In an apparent effort to undermine the effect of yesterday’s Trafalgar Square demonstration, the Sunday Times features a front page article headlined “British imam praises London Tube bombers”. For Osama Saeed’s comments, see Rolled Up Trousers, 12 February 2006
Category Archives: Right wing
Jihad Watch backs Hirsi Ali again
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s intervention into the cartoons controversy has been rejected by Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende who said “we don’t have much use” for Hirsi Ali’s views and questioned “whether this will help the debate in the Netherlands”.
For this reasoned response Balkenende has been denounced by Robert Spencer: “Jan Peter Balkenende will go down in history as a Neville Chamberlain who chose to appease thugs rather than to resist them; Ayaan Hirsi Ali will go down in history as a heroic figure who tried to stem Europe’s headlong rush to suicide.”
More lying anti-Muslim propaganda from the right-wing press
“Muslims: Labour’s Patence Runs Out” reads the headline to a front-page article in today’s Sunday Express. The article begins:
“Leaders of Britain’s Muslims were accused by the government last night of pandering to extremists. Ministers’ patience with the Islamic community is running out. They accuse its chiefs of failing to deliver moderate leadership in return for major concessions by the Government over recent years, a Home Office source revealed. And now, the source claims, both Downing Street and the Home Office have given up hope that the self-appointed Muslim leaders can play any significant role in the fight against Islamic extremism.”
Another unnamed “source with close links to ethnic minority groups” is quoted as telling the Express: “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim leadership or community leadership.” And an Express editorial lectures Muslim representatives in the following pompous and ignorant terms: “Memo to the leaders of the Muslim community: it is time to stand up and take your place in the fight against terrorism now.” As if that isn’t what they’ve been doing all along.
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that the anti-Muslim propaganda in the Sunday Express and Sunday Times is designed to negate the message of peace and moderation sent out by the thousands of British Muslims who attended yesterday’s mass rally in Trafalgar Square.
Muslims go home
“Muslims should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock Mohammed to their heart’s content, in any way that they wish: that Islam and Muslims have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else….”
Yes, the usual racist crap. This time from Theodore Dalrymple.
I recall that, back in 2003, the Independent was accused of publishing an anti-semitic caricature of Ariel Sharon. As it turned out, the Press Complaints Commission ruled, rightly in my opinion, in favour of the Independent. But can you imagine the Spectator publishing an article reading: “Jews should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock Jewish leaders to their heart’s content, in any way that they wish: that Judaism and Jews have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else….”?
Islam is ‘a car-burning cult’, says Coulter
In a column commenting on the recent violence linked to cartoons in European newspapers that satirized the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, right-wing US pundit Ann Coulter suggested that Islam is “a car-burning cult,” and wrote that Muslims have “a predilection for violence.”
Media a ‘platform for racists’ in cartoon row, says Ken
The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone spoke at a press conference in City Hall today alongside Muslim leaders and urged that the views of mainstream Islam be heard in the current debate about the publication of the Danish cartoons that have caused offence around the Muslim world.
The press conference was called in support of this Saturday’s rally ‘United against Incitement and Islamophobia’, the aim of which is to explain the views of the mainstream Muslim community in condemning the publication of the Islamophobic cartoons, and to dissociate the mainstream Muslim community from the tiny minority of extremists who have been given media coverage out of all proportion to their numbers.
The Mayor said: “I am supporting this event because, unlike some of the BBC’s coverage, it will allow the views of the mainstream Muslim community to be properly heard. Too many media outlets have given excessive weight to the fringes of this argument including giving a platform to racists.
“The publication of these cartoons was a deliberate and gratuitous insult to the Muslim community, designed to destroy trust and understanding. Had such images, bordering on racist, been used to portray other groups they would rightly have been condemned as racist or anti-Semitic.
“There is no excuse for breaking the law and anyone who does so should and will face the prospect of prosecution, but there is no getting away from the fact that this whole episode has allowed much of Europe’s media to engage in an orgy of Islamophobia. The only beneficiaries will be the racists and Al Qaeda. It should stop now.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali backs cartoons provocation
A Dutch politician and self-styled Muslim dissident urged Europeans to stand firm on Thursday in an international crisis over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, saying it was “necessary and urgent” to criticise Islam.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali praised newspapers in many countries which have printed the cartoons, considered blasphemous by many Muslims, but said others had held back for fear of criticising what she called “intolerant aspects of Islam”.
“Today I am here to defend the right to offend within the bounds of the law,” she told a news conference organised by her publisher during a visit to Berlin. “It’s necessary and it’s urgent to criticise Islam. It is urgent to criticise the teachings of Mohammad.”
See also BBC News, 9 February 2006
And over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer hails “More heroism from the great Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who in a sane world would be Prime Minister of the Netherlands”.
Pipes on the ‘clash of civilisations’
“The key issue at stake in the battle over the twelve Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is this: Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise….”
Daniel Pipes in a predictable response to the Danish cartoons controversy.
See also the excellent reply at Mere Islam, 7 February 2006
Rotten judgment in the state of Denmark
The Danish paper that printed the cartoons of Muhammad wanted to stir up trouble – and the government wanted a culture war. They got more than they bargained for.
Jytte Klausen analyses the Danish cartoons crisis.
More slander against Qaradawi from Harry’s Place
Those great defenders of democracy over at Harry’s Place evidently dismiss the democratic right to protest when it’s Muslims who are exercising that right:
“This Danish cartoon business is rapidly turning into mainland Europe’s version of the Satanic Verses affair. Here’s how a man Ken Livingstone described as a moderate reacted yesterday to the escalating tension: ‘The wave of protest was triggered by Sheikh Yussef al-Qaradawi, head of the International Association of Muslim Scholars, who last night called on Muslims all over the world to observe ‘an international day of anger for God and his prophet’.”
Harry’s Place, 3 February 2006
Predictably, the right-wing press took the same line, referring to Qaradawi as a “leading hard-line Muslim cleric”.
Daily Telegraph, 3 February 2006
This would of course be the same Dr al-Qaradawi who has condemned violent demonstrations and called on Muslims to “express their anger in a prudent manner”.