The Sun thinks he’s dangerous and the US won’t let him in, but he is welcome at Oxford and the Home Office wants him as an adviser. Andrew Hussey interviews the Muslim thinker Tariq Ramadan.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
FCO agrees with Ken, Ken agrees with FCO shock
“On September 4th, I posted on how an Islamic adviser to the Foreign and Colonial Office in a confidential memo had virtually quoted verbatim Ken Livingstone’s specious attempt to defend Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi by attacking the MEMRI translations of his speeches as suspect on the grounds that this organization was founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer. Now here’s a thing. Ken Livingstone has a letter in today’s Guardian which recycles this so that he presents the Foreign and Colonial Office as a reliable source which supports his view of MEMRI.”
The cheek of it!
Truth about Muslim scholar revealed in Foreign Office leak
Truth about Muslim scholar revealed in Foreign Office leak
By Ken Livingstone
Morning Star, 10 September 2005
Last weekend the Observer reported the leak of a document from a Foreign and Commonwealth Office adviser who had advised ministers not to ban the Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi from Britain.
The leaked document contradicted the widespread advice of the majority of the British tabloids, which have waged a campaign against Qaradawi as an extremist.
Qaradawi was most recently wrongly reported to have called for the stoning to death of an Arab prince who was alleged to have been seen in a gay nightclub in London – although it has now emerged that the comments were in fact made by a Saudi named Muhammed Saleh Al-Munajjid.
The leaked document shows that the approach taken by the progressive left – of refusing to accept the “Clash of Civilisations” cold war being waged against Islam – is not only morally the right one, but also the best way to defeat al-Qaeda.
The document sets out that whilst the Foreign Office “certainly do not agree with Qaradawi’s views on Israel and Iraq … we have to recognise that they are not unusual or even exceptional among Muslims.”
It says that Qaradawi “was one of the first international Muslim scholars to issue a clear statement of condemnation” of the July London bombings, and states that “to act against Qaradawi would alienate significant and influential members of the global Muslim community.”
It describes him as “the leading mainstream and influential Islamic authority in the Middle East and increasingly in Europe.”
Most significantly, it argues that “excluding Qaradawi [from Britain] would give grist to al-Qaida propaganda of a western vendetta against Muslims and would undermine Qaradawi’s counter-terrorism messages.”
It adds that “we could not engage with Qaradawi on counter-terrorism or Iraq should there be a decision to exclude him from the UK.”
MEMRI is made of this
Leon Collins (Letters, September 7) suggests the Middle East Media Research Institute provides an impartial selection of what is being said and published in Arabic. Many reliable sources would dispute this. A recent Foreign Office memo, leaked to the Observer, stated: “The founding president of Memri is retired Colonel Yigal Carmon, who served for 22 years in Israel’s military intelligence service. Memri is regularly criticised for selective translation.” Using Memri as the source for information on Islamic leaders is like using the Conservative press office as the only source for information on Labour. At the very least, the nature of the source should be made clear. Better, journalists should have their material translated independently.
Ken Livingstone
Mayor of London
Letter in the Guardian, 10 September 2005
Iran hangings: chronicle of a manipulation
Pedro Carmona writes: “Faisal Alam, a US queer activist of Pakistani origins and the founder of the group Al-Fatiha (made up of US queer Muslims), argues in the magazine Queer that the campaign to condemn Iran was organized without any effort to confirm the veracity of the information on the part of the groups which called for it, in contrast with the three major human rights organizations which advised of the imprecision of the information upon which the protests were based…. Alam frames his discussion of this manipulation in the context of increasing Islamophobia in Europe and North America, and of the ‘Axis of Evil’ campaign of the Washington government….”
Carmona continues: “The anti-Iranian campaign which has been promoted by certain gay and lesbian groups has been based upon strongly biased information, incomplete and on occasions openly untrue. It certainly appears to be a premeditated exercise in misinformation. Likewise suspicious is the warm reception of these mobilizations on the part of conservative groups and parties which have never defended gay and lesbian rights, or which have even promoted openly homophobic initiatives, as is the case of the Republican Party in the US. Unfortunately, the protest campaign, which we should acknowledge at least to be ill-informed and misguided, is now unstoppable despite new data and clarifications. The petitions continue to circulate, maintaining the version that Mahmud and Ayaz were hanged ‘for the mere fact of being gay’. It is comprehensible that our rage at the continued homophobic abuses we see lead us to react immediately and without too much consideration; but these reactions might convert us, while we believe ourselves to be struggling for the liberation of gays and lesbians, into mere puppets of greater interests.”
Another useful exposure of Outrage’s campaign over the execution of two youths in Mashhad, Iran, in July.
For earlier coverage, see here.
Hunger strikers pledge to die in Guantánamo
More than 200 detainees in Guantánamo Bay are in their fifth week of a hunger strike, the Guardian has been told. Statements from prisoners in the camp which were declassified by the US government on Wednesday reveal that the men are starving themselves in protest at the conditions in the camp and at their alleged maltreatment – including desecration of the Qur’an – by American guards.
The trouble with the West
“That there is a serious disconnect between Islam and the West is not in doubt; what is hotly contested is whose fault it is. Each side blames the other but, given that the Western media dominate almost all discourse, Islam and Muslims are blamed for everything that goes wrong in the world. There is little or no admission that much of the mayhem in the world is caused primarily by Western policies that affect others in profoundly negative ways.”
Zafar Bangash at Media Monitors Network, 8 September 2005
Neocon pundits malign American Muslims
These shameless attempts by Gaffney, Mowbary, and Pipes to malign mainstream Muslim organizations and leaders are not driven by rational and objective considerations, but by paranoia, prejudice, and irrational fear of Islam and Muslims, says Louay Safi.
‘Radical Muslims’ meet to discuss ban
A radical Islamic group yesterday drew 1,000 delegates to a London conference as it debated how to fend off Prime Minister Tony Blair’s plans to ban it in Britain.
Hizb ut-Tahrir leaders also used the forum to react angrily to new claims that the organisation – already barred from operating in universities – is engaged in a secret campaign to recruit students to its cause.
The political group, which advocates the establishment of a theocratic state and Islamic governance in the Middle East, is likely to be targeted by the Government in any crackdown on alleged radicals in the wake of the London bombings.
Dr Imran Waheed, the Birmingham-based spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir in the UK, denied accusations the group has supported violence or is responsible for the radicalisation of young Muslims.
He said the conference, held at a Quaker meeting house in Euston, central London, was intended to prove his organisation was not engaged in “evil ideology”.
Immigration control advocate rallies GOP activists
US congressman Tom “nuke Mecca” Tancredo continues his anti-migrant campaign, the East Valley Tribune reports.
“Tancredo has … called for a reduction in legal immigration, saying American culture is in danger of being overwhelmed and washed away by a tide of foreign residents who aren’t assimilating quickly enough. And he has actively encouraged the Minuteman Project and other unauthorized civilian groups who claim to be helping the federal government by conducting their own border patrols. ‘The situation on the border is tinderbox with some people armed to the teeth who are racists or affiliated with hate groups and who are being urged on by elected officials such as Tancredo’, said Mark Potok, director of a Southern Poverty Law Center project that tracks hate groups.
“Tancredo added fuel to the criticism in July when he told a Florida radio station the U.S. would have to consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic holy sites such as Mecca if Muslim terrorists ever detonate a nuclear device in an American city. Even many fellow immigration control advocates said Tancredo had gone too far. But Tancredo refused to apologize, as his statements fit into his belief the war on terrorism is fundamentally a fight against a religion that desires the destruction of Western civilization, instead of a battle against a small, radical element at the edges of mainstream Islam.”