Category Archives: UK

Blame mass immigration and cultural diverity – Leo McKinstry

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“France’s experiences are hardly unique. Throughout western Europe, societies are scarred by tension. In the past week, there have been Muslim-led riots in Denmark, while in Holland the assassination of film-maker Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim fundamentalist last year left a legacy of racial divisions. Britain is still struggling to cope with the fact that we have home-grown Islamic terrorists in our midst….

“The growing strife points to a comprehensive failure in social and immigration policies. France and Britain should be enjoying the stability brought by decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Instead, we are living in the shadow of fear because of our rulers’ attachment to the twin dogmas of mass immigration and cultural diversity. Without giving us any say, they have imported wholesale the problems of the Third World – from corruption to superstition, from tribalism to misogyny – into advanced, democratic, Christian cultures. In large swathes of urban Britain and France, the indigenous people can feel like aliens…. Through our welfare systems, taxpayers of Britain and France are subsidising idleness among those who appear to despise Christian civilisation.

“With lies, twisted ideology and institutional capacity for self-loathing, the political establishment has erected this vast edifice of cultural diversity but it is the ordinary people of Europe who have to live with bombs on our trains and burnt-out cars on our streets.”

Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express, 7 November 2005

Writers like McKinstry and Melanie Phillips almost succeed in making the BNP sound moderate.

‘Why France is burning’ – Melanie Phillips explains

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French riot police (4)“Nicolas Sarkozy, the tough-minded Interior Minister, has been blamed for inflaming the situation by his uncompromising language. French policy in general has been blamed for herding poor Arabs into suburban ghettoes where they have been left to fester in high unemployment and poverty. The disturbances are thus being portrayed as race riots caused by official discrimination and insensitivity.

“But this is a gross misreading of the situation. It is far more profound and intractable. What we are seeing is, in effect, a French intifada: an uprising by French Muslims against the state….

“M. Sarkozy and the police are determined to take back the streets. The Muslims are equally determined to keep territory they feel they have conquered from the French state…. For more than twenty years France’s Muslim areas have been out of control. Indeed, they only turned into Muslim ghettoes in the first place because Muslim violence and harassment forced everyone else out…. The fact is that French Muslims want to be segregated. The ghettoes are a way of ensuring a separate Islamic existence without having to assimilate into French society….

“This is all bound up with the erosion of national identities across Europe. This has affected even France, once a ferocious proponent of French culture which was imposed through a centralised schools system, a strong police force and national military service…. Banning the hijab (Islamic headscarf) in schools represented a flickering of the old national certainty as France sniffed the danger that had arisen in its midst. But it was too little, and maybe too late.

“Even now Britain, France and the rest of Europe are still in varying stages of denial over Muslim unrest. Reluctant even to admit that religion is central to this phenomenon, they look instead for ways to blame themselves and use the insult of ‘Islamophobia’ to shut down debate. The warning for us from the disturbing events in France could not be clearer. We must end the ruinous doctrine of multiculturalism and reassert British identity….”

Mad Mel rants on.

Daily Mail, 7 November 2005

For a contrary view – which is based on interviews with the youth involved in the disturbances, as distinct from Phillips generating Islamophobic fantasies out of her own head – see Molly Moore’s piece in the Washington Post, 6 November 2005

Police investigate claim that officer threw Qur’an into rubbish bin

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An investigation is under way into claims by a British Muslim man that a police officer desecrated his Qur’an by throwing it into a rubbish bin while arresting him, the Guardian has learned.

The incident is alleged to have happened last Monday in south London and the man also alleges he was assaulted while being detained at his home.

The allegation comes from Mohamed Osman, 29, who says the officer said “fuck you and your Qur’an” before grabbing the holy book and his prayer mat from him. The constable is then alleged to have thrown them into a nearby bin.

