Category Archives: Right wing

‘Respect brings people together’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim leader has opposed comments by Tory leader David Cameron in a speech in which he said the introduction of Sharia law would undermine British society. Speaking on the issue for the first time since the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, made his controversial comments, Mr Cameron said adopting elements of Sharia law would lead to a “legal apartheid” and “state multiculturalism”. Ishtiaq Ahmed also criticised Mr Cameron’s understanding of multiculturalism.

Mr Ahmed, of the Bradford Council of Mosques, said: “In a country where people feel free to be able to live according to their ways of life while sharing certain basic values, then I think that enables people to contribute to – and take ownership of – their community. If society respects people’s cultural identities, values and heritage, it brings people together and creates an atmosphere of co-operation and support.”

Councillor Martin Smith, Bradford Council’s executive member for community safety, said: “Mr Cameron may feel like that if he is not in day-to-day contact with the situation, but those of us in Bradford who are in day-to-day contact with the Asian community feel there is a great understanding of where the situation needs to go. It’s not possible to say multiculturalism is not working in Bradford.”

Bradford Telegraph & Argus, 27 February 2008

Sharia law ‘would undermine British society’ – Cameron

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David Cameron (5)Muslim Sharia law would undermine society if it was introduced in Britain, Conservative leader David Cameron said today. Mr Cameron said it would in fact lead to a “legal apartheid”. He added that “state multiculturalism” was also the wrong way to tackle integration.

He said: “I don’t believe that by introducing Sharia law, we will make Muslims somehow feel more British – more content with life here and more happy to work for a common good.

“In my view the opposite is the case: I think it would be to head in the wrong direction. The reality is that the introduction of Sharia law for Muslims is actually the logical endpoint of the now discredited doctrine of state multiculturalism instituting, quite literally, a legal apartheid to entrench what is the cultural apartheid in too many parts of our country.

“This wouldn’t strengthen society – it would undermine it. It would alienate other communities who would resent this preferential treatment. It would provide succour to the separatists who want to isolate and divide communities from the mainstream. And it would – crucially – weaken, destabilise and demoralise those Muslims who embrace liberal values and desperately want to integrate fully in British society.”

Speaking alongside Trevor Phillips, the chairman of Equality and Human Rights Commission, Mr Cameron attacked the Government’s idea of multiculturalism. He said:

“I believe that state multiculturalism is a wrong-headed doctrine that has had disastrous results. It has fostered difference between communities. And it has stopped us from strengthening our collective identity. Indeed, it has deliberately weakened it. By concentrating on defining the various cultures that have come to call Britain home, we have forgotten to define the most important one: our own. So we now have a situation where the children of first-generation immigrants – children, let us remember, who have been born and raised here – feel more divorced from life in Britain than their parents.”

Daily Telegraph, 26 February 2008

See also the Guardian, 26 February 2008

Full text of Cameron’s speech here

‘Islam is mandated to kill, steal and destroy America’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Biblical Family Advocates

Pastor Phil Magnan, president of Biblical Family Advocates, has been reading World Net Daily. He warns:

“We must seriously consider the fact that Islam is no ordinary religion as it is obligated to overthrow the countries they begin to reside in. We have seen this in Europe, especially in the UK where entire cities have been taken over by radical Islamists. We are fools if we do not see the handwriting on the wall. We should consider deporting all Muslims before it’s too late. Why should we allow our national destruction in the name of political correctness?”

Mangan adds: “Jesus Christ spoke of those who would try to enter into heaven another way, rather than through Christ. He even said that these are the people who steal, kill and destroy. This has been the agenda of Islam ever since they destroyed Christian churches in Northern Africa over 1300 years ago…. it is Biblically and constitutionally incumbent for our government to protect us from those who plan evil against the families of our nation.”

Christian News Wire, 25 February 2008

Bishop of Rochester reasserts ‘no-go’ claim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nazir Ali 2The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who received death threats for airing his views on Islamic issues, has vowed that he will continue to speak out.

His claim that Islamic extremism has turned some parts of Britain into “no-go” areas for non-Muslims led to fierce rows between political and religious leaders over the impact of multiculturalism on this country.

Yet, in his first interview since the sinister calls were made to his home, the Bishop of Rochester remains steadfastly defiant. He will not be silenced. “I believe people should not be prevented from speaking out,” he says. “The issue had to be raised. There are times when Christian leaders have to speak out.”

He wishes the Church would be more vocal on issues of multiculturalism and sharia law. He agrees with Dr Williams in supporting the right of Muslims to observe their religious freedom, but is strongly opposed to any idea of Islamic law being recognised within the British legal system.

“People of every faith should be free within the law to follow what their spiritual leaders direct them to, but that’s very different from saying their structures should replace that of the English legal system because there would be huge conflicts.” In particular, he points to polygamy, women’s rights and freedom of belief as areas in sharia law that would undermine equality.

There is a danger that the archbishop’s remarks could become a reality unless Britain quickly regains a sense of its Christian heritage. “Do the British people really want to lose that rooting in the Christian faith that has given them everything they cherish – art, literature, architecture, institutions, the monarchy, their value system, their laws?”

