“Islam needs a reformation, but many of its opinion leaders recognise that they will not benefit from a more tolerant, less ideological religion. They see Islam and their role in Islam as immutable, and denounce as apostates men, and women such as the Canadian Irshad Manji especially, who call for a renaissance of critical thinking. But unless there is more respect for such calls, more tolerance of women’s rights and views and less fear in denouncing extremism, the government dialogue with Muslim leaders will yield little. Only when moderation commands the respect, credibility and allegiance of more Muslims will the nexus with terrorism be challenged.”
Category Archives: Right wing
‘It is Islamic fascism’
“By now it should be patently clear that we in the West are at war with a hydra-headed and barbaric enemy that has not a shred of humanity and relishes the bloodletting of tens of thousands of innocents, including other Muslims. It is at least as brutal as the Nazis and communist enemies we have faced in the past. Although radical Islam is not militarily as powerful as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, it has the huge strategic advantage of suicide bombing, which is immune to deterrence. Should any of its constituent elements – the Iranian Government or al-Qa’ida – acquire nuclear weapons, it will likely attempt genocide against Israel and create devastation in the West of an unprecedented kind.”
Stephen Morris in The Australian, 14 August 2005
Fox News priest tricked us, says mosque’s imam
Representatives of an east London mosque used by several of the terror suspects reacted angrily yesterday to what they called a “sick stunt” by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel.
Mohammed Shoyaib, the imam of the Musjid-e-Umer mosque in Walthamstow, complained that he and other elders were tricked by a representative from the cable channel, a priest who said he was working for the Vatican and wanted to talk peace.
“He introduced himself as priest working in Rome,” said Mr Shoyaib. “Then he said he was working for peace in the world, that all faiths should work together for peace, that he needs a united message of peace for the American people. Only later he said he was from ‘a sister network of Sky News’, but never mentioned Fox.”
The man spent several minutes conversing on camera with the imam and elders, but they reacted furiously when they learned he was Father Jonathan Morris, a religious pundit for Fox News.
On Thursday, in the aftermath of the arrests by anti-terrorist police, Mr Morris wrote on his Fox News blog:
“Today, officials have uncovered a major terrorist plot to blow up a group of planes on that same route. This is America and the world in 2006, and we are getting used to it. This time they got the bad guys, thank God. As we move forward as a country in these troubling times, our war must be first and foremost against the ideas that shape the hearts of the Muslim masses.”
Bush’s belief in a worldwide Islamist conspiracy is foolish and dangerous
Max Hastings takes issue with George Bush:
“In his regular radio address to the American people on Saturday he linked the British alleged aircraft plotters with Hizbullah in Lebanon, and these in turn with the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. All, said the president of the world’s most powerful nation, share a ‘totalitarian ideology’, and a desire to ‘establish a safe haven from which to attack free nations’…. In the United States a disturbingly large minority of people – polls suggest around 40% – remain willing to accept Bush’s assertions that Americans and their allies, which chiefly means the British, are faced with a single global conspiracy by Islamic fundamentalists to destroy our societies….
“Bush has chosen to lump together all violent Muslim opposition to what he perceives as western interests everywhere in the world, as part of a single conspiracy. He is indifferent to the huge variance of interests that drives the Taliban in Afghanistan, insurgents in Iraq, Hamas and Hizbullah fighting the Israelis. He simply identifies them as common enemies of the United States….
“Far from acknowledging that any successful strategy for addressing Muslim radicalism must include a just outcome for the Palestinians, he endorses Israel’s attempt to crush them and their supporters by force of arms alone, together with Israeli expansion on the West Bank….
“There is no chance that the west will get anywhere with the Muslim world until the US government is willing to disassemble a spread of grievances in widely diverse societies, examine them as separate components, and treat each on its merits…. The madness of Bush’s policy is that he has made a wilful choice to amalgamate the grossly irrational, totalitarian and homicidal objectives of al-Qaida with the just claims of Palestinians and grievances of Iraqis.
“Tony Blair … clings to a messianic conviction that he must continue to endorse American statements and policies to maintain his restraining influence on George Bush. This invites speculation about what the president might do if Tony was not at his elbow. Seize Mecca?”
ADC urges President to reject Pipes recess appointment
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) today joined with other civil rights, peace and justice, Arab-American, Muslim, Christian, Jewish and inter-faith groups to urge President George W. Bush not to make a recess appointment of Daniel Pipes to the Board of Directors of the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) and withdraw his nomination. Press reports indicate a recess appointment of Pipes may be imminent.
‘At war with Islamic fascists’ – Daniel Pipes isn’t convinced
Daniel Pipes questions Bush’s reference to “Islamic fascism” but asserts that a more relevant comparison is to Marxism-Leninism!
Pipes writes: “I applaud the increasing willingness to focus on some form of Islam as the enemy but find the word fascist misleading in this context. Few historic or philosophic connections exist between fascism and radical Islam. Fascism glorifies the state, emphasizes racial ‘purity’, promotes social Darwinism, denigrates reason, exalts the will, and rejects organized religion – all outlooks anathema to Islamists. In contrast, Radical Islam has many more ties, both historic and philosophic, to Marxism-Leninism.”
