Category Archives: UK

‘We’ve done something terrible to ourselves in Britain’ – Grieve attacks multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dominic_GrieveThe Guardian interviews Tory shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve:

“Grieve has also been thinking deeply about the ‘terrible’ impact of multiculturalism which has, he believes, compartmentalised people from different traditions and downplayed the identity of white Britons.

“‘We’ve actually done something terrible to ourselves in Britain’, says Grieve who was asked by former Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith to look at community cohesion in 2002. ‘In the name of trying to prepare people for some new multicultural society we’ve told people, particularly long-term inhabitants, ‘Well your cultural background isn’t really very important, or it’s flawed, or you shouldn’t be worrying about it’. And then we’ve been shocked that far from producing the new model citizen who easily adapts to multiculturalism, people are very resistant, very fearful and very lacking in self-confidence. And we have the same problem with some second- and third-generation immigrant communities who say they don’t know what British values are and that they’re alienated.’

“The vacuum created by multiculturalism is to blame for extremists on either side of the spectrum. ‘In this vacuum, both the BNP and Hizb ut-Tahrir rise. They are two very similar phenomena experiencing a form of cultural despair about themselves and their identities. And it’s terribly easy to latch on to confrontational and aggressive variants of their cultural background as being the only way to reassure themselves that they can survive.’

“Grieve feels uneasy about the restriction of debate by what he calls ‘fundamental Islam’. ‘Our country has adapted because people have been tolerant, which has often required a lot of forbearance and acceptance of things they didn’t like. That is how Britain has evolved. When I address an Islamic audience I always point this out’.”

So Grieve buys into the myth about the damaging effects of multiculturalism, for which there exists no evidence at all. He claims that the culture of “long-term inhabitants” (read “white people”) has been ignored. And he can’t tell the difference between a peaceful if highly sectarian Islamist organisation like Hizb ut-Tahrir and a neo-fascist party like the BNP, many members of which have convictions for violence and incitement to racial hatred.

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No trial for Preston BNP man over leaflets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP heroin leaflet

A member of the British National Party in Preston who delivered hundreds of leaflets blaming Muslims for the heroin trade, will not face criminal charges, it has emerged.

Race hate unit officers at Lancashire police have been told by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) there is “insufficient evidence” to prosecute Tony Bamber who distributed the pamphlets. The 53-year-old, who stood in local elections for the BNP in the Tulketh ward in 2006, previously admitted he was involved in distributing the leaflets across Lancashire and at the University of York.

This week, a defiant Mr Bamber insisted he was not surprised the CPS had decided there was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute. He said: “This decision is most welcome from our point of view, it legitimises the campaign and shows that our demands are fair and just. We will continue to distribute the leaflets and educate the middle-classes.”

But one of the county’s top police officers has slammed the BNP distributors, saying the leaflets risked creating tensions between racial groups. Lancashire Deputy Chief Constable Mike Cunningham acknowledged the CPS’s advice that no criminal act had been committed, adding:

“While we understand that this advice is based on established case law, we roundly condemn the contents of these leaflets and those distributing them. They can only be described as inflammatory in nature and we are obviously concerned that their distribution in Lancashire could damage community cohesion.”

They were also condemned by the mother of heroin victim Rachel Whitear after a picture of her dead daughter was used on the flyers without permission.

A CPS spokeswoman added: “We advised Lancashire police that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute for inciting racial hatred or to prosecute under the Public Order Act. We advised the police that if they come to us with more evidence, we will look at it.”

Preston Citizen, 25 September 2008

Yusuf Smith replies to Douglas Murray

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yusuf Smith reproduces his letter to Standpoint magazine, in response to Douglas Murray’s article attacking Peter Oborne’s exposé of Islamophobia. Note that the version of the letter published by Standpoint omitted the closing passage which pointed out that the publication of inflammatory Islamophobic material in the press is often a precursor to actual violence against Muslims.

