Category Archives: UK

‘Dangerous company’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Osama and Alex“This is Alex Salmond, First Minister of the devolved Scottish Executive embracing Osama Saeed, CEO of the Scottish Islamic Foundation (recent recipient of £215,000 from the Scottish executive) and SNP candidate for Glasgow Central.

“Mr Saeed is also an Islamic fundamentalist (read: EXTREMIST)…. Mr Saeed suggests that there is no reason the West should oppose the creation of a united Islamic state – the caliphate….

“It’s no surprise that Mr Saeed’s choice of political party is the SNP. What do the SNP want? To name but a few – Unilateral disarmament, pacifism (read – appeasement beyond ridicule) and the breaking of the greatest Western democracy, the only one in Europe that stood alone against Fascism, survived and won – the UK. From the mind of an extremist – it must make complete sense….

“Scotland has a First Minister that embraces a person whose very intention is to oppose Western Power.”

SNP Watch, 15 July 2008

And, disgracefully, this right-wing drivel is partially reproduced over at Labourhome, under the heading “Alex Salmond and Islamic Extremism“. As one critic points out in the comments: “this is politics of the gutter and gives our party a bad name…. It’s disgusting and I’m ashamed to see it on a Labour website”.

Nor is the “politics of the gutter” restricted to Labourhome. Over at Chris Paul’s Labour of Love blog the SIF is described as a “Salmond-funded ginger group for the Caliphate”. See also Glasgow South Labour MP Tom Harris’s blog, which approvingly quotes raving right-wing Islamophobe Dean Godson’s attack on Osama Saeed.

Update:  It has since been claimed that SNP Watch is run by one Ricky Simpson, who stood as a Labour candidate in Aberdeen in the 2007 council elections. Simpson himself has objected to our describing his attack on Osama Saeed as “right-wing drivel”, stating that he is in favour of “social democracy and redistribution”.

Minister told to stay away from Islam event by Labour officials

Posted on by Bob Pitt

expoBritain’s first Muslim minister has been prevented from addressing an Islamic conference after an interdepartmental row over the alleged political affiliations of an organiser of the London event.

Shahid Malik, the international development minister, had been due to speak at the opening ceremony of Islam Expo on Friday evening, alongside the Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes and Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London.

The behind-the-scenes dispute, involving fierce opposition to the event voiced by the Department of Communities and Local Government, lasted for several days, and is understood to have dragged in officials at Downing Street. A spokesman for the department said: “We have reservations about the organisers of the event, therefore we [the government] chose not to send any ministers.”

Around 40,000 people will have attended the four-day event in Olympia, in west London, by the time it closes later today. It featured sessions on Islamic art, cooking and culture, as well as debates.

Hours before the event, Malik contacted Anas Altikriti, one of the directors of the conference, and apologised for the fact that he would not be able to attend.

Malik had accepted an invitation to speak at the opening ceremony. “It seems that by Wednesday he got into difficulty with certain people – within his own party – advising him not to come,” Altikriti said. “Shahid realised the importance of the event and was going to try everything in his power to make it. He realised … how untrue the criticism of the events and the organisers were.

“A few hours before, he informed me that the pressure was mounting from all quarters … After that he called and apologised for not being able to turn up.”

During their discussion, there were exchanges about alleged political support by another of the organisers for the Palestinian group Hamas.

Altikriti said: “It’s quite breathtaking … to ban one of the most prominent Muslim politicians and [stop] him saying what he wishes. [Malik] had been told that among the organisers were people associated with Hamas. This isn’t a Hamas project.”

Asked about his withdrawal, Malik said: “I obviously apologised to the organisers. It was unfortunately due to matters outside of my control.”

Guardian, 14 July 2008

It would be interesting to know who persuaded the DCLG to adopt such a stupid position. Hazarding a rough guess, perhaps Azhar Ali of the Sufi Muslim Council, a tiny and unrepresentative sect whose primary purpose is to poison relations between the government and mainstream Muslim organisations?

