Category Archives: Right wing

Christian right in Australia given green light to incite hatred against Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Christian pastors found to have vilified Muslims stood on the steps of the Court of Appeal yesterday after the ruling was overturned and vowed to keep telling “the truth” about Islam.

Pastor Daniel Scot, who conducted the 2002 seminar on jihad that led to the case under Victoria’s religious hatred laws, said: “Some Muslims have got the idea they have to hide the truth, and that’s very sad.” Insisting that he would continue his seminars on the Koran and Hadiths (Islam’s sacred texts), he said: “People should know it from the primary sources, and not be misled by politically correct teachers who don’t know the reality of Islam and want to glorify it with false pretensions and assumptions.”

Uniting Church justice spokesman Mark Zirnsak said he hoped the judgement would not be seen as a green light for groups to incite racial or religious hatred, believing that the law had been watered down. “There are groups who may be emboldened to test what they can get away with. People might be assaulted or insulted or mistreated because of their race or religion – that’s been our key concern.”

The Age, 15 December 2006

Mad Mel hails “a step forward down under“.

‘Muslim Ellison should not sit in Congress’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Keith EllisonAnd you thought Dennis Prager was a raving bigot. His attack on US Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison comes over as quite mild and restrained in comparison with this piece by one Roy Porter:

“Enough evidence exists for Congress to question Ellison’s qualifications to be a member of Congress as well as his commitment to the Constitution in view of his apparent determination to embrace the Quran and an Islamic philosophy directly contrary to the principles of the Constitution. But common sense alone dictates that in the midst of a war with Islamic terrorists we should not place someone in a position of great power who shares their doctrine. In 1943, we would never have allowed a member of Congress to take their oath on ‘Mein Kampf’, or someone in the 1950s to swear allegiance to the ‘Communist Manifesto’. Congress has the authority and should act to prohibit Ellison from taking the congressional oath today!”

World Net Daily, 13 December 2006

Muslims fear being used as scapegoats in Australian election

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic leaders believe the Federal Government will use the community as scapegoats in next year’s federal election campaign. Their fears are heightened by the Government’s failure to release the report of Prime Minister John Howard’s hand-picked Muslim advisory group examining how to tackle extremism, terrorism and other issues facing the Muslim community.

Muslim Reference Group member Yasser Soliman said the Government was holding back the group’s report while sending critical messages to the wider community, and “some people can read between the lines”.

Mr Soliman, the past president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, said he was baffled at the delay. “It is commonly said, and not only by Muslims, that the reason is, they want to position the Muslim community as refusing to integrate and not contributing to the nation, and this report might challenge a few of those perceptions,” he said.

Another reference group member, Yasmin Khan from Queensland, questioned whether the Government-appointed group had been a “charade”. “You wonder whether it highlights everything the (Muslim) community has been saying about the group, that we were the PM’s hand-picked Muslims, chosen as a rubber stamp.”

Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Waleed Aly said Muslims were certain they would have a major, though involuntary, role in the 2007 election. “Not only do Muslims have a suspicion that they will be pawns in the next election campaign, they now almost assume they will be. To them, it’s just a statement of fact.”

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‘Convert or die’ game divides US Christians

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Left BehindLiberal and progressive Christian groups say a new computer game in which players must either convert or kill non-Christians is the wrong gift to give this holiday season and that Wal-Mart, a major video game retailer, should yank it off its shelves.

The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian Alliance for Progress, two online political groups, plan to demand today that Wal-Mart dump Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a PC game inspired by a series of Christian novels that are hugely popular, especially with teens.

The series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins is based on their interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelation and takes place after the Rapture, when Jesus has taken his people to heaven and left nonbelievers behind to face the Antichrist.

Left Behind Games’ president, Jeffrey Frichner, says the game actually is pacifist because players lose “spirit points” every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them. They can earn spirit points again by having their character pray.

In Left Behind, set in perfectly apocalyptic New York City, the Antichrist is personified by fictional Romanian Nicolae Carpathia, secretary-general of the United Nations and a People magazine “Sexiest Man Alive.” Players can choose to join the Antichrist’s team, but of course they can never win on Carpathia’s side. The enemy team includes fictional rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names, while the righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics.

When asked about the Arab and Muslim-sounding names, Frichner said the game does not endorse prejudice. But “Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ” – and thus can’t be on Christ’s side in the game. “That is so obvious,” he said.

San Francisco Chronicle, 12 December 2006

Jon Gaunt joins in hysteria over ‘Muslim only’ swimming sessions

Posted on by Bob Pitt

It is rumoured that the fascist BNP have already selected Richard Barnbrook as their candidate for the 2008 London mayoral election. If by some freak of fate Barnbrook were to fall under a bus, they could always adopt Jon Gaunt as a replacement. His latest article in The Sun, using the reports of “Muslim only” swimming sessions in Croydon (see Indigo Jo Blogs) to mount yet another demented attack on multiculturalism, ticks all the right boxes for the fascists.