Indigo Jo Blogs, 27 September 2008

Neocon CIP launches campaign against domestic violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pipes and CIP

“Muslim spiritual leaders could be denounced publicly by their own community as part of a campaign to expose imams whose silence on domestic abuse is leading to women being burnt, lashed and raped in the name of Islam.

“Muslim scholars are to present the Government with the names of imams who are alleged by members of their own communities to have refused to help abused women. Imams are also accused of refusing to speak out against domestic abuse in their sermons because they fear losing their clerical salaries and being sacked for broaching a ‘taboo’ subject.

“Some of Britain’s most prominent moderate imams and female Muslim leaders have backed the campaign, urging the Home Office to vet more carefully Islamic spiritual leaders coming to Britain to weed out hardliners.”

Times, 26 September 2008

Read on, and you find that the organisation behind this campaign is the so-called Center for Islamic Pluralism, which was founded by ex-Trotskyist-turned-neocon Stephen Schwartz with financial assistance from Daniel Pipes.

In the UK the CIP has precisely one identifiable member – Irfan al-Alawi. In other words, it represents nothing at all in the Muslim community. So it would certainly be interesting to hear which of “Britain’s most prominent moderate imams and female Muslim leaders” are backing Alawi’s campaign, which is cynically using the serious issue of domestic violence to promote the CIP’s cranky obsession with “Wahhabism” and discredit genuinely representative Muslim organisations that reject Schwartz’s pro-imperialist politics.

Policy Exchange and Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Policy Exchange (1)Starting in July 2006, the first anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, Policy Exchange has published a series of pamphlets on the “extremist” strands of Islam and the threats it says they pose. In tone, these reports have been more aggressive than the thinktank’s usual output. They have warned about Islamic “reactionaries”, about “the hijacking of British Islam”, about the “subverting [of] mosques”.

Since 7/7 and 9/11, such talk has become common in western countries, among some liberals as well as those on the right.

Nevertheless, Policy Exchange’s contributions to the debate have alarmed the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and almost all Muslim groups and commentators. “Policy Exchange is more than just a thinktank,” says the MCB’s spokesman Inayat Bunglawala. “It is a clearly agenda-driven, anti-Muslim organization. It has consistently tried to promote an apolitical version of Islam. And it clearly does have influence. Anthony Browne being appointed as Boris Johnson’s policy adviser was a tremendously alarming move.”

Another aspect of Policy Exchange’s interest in Islam that concerns the MCB and others is that it has been overseen by Dean Godson, the thinktank’s research director for “terrorism and security” and “international” subjects. His politics are considerably more hard-edged and dogmatic than those usually associated with Cameron’s Conservatism.

He is the son of Joseph Godson, a hawkish US diplomat and behind-the-scenes cold war player, and the brother of Roy Godson, the head of a rightwing Washington thinktank, prominent American conservative, and authority on political “dirty tricks” and “black propaganda”. During the 1980s, both Roy and Dean Godson worked for Republican administrations in Washington. Afterwards, Dean became chief leader writer for the Daily Telegraph during its most pungently rightwing phase under the ownership of Conrad Black. Since joining Policy Exchange, Godson has continued to write polemics for British newspapers, often about Islam and often echoing the arguments of American neoconservatives.

Guardian, 26 September 2008

Boris reassures Muslims of his support

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spectator Muslims are ComingIn an exclusive interview, Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, reassured the Muslim community that he would continue in the step of his predecessor Ken Livingstone on supporting diversity and equality projects.

“One thing I decided very early on was that the only way to run London is to support diversity and to recognise that you have got to be proactive and give encouragement and support to all communities,” Johnson said.

Muslims were also concerned about the Mayor’s and his new Director of Policy, Anthony Browne‘s negative remarks on Islam in the Spectator magazine. For example, Browne argued in July 24, 2004 that Islam wants to conquer the world etc. “I understand completely people’s concerns,” he said and argued that one has to “distinguish between the kind of slightly careless polemical things people may say in their journalistic capacity which can be drawn out and used against them. You have to distinguish between that and what they really want to do in London.”

