Category Archives: Right wing

Minister accuses Muslims of hostility towards Germans (so Muslims aren’t Germans?)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

German Family Minister Kristina Schroeder on Tuesday criticized Muslim youths for displaying hostility towards Germans.

“Such abuse is unfortunately commonplace amongst youths in certain areas – in the school yard, but also in the underground,” Schroeder told daily tabloid Bild. “We are dealing with fundamentally hostile attitudes towards other groups – particularly against Germans and Christians,” the minister continued, adding, “We need to act as decisively against this as against xenophobia.”

Her comments come amid a fierce debate currently taking place in Germany about the integration of the country’s 4 million Muslims, the majority of whom are of Turkish origin.

DPA, 2 November 2010

At last, a party for Germany that ‘stands up against Islamization’ – Daniel Pipes is thrilled

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ren Stadtkewitz FreiheitDaniel Pipes files an enthusiastic report from the founding conference of René Stadtkewitz’s right-wing Freedom Party:

“The new party, whose slogan is ‘The party for more freedom and democracy’, speaks candidly about Islam, Islamism, Islamic law, and Islamization. Starting with the insight that ‘Islam is not just a religion but also a political ideology with its own legal system’, the party calls for scrutiny of imams, mosques, and Islamic schools and for a review of Islamic organizations to ensure their compliance with German laws, and condemns efforts to build a parallel legal structure based on sharia. Its analysis forcefully concludes: ‘We oppose with all our force the Islamization of our country’.”

Better still, from Pipes’ standpoint, “Freiheit robustly supports Israel, calling it ‘the only democratic state in the Middle East. It therefore is the outpost of the Western world in the Arab theater’.”

Pipes notes: “Germany is conspicuously behind most European countries with large Muslim populations in not having spawned a party that stands up against Islamization. That’s not for lack of trying; previous attempts petered out. Late 2010 might be an auspicious moment to launch such a party, given the massive controversy in Germany over the Thilo Sarrazin book ruing the immigration of Muslims, followed by Chancellor Angela Merkel announcing that multiculturalism has ‘utterly failed’. A change in mood appears underway.”

Still, with only “50-plus attendees” at it’s inaugural meeting, the Freedom Party has some way to go yet.

National Review Online, 2 November 2010

CSU conference calls for ‘sanctions’ against migrants who oppose integration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Horst SeehoferThe Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) voted to take a tough stance against immigrants who fail to integrate into German society at a party conference in Munich on Saturday.

Included in a new seven-point plan were proposals for “unspecified sanctions for parents who hinder their children from integrating into the German way of life or who themselves decline to integrate by learning German”.

The plan, which stipulates that permanent residents must accept a “leading” role for German culture in society, was approved unanimously.

Speaking at the conference, party leader Horst Seehofer denied claims that he was pandering to the extreme right following controversy over his call for an end to immigration from alien cultures – in particular from Islamic countries.

“If what I say is radically right wing, then two-thirds of the population is radically right wing,” Seehofer said. “We should not be timid about saying that we stand for German culture taking a leading role.”

German values were “based on Christianity and rooted in Judaism,” Seehofer added. “They are not informed by Islam and that must remain the case.”

Deutsche Welle, 31 October 2010

See also “Sarrazin wants ‘terms’ for migrants to live in Germany”, Hürriyet Daily News, 1 November 2010

Neville-Jones repeats attack on multiculturalism, says Livingstone used it to ‘buy votes’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BigPeace.com, the website run by prominent Tea Party supporter Andrew Breitbart, carries an approving report of a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington by the Con-Dem coalition’s minister for security, Pauline Neville-Jones. It quotes her as saying:

“Multiculturalism in its original form meant you were entitled to dignity, to fair treatment and equality, irrespective of your origin. It turned into, well, because you’re Sikh we’ll give you some money so you can be a bit more Sikh; you’re Muslim so we’ll give you a bit more money so you can be a bit more Muslim – more mosques, more this, more that.”

