Yes, it’s Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail.
Mel’s admirers in the BNP aren’t happy either.
Category Archives: UK
Islamophobe backs Boris
A decision by the new London administration not to continue with a Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Advisory Panel formed by former Mayor Ken Livingstone has been attacked by a leading gay Muslim activist. Pav Akhtar branded the decision “extremely concerning”. On the eve of Pride London on Saturday, where Mayor of London Boris Johnson led the parade, Mr Akhtar issued a statement. “Boris Johnson’s attempts to woo the LGBT community rings hollow given his disbanding of the Mayor’s Lesbian and Gay Advisory group,” he said.
But Johnson has at least one admirer in the LGBT community, who is evidently happy to ignore the abolition of the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Advisory Panel, not to mention Johnson’s earlier bigoted remarks about homosexuality. On the Pink Triangle blog George Broadhead of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Organisation is quoted as saying, in connection with the Mayor’s Pride London reception at City Hall: “I thought Boris did very well, and was a refreshing change from Ken Livingstone who badly blotted his copy book by warmly welcoming that frightful homophobic Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi.”
Broadhead was one of the contributors to the notorious “Sick Face of Islam” issue of the now thankfully defunct Gay and Lesbian Humanist magazine, where he wrote: “There are two terms that, increasingly, annoy us: Islamophobia and moderate Muslims. What we’d like to know is, first, what’s wrong with being fearful of Islam (there’s a lot to fear); and, second, what does a moderate Muslim do, other than excuse the real nutters by adhering to this barmy doctrine?”
Update: Pink News reports that “Outrage! backs Boris over abolition of gay advisory panel“. Peter Tatchell’s sidekick Brett Lock is quoted as saying: “Instead of negatively sniping at the Mayor, LGBT groups should concentrate on presenting Boris with practical and constructive policy ideas for the benefit of LGBT Londoners.”
Most Muslim coverage ‘negative’
Researchers looking at the way British Muslims are represented by the media say they have found that most coverage is negative in tone. A Cardiff University team behind the study looked at nearly 1,000 newspaper articles from the past eight years. Two-thirds focused on terrorism or cultural differences, and much of it used words such as militancy, radicalism and fundamentalist. The research was commissioned by Channel Four’s Dispatches.
Read the report (pdf) here.
Nazi BNP to target Stoke for anti-Muslim rally
The fascist British National Party (BNP) plans to ratchet up its hate campaign against Muslims by calling a “national rally” in Stoke-on-Trent on Saturday 9 August.
Nazi leader Nick Griffin visited the city last Sunday to announce the rally. “We are expecting large numbers of people from around the country to converge on the city,” he said. “We shall be touring the estates and visiting much of Stoke-on-Trent.”
Anti-Nazi campaigners have vowed to confront the BNP’s latest plans to target Muslims. “We’ve been warning that the BNP are planning to make a shift like this towards whipping up race hatred on the ground,” said Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism (UAF).
“This is how the BNP plans to lay the groundwork for next year’s mayoral elections in Stoke. They thrive in an atmosphere of racism and bigotry – and now they plan to create that climate in the city. Everyone opposed to the BNP must stand together against this poison.”
Respect mobilises against racist Cologne conference
Respect is aiming to send at least 100 activists to join protests against an anti-Islam conference organised by Europe’s fascists. At the recent anti-fascist march in London, it appealed for activists to come to Cologne.
Thanks to George Bush’s war on terror, Islamophobia is the acceptable face of racism. The fascists and far right across Europe have put attacks on Muslims at the centre of their propaganda.
This September the European far right is set to gather in the German city of Cologne for an anti-Muslim hate-fest. Anti-racists, trade unions, survivors of the Holocaust, Muslim groups and others across Germany are calling on people to come to the city in protest. Respect is organising a large delegation to join this major protest, blockade and counter-conference over the weekend of 20 and 21 September.
Nadir Ahmed, one of the organisers of the delegation, says, “The BNP’s Richard Barnbrook is due to be in Cologne alongside veteran fascists like Jean Marie Le Pen.
“Every far right party wants to get a boost from it. A huge counter protest, on the other hand, will lift Muslims and anti-racists across the continent. The fascists appear to have chosen this date because it is right in the middle of Ramadan, when Muslims are fasting, tend not to travel far, and spend a lot of time with friends and family.
“Well, for me and many Muslims going to Cologne to stop this Nuremberg rally for Islamophobia definitely comes under the category of essential travel and an obligation to act justly. I hope many brothers and sisters, Muslim and non-Muslim, join us.”
