Category Archives: UK

Discord cannot deal defeats to fascism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

On reflection, perhaps I’ve been a bit harsh on Tribune. Having got hold of a copy of the current issue, I find that it contains an excellent reply to Peter Tatchell by Kirsten Hearn of Regard (even if they manage to mis-spell her name).

Kirsten demolishes Tatchell’s article which rejected anti-fascist work with the Muslim Council of Britain on the grounds that the MCB is homophobic:

“To suggest we jettison the Muslim community from the anti-fascist movement at a time when the fascists are advancing by attacking Muslims is obscene. Today, in Europe, among the many communities being attacked by fascists and the extreme Right, it is possible to find many differences. We must instead seek the basis of common ground and effective opposition. Specifically, the MCB is an umbrella and mainstream body representing more than 450 Muslim organisations and therefore must be central to anti-fascist unity in this country.”

Continue reading →

A ‘swvil-eyed’ attack on Islamophobia Watch

Posted on by Bob Pitt

We appear to have upset the comrades over at Tribune, who have taken exception to our criticisms of their readiness to give a platform to Islamophobes, and to Peter Tatchell in particular (see here).

An item in the magazine’s “John Street” gossip column in the current issue reads: “Tribune has fallen foul of the sane and rational people at Islamophobia Watch. This website, run by self-proclaimed defenders of the faith, claims to expose anti-Islamic sentiments. Journalists, particularly on the Left, who deemed to be the slightest bit anti-Muslim, are subject to self-righteous abuse. More sinisterly, their pictures and details are posted on the website. Tribune‘s latest ‘crime’ was to publish a piece by Peter Tatchell which was critical of Muslim Council of Britain leader Iqbal Sacranie’s swvil-eyed [sic] rantings on homosexuality. Anyone wishing to complain to Islamphobia Watch is advised that they would be wasting their time. It is run by couple of devout democratic centralists and does not countenance debate, disagreements or alternative viewpoints. How very fundamentalist of them.”

You do wonder whether this is an entry for a competition in which journalists were set the task of fitting the maximum number of factual errors into a mere eight sentences.

Continue reading →

Mad Mel and Condoleezza Rice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

While the rest of us were applauding the withdrawal of Condoleezza Rice’s invitation to visit Masjid Al Hidayah in Blackburn, Melanie Phillips saw it as another example of intimidation by Muslims hostile to western values:

“The decision by the Blackburn mosque to cancel the planned visit by Condoleezza Rice is utterly unacceptable and deeply troubling. A mosque spokesman has said that it was cancelled not through dislike of Dr Rice but because of the threat by Muslim anti-war protesters to invade the mosque, thus compromising the safety of the visiting dignitaries. What an appalling state of affairs where the safety of the Foreign Secretary and a distinguished overseas visitor cannot be guaranteed against the threat of violent disorder. Aren’t we all supposed to be engaged in a war against this kind of menace to life and liberty?

“… the fact is that British Muslims are British and should afford Dr Rice – a principal member of the government of our major ally – an elementary degree of courtesy. After all, if the US government is to be treated in this way over the Iraq war, logic dictates that these British Muslims would regard the British government with identical hostility over its own part in that war. And that is a very troubling thought indeed. It implies that some of them do not identify themselves as British but adhere to a hostile set of values.”

Continue reading →

Johann Hari on the ‘March for Free Expression’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

johann hariJohann Hari offers his assessment of last Saturday’s protest. “Communists mingled awkwardly with fascists”, he tells us approvingly, though unlike Tatchell he does at least have the honesty to admit that fascists participated in the demonstration.

Hari complains that a member of the Worker Communist Party of Iran was arrested for provocatively brandishing “silly cartoons of the Mohammed that some fundamentalist Muslims have declared to be blasphemous”.

The cartoons in question were in fact the most explicitly racist of the series published by Jyllands-Posten: one of the Prophet with a bomb as a turban and another of a wild-eyed Prophet wielding a knife, with two terrified veiled women cowering behind him – the implication of course being that Muslims are terrorists and misogynists.

We look forward to Hari defending the right of anti-semites to parade round Trafalgar Square with a caricature of a hook-nosed Jew counting money. After all, we have to defend freedom of expression at all costs, don’t we?

Evening Standard, 31 March 2006

Success! Condoleezza Rice Masjid visit cancelled!

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Success!

MPACUK are happy to announce that following pressure from local Ulema, the local Blackburn community (SubhanAllah), Blackburn with Darwen Stop the War and MPACUK, the invitation to Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Masjid Al Hidayah has been withdrawn.

It has come to MPACUK’s attention that the spin being applied to the withdrawal of the invitation from the Foreign office and the Masjid Committee is that “an invasion of the Mosque was planned at Fajr time”. We can ensure the FO and the Masjid Committee that we will leave invasions to the specialists, Messers Straw and Rice.

