Category Archives: Right wing

Obama Islam smear changes stripes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When the Islam smear against Obama first came out, it was based on the idea that he is currently, a Muslim. Then the Pastor Wright controversy put that mess to rest, since Obama’s affiliations to an obviously Christian Church became front and center. Now there is a new Islam smear. This one says that Obama was a Muslim – and as a result, he is going to arouse the wrath of Muslims around the world who are going to want to kill him for apostasy (converting away from Islam, punishable by death).”

Ali Eteraz responds to an article by Edward Luttwack in the New York Times, which he describes as “solid fear-mongering”.

Huffington Post, 13 May 2008

Daily Telegraph leader writer and Catholic Herald editor Damian Thompson (“Barack Obama ‘could face Islamic execution'”) hails the NYT article as “fascinating stuff”: Telegraph blog, 12 May 2008

Birmingham professor speaks at extremist Islamic group debate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HizbA University of Birmingham professor and student have come under fire for supporting a debate held by an extremist Islamist organisation.

Sociology professor John Holmwood spoke at a debate on secularism organised by the Hizb-ut-Tahrir group, which on its website constitution calls for a pan-Islamic caliphate and the execution of people who convert from Islam. Yasmin Patel, who was elected to be the minority students’ support officer on the Guild of Students at the university, sent out emails encouraging attendance at the debate.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which translates as Party of Liberation, is a global political group, which has been accused of fostering extremism against women and Jews. Its constitution calls for a state of constant war against Israel.

Prof Holmwood said the meeting, held in Small Heath on Sunday, had not been involved with extremism and it was important to engage groups in debate. He said:

“There were about 100 people there, probably 100 per cent Muslim, but 90 per cent of them weren’t Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Not engaging views is more dangerous than some of the opinions of those you are engaging with. I went there not knowing what to expect. What happened was there was a good debate and people came up afterwards and said some of them wanted to come up to the university and talk about issues of secularism, and that can only be a good thing.”

Adam Sher, secretary of the University of Birmingham’s Jewish Society, said: “A minority officer, in my opinion, shouldn’t be espousing the views of Hizb-ut-Tahrir.”

Birmingham Post, 13 May 2008

For the origins of this witch-hunt, see The Ministry of Truth and Harry’s Place.

McCain’s war on ‘Islamic terror’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“With Senator Obama the presumptive Democratic nominee, the question facing America, increasingly, boils down to this: intensify the ‘clash of civilizations’, at the continued expense of domestic needs, or turn to diplomacy to resolve international conflict, so we can re-orient our national priorities to health care, education, economic recovery, and protecting the environment.”

Writing in the Huffington Post Robert Naiman observes that John McCain “continues to flog the idea of a war on ‘Islamic terrorism’, even though the official policy of the United States Government is that there is no US war on ‘Islamic Terror’.” Naiman points out: “Of course, if America sees itself as facing an enemy of ‘Islamic terror’, while that might be very harmful to the U.S. internationally, it could be very useful domestically. It would be much easier to rationalize a military attack on Iran.”

History textbooks ‘blatantly promoting Islam’ shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

History textbooks being used by hundreds of thousands of public school students across the U.S. are blatantly promoting Islam, according to a new report by an independent organization that researches and reviews textbooks.

WND has reported several times on issues involving the promotion of Islam in public school texts, including a recent situation in which California parents complained their children were being taught that “jihad” to Muslims means “doing good works.”

The new report is from the American Textbook Council, which was established in 1989 as an independent national research organization to review social studies textbooks and advance the quality of instructional materials in history.

In the two-year project, whose report was authored by Gilbert T. Sewall, the ATC reviewed five junior and five high school world and American history texts, concluding:

“Many political and religious groups try to use the textbook process to their advantage, but the deficiencies in Islam-related lessons are uniquely disturbing. History textbooks present an incomplete and confected view of Islam that misrepresents its foundations and challenges to international security.”

