The Dallas Morning News reports that Texan companies are increasingly recognising the need to provide prayer rooms for their Muslim employees. Robert Spencer is not happy.
Category Archives: Right wing
The disgusting misrepresentation of British Muslims
“The picture that the evidence paints is a disturbing one. It suggests a network of hard-right islamophobes engaged in an organized propaganda campaign to raise fears about Islam. It’s a network that is able to reach the public easily through connections with mainstream media outlets like The Telegraph and The Daily Mail, who seem more than happy to amplify the noise the network generates. Far from promoting social cohesion, these people appear to be promoting the breakdown of British society.”
Martin Robbins takes on the Centre for Social Cohesion.
Islam on Campus: letters from the Sunday Times
The Islam on Campus report and the way it was promoted by the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) has been criticised by universities, students and academics (Muslim students back Islamic killings, News, last week). The 120-page report concludes that “British Muslim students hold a diverse and broad range of opinions. The majority of Muslim students have tolerant ideas towards other minorities, reject violence in the name of their faith and support Britain’s secular and democratic society as well as its system of governance”.
The University and College Union (UCU), like the majority of people, takes the threat of terrorism seriously. We welcome the recent emphasis the government has put on community cohesion in regards to tackling violent extremism, but we reject the headline-grabbing tactics of groups such as CSC.
Sally Hunt, UCU general secretary
I am a lecturer in history at Queen Mary University of London, born, raised and educated in Israel. I teach the history of medieval Islam (society, culture and politics) to Muslim and non-Muslim students alike. The students contribute to debate about Islam from their diverse backgrounds and perspectives. The article published last week bears no similarity to my own experience at Queen Mary; it disparages the intellectual integrity of the young men and women who study with me and can only make open discussion more difficult.
Yossi Rapoport, Department of History, Queen Mary University
Social cohesion – excluding Muslims
Inayat Bunglawala responds to the Centre for Social Cohesion’s Islam on Campus report, and examines earlier statements by CSC director Douglas Murray.
See also Yusuf Smith’s reply to an article by Murray in Standpoint magazine.
‘Kids can now defy heads to wear burkha’
A sikh girl’s court victory yesterday means Muslim teens are now free to cover up with the burkha at school. Sarika Watkins-Singh, 14, won the right to wear a Kara bracelet after being excluded for defying a schools ban on jewellery. A judge’s ruling that she had been the victim of unlawful discrimination could start a stampede of kids wearing religious clobber in class.
Lawyer Caroline Newman said: “A time is coming where Muslim girls will be allowed to wear a full burka as part of their uniform, though it might have to be in a colour to match. This decision brings us one step closer to that day.” The discrimination guru added: “It could open the floodgates for more religious clothing, jewellery and symbols to be allowed as long as they don’t incite racial hatred and are proportionate.”
And we can’t be having that, can we?
Joint statement: divisive study for divisive ends
British Muslim students have long contributed to the success of Britain. Muslim students have gone on to become doctors, business people and public servants, and all have been part of making Britain the vibrant society that it is today. ‘Islam on Campus’ a survey published on Sunday that supposedly charts UK student opinion is silent on this, just as it is silent on seeking positive good practise examples of British Muslims reaching out, seeking the common good.
The latest report on British Muslim students by the Centre for Social Cohesion serves only to strengthen bigots and demagogues keen to sow discord amongst British people. The authors of the report cannot hide behind a purportedly scientific survey to justify their own agenda of creating anything but cohesion in society. We refer to more concrete polling data that illustrate the commitment British Muslims have to British society and the people around them. The authors cite their unsatisfactory sampling to extrapolate ideological and biased conclusions to serve their own divisive ends.
We are a cross-section of British people who believe in the importance of meaningful social cohesion, where British people from all backgrounds and persuasions can live together without maligning each other. The Centre for Social Cohesion is opposed to this, and we reject their conclusions utterly.
We do not deny that the terror threat is serious, nor do we object to the notion that separatism and bigotry should be challenged, including from within the Muslim community. However the report incorrectly ascribes guilt by tenuous association with those national Muslim organisations who have been firm and innovative on both counts. Moreover, these organisations are theologically diverse, and yet the study insinuates that they favour one Islamic tradition over another.
