Category Archives: UK

Tebbitt on the Islamisation of the ‘Christian West’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lord Tebbitt warns of the consequences of the decline of Christianity:

“Watch out for the challenge from the mosques. An Islam with a modern face will soon begin to present itself as the natural home for those who long for moral certainty and a new sense of discipline within society. The calls for a caliphate, a religious state based on Sharia Law, will be toned down, the firebrand preachers will be done away with by the moderates, and there will be talk of the founding of a secular Muslim state, as in Turkey.

“And with no other options on the table, they may soon find that they have an awful lot of fellow travellers with whom to bolster their ranks.

“The task for the imams will be to exploit the fatal weakness of the multicultural society and replace a Christian church that has lost its sense of history and direction with a Mosque that has a strong, ingrained sense of both. For Islam, that would be a justified triumph. For the Christian West, however, it would be a monumental loss.”

Daily Mail, 8 August 2008

Muslim councillors ‘frozen out’ of extremism fight

Posted on by Bob Pitt

salmayaqoobMuslim councillors are being frozen out of Birmingham’s efforts to clamp down on Islamist terrorism according to Sparkbrook councillor Salma Yaqoob.

The local authority was awarded £500,000 as part of the government’s “pathfinder” Preventing Extremism project last year – and has now been given an additional £2.4 million under the three year Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) programme. Yaqoob’s beef is that all this cash is being spent by city officials without reference to elected Muslim representatives.

She raised the issue at a recent Council meeting where she said, “many projects have taken place in wards without the consultation and participation of ward members and without accountability to the local communities through the ward structures.” And she asked, “How will the existing structures which bring transparency and accountability … be utilised in any planning for this programme?”

The response to her request for “transparency and accountability” was to be told that she “misunderstands” the Council’s role – which could be explained to her in a private meeting with the Cabinet Minister for Equalities Alan Rudge. “This is public money,” said an outraged Yaqoob. “The way it’s being spent should be discussed in public. It should all be transparent.”

A case in point is a major anti-extremism conference organised by Aston-based management consultants Waterhouse in October (see link here). The event includes an address by reformed radical Ed Hussain, who Yaqoob argues is a divisive figure, more likely to stir up anger than heal wounds. “He is somebody who doesn’t want dialogue, he wants to close down dialogue,” she said. She believes that she and her fellow Muslim councillors would have been unlikely to ask him to attend – but of course, they weren’t asked.

Yaqoob again tried to take up the lack of democratic accountability at a cross-party meeting of Muslim councillors and community officials earlier this week – only for one city official to warn her that what she was doing was “against procedure”. He warned that he would “report her” (!) to Mike Whitby and Alan Rudge, and stormed out of the meeting. Although he eventually returned – 15 minutes later – the official is now the subject of a complaint.

“This is really worrying,” Yaqoob said. “Some officers don’t seem to realise that their job is to act in accordance with what councillors want – not the other way around. “The real issue here is that councillors are the elected representatives of the people and we have the contacts and the knowledge.”

Birmingham City Council have been invited to respond.

The Stirrer, 8 August 2008

Via Socialist Unity

Hijab-wearing women complicit in their own oppression – A.C. Grayling

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When I hear or read an eloquent Muslim woman defending the headscarf or the more extreme forms of covering which, they say, are so liberating, I am reminded of that dangerous idea: the idea of complicity in one’s own repression, the state of willingly accepting and enacting what the oppressor, or the oppressive mindset, dictates….

“Tradition and religion between them – such partners – make shackles of iron. And the shackles are mainly worn by women. They are forged as much in the fires that burn down girls’ schools as in the cool conceit of those who celebrate the fact that an iron shackle can look like a piece of cloth draped over a head.”

A.C. Grayling in the Guardian, 7 August 2008

Let Muslims choose their own committee

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ziauddin Sardar“The government is to set up a board of Muslim theologians. Once established, it will steer the more radical elements of the Muslim community away from violent extremism and issue fatwas on controversial issues such as the position of women and loyalty to the UK.

“This is bonkers! And everyone should know it. Who in our diverse Muslim communities would actually listen to such a board? …

“There is a stench of social engineering and misguided and misbegotten patronage about the project. A steering committee of the government’s favourite Muslim advisers, people who themselves command little respect among Muslims, will be established. The committee will hand-pick ‘theologians’ and weed out extremists, undesirables, and those critical of the government and its foreign policy. Not surprisingly, the whole exercise has generated suspicion. It is doomed to failure….

“There is, however, a particularly Islamic way of rescuing the enterprise. Why not let Muslim communities themselves decide who should be on the board? In Islamic parlance, such an exercise would be shura, or consultation. Muslim communities could nominate their representatives.”