Multiculturalism was “a mistaken policy, and what it’s done on the whole is to entrench difference and compound it”, Neville-Jones stated, adding that “the then mayor of London was an exemplar of this, Livingstone would buy votes that way. Not literally, but certainly to curry favour”.

For an earlier attack on multiculturalism by Neville-Jones see here.

Finland: Christian Democrat calls for discrimination against Muslim refugees

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Christian refugees coming to Finland should be given first preference over Muslims, according to Christian Democratic Party Chair Päivi Räsänen.

In a recent interview with Finnish university student magazine “Ylioppilaslehti”, Räsänen reasons that Christians adapt to Finland better than Muslims because of commonalities in religion and culture. Muslims are at greater risk of becoming isolated in Finnish society. This can lead to radicalisation, Räsänen says.

In response to the remarks, Green Party MP Jyrki Kasvi accuses Räsänen of discrimination against members of different faiths. Writing in his blog on the Green Party website, Kasvi sees Räsänen’s stance to be in violation of international human rights, which forbid discrimination on the basis of religion.

YLE, 30 October 2010

Reject irresponsible claims that Lutfur Rahman is mayor of an ‘Islamic republic’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The New York blogger Pamela Geller, who believes America is being infiltrated by Muslim extremists, recently denounced Lutfur Rahman, the newly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets in east London, as a “vile Islamic supremacist”. Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips disapproves of Rahman too. She has declared that his victory provides “a platform for the progressive intimidation and silencing of British Muslims who do not want to live under sharia law, let alone the non-Muslim majority in the area.”

These large claims appear to be based on the uncritical embrace of a TV documentary of questionable worth and a vituperative anti-Rahman campaign conducted by its famous presenter. Nonetheless, the assertions are enlightening. Reaching an international market for tales of Islamist intrigue, they demonstrate how reducing the complexities of Tower Hamlets to a “sexy” narrative about alleged plotting fanatics obscures rather more than it reveals.

Dave Hill at Comment is Free, 29 October 2010

For another example of Gilligan-inspired Islamophobic ranting from the US right, see “London’s Islamic Republic” at the American Thinker, 28 October 2010

Truth has limited effect in countering rumours about Park51, study finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

'Ground Zero mosque' opponents3

Evidence is no match against the belief in false rumors concerning the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, a new study finds.

Researchers at Ohio State University found that fewer than one-third of people who had previously heard and believed one of the many rumors about the proposed center changed their minds after reading overwhelming evidence rejecting the rumor.

The false rumor that researchers used in the study was that Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam backing the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque, is a terrorist sympathizer who has refused to condemn Islamic attacks on civilians.

There is no evidence that this statement is true, according to FactCheck.org, a fact-checking service run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and Politifact, the Pulitzer-Prize winning service of the St. Petersburg Times.

While providing a definitive rebuttal helped dispel belief in this rumor under two conditions, researchers found that it was easy to neutralize the positive effects of the rebuttal, simply through the use of certain photos or the addition of unrelated text.

“We didn’t have much success in shaking people’s beliefs in false rumors,” said R. Kelly Garrett, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State.

Ohio State University Research News, 27 October 2010

For the central role played by Fox News in promoting false rumours about the Park51 development, see here.

Wilders applauds Merkel’s stand against Islam and multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dutch Islamophobic politician Geert Wilders hailed German Chancellor Angela Merkel for what he termed her “critical” stance towards Islam, the daily newspaper Die Welt reported Wednesday. Addressing the Dutch parliament, Wilders said Merkel had taken over “the lead in the area of criticism about Islam”. “Mrs. Merkel, you are right,” said the head of the Dutch anti-Islam Party for Freedom.

ABNA, 27 October 2010

See also “German chancellor rejects anti-Islam accolade from Dutch far right”, DPA, 27 October 2010

In his speech Wilders also stated: “If even the chancellor says that multicultural society has completely failed, then that means something. The most important politician of the Christian Democrats in the most important country of Europe breaks a taboo and says it like it is. And she says what millions of people are thinking.”