John Denham argues that ministers need to listen more to Muslims – and avoid grandstanding to the scared majority.
Category Archives: UK
‘A growing number use the veil to provoke us’
“The burka and the full veil go unremarked in their countries of origin. But in Britain they sharply define one section of society and deliberately exclude the rest. And what were once masks imposed by men are increasingly adopted by some women as a silent gesture towards the host nation…. Meanwhile young men are being recruited across the country at secret meetings addressed by charismatic preachers of hate…. We are well down the road towards a divided nation where some predict Palestine-style conflict between one section and another.
“Too gloomy? A world statesman alarmed by Hezbollah’s sophisticated missile attacks on Israel from Lebanon thinks not. ‘In ten years, we may see rockets like these being fired from the suburbs of Paris’, he told me. And in London? In this context, the growing tendency to adopt the veil ceases to be a fuss about nothing. Islamic extremism thrives on grievances.
“For some women the veil is a genuine expression of faith. For most, it is a form of passive aggression. It is provocative. So, when someone stupidly – but predictably – reacts by ripping off a woman’s veil, a useful grievance is up and running. By the time anyone tries to restore order, that grievance is halfway round the Muslim world, with plenty more where it came from. And it feeds the case for those preaching jihad.”
Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun, 9 October 2006
The politics of choice
“Individuals and groups are entitled to decide how they wish to live, what they wish to eat, drink and wear, even if we strongly disapprove of their choices, as long as they cause no harm to others. Moreover, the state cannot intervene to impose a uniform way of life or way of thinking on its citizens. If it did, it would be sliding into totalitarianism. That is precisely what communism did in the name of cultural revolution, what Saudi Arabia is doing in the name of religion, what France is doing in the name of secularism, and what some sections of the media and political class would have us do in the name of integration and security.”
Soumaya Ghannoushi at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, 9 October 2006
Jack Straw should be praised for lifting the veil on a taboo
“Jack Straw was right to make the simple human point that it is rather hard to conduct a conversation with someone wearing the full veil. He was also right to make the further point that the full veil does not help relations between different communities.
“He didn’t quite say that the veil has no place in a liberal secular society, but if that was his intention I agree with it. This is not to persecute Muslims for their beliefs or deny them rights: it is simply to say that the veil, like it or not, has become increasingly regarded as a symbol of separatist aspiration and of female subservience. Many wear it voluntarily, but it does not stop this being a symbol of women’s oppression which stretches back to the times of classical Greece.
Henry Porter in the Observer, 8 October 2006
Government gives ‘preferential treatment’ to Muslims, Church report claims
The Church of England has launched an astonishing attack on the Government’s drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society.
It claims that divisions between communities have been deepened by the Government’s “schizophrenic” approach to tackling multiculturalism. While trying to encourage interfaith relations, it has actually given “privileged attention” to the Islamic faith and Muslim communities.
Written by Guy Wilkinson, the interfaith adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the paper says that the Church of England has been sidelined. Instead, “preferential” treatment has been afforded to the Muslim community despite the fact that it makes up only three per cent of the population. Britain remains overwhelmingly a Christian country at heart and moves to label it as a multi-faith society suggest a hidden agenda, it says.
The report lists a number of moves made by the Government since the London bombings in July last year to win favour with Muslim communities. These include “using public funds” to fly Muslim scholars to Britain, shelving legislation on forced marriage and encouraging financial arrangements to comply with Islamic requirements. These efforts have undermined its interfaith agenda and produced no “noticeable positive impact on community cohesion”, the Church document says.
“Indeed, one might argue that disaffection and separation is now greater than ever, with Muslim communities withdrawing further into a sense of victimhood, and other faith communities seriously concerned that the Government has given signals that appear to encourage the notion of a privileged relationship with sections of the Muslim community.”
Sunday Telegraph, 8 October 2006
Mad Mel enthusiastically welcomes the news: “This is a seismic reversal, in a Church that for decades has been on its inter-faith knees before multiculturalism and abandoned the defence of Britain’s Christian identity.”
