Category Archives: Right wing

Pipes in search of ‘moderate Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pipes5“When I suggest that radical Muslims are the problem and that moderate Muslims are the solution, the nearly inevitable retort from most people is: ‘What moderate Muslims?’ … My response: Moderate Muslims do exist. But of course, they constitute a very small movement when compared to the Islamist onslaught.”

Daniel Pipes in the New York Sun, 17 April 2007

Given that Pipes categorises the Progressive Muslim Union as “really another Islamist organization – but with a hip tone”, you can see that there are very few Muslims who qualify for the appellation “moderate”, as far as Pipes is concerned. The one “moderate Muslim” Pipes does enthusiastically endorse is Irshad Manji – who, not entirely coincidentally, is a great admirer of the state of Israel.

Islamophobic attitudes slammed at National Union of Journalists conference

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NUJDelegates called on the NUJ executive to step up efforts to stamp out “pernicious and insidious” press Islamophobia on Sunday.

Glasgow delegate Ruth Allan noted that Islamophobia “follows the KKK rulebook, which states that vulnerable ethnic minorities need to be isolated from the mainstream, so that they can more easily be attacked.”

South Yorkshire delegate Phil Turner damned Cabinet Minister Jack Straw’s comments about Muslim women covering their faces, arguing that what Mr Straw said had been designed to whip up racism “in a way not seen since the days of Enoch Powell.”

But Press and PR delegate Gillian Hammond endorsed Mr Straw’s comments, asserting: “The full-face niqab can become a disguise for people with sinister purposes – there are people out there who are up to no good and it needs to be said.”

Executive member Michelle Shawstreet applauded the “brave” Daily Star chapel who, led by Steve Usher, forced management to withdraw the “inflammatory, racist and deeply offensive Daily Fatwah page” in October last year by walking out.

Morning Star, 16 April 2007

UK Muslims ‘more loyal than most’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims in the UK are more likely to identify strongly with Britain and have confidence in its institutions than the population as a whole, a poll suggests. The survey says they are also more likely to take a positive view of living side-by-side with people of different races and religions.

The majority of Muslims do not believe the veil is a barrier to integration – unlike most of the wider population.

Gallup interviewed 500 Muslims and 1,200 members of the wider population. The full results of the survey – described as the most comprehensive poll on Muslims and non-Muslims to date – will be published later this week.

Fifty-seven per cent of the Muslims polled said they identified strongly with their country, compared with 48% of the general public. Muslims were also more likely to express confidence in the police (78% to 69%), national government (64% to 36%), the justice system (67% to 55%) and elections (73% to 60%).

Nearly three-quarters of the Muslims said they felt loyal to the UK, and 82% said they respected other religions. But just 45% of the wider population said Muslims living in the UK were loyal to the nation, and only 55% said they were respectful.

The poll found the general public were more likely to prefer living in a neighbourhood made up mostly of people who shared their religious or ethnic background (35%) than Muslims were (25%).

Only 13% of British Muslims said they believed that women removing the veil was necessary for integration, compared with 55% of the wider population.

BBC News, 15 April 2007

Reported in the Sunday Telegraph under the headline “Muslims will not waver over veils”.

Update:  See “European Muslims show no conflict between religious and national identities”, Gallup, 26 April 2007

German media, politicians launch chauvinist campaign over ‘Muslim takeover’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spiegel Mekka DeutschlandCampaigns alleging that a nation is being ‘swamped’ by foreigners have always been part of the repertoire of right-wing extremist politics. The influx of immigrants, their culture and language is regarded as a threat to one’s ‘own’ people and – depending upon which version is being promulgated – Western or German culture.

In recent times, the danger of being ‘swamped’ has been replaced by that of a ‘Muslim-takeover’, with the difference, however, that such agitation is not limited to right-wing extremist circles. Magazines such as Der Spiegel, Christian Democratic and Social Democratic politicians, and former liberals or leftwing intellectuals have now joined in the chorus.

Der Spiegel appeared on March 26 with the headline, “Mecca Germany. The quiet Muslim takeover.” The front page showed the familiar sight of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, swathed in darkness with the Islamic crescent moon and star above.

Regular Spiegel columnist Franz Josef Wagner commented, “Our symbols of justice wear a headscarf or a burka. What sort of country do we live in that our laws are no longer valid?”

The deputy chairman of the Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) parliamentary faction Wolfgang Bosbach told the press he had long feared “the fact that we are gradually importing moral values from other cultures into Germany, even making them the basis of the legal system.”

The feminist Alice Schwarzer opined that the German legal system had “for a long time, been systematically infiltrated by Islamist forces” and Edmund Stoiber, the Bavarian state premier and Christian Social Union (CSU) chairman, warned, the “rule of law in Germany” should not “kow-tow to the Koran” or let itself be “undermined.”

What has occasioned this extreme agitation? It revolves around a divorce case being heard by the Family Court in Frankfurt am Main, in which a German woman of Moroccan origin wants to divorce her Moroccan husband.

World Socialist Web Site, 14 April 2007

Police probe racist slurs sprayed on prof’s door

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Racist graffiti at McMasterA McMaster University professor who organized a campus day in support of Muslim students says racial slurs sprayed onto her office door have left her in complete shock.

Hamilton police have launched a hate crime investigation into the racist attack condemned by Hamilton’s Muslim community and McMaster officials. Investigators believe the incident is a backlash against last week’s Wear a Hijab Day, an event organized by associate French professor Muriel Walker to help sensitize people about Islam.