Sunday Telegraph, 24 February 2008

‘3 in 4 US mosques preach anti-West extremism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mapping Sharia

An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the alarming finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centers are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism, WND has learned.

The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country. “So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist,” an official familiar with the project said.

Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official who runs the Center for Security Policy, says the results of the survey have not yet been published. But he confirmed that “the vast majority” are inciting insurrection and jihad through sermons by Saudi-trained imams and anti-Western literature, videos and textbooks.

World Net Daily, 23 February 2008

Muslims as the enemies of western civilisation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Alex Klaushofer takes issue with “the ubiquitous rhetoric of the ‘clash of civilisations’ between Islam and the west which, as the UN-sponsored Alliance of Civilisations group notes, is the prevailing political doctrine of our time.” He writes:

“Recently I came up against its most extreme form when an evangelical Christian presented me with a copy of the book Jerusalem Countdown by the Texas-based pastor John Hagee. Although broadly familiar with the tenets of this brand of Christian conservatism and ‘end-time’ theology, nothing prepared me for the contents – page after page of ‘evidence’ demonstrating incontrovertibly that Muslims, as members of a faith group out for the destruction of Christians and Jews, are the enemies of western civilisation.”

Guardian, 23 February 2008

HT speaker reinstated

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The British leader of the Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir group will speak after all at a controversial debate tackling extremism in London’s East End. It follows pressure to reinstate Dr Abdul Wahid, chairman of the UK wing of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Tower Hamlets council leader Denise Jones said on Monday that the Cordoba Foundation had agreed to cancel its invitation to Dr Wahid. But by Wednesday, the foundation had changed its mind and reinstated him as a speaker at the debate entitled “Has Political Participation Failed British Muslims?” at the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel next Tuesday. Cllr Jones, as a result, has ordered that public funding for the event be withdrawn.

But Tory Opposition councillor Tim Archer said it was “not good enough” and has written to the council chief executive. “I acknowledge the council has now withdrawn its public funding for this particular debate,” he said. “But I’m unhappy it is still supporting a foundation that thinks it’s sensible to invite Hizb ut-Tahrir to address our youngsters. It shows a real lack of leadership from the council who seem to want to appease a small minority. Hizb ut-Tahrir is virtually a banned organisation in this country. Gordon Brown has already said he is reviewing its current status.”

He added: “Tower Hamlets would never have anything to do with an event where the BNP was asked to speak. So why is it not distancing itself further from an event where a virtually banned organisation is due to speak? It smacks of political correctness and a real lack of courage to tackle difficult issues. The Cordoba Foundation should be told it will receive no funding if this event goes ahead, not in our name.”

East London Advertiser, 22 February 2008

Muslim leader decries American ‘bigotry’ against Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

American culture’s view of American Muslims and Islam is steadily deteriorating under an onslaught of “bigotry” on cable news shows, newspaper op-ed pages and in the blogosphere, an Arab-American activist told an audience at Tulane University here Tuesday. That’s a significant shift, said Hussein Ibish, founder of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership in Washington, D.C.

Since 9/11, he said, commentators such as Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer, Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz have transferred old anti-Arab stereotypes to Islam, in a stream of “incredibly bigoted commentary” that would not have been tolerated before then.

In this context, Ibish said, the West sees Islam as bent on its destruction and American Muslims as suspected allies who cannot credibly deny otherwise. Thus, ethnic profiling becomes reasonable and forced internment or mandatory identification of Muslims becomes a potential remedy, he said.

While most of the anti-Islamic rhetoric comes from the right, it occasionally comes from the left as well, he said.

Finally, a student of American popular culture would find that anti-Islamic rhetoric sounds vaguely familiar, Ibish said. That’s because in tone and substance it almost exactly tracks the anti-Semitic messages that filled American culture between the world wars.

USA Today, 21 February 2008

Campaigners to protest against racist Express coverage

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anti-racism campaigners will protest outside the offices of the right-wing Daily Express newspaper today over the paper’s incessant attacks on refugees and Muslims.

The protest has been called in response to inflammatory headlines such as “Over 860 migrants flood in every day,” “Migrants send our crime rate soaring” and “Soft touch Britain: You pay £21m benefits to migrant workers.”

The lunchtime protest has been organised by Media Workers Against the War, Stop the War Coalition, Stop the War Muslim Activists Network and the British Muslim Initiative.

A Media Workers Against the War spokesman said that the headlines in pornographer Richard Desmond’s papers and the stories that go with them “twist flimsy, inadequate and misleading ‘evidence’ in order to pander to prejudice. They do nothing to inform Express readers. On the contrary, they incite race hatred,” he said.

Stop the War Coalition spokesman Chris Nineham added that such “disgusting attacks” on Muslims are a threat both to the Muslim community and to all those who value civil liberties.

The protest will take place from 12.30-2pm outside the Northern & Shell Building, 10 Lower Thames Street, London EC3R.

Morning Star, 21 February 2008