Category Archives: Right wing

Britain’s Muslims praised by British Chancellor

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gordon Brown makes some favourable comments about British Muslims. Robert Spencer is appalled by this abject capitulation to Islam. “Please, Mr Chancellor, show me where I can find in the Qur’an and Sunnah the idea of equality for non-Muslims.”

Dhimmi Watch, 25 March 2005

Mind you, Spencer is on record as saying that “Islam is not a monolith”, and that he is prepared to “encourage any Muslim individual or group who is willing to work publicly for the reform of the Islamic doctrines, theological tenets and laws that Islamic jihadists use to justify violence” (see here) – so, according to some people’s reasoning, he can’t be characterised as an Islamophobe.

Harry’s Place and Islamophobia Watch

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at Harry’s Place, the eponymous blogger offers a critique of Islamophobia Watch and challenges our characterisation of certain leftists and liberals as Islamophobes. Compared with some of the anti-Muslim rants that have appeared on his site, it’s quite a reasoned piece – but entirely wrong, of course.

In his critique Harry quotes part of the Runnymede Trust’s definition of Islamophobia, which is reproduced on our site: “Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.”

He claims that most of the leftists and liberals criticised on our blog would reject that view and therefore cannot be characterised as Islamophobes: “The whole point of supporting liberal progressives, socialists or gay activists in Muslim countries or in the ‘Muslim community’ is that there is the potential for change and that Islam most certainly isn’t a monolothic bloc.”

The problem with this argument is that, if you take the Runnymede Trust definition absolutely literally, then Islamophobia doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. Even fascists are prepared to make a formal distinction between different tendencies within Islam, along the lines Harry proposes.

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Two German states reject hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The legislatures in two German states have turned down proposals by the opposition Christian Democratic Party to ban Muslim school teachers from wearing hijab. The parliament of Nordrhein-Westfalen, western Germany, rejected the party’s  request as having no legal merit.

The Christian Democratic Party claimed that hijab places woman at a lower status and was a political symbol not entrenched in the Muslims’ holy book, the Noble Qur’an. Thomas Kufen, the party’s immigration affairs officer, alleged that disputes could emerge in schools over the issue of hijab and that a legislation was needed. The party, yet, said nuns should be exempted for any ban on religious dress codes.

The Socialist and the Green parties, the ruling coalition, as well as the Free Democratic Party had opposed the proposals. They particularly took issue at the Christian Democratic Party’s attempt to exempt nuns’ wear from the ban as a violation of the constitution which demands equal treatment for citizens irrespective of their religious affiliations.

Islam Online, 24 March 2005

Intolerant ban dressed up as secular ruling

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Intolerant ban dressed up as secular ruling

By Yasmin Qureshi

Morning Star, 23 March 2005

It has now been just over one year since the introduction of a new law in France forbidding the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in French state schools.

This law has been of considerable concern to London’s Asian communities in particular.

Sikh and Muslim groups in Britain asked the mayor of London to take the issue up and look into the impact on community relations across Europe of the so-called “headscarf ban.”

I visited Paris last week on the mayor’s behalf, meeting, among others, representatives of Muslim organisation le Collectif des Musulmans de France, as well as the French civil rights group the Ligue des droits de l’Homme and representatives of the Sikh community – including the two Sikh boys who have been excluded from their school as a direct result of the law .

There is a widely held view among those opposed to the ban that it came at a time when the French government needed to divert from the country’s economic problems.

As an attempt to divert attention from high unemployment and budget cuts it was very successful, tapping into long-held French secular political traditions.

The overwhelming focus of the debate about the new law – which is why it has become known as the “headscarf ban” – was the Muslim community.

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Countering Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Islamophobes are aggressively organizing propaganda that portrays Islam as a foreign religion that came with the backward, violent Arabs, who oppress women and deny them their rights of education, driving, working, or even leaving their homes. This completely distorted image is ingrained in the minds of the majority of the American public as a result of organized efforts by bigoted figures.”

Salwa Rashad on Islamophobia in the USA.

Islam Online, 25 March 2005

In defence of tyranny

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Outrage! proposes that Iraq should remain under foreign occupation for some time to come, on the grounds that “a hasty withdrawal could pave the way for the seizure of power by Islamic fundamentalists”:

Outrage! press release, 20 March 2005

Daniel Pipes agrees that “a too-quick removal of tyranny unleashes Islamist ideologues and opens their way to power”:

Front Page Magazine, 8 March 2005

Mayor of London condemns French hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A basic right

Morning Star, 19 March 2005

By Ken Livingstone

This month marks the first anniversary of the French law banning students from wearing conspicuous religious symbols in schools.

I have given the fullest support to the campaign against this attack on the rights of minority religious communities in France.

In February last year, just before the French parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the ban, I wrote to prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin warning that the new law would be a blow to good community relations throughout Europe, and would inflame tensions between communities and encourage attacks on minorities.

Earlier this month the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination drew attention to the problem of racism in France.

The committee urged the French government to prevent the law against conspicuous religious symbols “from denying any pupil the right to education and to ensure that everyone can always exercise that right”.

But this is precisely the right that the French law does deny many pupils.

According to the French government’s own figures, when the law came into force at the start of the September 2004 school term, over 600 students defied the ban.

Some were forced out of the state system and into private education, while many others were obliged to comply with the law under threat of expulsion.

At least 47 Muslim girls have been excluded from French schools for continuing to wear the hijab (Islamic headscarf), and hundreds more have been compelled to renounce a form of dress that they believe is an important aspect of their religion.

In addition, three Sikh students have been expelled for refusing to remove their turbans and another two have been refused admission to their school.

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