Yusuf Smith examines the role of Alan Craig and the Christian People’s Alliance in the campaign against the Newham so-called “mega-mosque”.
Category Archives: UK
What ‘Dave’ learnt about Muslims
Tory party leader David Cameron does a rewrite of his blog about his stay with a Muslim family in Birmingham. This one is pitched at a liberal audience, so he omits the stuff about Muslims being in denial about 7/7. Yes, it’s yet another example of Cameron trying to be all things to all people.
Amazingly, Cameron does have his admirers in the Muslim communities, despite his track record of anti-Muslim rhetoric. See for example here, here, here, here, here and here. Or try putting “David Cameron” into the search engine on this site.
Madeleine Bunting interviews Ed Husain
“It is as if, just as Husain once swallowed large chunks of Hizb ut-Tahrir propaganda, he now seems to have swallowed undigested the prevailing critique of British Muslims. He has no truck with the idea of Islamophobia, which he dismisses as the squeal of an Islamist leadership pleading special favours; he criticises Asian racism and castigates Muslims ‘who go back home to get married’ and produce ‘another generation confused about home’. On issues such as segregation, he is confident it is the fault of multiculturalism….
“One suspects the naivety which took him into Hizb-ut Tahrir has blinded him as to how his story will be used to buttress positions hostile to many things he holds dear – his own faith and racial tolerance, for example. A glance at the blog response to a Husain piece in the Telegraph reveals how rightwing racism and anti-Islamic sentiment are feasting on his testimony.”
Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian, 12 May 2007
For “left” support for Husain (from the AWL’s Jim Denham) see Shiraz Socialist, 12 May 2007
For right-wing support see Jihad Watch, 2 May 2007 and Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 13 May 2007
‘One in 10 Muslims are in 7/7 denial’
The Evening Standard puts a predictable spin on David Cameron’s blog about his stay with a Muslim family in Balsall Heath.
It’s not hard to identify a considerable degree of political cynicism here on the part of the Tory leader. Cameron must have been well aware that the right-wing press would highlight this particular aspect of his article, reinforcing his appeal to hardcore Tory voters. But at the same he tries to cosy up to Muslim communities by making some progressive-sounding criticisms of the misuse of the phrase “Islamist terrorists” and of the general anti-Muslim bias in the media.
Anyone tempted to fall for Cameron’s BS should read this article by Soumaya Ghannoushi.
BNP announces candidate for London Mayor
“The man from the BNP breezes up in a white linen suit looking like some latter-day Martin Bell and says: ‘Can you believe it? Two of our schools are having Muslim days tomorrow – on 7/7! It’s like chucking mud in people’s faces’.”
The man from the BNP is Richard Barnbrook, who the fascists have just announced will be their candidate in next May’s London mayoral election.
For a picture of Barnbrook leading the massed ranks of the Master Race, see here. You do wonder whether this is part of some cunning plan by Nick Griffin to deflect accusations that his members are dangerous fascists by making them look like total prats.
The Islamification of Blackstock Road
Christopher Hitchens describes his visit to Finsbury Park:
“Returning to the old place after a long absence, I found that it was the scent of Algeria that now predominated along the main thoroughfare of Blackstock Road. This had had a good effect on the quality of the coffee and the spiciness of the grocery stores. But it felt odd, under the gray skies of London, to see women wearing the veil, and even swathed in the chador or the all-enveloping burka. Many of these Algerians, Bangladeshis, and others are also refugees from conflict in their own country. Indeed, they have often been the losers in battles against Middle Eastern and Asian regimes which they regard as insufficiently Islamic. Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence.”
Hitch further complains that “Blair’s government has appeased leading Muslim apologists by inviting them to join ‘commissions’ to investigate the 7/7 attacks, and thus awarding them credibility well beyond their deserts. A preposterous and sinister individual named Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain and a man with a public record of support for Osama bin Laden, was made a convener of Blair’s task force on extremism despite his stated belief that the BBC and the rest of the media are ‘Zionist controlled’.”
See also the accompanying interview with Hitchens.
Hidden toll of Scots religious hate crime
Nearly half of Scotland’s police forces have no idea about the number of religious hate incidents reported in their area.
Despite the west of Scotland’s problems with sectarianism and growing concerns over Islamophobia in the wake of the 7 July terror attacks in London, Strathclyde Police does not track crimes linked to faith. Neither the Fife nor Dumfries and Galloway force compiles such statistics. However, police in other areas have been collating them for up to a decade.
Community leaders expressed concerns yesterday, claiming little action could be taken to address religious hatred until the true picture was known. Osama Saeed, Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, said: “There is a climate of fear of Islam and general tension about the international situation. Until you know the scale of the problem, you can’t tackle it.”
The Little Bulldogs blog takes the opportunity to repeat false allegations against Osama Saeed which Osama himself rebutted at the time.
MP angry at Sharia courts reports
The Government should consider making it a criminal offence to impersonate a court amid fears Sharia law courts could be operating around the country, an MP has said. Shipley MP Philip Davies is demanding answers from ministers after reports that Sharia law courts were operating in Dewsbury. He fears if courts are operational in parts of West Yorkshire, there could be some in Bradford. He said: “And if there are, they should be closed down and a crime created for impersonating a court. It is completely unacceptable that people do not abide by British law – there is no excuse for not doing so.”
Preston mosque attacked
A councillor has condemned vandals who attacked a Preston mosque which has been at the centre of a planning row.
The windows of the Masjid-E-Salaam mosque in Fulwood have been smashed three times in the past six weeks. This follows the approval of controversial plans to demolish the current building in Watling Street Road, to make way for a large, traditional looking mosque and Islamic school in the conservation area.
College ward councillor Bobby Cartwright said: “It’s absolutely appalling. The people who have done this should be found and reprimanded. The people who have done this should be found and reprimanded.”
Despotic secularism
“I am now more convinced than ever that there is no secularism, per se, ever associated with democracy, openness, tolerance and other lofty political values, and no religion, per se, ever linked to intolerance, irrationality, violence, fanaticism and all that is deficient and disturbing. Neither has a monopoly over virtue or evil. Secularism may be allied to repression and despotism; religion to democratisation and openness. In Turkey today, the generals, secularism’s self-appointed ‘absolute guardians’, are the ones threatening to suspend the democratic process and overthrow the elected government and the Islamist-rooted AKP government the one defending democracy and pluralism, and appealing to the nation to uphold them.”
Soumaya Ghannoushi at Comment is Free, 7 May 2007
See also Lenin’s Tomb, 2 May 2007 and Austrolabe, 5 May 2007
Meanwhile, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown takes a different view of despotic secularism: “Our universities do nothing as Muslim women are compelled or pulled into wearing head and body covers. We do not defend our secular state. They do in Turkey, though some with unwarranted viciousness, which is self-defeating. I hope they can save their country’s political pillars being lent on with such strength by Islamicists. They still have a chance and can avoid, I hope, the charms of the Iranian Islamic idyll. We must, too.”