Women who wear the veil can be ‘frightening and intimidating’
Muslim women who cover their faces with veils can be “frightening and intimidating”, says Britain’s Race Minister Phil Woolas. Mr Woolas has raised the stakes with a warning that Muslim veils could increase racial tensions in Britain.
The minister, who has a large Muslim population in his Oldham constituency, backs Mr Straw for starting a national debate. But he warns Muslims must do more to avoid alienating people of other races and faiths.
Writing in the Sunday Mirror today, he says: “Muslim women have every right to wear a veil covering their face. But they must realise that other people who don’t understand their culture can find it frightening and intimidating.”
See also BBC News, 7 October 2006
Offended by Straw’s comments on the veil? Go back where you came from
“When Straw asks his women constituents if they might remove their veils during interviews – he does not insist – he was reacting like any normal person to conversing with someone in a mask. To a westerner such conversation is rude. If Muslim women, and it is a tiny number, cannot understand this, it is reasonable to ask why they want to live in Britain…..
“What to a Londoner is an exotic sight on the other side of the street, in the Midlands or northwest is a declaration of apartheid. It announces a group of newcomers who will integrate legally but not culturally, commercially but not socially…. Those who claim such hospitality owe some duty of respect to their hosts, or at the very least cannot complain if the hosts object.”
Simon Jenkins in the Sunday Times, 8 October 2006
Jenkins is, of course, such an expert on the subect that he can’t tell a burqa from a niqab.
More anti-Muslim propaganda from the Express
Another characteristically stupid and provocative headline from the Sunday Express. The accompanying article asserts that “an unholy alliance of Muslims and far-Right extremists was last night threatening Jack Straw’s future as an MP”. Needless to say, no such alliance exists and the Express offers no evidence that it does.
The Blackburn Muslims interviewed are divided over expressing regret at Straw’s comments, asking for a discussion with him, calling for an apology and demanding his resignation. Only two of those interviewed adopt the latter position.
As for the BNP, it aims to take advantage of the anti-Muslim sentiments provoked by Straw’s comments by standing against him in the next general election. The fascists’ spokesman Phil Edwards is quoted as saying that Straw has played a “subtle” version of the race card in order to boost his standing with white voters. (The BNP, of course, will do the same thing but dispense with the subtlety.) Edwards adds: “We have been saying this about Muslim dress for some time. It’s all part of the problems of a multi-cultural Britain that he and the Labour Party helped to create.”
The article also quotes Tory defence minister Gerald Howarth as saying that parliament may be forced to change the law to ban the veil. “I don’t think we need to legislate today but the time may come – if this fashion grows – where we need to. It’s time we stood up for our Christian heritage.”
Witch-hunt launched against Mohammad Khatami
Since Gemma Tumelty took over as president of the National Union of Students earlier this year the NUS has taken a sharp turn to the right. We’ve already witnessed the NUS executive voting down a motion that called for an immediate ceasefire during Israel’s war against Lebanon and censuring George Galloway for backing Hizbollah in its resistance to Israeli aggression. (The NUS executive evidently had no problem with anyone supporting Israeli state terrorism against the Lebanese civilian population.)
If further proof were needed of the mistake made by FOSIS in blocking Pav Akhtar’s election as president, we now have leading figures in the NUS calling for public protests against St Andrews University’s decision to award an honorary degree to former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami duting his visit to the UK later this month.
The first NUS executive member to be quoted in a Sunday Times article witch-hunting Khatami (“Fury as St Andrews honours Hezbollah backer“) is, significantly, Sophie Buckland – a supporter of the rabidly Islamophobic pseudo-left sect the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty.
Shock over anti-Muslim graffiti
A Teesside family have returned from holiday to find their house daubed with anti-Muslim graffiti.
The Joacph family home and its neighbouring garage, in the Saltersgill area of Middlesbrough, were covered with messages. These claimed that the family were terrorists, and also called for the killing of Muslims.
The Joacphs, who are practising Roman Catholics, say they are devastated by the incident. Originally from India, they have lived in the area for three years.
Update: See also “Anti-Muslim graffiti daubed”, Yorkshire Evening Post, 10 October 2006