Johnson gave assurance that Browne was “utterly committed to a glorious multi racial multi ethnic, multi faith London in which we emphasise the achievements of all communities and he will be going out of his way to prove that point.”

Muslim News, 26 September 2008

To be fair to Browne, the “Islam really does want to conquer the world” standfirst to his 2004 Spectator article and “The Muslims are coming” front cover were the responsibility of the editor rather than Browne himself. And who was the editor of the Spectator at that time? None other than Boris Johnson, of course.

Update:  For more on Browne see Boris Watch, 28 September 2008

Family barred from burying their dead stepfather on a Saturday … because he isn’t a Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thus the headline to an piece in today’s Daily Mail. Yes, it’s yet another “Muslims are being given preferential treatment” story. And, unsurprisingly, it has been taken up in a news article posted on the BNP’s website.

The Daily Mail article in fact reveals the spurious basis of its own scaremongering headline:

“Sheffield City Council offers the ‘extended service’ to Jews and Muslims because their faith and traditions require the dead to be buried as soon as possible. But as Jews cannot bury their dead on the Sabbath – from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday – it means that effectively only Muslims can use the service. Other local authorities are also understood to offer weekend burials only to Jews and Muslims.”

The story is adapted from an original article in the Sheffield Star, which contains the following passage:

“Abdool Gooljar, president of the Sheffield branch of the Society of Islam, said the council should try to meet the needs of every resident of the city. ‘The last thing we want to do is cause more upset at the time of bereavement, and I would urge a re-think so everybody has the right to bury their dead when they want,’ he said. ‘I, firstly as a Muslim and secondly as a citizen, do not want preferential treatment. We are living in a multi-faith, multi-cultural society and we should endeavour to meet the needs of every citizen in this city’.”

The Daily Mail version leaves out the final sentence with its reference to a multi-faith, multicultural society, while the BNP article removes the quotation from Abdool Gooljar in its entirety.

Salma Yaqoob – totalitarian

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Sunday Telegraph presents the first part of a “Top 100 left wingers” list compiled by Iain Dale and Brian Brivati. Salma Yaqoob is at no.97. “Though many would say she does not deserve to be on a list of lefties at all,” Dale and Brivati comment, “being more at home with totalitarianism than democracy.” But what would they know? They can’t even get Salma’s name right.

Are they really ‘Preventing Extremism’?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salma addressing rally“The recent convictions of three young Muslim men on charges of conspiracy to cause explosions highlight the ongoing and real threat of terrorism. In video messages explaining their motivations the culprits make a clear and explicit linkage between their intentions and the impact of Western foreign policy in Muslim lands.

“Yet despite it coming from their own mouths that it is anger over foreign policy driving their hate, the government continues to deny it as the primary factor. Instead it blames a ‘dangerous Islamist ideology’ for creating ‘a hatred of the Western way of life’ as if such ideology is free-standing and exists in some kind of vacuum.

“In this discourse all Islamic political or social activists who are critical of the government, from whatever political hue, get lumped together with the sinister description of ‘Islamists’….

“By denying the legitimacy of democratic opposition to government foreign policy from Muslims, and by promoting and recognising only those Muslims who toe the line, government policy is serving to strengthen the hands of the genuine extremists; those who say that our engagement in the democratic process is pointless or wrong….

“The government now increasingly tars all Islamic organisations and individuals that openly oppose Western oppressive polices in the Middle East with the ‘extremist’ brush. Hence their recent attacks on the mainstream Islam Expo event in London….

“The danger of this approach is that it serves to squeeze the democratic space for dissent within the Muslim community. If Muslims organisations are reluctant to provide the space for sensitive discussions for fear of extremist’s accusations, where are these young people to go? Where will their views and concerns get an airing? The answer is obvious. They will be expressed in private and secret, with the genuine extremists keen to be provide listening ears and simplistic solutions.”

Salma Yaqoob in The Respect Paper, September 2008