Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan dominate British literature – and they’re convinced that Islam threatens civilisation as we know it.
Ziauddin Sardar writes in the New Statesman, 11 December 2006
Over at Harry’s Place Marcus writes that Sardar’s piece “reminds me why I rarely bother reading that journal anymore”.
The Torygraph manages to combine its favourite themes of inciting anti-Muslim prejudice and accusing the government of “wasting taxpayers’ money”:
“Taxpayers are funding a £350,000 globetrotting tour that is intended to improve the ‘image of British Muslims’ around the world. The Foreign Office has dispatched parties of up to eight Muslims as far afield as Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan, so they can ‘share their experiences’ with locals. The groups have been staying in exclusive hotels and even flown business class on some legs, with all accommodation and travel expenses met from the public purse….
“Critics claimed that the programme of visits, called Projecting British Muslims, are a waste of taxpayers’ money. Ben Wallace, Conservative MP for Lancaster and Wyre, who uncovered the cost using Parliamentary questions, said: ‘I’m not sure how sending British Muslims abroad to other Islamic countries helps to counter the jihadi movement at home. I can’t see that this is anything more than a jolly for a lot of people. ‘It should not be forgotten that Britain has an appalling record of exporting jihadi fighters to other countries, not the other way around’.”
One of Scotland’s most prominent Muslims has compared the treatment of Asians in Britain with that of Jews in Nazi Germany.
Osama Saeed, Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain and a former Scottish National party candidate, said the growing number of attacks on Muslims echoed the state-sponsored persecution of Jews in pre-war Germany.
Saeed said many middle-class Muslims were considering leaving the country because they feared that they or their families would be attacked because of their religious beliefs. He fears tensions could spill into violent confrontations unless the government tackles souring relations with the Muslim community.
“We didn’t get to the situation in world war two out of nowhere,” said Saeed. “Hitler was a product of a German society where anti-semitic attitudes had existed unchecked for decades. We have got to listen and learn from what happened there and be vigilant. I am not talking about large numbers of people being rounded up, but we could be looking at situations where Muslims are routinely assaulted in the streets.
“We have got to be conscious that we are stoking an unpleasant atmosphere for the people that come after us. In Europe in the 1990s a slaughter of Muslims took place in Bosnia so we are not talking ancient history or pie in the sky. The climate can change quickly.”
Murdo Fraser, the deputy Scottish Tory leader, said the comments were ill-judged. “I don’t think it’s a rational response to compare the treatment of Muslims in today’s Britain in any way to the horrific treatment that the Jewish people suffered at the hands of the Nazis,” he said. “An approach of this sort will win no friends.”
Sunday Times, 10 December 2006
It will be interesting to hear Osama’s response to this. However, even judging by the Sunday Times‘ own report, it is clear that he was not saying that the level of oppression suffered by Muslims in the UK today is equivalent to that of German Jews under the Nazis. Rather he was making the point that the persistent demonisation of a particular community can establish the conditions under which violence against that community is incited and legitimised. But then, when did the right-wing press ever give fair coverage to spokespersons for the Muslim community?
Rod Liddle defends the right of Muslim women to wear the veil! He writes: “Surely if there is one area where immigrant communities should be allowed do as they like it is in the clothes they choose to wear.” Could it be that Rod has suffered a sudden attack of progressive politics? Nah. He continues: “Attack the ideology behind the veil, the Islamic attitude towards women – not the veil itself. But the PM can’t do that because he’s already attempted to force all of us, by law, to respect that ideology, regardless of its misogyny (and, one might add, homophobia, anti-semitism, etc).”
“The most important feature of Tony Blair’s speech was an admission for which we have waited far too long: that there is a connection between Islamic extremism and political correctness. Muslims who hate this country are nourished by the constant assertions that our nation’s history is a catalogue of shame; indeed, many of them will have been taught this since their first history lessons in a British primary school….
“Multi-culturalism portrays itself as a means of celebration: in fact, it is an invitation to all minorities to complain, loudly and persistently, about their victimhood. And, when this self-pitying worldview comes into contact with religious fanaticism, the results can be – literally – explosive. That is presumably what Mr Blair means when he says that the events of July 7 last year threw the whole concept of multi-cultural Britain ‘into sharp relief’.
“The Prime Minister and his close colleagues are plainly fed up with the lumbering grievance-mongers of the race relations industry: in the fight between Ken Livingstone and Trevor Phillips, reforming head of the Commission for Racial Equality, they are cheering loudly for the latter. Good for them.
“True, the ideology that Mr Blair now decries has been advanced chiefly by his own party. Given his readiness to apologise for ancient wrongs, it would perhaps have been appropriate to acknowledge this more recent mistake. Still, we are delighted that Mr Blair has come round to the view that this newspaper has always held, and that our countrymen have clung to through decades of official bullying and hectoring.”
