Category Archives: Right wing

Daniel Pipes’ nomination stalled in committee

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of the Senate committee charged with recommending Daniel Pipes to serve on the board of the US Institute for Peace (USIP) asked Chairman Judd Gregg for more time to gather more information on the “controversial nominee.”

Senator Edward Kennedy, in calling for more time, cited one of Pipes’ statements – “Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene… All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.” (National Review, 11/19/90) Senator Kennedy ended by urging his colleagues to oppose Pipes’ nomination.

Baltimore Chronicle, 23 July 2003

Bernard Lewis and Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It would appear from the fulsome praise heaped by mainstream reviewers on Bernard Lewis’s most recent and well-timed book, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Oxford University Press, 2002), that the demand for Orientalism has reached a new peak. America’s search for new enemies that began soon after the end of the Cold War very quickly resurrected the ghost of an old, though now decrepit, enemy, Islam. Slowly but surely, this revived the sagging fort1unes of Orientalism, so that it speaks again with the treble voice of authority.”

M. Shahid Alam argues that “Lewis’s agenda is to discover all that was and is ‘wrong’ with Islamic societies and to explain their decline and present troubles in terms of these ‘wrongs’.”

Counterpunch, 27 June 2003

The decline and fall of Islam

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Fairly typical American Islamophobia:

“The Koran is a guide to war. Thievery was the way Muhammad supported himself as the self-proclaimed prophet and conquest was the way Muhammad and his followers initially spread Islam. The United States, a target and a victim in this Jihad, is waging war to end the Islamic dream of domination. In this it has been joined by many nations, including those that are Islamic. This should be seen as a hopeful sign.

“I believe this century will be remembered as the one in which Islam began its long march to extinction. It will be defeated in its terror war and it will be defeated because many will abandon a “religion” that is repelled by modernity, denies human rights, and revels in the blood of its victims, calling their killers martyrs.”

Alan Caruba at American Daily, 9 June 2003

Anthony Browne on ‘The folly of mass immigration’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The pro-immigrationists are effectively trying to abolish nationhood, denying a country the right to sustain its own culture.

“British-born white people, the progeny of the generation who survived the Nazi attempt to obliterate Britain as an independent nation state, now account for only 60% of the population of London. England has for more than 1500 years been a Christian country – its flag is a cross, its head of state is head of the national church – but in its second city Birmingham, Islam is now more worshipped than Christianity. In two boroughs of London, whites are already in the minority, and they are expected to become a minority in several cities in the coming decade.

“If current trends continue, the historically indigenous population of Britain will become a minority by around 2100. Islam is the fastest growing religion, and much immigration to Britain comes from Muslims fleeing Muslim lands – around 75% of intercontinental asylum seekers are Muslim. But where are the limits? In an extreme example, would British Christians have a right not to live in an Islamic majority state?”

Anthony Browne at Open Democracy, 1 May 2003

Muslims try to quash Bush nominee, Pipes supporter complains

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A controversial Islamic lobby group that casts itself as a mainstream voice for American Muslims is fiercely opposing President Bush’s nomination of a leading Middle East scholar to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

“The Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, charges that Daniel Pipes, director of a Philadelphia-based think tank, the Middle East Forum, is an ‘Islamophobe’ whose views ‘have been instrumental in widening the divide between faiths and cultures’.”

Art Moore at WorldNetDaily, 22 April 2003

Montreal Muslims call for peace during Daniel Pipes lecture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Everything inside me tells me not to even write this article because, in my estimation, the person I am writing about is so hateful and so vile that I am loathe to even give him any attention at all. The person I am talking about is Daniel Pipes who is well known in our community for his anti-Arab/anti-Muslim statements and writings and his far to the right pro-Israeli positions.”

Yahya Abdul Rahman reports on Daniel Pipes’ lecture at McGill University.

Montreal Muslim News, 13 March 2003

US furious as Britain ignores extradition plea

Posted on by Bob Pitt

America yesterday expressed fury that the Home Office has not handed over Dr Bashir Nafi, the British academic charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism for a Palestinian group. An official in the US Department of Justice said: “I thought the Brits were on our side in the war against terrorism. But when something like this happens, you wonder.”

Daily Telegraph, 23 February 2003

See also Daniel Pipes on the “terrorist profs”, New York Post, 24 February 2003

Mayor refers Evening Standard to Commission for Racial Equality

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, has asked the Commission for Racial Equality to investigate the London Evening Standard’s website which Mr Livingstone says has been “pouring out religious intolerance and hatred”.

In a letter to Beverley Bernard, the Acting Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, the Mayor wrote:

“As Mayor it is my responsibility to encourage good community relations and religious and racial tolerance.  It is counterproductive and unacceptable that immediately following the terrorist outrage in Bali, the Standard’s website has been pouring out religious intolerance and hatred for days, under the guise of discussion.”

The Evening Standard’s website carried a lengthy debate following the Bali bombings. In his letter, the Mayor drew the CRE’s attention to particular comments on the website made during this debate, posted between 13th and 16th October, and still prominent on 17th October. Comments the mayor highlighted included:

“Hands up who would like to see, or would agree with, the rounding up of Muslims?”

“Who’d want to live next door to Muslims now?”

“I’m sorry, but I just don’t want any more Muslims in my country…. Vote them out of your country. Don’t do business with them.”

The mayor has copied his letter to the CRE to the Press Complaints Commission asking the PCC to investigate whether the Standard’s website breaches the PCC code of conduct.

GLA press release, 17 October 2002