Kim Willsher reports from Paris.
Category Archives: Right wing
California: evangelical Christian backlash against outreach to Muslims
An outreach effort to Muslims initiated by Saddleback Church in Lake Forest has sparked a national uproar among evangelical Christians, with some accusing the Rev. Rick Warren, Saddleback’s pastor, of betraying core Christian principles and Warren responding that his beliefs and intentions have been misrepresented.
Since an Orange County Register article published Feb. 26 detailed the outreach effort, evangelicals across the country have taken to blogs, social media and Christian news outlets to debate whether and how Christians should forge relationships with people of other faiths. Longtime critics of Warren have published lengthy online accusations that the influential pastor, who delivered the invocation at President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, has gone too far in seeking theological common ground with Muslims.
Chris Rosebrough, a religious studies graduate of Concordia University in Irvine who hosts an online Christian radio talk show in Indianapolis, said that response to Saddleback’s outreach “has created a national, even an international uproar…. Looking at the Christian blogosphere, this is the number one viral story.”
Islamophobia, violence and the far right
Daniel Trilling has an interesting article in today’s Guardian. Responding to the findings in the new report From Voting to Violence? Rightwing Extremists in Modern Britain, Trilling asks: “Is Britain’s far right preparing for armed conflict? And could a catastrophe of the kind that struck Norway last summer be on its way here?” He writes:
As electoral success has melted away since the BNP’s collapse at the 2010 general election, the hardcore is now left exposed. At the same time, a younger generation has been attracted to the adrenaline-pumping street politics of the English Defence League, which adapts its language to better suit the realities of multicultural modern Britain. It claims merely to oppose “militant Islam”, but its supporters have carried out numerous violent attacks on Asian Britons, on their shops, homes and places of worship. Shut out from mainstream politics, some far-right supporters may well turn to violence, seeing it as the only way to achieve their goals. Indeed, it has happened in this country before – most recently in 1999, when David Copeland, a neo-Nazi who had drifted through the BNP, set off a series of nail bombs in Brixton, Brick Lane and Soho, killing three people and maiming 129.
However, Trilling argues that the main threat from the far right is not political violence and terrorism but rather the impact of its ideas on wider society:
The greater danger remains where it always has done: in the elements of far-right propaganda that overlap with mainstream political sentiment. Few people in Britain would agree that race war is on its way, but how many would agree that immigration has gone “too far”; that multiculturalism has failed or that the west is locked in a “clash of civilisations” with Islam?
By his murderous actions in Norway last summer, Anders Breivik has become the new face of far-right terror. Yet he did not tear Norway’s society apart in the way that, say, the rhetoric of Geert Wilders threatens to do in Holland. There, his nonviolent Freedom party has been able to extract reactionary anti-Muslim concessions from the Dutch coalition government in return for support on economic policies. In France, the Front National’s Marine Le Pen has made halal meat a major issue in the presidential election, and encouraged Nicolas Sarkozy to compete with her furiously in the immigrant-bashing stakes.
Manchester, Missouri: Christian group closes Muslim school
The Muslim Al Salam Day School off Weidman Road is closed Friday due to a Christian group’s promise to tout Christianity at the location, school officials said.
A letter, that reads as follows, was sent home to parents telling them there was no school on Friday. “Earlier this week we had informed members and parents of the community about a protest that will be taking place outside of the Islamic Foundation Property tomorrow. Due to the overwhelming incoming of increasing safety concerns from parents and teachers, we have decided to cancel school and after school activities for tomorrow, Friday, March 9.”
Ghazala Hayat with the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis tells Patch that the group Reclaiming Missouri for Christ contacted St. Louis County Police to inform them the group planned to distribute literature during the Dar-Ul-Salam Mosque’s prayer services Friday between noon and 2 p.m. The Islamic Foundation offices, mosque and school are all located on the same property off Weidman Road.