Editorial in the Daily Telegraph, 9 December 2006
Tony Blair formally declared Britain’s multicultural experiment over yesterday as he told immigrants they had “a duty” to integrate with the mainstream of society. In a speech that overturned more than three decades of Labour support for the idea, he set out a series of requirements that were now expected from ethnic minority groups if they wished to call themselves British.
These included “equality of respect” – especially better treatment of women by Muslim men – allegiance to the rule of law and a command of English. If outsiders wishing to settle in Britain were not prepared to conform to the virtues of tolerance then they should stay away….
Mr Blair’s volte face – just eight years ago he championed multiculturalism – was the culmination of a long Labour retreat from the cause. In recent weeks, Jack Straw, Ruth Kelly, John Reid and Gordon Brown have all played their part in a concerted revision of the Cabinet’s stand which began in earnest after the July 7 suicide bombings in London last year. Mr Blair, speaking in Downing Street, said the diversity of cultures in Britain should still be celebrated but the tone of his speech was against the ideology that became known as multiculturalism.
Daily Telegraph, 9 December 2006
See also the Times, 9 December 2006
“A council has sparked fury by virtually shutting a swimming pool on Sunday afternoons for ‘Muslim-only’ sessions…. Croydon Council in South London runs the sessions at Thornton Heath leisure centre between 4.45pm and 6.45pm. Similar slots are laid on for Muslim women outside opening hours, where bathers must be covered from the neck down to the ankle. Locals who flock to the area’s only major leisure centre each week are furious. Member Daniel Foley, 44, said: ‘I turned up and saw a sign saying it was closing early for Muslim afternoon – I couldn’t believe it’.”
Remember Ruth Kelly’s threat that the government was considering withdrawing financial aid from organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain and transferring its backing to more amenable outfits like the Sufi Muslim Council? Well Tony Blair pursues the same theme in a speech today at a Downing Street event. Under the headline “Funds crackdown on religious groups”, the Daily Star reports:
“Tony Blair has announced a crackdown on public funding for religious and racial groups as he set out plans to improve community integration. The Prime Minister warned that taxpayers’ cash had been too easily handed out to organisations ‘tightly bonded around religious, racial or ethnic identities’. In future they would have to prove they aimed to promote community cohesion and integration, he said.
“‘Very good intentions got the better of us,’ he said in a lecture at Downing Street. ‘We wanted to be hospitable to new groups. We wanted, rightly, to extend a welcome and did so by offering public money to entrench their cultural presence. Money was too often freely awarded to groups that were tightly bonded around religious, racial or ethnic identities. In the future, we will assess bids from groups of any ethnicity or any religious denomination, also against a test, where appropriate, of promoting community cohesion and integration.’
“He also ruled out any introduction of Islamic Sharia in the UK and called on mosques that excluded the voice of women to ‘look again at their practices’. The suicide bombings in London on July 7 last year had thrown the whole concept of a multicultural Britain ‘into sharp relief’, the Prime Minister said.”
The full text of Blair’s speech can be consulted on the 10 Downing Street website.
“Luton council, we are told, has banned people from celebrating Christmas. Birmingham has renamed the season Winterval. A Reading man has been told to take his decorations down. There’s only one problem with the ‘PC campaign’ against Christmas – it’s pure nonsense.”
Oliver Burkeman demolishes the “Christmas is Banned” headlines, which have been used to stoke up hatred of Muslims and other minority ethnic communities.
None of which has prevented Jack Straw joining the spurious campaign against “politically correct nonsense” over Christmas. See Daily Mail, 8 December 2006
For several years, the New York Police Department has touted an elite undercover unit of mostly Middle Eastern and Asian investigators who use their foreign-language skills online to search out potential terrorist threats against the city. But now the department is under criticism from a member of the unit, an Egyptian-born analyst who filed a suit yesterday that charges he was subjected to hundreds of blistering anti-Muslim and anti-Arab e-mail messages sent out by a city contractor over the course of three years. In an interview yesterday, he said he complained repeatedly to supervisors but that no one took action.
At the center of the lawsuit are e-mail briefing messages sent out several times a day to members of the Intelligence Division by Bruce Tefft, a former C.I.A. official who has identified himself in the past as the Police Department’s counter-terrorism adviser. The e-mail messages were sent to everyone in the division, including Deputy Commissioner David Cohen, also a former C.I.A. official, the suit said.
According to the suit, the briefing messages were preceded by commentary from Mr. Tefft that included virulent anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements like, “Burning the hate-filled Koran should be viewed as a public service at the least”, and “This is not a war against terrorism … it is against Islam and we are not winning”. In one, he asked, “Has the U.S. threatened to vaporize Mecca?” and responded, “Excellent idea, if true.”