A number of right-wing extremists are among the people who signed pledges of support for the anti-Islam PVV in the provincial elections, according to the anti-fascist research group Kafka in Wednesday’s Volkskrant.
Category Archives: Right wing
72 per cent of Americans say Congressional hearings should not single out Muslims
At the beginning of February a coalition of more than 50 Muslim, human rights and faith organisations sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi objecting to the planned hearings on the “radicalization” of American Muslims initiated by Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
Arguing that “singling out a group of Americans for government scrutiny based on their faith is divisive and wrong”, the coalition urged: “If Chairman King wishes to address violent extremism, then we hope you will ensure that he examines violence motivated by extremist beliefs, in all its forms, in a full, fair and objective way.”
King’s response to the proposal was: “I totally reject that. That, to me, is political correctness at its worst. If we included these other violent events in the hearings, we’d be sending the false signal that we think there’s a security threat equivalency between and the neo-Nazi movement, or Al Qaeda and gun groups. There is none…. I’m not going to dilute the hearings by including other extremists.”
However, over at The Plum Line, Greg Sargent draws our attention to a new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute which reveals that, while a majority of Americans think that King’s hearings are a good idea, an even larger majority agrees with the coalition’s proposal that the hearings should not single out Muslims.
It’s not all good news, though. As Sargent points out, 46% of respondents agreed that US Muslims have not done enough to combat extremism within their own communities, which is one of the assumptions underpinning King’s initiative. Sargent summarises:
“While a huge majority rejects King’s insistence on focusing the hearings just on Muslims, the public just might receptive to their obvious, if implicit, intent: To put you on notice that ordinary Muslims in your midst just might be looking the other way while evil ones are plotting to kill you.”
Now, where do you suppose non-Muslim Americans might have acquired this distorted view of their Muslim neighbours? The Public Religion Research Institute reports:
“The survey findings also show a significant correlation between trust in Fox News and negative attitudes about Muslims. Americans who most trust Fox News are more likely to believe that Muslims want to establish Shari’a law, have not done enough to oppose extremism, and believe investigating Muslim extremism is a good idea.”
(For more on King’s hearings, see LoonWatch.)
Jewish Chronicle returns to witch-hunting ENGAGE
Martin Bright and Simon Rocker weigh in with a piece entitled “Islamists get a key role in parliament“, while an editorial headed “Beyond the pale” (evidently the JC‘s concern for the sensitivities of the Jewish community doesn’t extend to the Irish community) calls for a boycott of the All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Islamophobia and follows Paul Goodman in extending the witch-hunt by proposing that supporters of ENGAGE should be disciplined by their respective political parties.
Predictably, that other voice of Zionist hostility towards politically engaged Muslims, the appalling Harry’s Place blog, has joined in the campaign (see here and here).
For the background, see “Pro-Israel lobby continues smear campaign against ENGAGE”, Inayat’s Corner, 16 February 2011
Right-wing US media exploit attack on Lara Logan to justify anti-Muslim bigotry
In the wake of the brutal and devastating sexual assault committed against CBS News international correspondent Lara Logan by an Egyptian mob, many in the right-wing media have used the attack to fuel their anti-Muslim agenda.
Media Matters, 17 February 2011
See also Rachel Newcomb, “‘Blame the Muslims’: violence against women in Egypt”, Huffington Post, 16 February 2011
Sarkozy tries to outflank Front National by reigniting ‘debate’ on Islam
Just days after saying that multiculturalism had failed in France, President Sarkozy is launching a debate on religion and the secular state, asking what limits should be placed on Islam.
Speaking to his UMP MPs at the Élysée, he said he wanted concrete measures on the place of Islam in France and its compatibility with the country’s secular laws.
He said the French had “paid dear” for their blindness towards immigration during the 1980s, when debate was taboo. “There was a growing disruption between the concerns of the media and the concerns of ordinary French people. The racists of yesterday are today’s populists.”