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The dehumanization of American Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Dehumanization is defined as a process by which members of a group of people assert the ‘inferiority’ of another group through subtle or overt acts or statements. Dehumanization may be directed by an organization or may be the composite of individual sentiments and actions.

“A coalition of anti-Muslim bigots have formed that sit at their computers full time seeking out news – no matter how vague – of bad Muslim behavior to demonstrate to their growing numbers of readers that all Muslims are irreparably evil…

“Their blogs are growing in readership. They are coming out with more and more best selling books smearing and slandering Islam and the Muslims, and are continuously invited back to major media outlets to promote their books and offer their ‘expertise’ on Islam.”

Tariq Nelson at The American Muslim, 11 December 2006

See also “Dennis Prager’s rant exposes raw hate”, by Ahmed Rehab of CAIR.

Media Monitors Network, 7 December 2006

Blair speech provokes ‘debate’ on the Sun’s website

Posted on by Bob Pitt

On 7 December the Sun reported Blair’s now notorious speech on integration, multiculturalism and Muslims under the headline “PM: Immigrants must conform”. A discussion on the Sun‘s website provides an appalling but enlightening insight into the sort of bigotry that Blair’s speech has encouraged and legitimised.

Typical comments read:

“What the hell happened? The same man who has let immigration and PC Loonies spiral out of control is now saying people need to respect the Brit way of life?”

“WHAT IS THIS FOOL UP TO? It’s too late now. You let them all in. It’s all talk as usual. The damage has been done, and his multicultural experiment has failed.”

“Be tolerant or not become part of British society? Most foreigners don’t want to be part of our society anyway, you prat. They just come here and form their own societies anyway, they don’t give a toss about British society.”

“Britain is a Christian culture; those of other cultures who do not want to accept this should not attempt to immigrate here or if here now should leave and return to where they can exercise their culture as they wish.”

“President Blair should have been saying this 10 years ago… we are now almost a muslim state!!!”

“Blair’s rambling speech was a feeble and pathetic u turn on the multi culti experiment that has gone from bad to worse…. So different then from the previous speeches on the benefits and ‘enrichment’ of immigration we have endured for the past nine years. Blair will not go into the history books as one of the world’s leading statesmen as his ego craves, but will instead be remembered as Britain’s worst political leader and the man who sold out his own people by turning the UK into an Island outpost for criminals and the dregs of humanity from every poor third world country on the globe.”

“… fact is that you cannot be a good muslim if you do not support jihad. It is mentioned several times in the Koran. An this superior attitude and many other offensive ideologies are the basis of the hadith. Which in my opinion is the muslim ‘mien kampf’ a Nazi style book…it Tells Muslims to not mix with unclean peoples like Christians or Jews and to kill them were they will not subdjigate to Islam or conform to shariah.”

“Read up on the muslim sites and see how radical they are!! especially, as they want to make the UK a state of Islam.”

“… there is no such thing as a moderate muslim, if you don’t follow islam you are the enemy and must be destroyed. islam is a modern plage that needs to be stopped.”

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US right-winger provides advice on multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under the heading “Britain confronts militant Islam”, a writer for the US right-wing/neocon NRO offers his take on current debates in the UK over multiculturalism. Regarding the veil he observes:

“If this wretched garment, in at least its more stringent forms, has more to do with misogyny than piety, so the hostility it provokes owes less to outraged feminism than to the mounting unease felt by many Europeans at the presence of the increasingly assertive and increasingly extremist Islam rising within their midst…. there is something about the very appearance of the veil (and I am here referring to the burka and the only marginally less appalling nikab, a get-up that generously allows a clear view of the wearer’s eyes) that is alien, dehumanizing, and, in the context of Europe’s current troubles, thoroughly ominous. Little more than walking shrouds, these women seem like the harbingers both of future theocracy and the slaughter that comes in its wake.”

As for the suggestion that racial hatred legislation should be adequately reinforced in order to defend Muslims: “That’s madness. That’s cowardice. That’s appeasement.”

National Review Online, 11 December 2006

‘Tis the season to bash Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP demonstrationSunny Hundal responds to the spurious “Christmas is Banned” stories:

“Christmas is the perfect season for two things: re-runs and silly publicity stunts. Combine the two in media-land and what do you get? The annual slew of screaming ‘Christmas has been banned!’ headlines of course, which now resurface as regular as clockwork. Usually all ‘ethnics’ and their politically correct co-conspirators are blamed.

“This year, given the spotlight they have been placed under, it has almost universally been made into a Muslim issue. The farcical charade usually plays out as follows. A tabloid makes the outraged claim on its front page. Muslims complain they have nothing to do with it. ‘Oh yes you have’, say the press, pointing to the fictitious PC brigade apparently too scared to offend anyone with anything as scandalous as some tinsel and flashing lights.”

Guardian, 11 December 2006