Category Archives: Right wing

Portraying Muslims as sub-human is not ‘free speech’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The depiction of Prophet Muhammad as a dog by a Swedish cartoonist has sparked off controversies and renewed debates on the limits to free speech. The incident at Uppsala University when Muslim protesters physically attacked Lars Vilks while giving a lecture on the limits of free speech is presented in the media as yet another instance of Muslim intolerance and violence. But let us first examine the subtext of the message that Vilks is trying to convey….

Muslims, in Vilks’s view, as represented by their prophet, are sub-human creatures to be looked down upon. They are perhaps the worst vermin that “nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth”, to use Swift’s phrase in a different context. In this respect, Vilks’s message seems fairly similar to that conveyed by the short “documentary” film Fitna produced by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders….

But does Vilks realise the impact of this kind of representation on the lives of ordinary European Muslims going peacefully about their business? Does he realise that the image he has created feeds into the racial profiling and stereotyping targeting the Muslim population in Europe in particular? …

Vilks has succeeded in gaining his moment in the spotlight. But the legacy of his action will be the perpetuation of a cycle of hatred and suspicion.

Amira Nowaira at Comment is Free, 21 May 2010

The veil is a ‘war against women’ and Australia should ban it too

Posted on by Bob Pitt

It would seem there are some things in Australia we are not allowed to discuss. A ban on the burqa is clearly one of them. But the time has come to get over our fears and cultural fragilities – and grow up. The call to ban the burqa is receiving serious consideration in European parliaments. And it should here, too.

Belgian legislators voted last month to outlaw the burqa in public places. On Wednesday, a bipartisan resolution passed by the French parliament deploring the burqa – on the grounds of “dignity” and “equality of men and women” – was presented to the French cabinet, and a ban is expected later this year. Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada are also grappling with the issue.

But in Australia, in a sign of cultural timidity and intellectual weakness, we seem intent on shunning any meaningful debate about the burqa and its place in a liberal democracy.

Virginia Haussegger in The Age, 21 May 2010

Haussegger quotes Malalai Joya in support of her argument, omitting to inform her readers that the Afghan politician has condemned proposals to ban the veil, on the grounds that it is “against the very basic element of democracy to restrict a human being from wearing the clothes of his/her choice”.

See also “Nile vows to continue fight against the burqa “, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 May 2010

New York politicians rally in support of ‘Ground Zero mosque’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NY politicians reject racial hatred

New York politicians gathered Thursday afternoon to denounce Tea Party leader Mark Williams and support a mosque and community center planned near ground zero. The politicians were responding to Williams’ blog rant against the mosque Wednesday, in which he said Muslims worshipped a “monkey god.”

“His spewing of racial hatred reminds me … of Adolph Hitler,” Borough President Scott Stringer said at Thursday’s press conference. “We reject him. We reject his bigotry.”

Stringer and other politicians stood together outside the former Burlington Coat Factory building on Park Place, where the Cordoba Initiative hopes to build a $100 million, 13-story community center with Islamic, interfaith and secular programming, similar to the 92nd Street Y.

While the Cordoba House’s location just two blocks north of the World Trade Center has sparked protests from some 9/11 family members and many others, the local politicians said Thursday that the location was fitting. “This is precisely where this kind of center for peace and place of worship should rise up,” City Comptroller John Liusaid.

In addition to Liu and Stringer, State Sen. Daniel Squadron, City Councilwoman Margaret Chin and Councilman Robert Jackson, the Council’s sole Muslim, all spoke in favor of the plans.

DNAinfo, 20 May 2010

Update:  See also “Mosque hysteria: All houses of worship are welcome everywhere in New York”, New York Daily News, 21 May 2010

NSW Parliament rejects veil ban bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Reverend Fred Nile today tried to introduce a bill to the NSW Parliament calling for a ban on the burqa, a head and body veil worn by some Muslim women. But his motion to have a private member’s bill read and debated failed by three votes to 29 – only he and two Shooters’ Party members voted for it.

The Christian Democrats MP wanted NSW to follow a growing list of European countries that have moved to ban women from wearing the full head and body covering in public.

Mr Nile’s Full-face Coverings Prohibition Bill was modelled on legislation recently passed by the Belgium Parliament. He says concealment of a person’s face – male or female – for any purpose, including terrorism, anarchism or discrimination against women, should be banned.

“We must do all we can to protect women, especially Muslim women, from discrimination and oppression so they live an open lifestyle,” Mr Nile said. “The wearing of the burqa is a form of oppression which has no place in the 21st century.” It also presented a security risk, he said, citing terrorists in the Middle East and Russia who had launched attacks while concealing their identity or weapons under a burqa.

Mr Nile introduced a similar bill in 2006 and 2002, prompting widespread condemnation.

