“We have to learn to live with Islam,” said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, speaking to reporters Tuesday in Rome. “We have to learn how to dialogue with Islam.”
Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch is not impressed: “Sure. It’s all on us. If only we could learn to live with them, everything would be all right…. if we would just be nice to them, all our troubles would vanish.” Such views, Spencer observes, are “usually advanced by the most energetic proponents of multiculturalism”.
Letter in Morning Star, 6 April 2005
Peter Duffy’s defence of the reactionary French law on religious symbols (Morning Star, April 2) merely shows how backward many parts of the left have become in relation to the rights of Muslims and other minorities in Europe.
In particular, he argues that there are “progressives” who support the headscarf ban.
Just because some people who regard themselves as being on the left support the law – perhaps even a majority – does not actually make it progressive.
Many people who regard themselves as progressive argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a cause to celebrate. Being on the left did not stop them from being wrong.
One’s position must be judged on whether it really is progressive. There is nothing progressive about banning a child from school because of the crime of wearing an under-turban, a hijab or a skull-cap. It is merely the subordination of genuine secularism to intolerance and prejudice.
In his long letter, Peter Duffy mentions Muslims many times but omits to mention the plight of the Sikhs. What am I to tell Sikhs in London? “Don’t worry, Sikh kids are banned from their schools in France for wearing their under-turbans, but it’s OK because ‘progressives’ support it”? I somehow doubt that they will be convinced.
It is our obligation as progressive people to tell them that we firmly oppose this law.
If there is not a place for an Asian person in France to have a full state education and also to continue to hold their religious beliefs, including wearing their religious dress, then forgive me as an Asian person in Britain for saying as clearly as I can that this is a reactionary state of affairs, regardless of the sensibilities of some rather prickly parts of the left.
Yasmin Qureshi
Human rights advisor to the Mayor of London
France’s ban on religious symbols in state schools, a move meant to check a feared spread of Islamist radicalism, is prompting some Muslims to pull out of the system and launch their own schools and tutoring services. Representatives of new projects around the country turned up at France’s largest Muslim convention at the weekend, canvassing for money and support to educate girls who have dropped out or been expelled from school for insisting on wearing headscarves.
Robert Spencer has his own interpretation of this – he seems to think it is an example, not of resistance to state oppression, but of French Muslims’ rejection of “assimilation”.
Letter in Morning Star, 2 April 2005
I know that Yasmin Qureshi came to Paris on behalf of her boss, the Mayor of London (Morning Star, March 23), but I don’t know why she bothered to cross the Channel.
Convinced, like Mayor Livingstone, that the one-hundred-year-old ban on the wearing of religious clothing or symbols in state schools is a bad thing, she only talked, as far as one can deduce from her article, with those who share the same point of view.
But the law insisting on strict secularity in schools and public agencies has the support of the large majority of French people.
And before this is dismissed as an indication of racism amongst the French, it should be understood that the law is supported by a majority of French Muslims, many of whom, particularly women, are the most fervent supporters of secular education.
It seems clear that Ms Qureshi didn’t find it worth her while to talk to anyone from the French Socialist Party, the trade unions, anti-racist organisations, to teachers, representatives of parent-teacher organisations, or from French women’s organisations, in particular Ni Putes Ni Soumises, all of which overwhelmingly back the law.
If she had, she probably wouldn’t have agreed with them, but she would at least have understood the reasoning of French progressives, and have been able to explain in her article the cultural and historical differences which lead French anti-racists and feminists to regard the stance of those like Ken Livingstone as ignorant and reactionary.
Her visit would also have been more useful to mutual understanding if she had talked not only to those close to Tariq Ramadan, hardly representative of French Muslims, but to the Rector of the Paris Mosque, or from the French Council of Muslims, who, though unhappy with the law, advised students to comply with it.
If so, readers might in future be spared the shrill, confused, but smug article by her boss (Morning Star, March 19) which verges on xenophobia in its regard of the French.
The London approach is neither the only nor necessarily the best way to encourage and celebrate multiculturalism.
Peter Duffy
Choisy le Roi, France
Islam Online reports that police in the Netherlands have arrested a 17-year-old man suspected of trying to burn down an Islamic school against a backdrop of a mass rally in Amsterdam protesting against rising racism in the country, particularly against Muslims. The marchers carried banners reading “Islam is not an enemy”, and “Hatred is not the solution”.
Anthony Browne tries to set Christians against Muslims – with the assistance of Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund.
Update: For a reply to Browne, see here.
MONTREAL – Suspected Moroccan terrorist Adil Charkaoui joined several dozen people Saturday to protest national security certificates used to detain alleged terrorists without trial or charges.
“I had a normal life like everybody and then one day (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) decided I was a threat to national security,” said Charkaoui, 31, who was detained under a certificate for almost two years before being released under stringent bail conditions in February.
“They arrested me, they didn’t show any proof and they told me I was very dangerous,” he said, pulling up his pantleg to show the electronic ankle bracelet he must wear. “I am just asking for justice … I want the government to give me a fair trial to clear my name and show I’m not a terrorist.”
The use of racist and xenophobic rhetoric, including by mainstream political parties, has dominated national and European Parliament election campaigns over the past two years, according to a new study.
The study, commissioned by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), maintains that immigrants and refugees from Muslim countries and Islam itself are primary targets of politicians who exploit feelings of insecurity in an increasingly complex and multicultural world.
French political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, who conducted the study, found that the theory of a so-called “clash of civilizations” is gaining ground.
For the ECRI report see here.
“Today’s Muslims are portrayed as dangerous and disloyal when, just like Roman Catholics 200 to 300 years ago, the vast majority want nothing more than to get on with their lives, earn a living and practise their religion in peace. Like the 17th and 18th century Catholics, they have been assaulted, abused and discriminated against. Once again, legitimate suspicion of a tiny minority is being used to promote hysteria against the loyal and law-abiding majority.”
Frank Dobson argues that Muslims should not have to wait as long as Roman Catholics for equal rights.
The legislatures in two German states have turned down proposals by the opposition Christian Democratic Party to ban Muslim school teachers from wearing hijab. The parliament of Nordrhein-Westfalen, western Germany, rejected the party’s request as having no legal merit.
The Christian Democratic Party claimed that hijab places woman at a lower status and was a political symbol not entrenched in the Muslims’ holy book, the Noble Qur’an. Thomas Kufen, the party’s immigration affairs officer, alleged that disputes could emerge in schools over the issue of hijab and that a legislation was needed. The party, yet, said nuns should be exempted for any ban on religious dress codes.
The Socialist and the Green parties, the ruling coalition, as well as the Free Democratic Party had opposed the proposals. They particularly took issue at the Christian Democratic Party’s attempt to exempt nuns’ wear from the ban as a violation of the constitution which demands equal treatment for citizens irrespective of their religious affiliations.