With the Martine Le Pen’s Front National rising in the polls, Mr Sarkozy adopted one of Ms Le Pen’s own themes last year, and expressed disapproval of the sight of Muslim street preachers, saying: “We had a debate on the burqa and it was well done. Now we should have a debate on street preachers. In a secular country, there’s no reason to have calls to prayer.”
Mr Sarkozy hopes to pull the rug from under the feet of the Front National by making radical Islam incompatible with the values of France.
He has made it one of the priorities for 2011 in the run-up to next year’s presidential election, echoing his words in last week’s televised talk with French citizens: “The truth is that in all our democracies we have been too preoccupied with the identity of those who arrived and not enough with the identity of the country that welcomed them.”
The Connexion, 17 February 2011
See also FaithWorld, 17 February 2011
Australia: opposition immigration spokesman accused of advocating anti-Muslim campaign to win votes
Embattled Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison has rejected as gossip a report that he urged shadow cabinet to take advantage of fears about Muslims.
A Fairfax report says Mr Morrison urged the Coalition to capitalise on electorate fears of “Muslim immigration”, “Muslims in Australia” and Muslim migrants’ “inability to integrate”.
The report says Mr Morrison’s suggestion was slapped down by senior Liberals including Julie Bishop and Philip Ruddock, but the Opposition has been under pressure over reports of a continuing split within the party over the issue.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard called on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to set the record straight and confirm if the discussion took place. She also called for Mr Morrison to be sacked if he did suggest the Coalition pursue a discriminatory immigration policy.
Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser, a strong supporter of multiculturalism, told ABC Radio he was not surprised about the alleged discussion. “It’s what I would have expected of Scott Morrison. I think that is politics at its very, very basest. I really do,” he said. “I wouldn’t tolerate such views. My government would not have tolerated such views.”
Amarillo pastor who tried to burn Qur’an runs for mayor
A Texas man who tried to organize the burning of a Quran last September 11th is running for mayor of Amarillo. David Grisham, leader of “Repent Amarillo“, filed his papers Monday.
Grisham says he wants to lead the city in a new direction. “If the government authorities are to be ministers of God, then ministers of God need to be running for the offices of the governing authorities, makes sense to me,” Grisham said.
News Channel 6, 16 February 2011
Grisham can only pray that his mayoral campaign meets with more success than his attempt to burn the Qur’an did.
Hysterical Islamophobes protest outside ICNA charity fundraiser
Several hundred people from as far away as Corona and the San Fernando Valley filled the lawn outside the Yorba Linda Community Center Sunday afternoon and lined Imperial Highway in response to a fundraising event by a Queens, N.Y.-based Muslim group Islamic Circle of North America Relief USA.
People started gathering about 3 p.m., two-and-a-half hours before the fundraiser began. Many in the crowd waved U.S. flags and carried signs saying, “God Bless America” and “No Sharia Law,” in reference to Islam’s sacred law. In the afternoon, the event had the atmosphere of a July 4 picnic. Many brought lawn chairs and blankets, sang patriotic songs and tied red, white and blue bandanas on their dogs.
Civitas-inspired campaign against speaker at York University ISoc
The invitation of Islamic Scholar Mufti Muhammad ibn Adam al-Kawthari to speak at the University on Wednesday has sparked controversy across campus. Several campus societies, including StandforPeace, Amnesty International, Jewish Society, Freedom Society and York Conservatives, have collectively launched an official complaint, claiming that al-Kawthari “poses a threat to social cohesion at York” and that “his views are out of place in a civilised, free and equal society”.
The concern is centred on a report by the thinktank CIVITAS, profiling the Mufti, which explicitly states: “he places severe restrictions on male doctors treating female patients; he rules that women may not swim (even for medical reasons) where a male lifeguard is present, or where there are non-Muslim women; using tampons is ‘disliked’; a woman may not travel beyond 48 miles without her husband or a close relative accompanying her; a female is encouraged to remain within the confines of her house as much as possible; polygamy is permissible.”
Sam Westrop of StandforPeace, who has led the campaign against him speaking at York, has also pointed out that al Kawthari “legitimises rape” in his claim that “the narrations of the beloved of Allah clearly signify the importance of the wife obeying her husband in his request for sexual intimacy. It will be a grave sin (in normal circumstances) for the wife to refuse her husband, and even more, if this leads the husband into the unlawful.”
