Category Archives: UK

Message from Mackenzie to Muslims – stop trying to kill me

Posted on by Bob Pitt

kelvin mackenzie“I am becoming increasingly irritated at being told that we must not do anything to ‘alienate’ Muslim communities. I wonder if we could look at it from another perspective: Could the Muslims stop alienating me and, more importantly, trying to kill me?

“Let’s get one thing clear. The vast majority of this country have done nothing but welcome people to these shores no matter how evil their background and religion. And how have we been repaid? Instead of being thanked for taking them from their poverty-striken villages in Pakistan a minority of second generation Muslims try to change our way of life to their backward and prehistoric view of humanity. It’s time we stood up to them….

“The suicide bombers come from one ethnic group. Terrorist leaders may wise up one day and start persuading white people to carry out their slaughter but until then what is the point of wasting precious resources on the overwhelming majority in this country…..

“Certainly I would like to see some young Muslims in this country restricted from flying to Pakistan. And if they did go they would have to wear electronic tags so that intelligence authorities would be able to keep track of them. If these guys had nothing to hide why would they care? Even if it is an infingement of personal liberty, surely that’s better than the ultimate infringement – mass murder.”

Kelvin MacKenzie in The Sun, 17 August 2006

US neocon ignorance about British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

helle dale“Thirty percent of Britain’s Muslim population is under 15; 92 percent is under 50. About half are of Pakistani origin, and about half of the younger population does not feel allegiance to Britain as their native country. Instead many dream of the coming of the Muslim caliphate, which they expect will transform Europe, and introduce Shariah law.”

Helle Dale explains the background to the alleged terror plot.

Washington Times, 16 August 2006

Note the reference to the prominent Muslim Labour MP “Shahid Malouf”! But then, according to Ms Dale, Muslims are only “technically speaking” British citizens, so why bother getting their funny foreign names right?

Plane ‘plot’: media targets Tablighi Jamaat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Media discourses about Islam … typically see acts of terror committed by some Muslims in a vacuum, ignoring the root causes of such terrorism. Such acts cannot be condoned but they must be seen, at least in part, as a response to the oppression that Muslims in many parts of the world today face, and as a protest against continuing Western imperialism and state terrorism. Adopting a purely law-and-order approach to the problem without addressing its root causes is, it must be realized, no solution at all. And targeting the TJ, the world’s largest Islamic movement, as a ‘font of terrorism’ on the basis of the alleged activities of a few individuals in some way associated with it is bound to make matters more complicated, further exacerbating the resentment and sense of persecution that many Muslims today in large parts of the world feel.”

Yoginder Sikand replies to ignorant attempts to associate Tablighi Jamaat with terrorism.

Milli Gazette, 16 August 2009

‘Lefty lexicon’ lands Orange executive in big trouble

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mobile phone company Orange has suspended its community affairs manager after he posted what he termed a “lefty lexicon” on the blog site ConservativeHome which includes a description of Islamophobics as “anyone who objects to having their transport blown up on the way to work.”

Since Inigo Wilson posted his diatribe on what he sees as the abuse of language by “lefties” and especially the “rights industry”, Orange has received a flood of complaints from customers.

A campaign against him was mounted on the website of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPACUK). Yesterday it emerged that Mr Wilson has been suspended pending an internal Orange investigation. A spokesman for MPACUK said Mr Wilson’s views were extremely unhelpful at a time when British Muslims are increasingly being subjected to bigotry and prejudice, and bordered on racist.

Guardian, 17 August 2006

Over at Harry’s Place, David T “on balance” comes out in defence of Inigo Wilson: “I hope that Mr Wilson does not lose his job … to the extent that free expression is the principle at stake, the content of the speech is largely an irrelevant consideration.” Can you imagine David T taking a similarly “balanced” view if Wilson had been accused of anti-semitism?

Terrorism? Blame Pakistanis, says Stephen Schwartz

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stephen Schwartz“With the foiling of the alleged conspiracy by radical Islamists to devastate transatlantic air travel – at the height of the US–UK tourist season – Britain has emerged, a little more than a year after the London Tube bombings, as the apparent main target for jihadist terror in Europe.

“This has little to do with British policies, poverty, discrimination or Islamophobia. Simply put, a million or more Sunnis of Pakistani background, who comprise the main element among British Asian Muslims, also include the largest contingent of radical Muslims in Europe. Their jihadist sympathies embody an imported ideology, organised through mosques and other religious institutions, rather than a ‘homegrown’ phenomenon, as the cliché would have it….

“Imported Muslim clerics are the basis of the threat. Islam in the UK is overwhelmingly influenced by imams and other religious officials born in Pakistan and trained in that country or in Saudi Arabia. Pakistani Sunni mosques in Britain are major centres for jihadist preaching, finance, incitement and recruitment.