The report reserves a lot of its fire for the Islamic student societies that operate from campus up and down the country. We find it curious, therefore, that the report sought qualitative opinions from only twelve Islamic student societies, yet there are scores of Muslim student bodies in the UK – hardly a representative sample. Islamic societies have done much to engage Muslim students with the mainstream. The study could have cited, for example, those Islamic societies that worked in partnership with those Jewish student societies to bring about greater understanding.
A report like this can only create discord amongst us. It has already done so with incendiary headlines such as ‘Muslim students back killings‘. Muslim students do not back killings, they are not separatist, they are British and very much part of our vibrant society.
Signed by:
Wes Streeting – President, National Union of Students
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari – Secretary General, The Muslim Council of Britain
Pav Akhtar – National Race Equality Officer, UNISON
Khurshid Ahmad – Chairman, British Muslim Forum
Milena Buyum – Vice-Chair, National Assembly Against Racism
Ahmad al-Rawi – Muslim Association of Britain
Faisal Hanjra – President, FOSIS
See also Joint Statement Between Islamic Societies and FOSIS in Response to Islam on Campus Report.
Can Britain survive multiculturalism?
In the modern British politically correct state, multiculturalism runs amok. And the government persecutes and suppresses British culture and tradition, while allowing hate and injustice within radical Islam to flourish.
When former drug dealer and now born again Christian Paul Ray wrote in his blog that the Muslim drug gangs in his hometown of Luton were “savages,” he was arrested on suspicion of a hate crime. “It’s ok for the Muslims to do what they’re doing, and no one arrests them, but then if we start saying and disagreeing with what’s actually happening, then we’re breaching community cohesion and we get arrested for it,” he explained. Ray fled Britain after this interview, because of threats against his life from Muslim gangs.
Whole sections of Britain are now considered dangerous “no-go zones” for non-Muslims.
Sally McNamara is at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. “When you have a government which is so hampered by political correctness, that they’re unwilling to assert national values of tolerance, of rule of law, of human rights, of women’s rights… then you’re creating mixed messages where you’re saying the extremists can flourish,” she said.
“One of the worst things that is happening in England is that people are being ignored,” Stephen Gash said. Gash helps lead a grassroots group called SIOE, Stop the Islamization of Europe, which has a chapter in Britain. “They’re discriminating against the majority people in Europe now in favor of the Islamists and Muslims.” he added. “The way we’re going, we’re going to be taken back to the stoning age. That’s what’s going to happen to this country.”
It’s clear that multiculturalism and political correctness have backfired badly. The hardcore Islamists have not been assimilated, but the nation’s confidence in democracy and Christian civilization has been sapped, and its will to resist the cultural aggressiveness of radical Islam has been weakened.
‘A third of Muslim students back killings’
Almost a third of British Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam can be justified, according to a poll. The study also found that two in five Muslims at university support the incorporation of Islamic sharia codes into British law.
The YouGov poll for the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) will raise concerns about the extent of campus radicalism. “Significant numbers appear to hold beliefs which contravene democratic values,” said Hannah Stuart, one of the report’s authors. “These results are deeply embarrassing for those who have said there is no extremism in British universities.”
The report was criticised by the country’s largest Muslim student body, Fosis, but Anthony Glees, professor of security and intelligence studies at Buckingham University, said: “The finding that a large number of students think it is okay to kill in the name of religion is alarming. There is a wide cultural divide between Muslim and non-Muslim students. The solution is to stop talking about celebrating diversity and focus on integration and assimilation.”
See the FOSIS press release which quotes Faisal Hanjra, President of FOSIS, as stating: “This is yet another damning attack on the Muslim community by elements within the academic arena whose only purpose seems to be the undermining of sincere efforts by mainstream Muslim organisations to tackle the threat of terror which wider society faces. The report is methodologically weak, it is unrepresentative and above all serves only to undermine the positive work carried out by Islamic Societies across the country.”
Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, is also quoted as condemning the study: “This report is a reflection of the biases and prejudices of a right wing think tank – not the views of Muslim students across Britain. Only 632 Muslim students were asked vague and misleading questions, and their answers were then wilfully misinterpreted in order to fit this organisation’s own tawdry obsession with Islam.”