World Net Daily, 10 May 2008

See also Right Side News, 11 May 2008

Munira Mirza joins Boris’s team

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Munira_MirzaA glamorous young Muslim [sic] woman is the latest Cameron favourite to be parachuted in to keep a close eye on Johnson. Munira Mirza, who argues that racism in the UK is greatly exaggerated, is to serve as a cultural adviser to the mayor.

She is the third member of his new team to have worked for Policy Exchange, the organisation behind many of the policies adopted by Cameron’s Conservatives.

Mirza’s appointment will also be viewed as an attempt to neutralise any accusations that Johnson is racist, especially as he seeks to slash grants to fringe ethnic groups, many of which received lavish funding from Livingstone.

Mirza believes race relations policies based on multicultural ideas have been divisive.

Sunday Times, 11 May 2008

For more on Munira Mirza and Policy Exchange see here. Pointing to Mirza’s asssociation with the tendency around Spiked Online and the Institute of Ideas, which was formerly the Revolutionary Communist Party, we wrote that the ideology promoted by the ex-RCP these days “fits in quite well with Tory values”. And in another piece we observed that the RCP had “morphed into a bunch of right-wing libertarian individualists whose obvious natural home now is the Tory party”. How right we were.

Update:  See also Jenny Bourne’s comment piece on the Institute of Race Relations website.

Islamic group offended by ‘mosque’ drill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

'Irving mosque' drill

A U.S. Islamic group said an emergency drill at a simulated mosque in Irving, Ill., inaccurately stereotyped Islamic mosques as safety risks.

Nearly 30 government agencies took part in last week’s drill, during which the village’s Continuing Recovery Center was referred to as “Irving Mosque,” a “home-base for a radical, heavily armed group with suspected terrorist ties,” the Springfield (Ill.) State Journal-Register reported Thursday.

“It really was in poor taste, probably as a result of a lack of cultural prowess on the part of the person who made that choice,” said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’.

The drill used simulated blasts, hostage situations and nerve gas to train law enforcement officers how to respond to such situations.

Diana Holmes, coordinator of the Montgomery County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency, said she was unaware of the council’s criticism, the newspaper reported.

UPI, 8 May 2008

See also CAIR press release, 6 May 2008 and Op Ed News, 9 May 2008 … and, for a different view, Pipe Line News, 6 May 2008.

Practising Muslims ‘will outnumber Christians by 2035’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

By 2035, there will be about 1.96 million active Muslims in Britain, compared with 1.63 million church-going Christians, according to calculations by Christian Research, a think-tank. The figures are published in the latest in a series of reports entitled Religious Trends.

The think-tank has warned that 4,000 churches could close by 2020 if congregations continue to shrink at current rates. Christian Research describes its aim as encouraging “change in Christian culture so that by 2010 more churches are growing”.

The Church of England moved to discredit the research last night, criticising its methodology and saying the results were “flawed and dangerously misleading”. A C of E spokesman said: “These sorts of statistics, based on dubious presumptions, do no one of any faith any favours. Faith communities are not in competition and simplistic research like this is misleading and unhelpful.”

The research does not compare like with like, according to the spokesman. The number of practising Muslims, for instance, is based on the number of people who said they were active in the 2001 census. If the same process were applied to Christians it would give a figure of 20 million active churchgoers, according to Church House, the headquarters of the C of E.

Daily Telegraph, 8 May 2008

See also the Times and the Daily Mail.

Agreeing with the BNP …

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Well, even a stopped clock is right two times a day and so it is that I find myself rather agreeing with the BNP’s recently elected to the London Assembly Richard Barnbrook who says that he will press for the Union Flag to be flown permanently over City Hall, for burkas to be banned from public buildings and for official celebrations to mark St George’s Day. He will resist the planned construction of a huge new mosque, the biggest place of worship in Britain, in Newham, East London.

“This seems fair enough to me – after all London IS British and not merely an overseas branch of Islamabad. I think the Burqa SHOULD be banned, and feel that the huge new mega mosque planned for East London should also be banned until such times as existing mosques prove they are not little more than recruiting offices for Jihad, and surely the flying of the Union Flag over City Hall is non-controversial?”

A Tangled Web, 6 May 2008