“… the leaders of British Islam — exemplified by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) — have assumed a posture of truculence, obstruction and indignation when any suggestion is made that jihadist sympathies infect their ranks…. It may be impossible for General Musharraf to rid his country of jihadist violence. But Britain need not and must not permit Pakistani religious gangsters to continue their control of British Islam.”

Spectator, 16 August 2006

Update:  For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 20 August 2006

Racist threat before mosque arson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Albirr mosque arsonPolice investigating an arson attack on a mosque are looking into threats made to occupants of a nearby property.

Three hours before the Albirr Mosque was set alight on Saturday, a man tried to force his way into a property in Goat Lane, Basingstoke. Hampshire police said the man made racist and religious remarks to those inside and references to recent anti-terror arrests in London.

The blaze occurred in the roof of the mosque and police believe the perpetrator, who has not been found, may have received burns.

BBC News, 17 August 2006

See also “Mosque targeted in arson attack”, Basingstoke Gazette, 16 August 2006

Update:  See “Racist graffiti on arson mosque”, Islamophobia Watch, 24 September 2006

‘Britain says: we’re at war with Islam’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thus the headline to an article by Gabriel Milland in today’s Daily Express which begins: “The majority of Britons believe that the UK and the West is in a global war with Islam.”

This claim is based on a YouGov poll for the Spectator, which found that three out of four respondents believed that Britain is engaged in a battle “against Islamic terrorists” (emphasis added).

The venomous media voices who think no Muslim is worth talking to

Posted on by Bob Pitt

With the government’s policy of engagement with Muslim community under strain, Madeleine Bunting takes on the “media commentators pouring out a flood of venomous advice on exactly why no Muslim is worth talking to anyway”. She points out that “there are many people in this country who have no interest in listening to any Muslim unless they can chorus their own loathing and suspicion of Islam – the former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the case par excellence”.

Bunting writes: “Some of this armchair advice to government can be pretty briskly dismissed, such as the paranoid fantasies of the rightwing Daily Mail commentator Melanie Phillips in her book Londonistan or those of the Conservative MP Michael Gove in his book Celsius 7/7. Both authors haven’t troubled themselves to get much beyond revived imperial delusions of demented, violent Muslims (check out Britain’s history in India, Sudan or Egypt).

“More insidious is the comprehensive attack on Whitehall’s policy towards the Muslim community over the last decade by the New Statesman‘s political editor, Martin Bright. He argues that the government should have no truck with any Muslim organisation in the UK that has had any involvement with any person who has ever been influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, the political Islamist organisation.

“That rules out the Muslim Council of Britain, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies and other mainstays of the government’s ‘engagement’ policy of the last 10 years. It would even include intellectuals such as Professor Tariq Ramadan (grandson, no less, of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), who was a member of the government taskforce set up to tackle Islamist extremism last year, and a star turn on its travelling roadshow for young Muslims.

“We are talking sweeping here. In fact, implement Bright’s advice and you’ve got a pretty small tea party for your next round of engagement.”

Guardian, 16 August 2006

In response, right-wing blogger Scott Burgess rallies to the defence of “Martin Bright’s groundbreaking work” and denounces Bunting as one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “British fifth columnists “.

Daily Ablution, 16 August 2006

Allison Pearson wrestles with her Islamophobic inclinations – and loses

Posted on by Bob Pitt

allison pearsonAllison Pearson writes: “Several opinion polls have measured Muslim anger with Britain. No survey has yet recorded the rest of British society’s anger and distress with Muslims. Yet you only have to start a conversation on the subject to unleash a flood of feeling. ‘I never thought I’d say this, but…’ People who don’t consider themselves racist are wondering how to deal with these new and dismaying thoughts.”

This is “a tragedy for the UK, which has done so much to accommodate its immigrant groups. Too much, probably. We failed to spell out the cultural norms we expect everyone to respect, with horrendous consequences. That letter from Muslim MPs warning the Government to change its policy on the Middle East because it was ‘inflaming extremists’ was a bloody cheek, quite frankly.

“Millions of Britons are angry with Tony Blair over Iraq. But he is our democratically elected leader and the foreign policy of this country is not going to be decided in a mosque in Waltham Forest. As for the suggestion by Dr Syed Aziz Pasha that Britain should introduce Islamic laws on family affairs, which apply only to Muslims, well, words fail me. Where would the concessions end? All women to cover their heads? Jews thrown into the sea? Burqa King? The Moral Maze presented by Michael Burqa?”

Daily Mail, 16 August 2006