See also the Sunday Herald, which reports that Muslim students’ leaders in Scotland have dismissed the CSC’s research as flawed. Adel Daas, president of Strathclyde University Muslim Students’ Association, said: “What scares me is how this report is going to be used. It will be used to divide Muslims from non-Muslims. This is not working to bring communities together, it is trying to highlight the things that separate us from others, which is wrong. This study is going to cause more pressure, more separation, more issues and more problems.”
The Scottish Islamic Foundation also expressed reservations about the findings. Noman Tahir, a Glasgow University student who is also from the foundation, said of the Centre for Social Cohesion: “Despite the pleasant name, it has become increasingly apparent over the last few years that this organisation is less concerned about social cohesion and instead more apt at spreading vicious lies and hatred towards Muslims.”
Usman Anwar, a member of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies’ student affairs committee, said: “You can tell by the language the report uses throughout that it has a specific agenda to paint a bleak picture. We meet many students on a regular basis and our findings do not correlate with the findings of this survey. This report serves only to vilify Islamic societies and undermine the sincere efforts by mainstream Muslim organisations to tackle the threat of terror which wider society faces.”
See also the Sunday Times where Minette Marrin asks: “how can young Muslims fit into a liberal western democracy if they believe things that are intolerant, illegal and, in plain English, unBritish?”
Marrin offers a solution: “There must be no public recognition of religious associations as representatives of anything or anybody: not on campuses, not in student unions, not in government consultations or in parliament. So-called religious community leaders, or umbrella groups of religious bodies, must of course be free to associate as they like in private, in a free country, but publicly they must be ignored.”
The CSC report is available (pdf) here.
Update: The YouGov poll asked Muslim students: “Is it ever justifiable to kill in the name of religion?” Only 4% agreed that it was justifiable “in order to preserve and promote that religion”, while 28% agreed with the view that it was justifiable “only if that religion is under attack”. This is where the “third of Muslim students back killings” headline comes from. In fact 53% agreed that killing in the name of religion is “never justifiable”.
Imagine a polling organisation asking students whether they think killing is ever justifiable in the name of their country. 4% say yes, in order to preserve and promote that country, 28% say yes, but only if that country is under attack, and 53% say never under any circumstances. Would the right-wing press report this as “one third of students back killings”? No, they’d report it as “half of students would refuse to fight to defend their country” and denounce the iniquitous influence of pacifism on university campuses!
In fact, it looks to me as though the YouGov poll revealed that the British Muslim student population holds much more moderate views than the Islamophobes of the Centre for Social Cohesion had anticipated, which is why they have to spin the results so dishonestly.
Judge tosses Savage’s suit against Islamic group
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage against an Islamic civil rights group over its use of a portion of his show in which he called the Quran a “book of hate.”
Savage sued the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, for copyright infringement and racketeering in a lawsuit late last year, claiming the group violated his rights by using a segment of his “Savage Nation” show in a letter-writing campaign to get advertisers to boycott the program. In the broadcast used by CAIR, Savage also called the Muslim holy book “a throwback document.”
In her ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said people who listen to a public broadcast are entitled to use excerpts for purposes of comment and criticism. She also said no evidence was presented to show that advertising on the show’s broadcast was affected by CAIR’s actions.
The racketeering element of the lawsuit alleged that CAIR was not a civil rights group, but a political organization with ties to terrorist groups. CAIR denies those claims, saying it opposes terrorism and religious extremism.
In an interview with The Associated Press after he filed the lawsuit in December, Savage said he was referring to Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his violent brand of Islamic extremism in the broadcast, not about the religion in general.
Savage’s attorney, Daniel Horowitz, told the San Francisco Chronicle he plans to file a new racketeering suit.
Associated Press, 26 July 2008
See also “Suit against ‘Savage Nation’ radio host tossed”, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 July 2008
What is Nick Cohen playing at?
Sunny Hundal poses the question, in response to Cohen’s Evening Standard article applauding Anthony Browne, recently appointed to a senior position in London mayor Boris Johnson’s administration, for having “stood up for free speech and against liberal alliances with radical Islam, and exposed the civil servants who were pretending that a rise in HIV was due to poor sex education rather than immigration from African countries”.