“… as the mayor of London pointed out yesterday, support for Nelson Mandela, the wartime resistance and any number of anti-colonial liberation movements would all have been crimes under this bill. In practice, of course, the law is intended to be used selectively: it is aimed not just at those who praise bomb attacks on the London tube, but at Muslims and others who believe that Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans and others have a right to resist occupation.
“If there were any doubt about that, Blair’s stated intention to use this bill to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir – reaffirmed this week by the Home Office – should dispel it. There is little love lost among many Muslims – let alone non-Muslims – for Hizb ut-Tahrir, which campaigns for a restored caliphate (or unified Islamic political authority) throughout the Muslim world and against participation in elections. Although it denies being anti-Jewish, the organisation had on its website until recently a statement which by any reckoning crossed the line from anti-Zionism into anti-semitism.
“But there is also no evidence at all that it is involved in terrorism – it condemned both the London bombings and the 9/11 attacks. It does not, however, condemn armed resistance in Iraq and Palestine, which is how the government plans to catch it. Along with the criminalisation of support for resistance movements, such a ban on a non-violent political party would be unprecedented in modern British history. When set against the toleration of the routinely violent and relentlessly racist British National party, it is scarcely surprising that Muslim opinion is overwhelmingly hostile to all the main planks of the legislation.”
Seumas Milne in the Guardian, 13 October 2005
Lee Jasper replies to the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality: “Asked whether the word multiculturalism should be killed off, he replied: ‘Yes, let’s do that. Multiculturalism suggests separateness.’ Confronted by the Spectator‘s Rod Liddle and asked if Islam was an issue for the CRE – in particular if it was ‘merely a matter of culture’ rather than race – Phillips’s response spoke volumes. ‘Well privately I would go quite a long way down the route you’re taking. It is not primarily an issue of race.’ … But the truth is that vile anti-Muslim prejudice, using the religion of a community to attempt to sideline and blame it for many of society’s ills, is the cutting edge of racism in British society. Those who consider themselves anti-racists need to wake up to this fact.”
“The detailed texture of Mr. Bush’s speech transforms the official American understanding of who the enemy is, moving it from the superficial and inadequate notion of ‘terrorism’ to the far deeper concept of ‘Islamic radicalism’. This change has potentially enduring importance if finally … it convinces polite society to name the enemy. Doing so means, for example, that immigration authorities and law enforcement can take Islam into account when deciding whom to let into the country or whom to investigate for terrorism offenses. Focusing on Muslims as the exclusive source of Islamists permits them finally to do their job adequately.”