Category Archives: UK

Blame ‘grievance-nurturing multiculturalism’ for Muslim outrage at Pope

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The combination of grievance-nurturing multiculturalism and instant headlines is having a disastrous effect on the worldwide Muslim community. There seems to be no limit to its spokesmen’s willingness to voice outrage; and their messages are then picked up by fanatics who mount appalling attacks on Christians in Muslim countries. When was the last time a Muslim leader apologised for such atrocities?

“The truth is that barbaric attacks happen weekly. No wonder that Benedict favours an urgent dialogue with Muslims on the subject of religious violence, rather than the usual touchy-feely exchange of compliments…. We suspect that Western public opinion is not displeased that Benedict has said the unsayable. Now it is time for other churchmen to tell their Muslim counterparts that, in addition to dishing out criticism, they must learn how to take it.”

Editorial in the Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2006

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer welcomes these “trenchant words from the Telegraph”.

‘The passing of a great lady’ – fascists pay tribute to Fallaci

Posted on by Bob Pitt

forzaThe British National Party mourns the passing of a co-thinker:

“It [is] with deep sadness that we announce the death of of Oriana Fallaci who lost her protracted battle with breast cancer on September 15, 2006….

“Her books ‘The Pride and the Rage’ and ‘The Force of Reason’ remain essential reading not just for what they say, but also for the passion and courage with which she expressed those views. This combination of intellect and bravery is the sine qua non of effective resistance to the islamification of the West.

“With the last of her strength she defied not just the civilisational transformation of Europe into Eurabia, but also all those venal liberals who were prosecuting her in her native country of Italy for daring to defy this process. In time history will adjudge her one of Europe’s great patriots, a staunch defender of our Western heritage, art, culture, values and liberties.

“It with great regret we mark [her] passing, but it is with honour and pride that we shall remember her.”

BNP news article, 18 September 2006

We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Karen Armstrong (3)“Pope Benedict delivered his controversial speech in Germany the day after the fifth anniversary of September 11. It is difficult to believe that his reference to an inherently violent strain in Islam was entirely accidental. He has, most unfortunately, withdrawn from the interfaith initiatives inaugurated by his predecessor, John Paul II, at a time when they are more desperately needed than ever. Coming on the heels of the Danish cartoon crisis, his remarks were extremely dangerous. They will convince more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic and engaged in a new crusade. We simply cannot afford this type of bigotry.”

Karen Armstrong in the Guardian, 18 September 2006

See also Giles Fraser’s piece in Saturday’s Guardian: “the Pope has form on all of this. Just a few months before he was elected, he spoke out against Muslim Turkey joining the EU. Christian Europe must be defended, he argued. It didn’t go down well at the time with Muslim leaders. But what makes his comments from Bavaria doubly insensitive is that Munich and its surrounding towns are home to thousands of Gastarbeiter, many from Turkey, who are often badly treated by local Germans and frequently subjected to racism. It won’t be lost on them that Manuel II ran his Christian empire from what is now the Turkish city of Istanbul. And reference to that time, in circumstances such as these, has the unmistakable whiff of Christian triumphalism.”

Guardian, 16 September 2006

Stand up, stand up for Jesus (against the Muslim hordes)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Christians write in to support Olga Craig’s article in last week’s Sunday Telegraph:

“Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc, have lived among us peacefully for years, never threatening to blow up innocent people; neither have they made other demands. On the other hand, Muslims are always demanding special favours for their culture, while assuming a victim mentality. It also seems that only Muslims have freedom of speech; all others are silenced by the police.”

Sunday Telegraph, 17 September 2006

‘Violence is Muslim response to Pope’s speech’ – BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Smooth talking ‘moderate’ Muslims try to convince us non-believers that Islam is the religion of peace, a task made impossible by their co-religionists who have not heeded the peace message. In response to a quote made by Pope Benedict XVI in a speech on Tuesday Muslims have been busy burning effigies of the Pope and burning down churches, hardly the response of those who practice a religion of peace….

“The West is constantly asked to tolerate the presence of this pre-medieval desert faith but its practitioners have no understanding of tolerance themselves, no concept of free speech which allows comment and criticism of any faith, cult or political ideology, a concept which itself is in peril due to Marxist inspired political correctness and supine liberal appeasement to the fifth column of Muslims already here in the UK and in countries across western Europe.”

BNP news article, 16 September 2006

Chief rabbi blasts multiculturalism, calls on Muslims to integrate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A crisis of national and social identity is undermining Britain’s efforts to integrate its immigrant population, according to the Chief Rabbi. Sir Jonathan Sacks told The Sunday Telegraph that multiculturalism had led to segregation and a country that was no longer confident of what it stood for.

The Chief Rabbi echoed the call last week by the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, for Muslims to do more to integrate. Sir Jonathan said that the Islamic community, particularly second-generation Muslims, were struggling with “a conflicted identity”.

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Annual Islamophobia awards

Posted on by Bob Pitt

It’s that time of year again. The Islamic Human Rights Commission announces the 2006 Islamophobia Awards:

“The Islamophobia Awards is an annual event to acknowledge – through satire, revue and comedy – the worst Islamophobes of that year. Centred around a gala dinner, the ‘awards’ themselves are both entertaining and raise awareness of a serious and growing prejudice. Real awards are given to those who have battled against Islamophobia – often against enormous odds.”

IHRC announcement, 17 September 2006

So it’s your chance to vote now for the Islamophobes of the year.

Pope’s comment on Islam had ‘an agreeably crusading ring’ to it – Rod Liddle

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rod Liddle“The Muslim world is in ferment, or even more ferment than usual, as a result of a speech given by Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg University.

“Ben took a swipe at the notion that Islam is an inherently peaceable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky credo with a core philosophy that proclaims hey, why not live and let live, huh? Rather, he let slip: ‘Everything Muhammad brought was evil and inhuman’, which has an agreeably crusading, unequivocal ring to it, I think you’ll agree….

“The Pope should have been aware that Islam always reacts to western allegations that it is not a peaceful religion by mass outbreaks of vituperation, denunciation and acts of jihadic violence….

“The ‘liberal and moderate’ Islamic scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (pro death penalty for homosexuals, female circumcision, suicide bombings against Jews and other similarly tolerant stuff) has insisted the Pope must apologise. Soon the placards will be out, the effigies, the foam-flecked demonstrators and attacks by adolescent suicidal nutters.”

Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times, 17 September 2006

Martin Amis and the politics of paranoia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pankaj Mishra replies to Martin Amis’s article in last week’s Observer:

“Martin Amis’s essay on Islam and Islamism goes on for more than 10,000 words without describing an individual experience of Muslim societies deeper than Christopher Hitchens’s acquisition of an Osama T-shirt in Peshawar and the Amis family’s failure to enter, after closing time, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

“‘The impulse towards rational inquiry,’ Amis asserts, ‘is by now very weak in the rank and file of the Muslim male.’ There are countless other startling claims (according to Amis, the army was on the Islamist side in the Algerian civil war) in his essay, whose pseudo-scholarship and fanatical conviction of moral superiority make it resemble nothing more than one of bin Laden’s desperately literary screeds.

“Such a bold and hectic display of prejudice and ignorance invites the dinner-party frivolity of Amis’s genitals-centric analysis (constipation and sexual frustration) of radical Islam. But what forces us to take it seriously is not only that its author is one of our leading novelists, but also that his cliches about non-western peoples (they are all very irrational out there) and strident belief in ‘Western’ rationality are now commonplace in elite liberal-left as well as conservative circles in the government and media.”

Observer, 17 September 2006