Anti-Sharia bill dies in Florida Senate
Assailed by Muslim groups and quashed by Senate President Mike Haridopolos, an “anti-Sharia” law bill died in the Florida Legislature on Friday.
Senate Bill 1360 would have restricted state courts from considering foreign laws in most cases. Authored by Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, the bill was identical to HB 1209, which easily passed the House 92-24. But Hays’ bill became ensnared in a late-breaking political controversy when proponents distributed fliers and a pamphlet decrying the alleged intrusion of Islamic law into America’s courts.
Far right hardcore ‘willing to prepare for armed conflict’, new study finds
A hardcore of far-right supporters in the UK appears to believe violent conflict between different ethnic, racial and religious groups is inevitable, and that it is legitimate to prepare even for armed conflict, according to a new report.
The study, From Voting to Violence? Rightwing Extremists in Modern Britain, by Matthew Goodwin, of the University of Nottingham, and Jocelyn Evans, of Salford University, was launched at Chatham House on Thursday. The report questioned more than 2,000 supporters of “radical-right” and “far-right” groups and found that many endorsed violence, with a “hostile inner core” apparently willing to plan for and prepare for attacks.
“What we have got here is a group of people who self-identify as supporters of the far right and who are, to quite a large extent, backing ideas about preparing for violence and appear to view violence as a justifiable political strategy,” said Goodwin, who is a specialist in far-right politics.
BNP and UKIP voters’ views on Muslims and Islam
The new report From Voting to Violence? Far Right Extremism in Britain by Matthew Goodwin and Jocelyn Evans can now be viewed online. We reproduce the section of the report examining the views of BNP and UKIP voters on Muslims and Islam.
PFAW report: The Mythical Martyrdom of Jerry Boykin
A new People For the American Way Right Wing Watch: In Focusreport identifies the techniques used by Religious Right leaders to portray themselves as victims of an assault on religious liberty.
The report, The Mythical Martyrdom of Jerry Boykin, examines the anti-Muslim extremism of Retired Lt. Gen. Boykin that derailed an offer to speak at West Point Military Academy, as well as the tactics he employs to legitimize his own religious and political agenda.
“Lt. Gen. Boykin’s claim that Muslims have no First Amendment rights and that the United States is at war with Islam are contrary to basic American values,” said Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way. “His attacks against Muslims are so extreme he was even publicly rebuked by President George W. Bush. It is ironic that a man who so fundamentally misunderstands our Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of worship to all Americans is playing the victim of religious oppression. In reality, Boykin is just a part of the far-right effort to use the banner of religious freedom as cover for spreading fear and intolerance.”
French PM scrambles to defuse halal-kosher row
France’s prime minister told Jewish leaders on Wednesday he had not meant to stigmatise their community when he urged them to rethink ancient dietary laws, as he strove to defuse a fractious row about minorities in the run up to a presidential election.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon caused an uproar on Tuesday when he said the Jewish and Muslim “ancestral traditions” of ritual slaughter were outdated and unjustified. It was the latest in a series of divisive comments by politicians about the religious practices of France’s ethnic minorities, seen as a bid to attract right-wing voters ahead of a two-round election in April and May.
CAIR asks Oklahoma church to drop anti-Islam agenda
The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) today called on a church in that state to drop its anti-Islam agenda, citing the Islamophobic views of a church speaker who claims that President is an undercover Saudi Arabian “Muslim plant” in the White House.
The keynote speaker of tonight’s event at Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Okla., is Avi Lipkin, an infamous Islamophobe who alleges among other things that Muslims worship the devil and that all Muslims want to kill Christians and Jews.
“This kind of bigotry and hysteria only serves to fuel the growing chorus of anti-Muslim sentiment that is unfortunately spreading in the Heartland,” said CAIR-OK Executive Director Muneer Awad. “We respectfully request that the church drop this speaker and other hate-mongers, and offer its congregants a sincere opportunity for dialogue and information about Islam and Muslims.”