Speaking to Nouse, Westrop added: “It is a terrifying state of affairs that persons such as al-Kawthari are allowed to propagate their views on university campuses, and that the Union and University should so blithely approve such a speaker. We would all be up in arms if the far right popped up on campus stating that homosexuals have no rights and that capital punishment is suitable for adultery; so why should we hold back with people such as al-Kawthari? We urge the Islamic Society to change the speaker for this event, to someone far less disgusting.”
However, Dinah Salah, President of the York Islamic Society who organised for al Kawthari to speak at York as part of Islam Week, has spoken out against the allegations. She stated that the societies had been “recklessly sensationalising” his views and that they are being taken “bizarrely out of context”.
Salah continued: “It is important to note that socially conservative views should not be confused with violent extreme views. We find it deeply problematic that individuals seek to tarnish the good name and reputation of Muslim scholars under the premise of ‘extremism’ and ‘‘islamism’ based on misquotes of a very serious issue.
“We feel that such an approach is not cohesive to good campus relations and seeks to alienate Muslim students from engaging properly in their Students’ Union and hindering their development of a strong Islamic identity. The Islamic Society stands in favour of freedom of expression, with the only exception being when it incites hatred or violence. How can there be meaningful progression in our society, when individuals seek to restrict opinions and prevent constructive challenges of diverse views?”
See also The Yorker, 13 February 2011
It might be noted that Sam Westrop’s views on freedom of expression are somewhat contradictory, to say the least. Last year he condemned the exclusion of Douglas Murray, director of the Civitas-funded Centre for Social Cohesion, from the platform of a fringe event at NUS conference following complaints by FOSIS. According to Westrop, Murray should have been welcomed as a speaker because of the “importance to uphold freedom of speech”.
Murray, it may be recalled, addresed the Pim Fortuyn Memorial conference in 2006 on the subject “What are we to do about Islam?” He demanded “Why is it that time and again the liberal West is crumpling before the violence, intimidation and thuggery of Islam?” and offered the following solution: “It is late in the day, but Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop…. Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board.”
More recently, Murray welcomed the formation of the EDL as “a grassroots response from non-Muslims to Islamism”.
Westrop, it seems, is in fully in favour of free speech for anti-Muslim hate preachers like Murray, but not for socially conservative Deobandi scholars like Muhammad ibn Adam al-Kawthari.
It is also interesting to see Westrop putting himself forward as a defender of women’s rights. In May 2009 he invited UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom to address the university’s Freedom Society, despite Bloom’s notoriously reactionary views on that issue. Bloom is on record as stating that “no self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age”, that he doesn’t think women “clean behind the fridge enough”, and that his role as MEP is “to represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you get home”.
Australia: anger at anti-Muslim petition in Senate
ACT Liberal senator Gary Humphries has upset Canberra’s Islamic community by tabling a strongly worded anti-Muslim petition in the Senate, even though he says he does not agree with its content or know the signatories to it.
The petition, signed by three people from suburban Sydney, calls for a 10-year moratorium on Muslim immigration and a review of Australia’s immigration policy to ensure priority is given to Christians.
Citing the Constitution, the founding fathers and the current parliamentary prayers, the petitioners insist Australia is a Christian Commonwealth. They want any attempt to establish a Muslim nation in Australia to be rejected.
Senator Humphries tabled the petition on Thursday, the last sitting day of the week. He did not speak in support of it, but tabled it to be recorded in Hansard.
Under parliamentary convention, presenting a petition does not necessarily mean a senator or MP agrees with its contents. Senators and MPs are not required to table petitions on behalf of constituents, although it is generally accepted that they will.
When contacted by The Canberra Times yesterday, Senator Humphries said every citizen had a right to be heard.
Canberra Times, 15 February 2011
See also “Religious prejudice gone ‘beyond a joke'”, Canberra Times, 15 February 2011
Update: See “Abbott backs anti-Muslim petition MP”, ABC News, 15 February 2011