A number of us had planned to spend some time after Fajr at the Masjid, read a little Quran, a few Nafl etc.

We hope that Masjid Al Hidayah’s late foray into the world of Dawah will continue as they stated in their justification for the invitation. They should perhaps start in tackling the segregated nature of Blackburn and try to bring communities together.

Continue reading →

Posted in UK

‘Muslim’ adverts banned from Tube (and quite right too)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

sleeper cellPosters with the phrase “America’s latest hero is a Muslim straight out of jail” has been banned from the Tube by London Underground (LU).

LU said it will not show the posters from a £1m advertising campaign for new TV series Sleeper Cell until creators remove the word Muslim from the text. It claims it will offend people and it is trying to be sensationalist.

BBC News, 30 March 2006

The real unholy alliance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Letter in Socialist Worker, 1 April 2006:

The organisers of the protest for “freedom of expression” in Trafalgar Square last Saturday claimed to be standing up for free speech after the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in Denmark. But what they were really doing was standing up for their rights to insult and offend Muslims, and increase Islamophobia in Britain.

The organisers had originally asked people to bring placards containing the cartoons to Trafalgar Square. But the day before the protest they had had to backtrack on this. One of the organisers admitted that many Muslims, including secular ones, were extremely offended by the cartoons that depicted all Muslims as terrorists.

The call to protest over this issue had opened a Pandora’s Box of racism and nationalism. The Civil Liberty website, run by Nazi BNP member Kevin Scott, had urged people to demonstrate on the day.

A strange mix of right wing libertarians and middle class liberals joined the rather small protest – which unlike the multi-racial anti-war protest that had filled Trafalgar Square the previous week, was mainly white.

I was particularly disappointed with gay campaigner Peter Tatchell who happily spoke alongside right wing nutcases from the Libertarian Alliance and the Freedom Association. Tatchell continually criticises the left, including Socialist Worker, for forming alliances with supposedly “reactionary” Muslims. He told the rally, “Free speech does not include the right to incite hatred and violence against other human beings.” But that was exactly what the cartoons were published to do – to make people see Muslims as the enemy within.

Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance defended the rights of BNP leader Nick Griffin, Holocaust denier David Irving and disgraced racist lecturer Frank Ellis to “speak their mind”. The crowd cheered him. Mark Wallace of the Freedom Association also spoke. This is a notorious right wing group that campaigns for the “freedom” to speak out against the “tide of immigration”.

The real undercurrent of this rally was the racist idea that the main threat to all of our liberty is “reactionary Islam”. While some speakers denounced the “war on terror” most of the focus was on Muslims. Everyone involved with this “unholy alliance” should be ashamed of themselves.

Katherine Branney, East London

Fascists at ‘March for Free Expression’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

defenders of free expressionThose who question whether the far right was present at Saturday’s ‘March for Free Expression’ in Trafalgar Square are referred to the BNP’s report, which states that the rally was attended by “a delegation from Civil Liberty, the organisation established earlier this year to defend the rights of patriotic Britons…. Whereas there are scores of organisations, some of which are publicly funded, that defend ethnic minority groups in their usual divisive way by excluding the indigenous majority from taking advantage of their services, until recently there has not been one single organisation that was prepared to defend the hard won freedoms of the British majority…. About 40 CL supporters attended the protest rally and handed out literature which was well received by other defenders of our fundamental liberties.”

BNP news report, 27 March 2006

See also Civil Liberty news report, 27 March 2006

Cf. Peter Tatchell’s claim: “Contrary to the lies and scaremongering of the far left, there was no BNP presence at Saturday’s rally.” Or the assertion by Tatchell’s sidekick Brett Lock that fascists “were explicitly banned from the march”. Odd that. I don’t recall seeing stewards intervening to prevent “Civil Liberty” distributing its glossy literature at the demonstration.

For the LAGCAR statement that Tatchell and Lock polemicise against, see here.

Muslim Brotherhood plot exposed … by Mad Mel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Another paranoid rant from Melanie Phillips, this one in response to Jack Straw’s speech at the Muslim News awards on Monday evening. She even finds sinister implications in the following uncontroversial statement by Straw:

“The release of the British hostage, Norman Kember, and two of his companions has been very prominent in the media over the past few days. I believe the calls by many Muslims in this country and fellow British citizens for the safe release of those kidnapped victims and showing their solidarity with their plight may have contributed to their survival.”

Mel comments: “The British Foreign Secretary has now said, in effect, that the lives of Norman Kember and the other two hostages were saved thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood. What price will the Brotherhood now exact from Britain in return?”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 28 March 2006

Update:  See also Yusuf Smith’s comments at Indigo Jo Blogs, 29 March 2006