In his recent speech about multiculturalism and Muslim extremists, the Tory leader was pandering to the scaremongers, writes Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain.
Category Archives: Right wing
Multi-culturalism damages UK, says Cameron
David Cameron last night launched his most outspoken attack on the doctrine of multi-culturalism, which he said had undermined Britain.
He criticised “clunking” government initiatives designed to redress the balance. He said it was “time for a more British approach” and he promised that a Tory administration would wage a “crusade for fairness”.
The Tory leader said: “Yes, we need to ensure that every one of our citizens can speak to each other in our national language. Yes, we need to ensure that our children are taught British history properly. And I do think it is important to create more opportunities for celebrating our sense of nationhood.
“We will set out a clear and consistent path to ensure these things actually happen, starting with our policy review, which will make specific recommendations this week.”
The report by the Conservatives’ policy commission on national security will highlight the issue of segregation in Muslim communities and call for forced marriage to be made a criminal offence. It will also criticise the removal of Asian girls from sixth forms and question whether some Muslim parents are supporting their daughters’ desire for education. It will warn that in some parts of the community women are being denied access to education, work and involvement in the political process and even denied access to mosques.
Mr Cameron will say in a speech tomorrow in Birmingham that a Tory administration would be “bold and not hide behind the screen of cultural sensitivity to say publicly that no woman should be denied rights which both their religion and their country, Britain, support”.
In an article for the Observer, he said: “The doctrine of multiculturalism has undermined our nation’s sense of cohesion because it emphasises what divides us rather than what brings us together. It has been manipulated to entrench the right to difference, a unifying [sic – should read ‘divisive’] concept.”
In a veiled attack on ministers such as John Reid and Gordon Brown, who have both championed Britishness, he said: “It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is behind said. We can’t bully people into feeling British – we have to inspire them.”
Sunday Telegraph, 28 January 2007
See also David Cameron, “No one will be left behind in a Tory Britain”, Observer, 28 January 2007
A classic example of two-faced Cameronism – presenting a liberal image by criticising the government for “instructing Muslim parents to spy on their children” while appeasing his core supporters with a right-wing attack on multiculturalism.
Obama-bashing a new low for Fox
On Jan. 19, Fox News’ morning show “Fox and Friends” took a turn for the worse when one of the most recent, inexcusable examples of yellow journalism and “Islamophobia” occurred by an attempted exploitation of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama’s childhood.
Obama, a converted Christian, was smeared as a potential covert anti-American terrorist with the announcement that Obama had attended an Islamic madrassa more than 35 years ago while living with his Muslim stepfather in Indonesia.
Madrassa literally means “school” in Arabic, but Fox took this news as if Obama is a potential threat to America’s security as a potential president while continually announcing that Obama’s middle name is Hussein.
“Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocy said the first thing they teach in madrassas is to “hate America” and said that Obama’s first 10 years of his life were spent in Indonesia hating America.
Criminal attorney warns against building of Europe’s biggest mosque
“For former practicing criminal attorney turned author, W.G. Van Dorian, the news of plans to build Europe’s biggest mosque beside the London 2012 Olympic Park confirmed what he has feared all along – the intent of radical Islamists to gain a majority and ultimately control of the world’s powers.”
Why is a former Dutch lawyer currently resident in South Africa interfering over the issue of a proposed Islamic Centre in Newham? Drumming up publicity in preparation for the publication of his next novel perhaps? Van Dorian’s first book, The Invisible Invasion, would appear to be a paranoid fantasy about the Islamist takeover of Europe (see here). According to his publishers, as a defence lawyer for Muslims in the Netherlands, Van Dorian:
“… had access to shocking information, things not normally revealed to outsiders. He states, ‘I’ve heard a couple of times from them when I gained their trust that they were simply waiting for a majority through immigration and forced conversion in Europe to take over, violently if need be’. Van Dorian witnessed the power of this force in Europe as the extremists ultimately knocked down resistance from ‘ordinary citizens’ and obtained what they wanted…. one of the most terrifying comments that Van Dorian heard was: ‘Just wait until there are enough of us and we’ll be the boss around here’.”
Daniels in the lions’ den
Daniel Johnson applauds Daniel Pipes’ contribution to last weekend’s Clash of Civilisations debate in London:
“In essence, Mr. Pipes had a warning for Londoners: Thanks to the multicultural policies of politicians like Mayor Livingstone, ‘your city is a threat to the rest of the world’. He listed 15 countries in which Islamists from Britain had carried out terrorist attacks, ranging from Pakistan to America. Since last weekend he could have added a 16th – Somalia.
“Britain, he said, was now regarded by some experts as the biggest threat to American security. British audiences aren’t usually told this. They aren’t told that ‘the Islamists have declared war on us’, let alone have the war aim stated clearly: victory. They need to hear the likes of Daniel Pipes much more often.”
Jihad Watch joins right-wing applause for Dispatches programme
Robert Spencer joins Little Green Footballs and the British National Party in enthusiastically endorsing “the Dispatches documentary that recently uncovered Islamic supremacism being preached in mosques that had been considered moderate. This underscores the necessity of doing what so few dare to do: discuss the elements of Islam that are fueling the jihad.”
