd session of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM) here on Saturday, the OIC secretary general said that the aim of the Observatory was to tackle the issue of Islamophobia head on.

Khaleej Times, 8 May 2006

Australian Muslims reject attack by Cardinal Pell

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Islamic Council of Victoria have put out a media release in response to an article on Islam by Cardinal George Pell, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, which drew on such writers as Daniel Pipes, Andrew Bostom and William Dalrymple to portray Islam as an inherently violent religion that poses a threat to Western democracies.

Dervish weblog, 5 May 2006

Predictably, Robert Spencer rallies to Pell’s defence: Dhimmi Watch, 5 May 2006

See also “Aussie Muslims slam priest for ‘ignorant’ Qur’an remarks”, Islam Online, 5 May 2006