Meanwhile, in today’s Independent, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown reports: “Off to IslamExpo 2008 at Olympia where more than 20,000 came and went over two days, an event pre-emptively and roundly condemned by Charles Moore as a showpiece of ‘Islamism’. I usually avoid such jamborees for other reasons – most are too thick with self righteous piety and too disapproving of liberal, secular Muslims.

“Well this time, invited to a debate on radicalisation I turned up, daringly uncovered. Sure enough, those without hijab and niqab were a minority – and my opposition to both is well known. That aside, the hall was infused with charm and courtesy, and controversial subjects were discussed without malice. And when some of us spoke about the importance of moving beyond the siege mentality we even got some applause.

“Jolly rabbis and white families were having a good time, wandering between food shows, media interviews, a garden, human rights stalls and even five-a-side football matches between Muslim teams and Chelsea, Arsenal and other professionals.”

Update:  See also Seumas Milne at Comment is Free, 14 July 2008

TV ignores Muslim extremism (it says here)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Our TV controllers have a tendency to make like the three wise monkeys when it comes to Muslim extremism: hear no evil, see no evil, broadcast no evil. During this year’s 7/7 anniversary it was the great unmentionable. Over the weekend we had a feature-length documentary that invited us to view 9/11 from the point of view of conspiracy theorists. Then, on the day itself, there was a Dispatches special on Islamophobia in the UK, entitled It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim, though ‘It Shouldn’t Happen to a Commuter’ might have been more appropriate.”

Hermione Eyre in the Independent on Sunday, 13 July 2008

Is the burqa compatible with French nationality? Apparently not

Posted on by Bob Pitt

La burqa est-elle incompatible avec la nationalité française? Une Marocaine de 32 ans, mariée à un Français et mère de trois enfants nés en France, vient de se voir refuser la nationalité au motif qu’elle “a adopté, au nom d’une pratique radicale de sa religion, un comportement en société incompatible avec les valeurs essentielles de la communauté française, et notamment le principe d’égalité des sexes”.

Pour la première fois en France, le Conseil d’Etat, dans un arrêt du 27 juin, a pris en compte le niveau de pratique religieuse pour se prononcer sur la capacité d’assimilation d’une personne étrangère.

“Cette affaire montre que le droit est de plus en plus amené à se prononcer sur les conflits de valeurs que pose l’islam à la société”, constate Didier Leschi, ancien chef du bureau des cultes au ministère de l’intérieur, spécialiste de la laïcité.

Le Monde, 11 July 2008

Via Islam in Europe

Update:  See also the Guardian, 12 July 2008 and the Independent, 12 July 2008

And the report has been taken up at the”left-wing” neocon blog Harry’s Place, where it has attracted the usual selection of thoughtful, humane comments. For example:

“It is the perogative of any Government to deny citizenship to immigrants if they feel they will not contribute to society.”

“Bravo France! Now you should put the icing on the cake and deport the entire family.”

“Why be a citizen of a country that you have no interest or knowledge of, but in fact live in complete alienation to?”

“… if I were a Muslim and didn’t want to work, I’d move to London, claim persecution and get benefits. It’s free money rammed down my throat. Not only that, but the native Britons won’t care a whit if I start saying that their country should be more like the country I ‘escaped’ from. In fact, even if I get a bunch of my friends to blow up a train and kill 50+ people, they will defend me, and maybe even give me a bigger house.”

“… the problem is not whether the woman wears the Burqa of her free will, but rather that her desire to be a devout Muslimah may eventually spill over as a desire to impose her norms on the host nation.”

“Judaism is not a proselytizing or supremacist religion while Islam is.”

“The burqa is the 21st century’s swastika armband.”

“The sad thing is the West has become so remiss – if not complacent – in defending its values. It’s a shame this sort of thing does not happen much more often.”

“Yes, the French are right; the UK should have done the same thing years ago.”

“Excellent news. The French judiciary has much more sence [sic] than ours! … citizenship is more than just a recognition of residency, it is membership of a community with a particular history and values. We have lost sight of this in Britain, as the Islamists are well aware.”

“There should be no Burqas in this continent or in this century. I shouldn’t even have heard of the word. Vive la France.”