Police need to stop their leaks
Osama Saeed comments on the media furore over the reported request by a Muslim WPC that she should not be forced to shake the hands of male colleagues, including Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair:
“Despite her superiors being informed well in advance of the issue, you would think given the media coverage that she was standing in a row of people having their hands shaken and when her turn with Sir Ian came she whipped her hand back, put her thumb on her nose and wiggled her fingers about while blowing a raspberry.”
Osama points out that this is just the latest in a series of leaks from within the police force that have been used by the right-wing press to stoke up Islamophobia.
Rolled Up Trousers, 23 January 2007
Readers may like to compare Osama’s reasoned and informed analysis with the ignorant dogmatism of Brett Lock’s recent post at Harry’s Place.
A clash of civilisations?
TOM MELLEN sees neocons and progressives clash over war and torture at a London conference.
Morning Star, 22 January 2007
CAMPAIGNERS, academics, religious figures and thousands of working people engaged in a fierce battle of ideas at the weekend on what the so-called “clash of civilisations” means to Londoners. Whitehall’s QE2 centre was packed to the rafters on Saturday, with people eager to discuss the urgent issues thrown up by globalisation and the “war on terror.”
The World Civilisation Or a Clash of Civilisations? conference saw notorious rightwingers Daniel Pipes and Douglas Murray rub shoulders with Venezuelan government official Andres Izarra and anti-racism campaigner Denis Fernando. Discussions ranged from Democratic Solutions in the Middle East to Anti-Semitism and were marked by a high level of popular participation.
BBC news presenter Gavin Esler chaired the opening debate between London Mayor Ken Livingstone and neocon US foreign policy adviser Mr Pipes, who claimed that the world faces a “clash between civilisation and barbarism.”
Noting that London itself draws strength from the diverse cultures that co-exist in the city, Mr Livingstone said: “People have the choice to select for themselves what they find attractive in all cultures – we are witnessing the emergence of a global civilisation. If you go onto the streets of a modern world city, whether that’s London or New York, Shanghai or Mumbai, you see young people working together, using the same technology and sharing the same concerns.”
But Mr Pipes sneered at the mayor’s “complacency,” describing Islamists as “ideological barbarians.” He claimed that this “tyrannical, woman-oppressing terrorist movement” threatens civilisation and that, “while Mr Livingstone looks to multiculturalism, I look to win the war.”
Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob pointed out that Mr Pipes’s logic lay behind the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan, noting that that conflict has “decreased, not increased our security.”
Mr Pipes responded by smearing critics of neoliberal terrorism as “poor benighted souls,” drawing howls of anger.
Hitch confronts ‘the Islamist menace’
In the Winter 2007 issue of City Journal Christopher Hitchens reviews Mark Steyn’s book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, not uncritically. He does take issue with Steyn’s sneers at Martin Amis, pointing out that liberals like Amis share much of Steyn’s hostility towards Islam and Islamism.
Hitchens writes: “Mark Steyn’s book is essentially a challenge to the bien-pensants among us: an insistence that we recognize an extraordinary threat and thus the possible need for extraordinary responses. He need not pose as if he were the only one with the courage to think in this way.” To prove his point Hitchens quotes Amis’s vile anti-Muslim diatribe from last September – which proposes subjecting the Muslim community as a whole to travel bans, racial profiling, strip searches and deportation – while at the same time describing his chum as “profoundly humanistic and open-minded”.
(To be fair, Hitchens does baulk at a statement from Sam Harris, who has written: “The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.” Hitch characterises this as an “irresponsible remark”. You could say.)
The basic problem with a lot of liberals, Hitchens says, is that “they cannot shake their subliminal identification of the Muslim religion with the wretched of the earth: the black- and brown-skinned denizens of what we once called the ‘Third World’.” Furthermore, this inexplicable sympathy with the oppressed has given rise to “the stupid neologism ‘Islamophobia’, which aims to promote criticism of Islam to the gallery of special offenses associated with racism”.
Like Steyn, Hitchens warns against “the Islamist project of a ‘soft’ conquest of host countries”. He tells us that “Europe’s multicultural authorities, many of its welfare agencies, and many of its churches treat the most militant Muslims as the minority’s ‘real’ spokesmen … encouraging the sensation that many in the non-Muslim Establishment have a kind of death wish”. With evident approval, Hitch cites Steyn’s complaint that “most of the Christian churches have collapsed into compromise: choosing to speak of Muslims as another ‘faith community’ … and reserving their real condemnation for American policies in the war against terrorism”.
Overall, despite minor criticisms, Hitchens endorses “Steyn’s salient point that demography and cultural masochism, especially in combination, are handing a bloodless victory to the forces of Islamization”.
Muslim majority schools ‘pose security threat and should be closed’
An influential government education adviser said today that schools dominated by Muslim children should be closed and replaced with “multi-faith” academies to integrate pupils. Sir Cyril Taylor, chairman of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, said the concentration of ethnic minorities and religious groups in certain schools had created a “strategic security problem”.
He said that allowing significant numbers of ethnic minority children to lead virtually separate lives was fuelling extremism and harming academic standards. The call for forced integration came as a Government commissioned report is this week set to recommend that values such as justice and tolerance should be at the centre of citizenship classes for secondary pupils.