What term does Pipes prefer? He explains: “While Islamic fascists beats terrorists, let’s hope that a better consensus term soon emerges. My vote is for Islamists.” This of course collapses terrorist micro-groups like Al-Qaida and mass reformist currents like the Muslim Brotherhood into a single category, rather as Cold War ideologues denounced disparate political tendencies – from Stalinists to Trotskyists to left social democrats – as Communists.
Harry’s Place – Front Page Magazine UK?
A few days ago we posted a link to an article by Julie Burchill from Ha’aretz, in which she described Muslims as “big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads”. This was taken up at Pickled Politics, where it was suggested that Burchill should join the BNP, who share her predilection for racist slurs of that sort. We have our differences with PP, but at least they can recognise a piece of offensive bigotry when they see it.
Not so the neo-con bloggers at Harry’s Place, which of course claims to be a leading component of the “decent Left”. Burchill’s disgraceful statement has been cited in a comment criticising a post by “Marcus” that depicts Burchill as part of the feminist vanguard in the struggle against Islamo-fascism.
To which “Brownie” replies: “The paragraph in which Burchill writes about ‘big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads’ doesn’t mention Muslims, only Islamists. Her phraseology is, at worst, a little ignorant, but racist or bigotted it ain’t.”
Yeah, right. I can imagine what the response at Harry’s Place would be if someone posted a comment condemning “hook-nosed Zionists with their ridiculous skull-caps” and then rejected charges of anti-semitism on the grounds that they had referred to Zionists not Jews.
In the interests of transparency, I think it would helpful if Harry’s Place abandoned the pretence that they have anything to do with the Left, or indeed “decency” of any sort, and fessed up to what they really are – a bunch of right-wing racist scum. Perhaps they should consider changing their url to “http://frontpagemag.co.uk”?
Postscript: I see that David Hirsh, not to be outdone by his Euston Manifesto pals at Harry’s Place, has actually reproduced Burchill’s Ha’aretz piece on the Engage website, with evident approval. (Hat tip: JustPeaceUK.) Yes, that’s the same David Hirsh who has indignantly accused the Mayor of London of “low-level racist abuse against a Jewish journalist”.
‘Muslim terrorism in Britain is the direct responsibility of British Muslims’ – Lord Stevens
“When will the Muslims of Britain stand up to be counted? When will they declare, loud and clear, with no qualifications or quibbles about Britain’s foreign policy, that Islamic terrorism is WRONG?
“Most of all, when will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is THEIR problem? THEY own it. And it is THEIR duty to face it and eradicate it. To stop the denial, endless fudging and constant wailing that somehow it is everyone else’s problem and, if Islamic terrorism exists at all, they are somehow the main victims. Because until that happens the problem will never be resolved. And there will be more 7/7s and, sometime in the future, another airplane plot will succeed with horrific loss of innocent life.
“Equally important, those British politicians who have seemed obsessed with pandering to, and even encouraging, this state of denial, must throw off their politically-correct blinkers and recognise the same truth – that Muslim terrorism in Britain is the direct responsibility of British Muslims.”
Former Metropolitan Police commissioner, Baron Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, offers some helpful advice to the Muslim community.
News of the World, 13 August 2006
Surely this forthright expression of “anti-dhimmitude” merits an accolade from Jihad Watch?
Outrage over Bush’s use of ‘fascist’ term
US President George W. Bush’s statement that the US is at war with “Islamic fascists” will deepen anti-American and anti-Western sentiments, a cross-section of expatriates contacted by Arab News said yesterday.
Describing the US president’s remarks as “ill-conceived” and “inappropriate”, expatriates from Britain, India and Pakistan said some hypermarkets in Riyadh had already withdrawn American products from their shelves in response to the US’ anti-Islam campaign. “By linking Islam with fascism, Bush is stoking the fire of hatred against his country and his people, besides further expanding the recruitment pool of extremists,” said the expatriates.
Giving his name only as Hamza, a British expatriate told Arab News that Bush’s remarks were racist. “Would the term fascist also apply to the members of other communities? We never speak of Christian fascists or Jewish fascists when they are involved in acts of terror. On what ground has the US president used the term with reference to Muslims?” he asked.
See also “Bush’s language angers US Muslims”, BBC News, 12 August 2006
Daily Mail explains causes of terrorist threat
“Britain’s most senior Muslim police officer, the less than inspiring Tarique Ghaffur, this week blamed ‘Islamophobia’ for creating a ‘generation of angry young people’. That hardly squares with what we know about the suspects.
“Never mind that modern Britain has as good a record of tolerance as any country on Earth. Such anti-Islamic prejudice as does exist is confined almost exclusively to a social underclass of illiterate yobs. [Surely a little harsh on Nick Cohen? – ed.] Are we really to believe the suspects being held by the police were so tormented by Islamophobia in the Acacia Avenues of the Home Counties that they saw mass murder as the only response?
“No. Mr Ghaffur was right about only one thing in his speech to the National Black Police Association on Monday: young people who turn to terrorism tend to be psychologically vulnerable and open to exploitation by fanatics. The greatest threat to Britain’s security comes from that handful of bigoted imams who spew anti-Western poison from their mosques. They have been tolerated for too long.”