“Truly devout and reclusive Muslim Women may be good breeding machines, but their contribution to society is at best doubtful. There is a good reason for keeping them out. A woman may breed an indefinite number of jihadis, whereas a man is hopefully only blowing himself up.”

“… the burqua is a reliable flag for strong mainstream Islamic views, which it is not hyperbole to describe as fascist; it’s really that simple.”

“Why on earth would this woman wish to be a French citizen? Surely it stands for so much that she opposes, especially women who think for themselves and live independent lives and flaunt their faces in public. Wouldn’t she be much happier in say, Saudi Arabia?”

“There is no reason to be, on an institutional level, tolerant of the very most intolerant people on Earth.”

Further update:  For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 13 July 2008

Anti-mosque slogan removed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A sheet daubed with an anti-mosque slogan has been hung from a bridge over a main road. Police removed the sheet from a bridge over the A39 which read: “No mosques wanted here”. The sign was placed on a bridge near Carnon Downs in West Cornwall. The sign is thought to be in response to plans to convert a nearby derelict Methodist chapel into an Asian community centre.

Last month we reported how a pig’s head attached to a cross was nailed to the door of the chapel in Quenchwell Road and racist graffiti were scrawled on walls. Police said yesterday that displaying a sign was not an offence in itself but they are examining the sheet for any links to the attacks on the chapel.

Cornish Guardian, 11 July 2008

Posted in UK

Saying ‘Islamic threat’ over and over doesn’t make it real

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Soumaya Ghannoushi2“Pick up any newspaper today in Britain or elsewhere in Europe, switch on the TV or tune in to any radio station, and you’re very likely to get the impression that ‘our societies’ – if not western civilisation in its entirety – face an imminent Islamic threat, on a par with the old dangers of fascism.

“Since the terrorist bombings of New York, Madrid and London, the ‘fundamentalist peril’ has become part of the air we breathe. It has become a rhetorical crutch for everyone from rightwing bigots to opportunistic politicians and repenting ‘former extremists’, each with their own agenda….

“Years of peddled fear and demonisation have had severe consequences: a widening of ignorance and bigotry, deepening mistrust between individuals and communities, and the resurrection of the pernicious language of racism and fanaticism – as journalist Peter Oborne illustrated in his Channel 4 Dispatches documentary earlier this week….

“The much hyped Islamic threat is one of the greatest lies of our time. The ‘Muslim world’ – though no such bloc really exists – is politically fragmented and economically impoverished. It is reeling under the weight of crises and a long colonial legacy. Militarily, it is of scant significance. It is laughable that we should be discussing the Islamic threat when in the past seven years alone two Muslim countries have come under direct military occupation, ending hopes that the world had firmly closed this chapter of history decades ago.

“I suspect many military experts must struggle to keep a straight face every time the subject of the ‘Islamic threat’ is broached. They know that strategic threats are not founded on mere anxieties, imagination and illusions, but on concrete military and political facts. This is not to play down the seriousness of the dangers presented by al-Qaida and other violent groups. But these constitute a security problem to be dealt with through the intelligence and security services. Whatever its braggadocio, al-Qaida does not amount to a strategic military threat, let alone a menace to ‘western civilisation’….

“In the fog of the so-called war on terror, al-Qaida, terrorism, extremism and Islamism – the list of -isms goes on – have been employed as potent weapons in a range of battles. They have been deployed to demonise vulnerable minorities – their community groups and their leaders, mosques and faith schools. They have been adopted to eat away at civil liberties. And they have been exploited to target mainstream Islamist political parties. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development party; the Muslim Brotherhood – the largest opposition in the Egyptian parliament; and Anwar Ibrahim’s People’s Justice party in Malaysia, are among the movements cast in one terrifying category labelled ‘Islamism’, alongside al-Qaida. The huge differences are wilfully ignored to justify this strategy of unrelenting confrontation.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi in the Guardian, 11 July 2008

Labour MP sets police on Peter Oborne

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Labour Party, or at least one of its number, Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman, does not appear to be aware of the concept of freedom of speech.