Ziauddin Sardar in the New Statesman, 7 August 2008

Update:  See also Yusuf Smith’s comments at Indigo Jo Blogs, 12 August 2008

Boris cancels Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ramadan 5Ken Livingstone has told his Leftwing supporters in City Hall to hang on in there, however unpleasant it may be working for a Tory Mayor such as Boris Johnson, because he intends to be back in 2012.

Among those who probably will not be able to survive the regime change at City Hall is the Lokahi Foundation, an outfit with extremist Islamist links that boasts academic Tariq Ramadan as a leading light.

Almost half a million pounds of council taxpayers’ money was handed over to its coffers under Ken. “The funding agreement ran out in July 2008 and I understand that all payments have been made,” says a City Hall spokesman.

Ramadan, Lokahi’s “Senior Research Fellow”, sparked controversy in the mayoral elections by signing a letter urging Muslims to vote for Livingstone without declaring the £450,000 his organisation had been paid by the then Mayor. He has been denied entry to the United States in the past because of allegations concerning his terrorist sympathies.

“Our funding has run out from the Greater London Authority,” Lokahi’s director, Gwen Griffith-Dickson, tells me. “There might be a problem about Tariq Ramadan’s personal letter urging people to vote for Ken Livingstone and the tug of war over some of his comments but he is one of a team.”

Evening Standard, 6 August 2008

Dawkins blames Muslims for ‘importing creationism’ into classroom

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dawkins God DelusionDevout Muslims are importing creationist theories into science and are not being challenged because of political correctness, one of the country’s most famous scientists said tonight.

Professor Richard Dawkins argued that as a result teachers were promoting the “mythology” of creationism over the science of evolution.

Professor Dawkins, a geneticist and author of the best-selling book The God Delusion, said:

“Islam is importing creationism into this country. Most devout Muslims are creationists – so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught. Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more but it doesn’t want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come.”

He added: “It seems as though teachers are terribly frightened of being thought racist. It’s almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country because if you do you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic.”

Daily Mail, 4 August 2008

On the other hand, there are those of us who would argue that paranoid delusions about the impact on educational policy of a minority faith community who comprise less than 3% of the population of the UK are quite accurately categorisable as Islamophobia.

See also the Daily Telegraph, which reports: “Prof Dawkins said the failure in classrooms meant religious fanatics had a chance to get hold. ‘Because we are all brought up to respect faith, it leaves open a gap through which fanatics can charge’, he said.”

Update:  Predictably, Dawkins’ views are approvingly reproduced by the British National Party. Of course, the BNP’s own position is that they’re defending “Christian civilisation” against Islam. But they’re prepared to overlook minor differences like that when it comes to whipping up hatred against Muslims.

Update 2:  See Terry Sanderson, “Is Bob Pitt a new McCarthy?”, National Secular Society, 8 August 2008

The disgusting misrepresentation of British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The picture that the evidence paints is a disturbing one. It suggests a network of hard-right islamophobes engaged in an organized propaganda campaign to raise fears about Islam. It’s a network that is able to reach the public easily through connections with mainstream media outlets like The Telegraph and The Daily Mail, who seem more than happy to amplify the noise the network generates. Far from promoting social cohesion, these people appear to be promoting the breakdown of British society.”

Martin Robbins takes on the Centre for Social Cohesion.

The Lay Scientist, 31 July 2008

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Islam on Campus: letters from the Sunday Times

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Islam on Campus report and the way it was promoted by the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) has been criticised by universities, students and academics (Muslim students back Islamic killings, News, last week). The 120-page report concludes that “British Muslim students hold a diverse and broad range of opinions. The majority of Muslim students have tolerant ideas towards other minorities, reject violence in the name of their faith and support Britain’s secular and democratic society as well as its system of governance”.

The University and College Union (UCU), like the majority of people, takes the threat of terrorism seriously. We welcome the recent emphasis the government has put on community cohesion in regards to tackling violent extremism, but we reject the headline-grabbing tactics of groups such as CSC.

Sally Hunt, UCU general secretary

I am a lecturer in history at Queen Mary University of London, born, raised and educated in Israel. I teach the history of medieval Islam (society, culture and politics) to Muslim and non-Muslim students alike. The students contribute to debate about Islam from their diverse backgrounds and perspectives. The article published last week bears no similarity to my own experience at Queen Mary; it disparages the intellectual integrity of the young men and women who study with me and can only make open discussion more difficult.

Yossi Rapoport, Department of History, Queen Mary University

Sunday Times, 3 August 2008