Sydney Morning Herald, 20 May 2010

Catch the video of Reza Aslan commenting on the French plan to ban the veil.

See also “Burqa debate stopped in NSW upper house”, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 May 2010

‘A mosque at Ground Zero? A sick joke’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NY mosque protestThus Douglas Murray’s take on the proposal to build a new mosque and community centre in New York, not far from the site of the former World Trade Center.

Meanwhile, over in the USA, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have written a piece entitled “The 9/11 mosque’s peace charade“. They dismiss the anti-extremist credentials of the Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement, the organisations proposing to build the mosque:

“How will a mosque, the place where jihadis go for spiritual sustenance, at Ground Zero help stop jihad terrorism? … Whom does a mosque at 9/11 really honor: the Americans who lost their lives, or the jihadis who murdered them?”

Geller and Spencer are organising a protest rally on 6 June through their organisation Stop Islamization of America.

And one Mark Williams, a leading figure in the Tea Party movement, has written on his blog:

“The animals of allah for whom any day is a great day for a massacre are drooling over the positive response that they are getting from New York City officials over a proposal to build a 13 story monument to the 9/11 Muslims who hijacked those 4 airliners. The monument would consist of a Mosque for the worship of the terrorists’ monkey-god and a ‘cultural center’ to propagandize for the extermination of all things not approved by their cult.”

‘Britain must end the appeasement of Islamist terrorists: the Human Rights Act should be scrapped’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nile Gardiner denounces the ruling by the Special Immigration and Appeals Commission that two terror suspects could not be deported to Pakistan on the grounds they might be tortured there.

His colleague Douglas Murray goes with “Why do al-Qaeda’s rights trump those of the British people?”

Neither Gardiner nor Murray bothers to mention that the two individuals have not been convicted of any offence – or indeed allowed to hear, still less to challenge, the evidence against them.

See also ENGAGE, 19 May 2010

Quebec: ‘secularists’ demand that religion should be excluded from the public sphere

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CCIEL logoQuebecers fought hard to free themselves from the Roman Catholic Church’s control during the Quiet Revolution and they must prevent newcomers from imposing religious values here again, speakers said last night at the start of a three-day conference on secularism.

“We must not let other religious groups bring back religious practices,” said conference organizer Djemila Benhabib, co-founder of the Collectif citoyen pour l’égalité et la laïcité (CCIEL). “The rights of women, children and homosexuals are threatened by the demands of reasonable accommodation,” Benhabib told an audience of about 225 at the Bibliothèque Nationale.

Her group is part of a diverse coalition of feminists, Quebec nationalists, defenders of gay rights and anti-immigration activists calling on the government to ban all religious symbols and teachings from the public sphere.

Quebec’s Conseil du statut de la femme helped pay for the conference along with the French consulate. The movement also has support from public-sector unions and media personalities including columnists Marie-Claire Lortie of La Presse and Richard Martineau of the Journal de Montréal, who moderated panels at the conference. In March, 100 intellectuals signed a manifesto calling for Quebec to adopt a charter of secularism that would ban all vestiges of religion from the public sphere.

Montreal Gazette, 20 May 2010

CAIR calls on Tea Party Convention to exclude Geller

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CAIR is calling on American Muslims and other people of conscience to contact the organizers of the inaugural Tennessee Tea Party Convention to be held this weekend in Gatlinburg and ask that they drop an anti-Islam speaker who claims that “Hitler and the Nazis were inspired by Islam” and that Islam “mandates” lies and deception.

The extremist anti-Islam speaker, far-right blogger Pamela Geller, is also head of the hate group Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA). At the convention, Geller is scheduled to speak about “The Threat of Islam.”

Today, Geller posted images on her blog purporting to depict Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Several of those images show the prophet as a pig. Another image, headlined “Piss Be Upon Him,” shows one of the controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet covered in urine. (“Piss Be Upon Him” is designed to mock the traditional phrase “Peace Be Upon Him” that Muslims use when mentioning any prophet of God.)

CAIR’s request comes just a day after the Washington-based civil rights and advocacy organization called on the Tea Party to repudiate “ignorant” comments made by one of its leaders, who wrote that Muslims worship a “monkey-god.” Mark Williams, chairman of the Tea Party Express, also wrote on his blog that Muslims are “animals of allah [sic].”

“The Tea Party needs to decide whether it is a legitimate national political movement or just a safe haven for bigots and extremists,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “We ask that convention organizers not legitimize Geller’s extremist anti-Muslim rhetoric by offering her an official platform.”

CAIR press release, 20 May 2010

What has provoked CAIR, Geller claims, is her campaign against the plan to build a mosque and community centre near the former site of the World Trade Center in New York: “The grand jihadist Muslim Brotherhood at CAIR know what that means. It will be the icon, the rally call for every devout Muslim and jihadist across the world. They must have their symbol of conquest.”