“What have I done, not just to deserve this, but to inspire this kind of strong reaction?” she said. “I am still in disbelief.”

Campus cleaning staff discovered the racist and profane graffiti on Walker’s door early Tuesday morning. They also found copies of controversial Danish editorial cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed glued to her door.

“Did I really do something that bad to trigger this whole hysteria?” Walker said

Hamilton Spectator, 12 April 2007

See also “Hate graffiti targets McMaster professor”, Toronto Star, 12 April 2007

Update:  See “Racist cowards at work”, Toronto Star, 13 April 2007

And “McMaster professor was targeted before, she says”, Globe & Mail, 14 April 2007

Stillwater, Oklahoma sinks into dhimmitude

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Easter – the most joyous and important holiday in the Christian calendar. But there was no mention of it on the front page of an Oklahoma newspaper in a town served by more than 70 churches. Instead, page 1 of the Stillwater NewsPress was dominated yesterday by a story about efforts to battle anti-Islam bigotry by the Muslim Student Association of Oklahoma State University. ‘You wouldn’t have known it was Easter at all according to the paper if it wasn’t for the full page Hobby Lobby ad situated toward the back of the paper,’ one unhappy reader told WND.

“To him and others who saw the paper on Easter morning, there was surprise to see page 1 dominated by a large photo of Muslims praying – a picture that illustrated a story about ‘Muslim 101’, a monthly educational series begun on campus because of negative stereotyping about Islam following Sept. 11. The classes began last November, but the Stillwater NewsPress featured the story on the holiest of Christian holidays yesterday.”

World Net Daily, 9 April 2007

Muslims on alert after hate crime

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jerome Heath hasn’t heard of a hate crime in Clarksville in the seven years he’s lived here. But now he finds himself in the midst of one – a crime that is placing Muslims on higher alert.

Two hours before the Islamic Center of Clarksville held its 1 p.m. Friday prayer service, called Jummah, a Quran was found vandalized on the front steps. The front of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, read “Mohammad pedophile” while an expletive was written inside, smeared under two strips of bacon, according to a Clarksville Police report. 

The report labeled the incident a hate crime. Bacon is offensive to Muslims because they are forbidden from eating pork. “We were upset. Actually, some of us were outraged, but everyone was upset,” said Heath, a representative of the center. “We see it a lot on the news in Nashville (because) Nashville has a large Muslim population. But here in Clarksville – being a lot smaller (and) being very diverse with Fort Campbell – it was the last we thing we expected.”

The Islamic Center was founded in June 2005. Heath estimates that more than 40 Muslim families live in the Clarksville and Fort Campbellareas.

Heath said police told him they would contact the FBI and send out more patrols to monitor the center. Surveillance cameras have since been installed. “We have put our community on alert and warned everyone to keep their eyes open,” he said.

The Leaf-Chronicle, 10 April 2007

See also “CAIR seeks FBI probe of ‘hate crime’ at TN mosque”, CAIR press release, 10 April 2007

Update:  Islamophobes are outraged that such an attack should be categorised as a hate crime. “Is Clarksville, Tennessee, under Sharia law?”, Robert Spencer demands.

US Muslims fear Islamophobia following workplace controversies

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The recent controversies involving teetotaler Muslim cabbies and the Target cashier who wouldn’t ring up pork products touched off a barrage of comments on newspaper Web sites and blogs. The tone of some of these comments is frightening to local Muslims.

“Too bad our troops can’t kill them fast enough,” said one of the more than 900 comments posted on Buzz.mn, which first reported the Target incident. Muslim leaders said comments like this are on the rise, and they are calling it: “Islamophobia.”

“Islamophobia is a distrust or fear of anything that has to do with Islam,” explained Haris Tarin, director of community development at the California-based Muslim Public Affairs Council or MPAC. Speaking at a seminar in Minneapolis on Thursday, Tarin said the anti-Muslim rhetoric is driven by a “group of people who want to see the voice of Muslims marginalized in America.”

The vehicle used by these groups, Tarin said, is a new controversial documentary called “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” Under a backdrop of 9/11 scenes, the Madrid bombings and the London bombings, the film intersperses Muslim prayers with Nazi rallies.

“The idea is to instill a fear among Americans about Islam,” said Tarin.

Minnesota Monitor, 7 April 2007

‘Anti-Muslim rhetoric’ cited after vandalism at Arizona mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Center TucsonOfficials with the Islamic Center of Tucson say a recent rise in “anti-Muslim rhetoric” may have spurred vandalism at the University of Arizona-area mosque.

Tucson Police Department detectives are investigating a Sunday-night break-in at the mosque during which someone smashed the lock on a side door, broke an office window, ransacked the office and wrote “Bush was here” in magic marker across a computer screen. Nothing was stolen, mosque officials said.

Mosque spokesman Muhammad As’ad said it’s possible Sunday’s break-in was a hate crime. “There’s an increasing obsession with Islam that’s been stirred up by a small cadre of people,” he said. “The obsession is growing because of events overseas. We deplore the hate speech going on. After all, Muslims, like Christians, are encouraged to love their neighbors.”

As’ad said an example of the “anti-Muslim rhetoric” was former CNN reporter Steven Emerson’s December lecture at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Though he denied the accusations, local Muslims accused Emerson of being a disingenuous “fear-monger” who carelessly interchanges the words “Muslim” and “terrorist.”

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