For details phone Nadir on 07951 058864.
FOSIS welcomes Dispatches documentary
The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) in the UK and Eire has welcomed the need for more balanced media coverage in the UK. It followed the Dispatches documentary aired on Channel 4 by the reporter Peter Oborne.
Faisal Hanjra, president of FOSIS, said today, “It has always been clear, and the airing of tonight’s programme further reiterated, the need for sensible reporting on issues related to Islam. We welcome discussion around points in Islam but there is a fundamental need to balance debates and to avoid inflaming tensions particularly in communities where misunderstandings already exist.”
He further added, “Clearly there is a necessity for communities to come together to defeat terror and it is high time that certain media outlets realise their responsibility in acting as catalysts to bring people together and not to tear community groups apart. Such actions do nothing but aid the very people seeking to divide us.”
Extremism relies on despair and is defeated by hope
Sohaib Saeed reflects on the London bombings.
‘Please can I have some money Boris?’ – Ed Husain marks 7/7
Just when you thought that opinion might be shifting towards a recognition of the existence of widespread and atrocious media bigotry against the Muslim community, in steps Ed Husain to assure everyone that Islamophobia is just a myth promoted by Islamist extremists.
In an article in today’s Evening Standard marking the third anniversary of the July 2005 London bombings, he writes:
“What has changed since 7/7 is the tactics and the public rhetoric of the extremists. Under pressure from Muslim activists, ‘Islamophobia’ has become accepted as a phenomenon on a par with racism, as examined in tonight’s Channel 4 documentary by political journalist Peter Oborne, for example.”
But it’s all nonsense, according to Ed:
“Outside a few flashpoints where the BNP is at work, most Muslims would be hard-pressed to identify Islamophobia in their lives. Yet that is the charge every time the extremists press for new ‘rights’ – over dress in the workplace, for example. If there is anti-Muslim sentiment, we Muslims have to ask what some of us have done to provoke such feelings in a country that is proudly multi-cultural. Islamist extremism might be a good starting point.”
And who are the proponents of “Islamist extremism”? Well, the people organising Islam Expo later this week are among them, according to Ed Husain. Because some of those involved in the event are supporters of the Palestinian resistance they are no different from the 7/7 bombers, in Husain’s analysis. And worse still, supposedly as a result of “a Ken Livingstone commitment to his friends”, the London Development Agency is one of the sponsors of Islam Expo.
Husain concludes with an appeal to the current Mayor of London: “Boris Johnson has a fresh mandate. He knows the organisers behind this week’s event are those that cry Islamophobia. Will he co-opt them, appease or oppose them? His starting point could be to expose their Westophobia, and empower the right side in this battle of ideas.”
Which I think could be translated as: “Please can I have some GLA funding for the Quilliam Foundation?”
‘Islamophobia … or cold, hard truth?’
Trevor Kavanagh replies to Peter Oborne’s Dispatches documentary.
For responses to Kavanagh see Obsolete and Lenin’s Tomb.
‘Official pandering to the Islamic hardliners is political cowardice’
“Question: ‘What is the definition of an Islamophobe?’ Answer: ‘Someone who objects to being blown up on the way to work.’
“The politically correct brigade might not like it but there is a large element of truth in that ‘joke’. In recent years we have had to endure a constant threat to our society from Muslim extremists who kill, maim and brutalise in the name of Allah. Yet, in the inverted moral universe created by our Left-wing political establishment, any criticism of Islam provokes indignant cries of ‘racism’ or ‘Islamophobia’….
“In the light of today’s third anniversary of the July bombings in 2005, the eagerness of Muslim representatives to don the mantle of victimhood is truly sickening. Last week, Minister for International Development and Dewsbury MP Shahid Malik had the nerve to claim that ‘Muslims feel like the Jews of Europe’ because of supposed persecution.
“Meanwhile, the Channel 4 Dispatches programme is tonight examining the phenomenon of so-called Islamophobia, claiming that Muslims are an alienated, vulnerable community under siege. The intellectually barren argument is that Islam ‘has an overwhelming message of peace and tolerance’. Try telling that to relatives of those killed in the Twin Towers or in the London bombings….
“It is obscene for political commentators to characterise as a disease or a prejudice the wish to preserve our civilisation in the face of barbarism. The real disease of modern Britain is the cringing of our cowardly political establishment towards Islam…. The political elite might blather about ‘rich cultural diversity’ but this is only a recipe for the destruction of our civilisation. In practice, its capitulation to Islam is a form of national suicide.”
Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express, 7 July 2008