Category Archives: Right wing

Campaign against Munich mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The New York Times reports on opposition to the building of a new mosque in Munich:

“… a vocal minority of residents has resisted, holding protest meetings, collecting signatures, and filing a petition with the Bavarian Parliament. ‘Bavarian life’, the petition declares, ‘is marked by the drinking of beer and the eating of pork. In Muslim faith, both are unclean and forbidden.’ With the support of Bavaria’s conservative state government, the residents have been able to tie up the project in court…. ‘Whenever Muslims in Germany come out of their closets or hidden places, the controversy starts’, said Claus Leggewie, a political scientist at the University of Giessen who has written about mosques in Germany. ‘The protests begin on technical issues, like parking problems and noise’, he said. ‘But it has a cultural bias. There is a nationalist minority, which opposes immigration and especially Muslim immigration’.”

Melanie Phillips on the threat of global jihad (again)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mad Mel has just seen the Islamophobic “documentary” Obsession: Radical Islam’s War With the West and cannot restrain her enthusiasm:

“It should be made compulsory viewing for every politician and pundit who clings to the misguided belief that all we face is terrorism rooted in various grievances around the world. It is the single most powerful and terrifying public exposition of the fact that a global Islamic jihad is now being waged from Bali to Istanbul, from Chechnya to Madrid, from Morocco to Manhattan, from Thailand to Bloomsbury – and that the world that is under attack is deeply in denial about what it is facing. More than that, this film shows in graphic and undeniable detail that this jihad is a direct descendant of Nazism…. Some of the footage in this film leaves you speechless.”

Ah, if only that were true.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 7 November 2006

For an alternative view, by Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim, see here.

Bishop attacks ‘Muslim hypocrisy’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A senior Anglican bishop has accused many Muslims of being guilty of double standards in their view of the world. The Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, told the Sunday Times some had a “dual psychology” in which they sought “victimhood and domination”. The Muslim Council of Britain said the comments were “not very helpful”.

BBC News, 5 November 2006

See also Sunday Times, 5 November 2006

For earlier anti-Muslim comments by the bishop, see here and here.

BNP backs bish

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The fascist British National Party has applauded the anti-Muslim comments by the Bishop of Rochester. They are particularly taken with the Bishop’s observation, in relation to Muslims, that “there can never be sufficient appeasement and new demands will continue to be made” – which is of course what the fascists themselves have repeatedly asserted.

The BNP’s Kent correspondent adds: “It is increasingly apparent that there are a growing number of people within the Church of England who are prepared to publicly express their concerns on issues related to the growth and influence of Islam in Britain in these troubled times – this is all to the good!”

BNP regional report, 5 November 2006

Charles Johnson is equally enthusiastic about the bishop’s call for an end to the appeasement of Islam: “This is exactly right, and has been borne out time and time again. It’s a primitive, tribal mentality that exists outside of rationality.”

Little Green Footballs, 5 November 2006

Camilla hides poppy behind ‘Muslim scarf’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Camilla Hides Poppy“Camilla meanwhile has being coming under fire from the Daily Express for one for not wearing a poppy. Yesterday they declared ‘Islamic Camilla dumps poppy’, because it was chaffing her ‘Muslim scarf’.

“Today, they are moaning that ‘she is wearing one but you can’t see it under Muslim scarf’. As you can see from the picture, she is wearing the traditional Pakistani daputta. This is a Muslim scarf how? The Express would do well to remember before stoking this Islamophobic and racist nonsense that tens of thousands of soldiers from the sub-continent laid down their lives in WWI for their British colonial masters, and if they’re sincere about commemorating the war veterans, then let’s focus on that.”

Osama Saeed at Rolled Up Trousers, 2 November 2006

Former PM blasts Australian government for marginalising Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The former prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, is at odds with the Federal Government over tensions over Islam in Australia. The Government has branded the former Liberal leader an apologist for radical Islam, after Mr Fraser accused his party of marginalising Muslims for political purposes. Earlier this week, Mr Fraser said the Government was gearing up for what he called a Muslim election next year.

ABC Online, 2 November 2006

Australian media seizes upon Muslim cleric’s comments to whip up xenophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Australian media, working hand in hand with the Howard government and the opposition Labor Party, has seized upon a sermon delivered last month by a Sydney-based Islamic cleric to escalate its hysterical campaign against Muslims.

Last Thursday, the Australian published translated excerpts from a sermon delivered by Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali last month, in which the Muslim cleric appeared to blame rape victims for their plight. “She is the one wearing a short dress, lifting it up, lowering it down, then a look, then a smile, then a word, then a greeting, then a chat, then a date, then a meeting, then a crime, then Long Bay Jail, then comes a merciless judge who gives you 65 years,” he said. This was an apparent reference to the extraordinarily harsh sentence imposed on 20-year-old Bilal Skaf for gang rape convictions in Sydney six years ago.

Hilali quoted an Islamic scholar who said that rape victims should be imprisoned for life because “if she hadn’t left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it”. He then continued, “If she was in her room, in her house, wearing her hijab, being chaste, the disasters wouldn’t have happened”.

The position that women are responsible for rape – which is, by definition, non-consensual – is backward and reactionary. The current political and media campaign against Hilali’s comments, however, is entirely hypocritical. It has nothing to do with a principled opposition to sexual violence against women. The banner of women’s rights and sexual equality is being cynically paraded by the most right-wing and chauvinist forces in order to advance their own agenda.

World Socialist Web Site, 2 November 2006

Revealed: how Murdoch press smears Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

How Murdoch Smears MuslimsTwo smears, forming part of the barrage of attacks on Britain’s Muslims, fell apart last week. Both were splashed over the pages of the Murdoch press. Both proved to be completely baseless.

The first centred on claims that Muslims tried to scare four British soldiers from moving to a home in wealthy Datchet near Windsor. The second smeared Mohammed Abdul Kahar, the young Muslim shot by police during a “terror” raid on his home in Forest Gate, east London, in June.

Despite lurid headlines about the house being a “bomb-making factory”, Mohammed and his brother walked free from police custody. But that did not stop attempts to smear Mohammed, including lurid claims about child pornography.

Socialist Worker, 4 November 2006