On Wednesday, he spotted Peter Oborne, the political commentator and broadcaster, handing out a pamphlet about his current bugbear, Islamophobia in the UK, in the passage between Portcullis House and the House of Commons. Instead of seeing this as a laudable example of democracy in action, the MP called the Commons police to remove him.

Says Oborne: “I was obviously committing the very offensive act of exercising democracy in the House of Commons. In honesty, the policeman couldn’t have been more charming, but when we asked him on what grounds we were being removed, he couldn’t provide an answer.”

Why Sheerman took such offence to Oborne, who along with the pamphlet’s co-author James Jones were escorted from the area, is not known. A more obvious copper’s nark would have been former Labour Home Secretary Charles Clarke, who had earlier told Oborne he was “making a fool of himself”.

The Week, 11 July 2008

Maajid Nawaz explains the root cause of terrrorism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A former leader of a radical Islamic organization told Congress extreme Muslims are motivated by an ideology similar to Marxism and that Islamism has much in common with the former Soviet Union. Maajid Nawaz, a native of England and once prominent figure in the London-based extremist group Hizb ut-Tharir [sic], testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the root cause of Islamic terrorism was its fanatical ideology.

Townhall.com, 10 July 2008

Huge rise in number of racist attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Record numbers of racist incidents – from verbal abuse to stabbings – are being reported to police, fuelling fears that levels of Islamophobia are rising.

More than 61,000 complaints of racially motivated crime were made in 2006-07, a rise of 28 per cent in just five years, with increases reported by most police forces in England and Wales. Officers classified 42,551 of the complaints as racially or religiously aggravated offences. Nearly two thirds were offences of harassment, 13 per cent wounding, 12 per cent criminal damage and 10 per cent assault.

In a report on race and the criminal justice system, the Ministry of Justice also disclosed that police used their powers to stop and search one million people. Black people were seven times more likely to be searched than white people and Asians twice as likely.

The biggest surge in racist incidents was recorded last year in South Yorkshire, where the number leapt by 77 per cent, and Thames Valley, where it rose by 46 per cent. The Metropolitan Police recorded a fall against the national trend of 19 per cent.

Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “We’re getting more British Muslims reporting to us that they feel anti-Muslim prejudice is increasing in society. There are incidents of attacks against mosques and Islamic schools.” Last week, Shahid Malik, Britain’s first Muslim minister, criticised what he described as growing hostility to Muslims in the UK.

Independent, 9 July 2008

‘Making stuff up’ – Mark Steel replies to Trevor Kavanagh

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mark Steel“The most common justification for ridiculing Islam is that the religion is ‘backward’, particularly towards women, as a fundamental part of its beliefs. The Sun‘s old political editor suggests this as a defence of his newspaper’s stance, saying that under Islam, ‘women are treated as chattels’.

“And it’s true that religious scriptures can command this, such as the insistence that, ‘a man may sell his daughter as a slave, but she will not be freed at the end of six years as men are’. Except that comes from the Bible – Exodus, Chapter 21, verse 7.

“The Bible is packed with justifications for slavery, including killing your slaves. So presumably the Sun, along with others who regard Islam as a threat to our civilisation, will soon be campaigning against ‘Sunday Schools of Hate’ where children as young as seven are taught to read this grisly book….

“In his defence of making stuff up, the Sun‘s ex-political editor spoke about the amount of domestic violence suffered by Muslim women. But there’s just as much chance of suffering domestic violence if you’re not a Muslim, as one of the 10 million such incidents a year that take place in Britain. Presumably the anti-Islam lobby would say, ‘Ah yes, but those other ones involve secular wife-beating, which is not founded on archaic religious customs, but rational reasoning such as not letting him watch the snooker’.

“And finally the Sun‘s man defends the line of his paper by saying that, after all, these Muslims ‘are trying to bomb our country’. So it’s their civic duty to make stuff up – the same as keeping a look-out for spies during the Second World War.

“So we should all do our bit, and every day send in something, until the press is full of stories like ‘Muslims in Darlington have been raising money for semtex by organising panda fights’. Or ‘In Bradford all nurseries have been ordered to convert their dolls’ houses into miniature mosques so that Muslim teddies have somewhere to pray’.”

Independent, 9 July 2008