“If the views of Inayat Bunglawala, its assistant general secretary – as expressed recently on Newsnight – are anything to go by, it still largely blames Western foreign policy for the discontents of the world. By underwriting these attitudes, it contributes mightily to the grievance culture that fuels violent jihadism.”
Dean Godson warns the government against re-engaging with the Muslim Council of Britain – and indeed against consulting any organisation representing Muslim communities.
In today’s lead article the Daily Express tells its readers that the burka (they mean the niqab – but, hey, why bother with accuracy when it comes to “foreign” clothing) “is becoming the Islamic equivalent of the mugger’s hooded top or the armed robber’s balaclava. Anyone sincerely wishing to integrate into the British way of life would never wear such an alien and threatening outfit…. Make no mistake, the proliferation of burka-wearing is a direct threat to the British way of life and in all too many instances is intended to be just that”.
The front page is devoted to whipping up panic over the Al Muhajiroun demo outside the Old Bailey: “This was the extraordinary scene on the streets of Britain yesterday as burka-clad protestors demanded the release of four extremists. Swarming outside the Old Bailey, the Muslim hate mob poured scorn on the nation that guarantees their freedoms.”
Judging by the Express‘s own photographs, the “mob” that was “swarming” outside the court would appear to have consisted of about six people. And of course the Express fails to inform its readers that Al Muhajiroun is a tiny and irrelevant group whose supporters these days can probably be numbered in dozens.
Check out the comments following the article for the sort of far-right racists who are encouraged by this disgraceful, irresponsible excuse for journalism.
See also Five Chinese Crackers, 19 July 2007
Sheila Musaji provides an update of anti-Muslim bigotry in the USA.
Osama Saeed replies to Tom Gallagher’s article at Open Democracy.
A correspondent questions the relationship between Peter Tatchell of the gay rights group OutRage! and the right-wing Russian politician Alexey Mitrofanov.
“Who ought to be Mayor? The man with the vision who says: ‘I am proud of London’s reputation as the most diverse city in the world where the contribution all communities is celebrated and people’s freedom of religious expression is respected as it is one of the most essential of our civil liberties. Attacks on the rights of Muslim people to express their faith as they choose are ultimately a threat to everybody’s rights to freedom of religious and cultural expression. It should be the right of every individual to be able live their life as they wish, so long as it does not do harm to any other individual. This ability to be who you are and live as you choose is what has made London a magnet for people bringing their ideas and energy to make this the successful and dynamic city that it is’ (Ken Livingstone, June 2007).
“Or the right wing toff who believes, ‘The disaster is that we no longer make any real demands of loyalty upon those who are immigrants or the children of immigrants…. So we have drifted … and created a multi-cultural society that has many beauties and attractions, but in which too many Britons have absolutely no sense of allegiance to this country or its institutions. It is a cultural calamity that will take decades to reverse, and we must begin now with what I call in this morning’s Spectator the re-Britannification of Britain. That means insisting, in a way that is cheery and polite, on certain values that we identify as British. If that means the end of spouting hate in mosques, and treating women as second-class citizens, then so be it. We need to acculturate the second-generation Muslim communities to our way of life, and end the obvious alienation that they feel. That means the imams will have to change their tune, and it is no use the Muslim Council of Great Britain endlessly saying that “the problem is not Islam”, when it is blindingly obvious that in far too many mosques you can find sermons of hate, and literature glorifying 9/11 and vilifying Jews’ (Boris Johnson, July 2005).”
Dr Jamil Sherif at Salaam blogs, 16 July 2007
See also earlier comments by Yusuf Smith. And see here for an example of the sort of bigoted anti-Muslim article that the Spectator featured during Johnson’s stint as editor.
“Let me ask you something. Is it a rational decision for a secular-Christian society to admit thousands of Muslims into its midst? … The question is especially apposite, because we now know the consequences for every single European society which has admitted large numbers of Muslims: social alienation, religious antagonism and outright terrorism. We know this. We all know it. And yet we continue to allow Muslim immigration. Why? What do we gain from it?”
Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent, 17 July 2007
“Gordon Brown is under pressure to block a £75 million ‘mega mosque’, amid claims one of the suspected Glasgow Airport bombers belongs to the radical Islamic group behind it. More than 200,000 people have signed a Downing Street petition calling on the Prime Minister to intervene over plans for the mosque near the Olympics site in east London. It is being funded by the fundamentalist Tablighi Jamaat sect. One member of the sect is said to be Kafeel Ahmed, who was engulfed in flames when a Jeep laden with gas canisters crashed into a Glasgow Airport building two weeks ago.”
In an accompanying editorial (“Probe this mega-mosque”) the Express insists that “the Government must call a halt to plans to build a mega-mosque in East London” and calls for a judicial inquiry to assess the “potential security issues”.
Of course, the Express fails to mention that the petition against the mosque was initiated by a BNP supporter named Jill Barham who blogs under the name of “English Rose”.
In the current issue of the Jewish Chronicle, Geoffrey Alderman devotes his weekly column to a – rather belated – scaremongering piece on the Islam at Universities in England report by Dr Ataullah Siddiqui (pdf here). Alderman writes:
“The report calls for the employment of Muslim scholars to teach Islamic theology. What sort of scholars? Scholars who will approach Islamic texts critically and with an eye to their historical context, and not be afraid to condemn – for instance – the so-called ‘sword verses’ of the Koran, which glorify offensive war against ‘unbelievers’, who are deemed explicitly to include Jews and Christians?
“I don’t think so, because what the report actually says is that ‘students should be given the opportunity to learn from competent traditionally trained Islamic scholars’.
“The sub-text here is inescapable: Islamic theology at our universities should be taught by Islamist faculty steeped in a violent, triumphalist view of Islam in the modern world. This view would – indeed, must – be anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, anti-democratic, anti-gay and anti-feminist.”
Jewish Chronicle, 13 July 2007
What makes Geoffrey Alderman (hitherto not widely known as an expert on Quranic exegesis) think he has the right to lecture Islamic scholars on how to interpret their holy book? Furthermore, why should they be required to “condemn” rather than historically contextualise the sword verses? What Alderman presents is just an ignorant caricature of Islamic scholarship.
And before he starts accusing other people of being “anti-gay”, Alderman might perhaps consider setting his own house in order first. This is the man who, in his 2 February column in the JC, entitled “Gay adoption undermines us”, complained that “the children so fostered will grow up believing that the homosexual lifestyle is an alternative norm”. He told his readers that the shift in attitudes towards homosexuality exemplified by the acceptance of gay adoption “may not offend your credo as a Jew. But it offends mine”, and he went on to draw a parallel between gay men and paedophiles.
Over at Comment is Free yesterday, Madeleine Bunting posted a reasoned response to Martin Bright and David T of Harry’s Place over their attacks on an earlier piece she had published on CiF. She wrote:
“I simply cannot see the point of a witch-hunt against anyone who has ever read Qutb or Mawdudi. This is McCarthyism of the worst kind. We might as well hound out of British politics anyone who has read Lenin. The kind of scenario David T paints of an entryist Islamism trying to establish a ‘perfect Islamic state’ is a fantasyland and I can’t understand why a serious journalist such as Martin Bright endorses it.”
David T then proceeded to post his own “reasoned response” to Bunting, which concluded: “you, Madeleine Bunting, are an absolute disgrace. Your participation in this debate has been entirely malign. You seem to see your role as being to cover up for, and whitewash, political extremists and bigots of the worst sort. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Then, when the CiF moderators deleted this, David T started bleating about censorship. (And this from a man whose website repeatedly blocks links from Islamophobia Watch, with the result that we have to redirect them via tinylink.com.)
Eventually CiF editor Georgina Henry was forced to step in and close the thread down because of the repeated posting of “abusive attacks on the original author” – no doubt by the same right-wing bigots who frequent the comments section at Harry’s Place.
And now David T has announced that he will no longer be blogging at CiF. He objects to the fact that CiF allows Azzam Tamimi of the British Muslim Initiative and Taji Mustafa of Hizb ut-Tahrir to post there but not far-right white racists like Nick Griffin or David Duke: “Islamists and jihadists are part of the ‘big debate’, but other fascists are not.”
Well, I imagine most CiF readers will be breathing a sigh of relief. David T will now be free to wallow in his own hatred of liberals and the Left at Harry’s Place, along with his co-thinkers drawn from the racist right who enthusiastically back him up with their vile anti-Muslim rants. Frankly, they deserve each other.