Guardian, 7 November 2005

‘Muslims are an ethnic group’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

So Alasdair Palmer claims in the Spectator, 5 November 2005

He refers to the 1983 Mandla vs Dowell Lee case, which provides the basis for Sikhs being recognised as an ethnic group entitled to protection against racial hatred under the 1986 Public Order Act. Palmer declares that on the basis of the same legal ruling “the existing legislation covers Muslims in exactly the same way that it covers Christians, Jews and Sikhs”, so the government’s argument that the racial hatred laws protect members of mono-ethnic faith groups but not those of multi-ethnic faiths is “entirely spurious”.

For the reasons why Muslims are not covered by the law against incitement to racial hatred, see here. Or for Lord Fraser’s ruling in Mandla vs Dowell Lee see here. It will be noted that, among Fraser’s criteria for qualification as a distinct ethnic group, Muslims lack a common geographical origin, descent from a small number of common ancestors or a common language.

Update:  See the reply by Sher Khan of the MCB in the Spectator, 12 November 2005

‘French violence is a warning to Europe’ fascists claim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It is becoming increasingly obvious to all indigenous Europeans that the multi-cultural experiment, forced upon almost every western European country in the past 40 years has well and truly failed, and all those European nations which contain a potential fifth-column of inassimilable Muslim and African immigrants, from the UK to Italy, Spain to Sweden must question just how those in charge of law enforcement are today prepared to deal with a similar situation across towns and cities in their respective nations.”

BNP news article, 6 November 2005

‘Eurabia on the rampage’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mad Mel offers her take on the French riots, drawing her inspiration from Jihad Watch and Bat Ye’Or. “Multiculturalism, the doctrine that governs Britain and Europe and which grew out of a war upon their values from within by allowing the values of minorities to trump the majority, has been applied by the west to appease an ideology that has declared war upon its values from without.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 4 November 2005

Of course, the distinguishing feature of French policy is in fact that it rejects multiculturalism in favour of secular nationalism. As a number of commentators have pointed out, this is a contributory factor in the current unrest, as it is difficult for the government to address the problems of oppressed communities when officially these minority cultures do not exist – everyone is supposed to be a French citizen and by definition enjoys equal rights.

When Melanie Phillips and her fellow right-wingers rail against multiculturalism, it’s clear that what they’re really having a go at is the existence of a multicultural society rather than multiculturalism as a policy. It is essentially a racist argument against the very existence of minority communities – at least when those communities are Muslim, that is.

Fine words cannot disguise it: the clash of civilisations is real

Posted on by Bob Pitt

And, needless to say, it’s not Western civilisation that’s to blame. Michael Burleigh explains: “Dialogues between civilisations, Christian, Islamic or other, are fine, but a constant part of this must be the grim reality that visited Van Gogh on a cold northern street, an event depressingly indicative of the ethnic and religious complexity of Europe. We cannot wish away the clash of civilisations.”

Times, 5 November 2005

Anti-Islam rant from Julie Burchill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Burchill“I wonder why Prince Charles seeks to big up powerful, theocratic Islam – which already controls so much land and wealth and yet will kill and kill to gain more – and not vulnerable, pluralistic Israel?” Julie Burchill asks.

Times, 5 November 2005

Robert Spencer applauds this sterling example of “anti-dhimmitude” from Burchill. “Read it all”, he urges.

Dhimmi Watch, 5 November 2005

Police Federation cartoon condemned

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police Federation cartoon (1)

A chief constable has condemned the portrayal of Muslims in a police magazine cartoon, describing it as offensive and sacrilegious. The Police Federation magazine cartoon shows officers taking their shoes off outside a mosque, as a bearded man escapes clutching bags of explosives.

Bedfordshire’s chief constable Gillian Parker has written to complain. The magazine’s editor has apologised and said there was no intention to cause offence.

The cartoon was seen by Bedfordshire Police as an attempt to mock the force’s advice to officers to remove their shoes before entering Muslim properties.

Ms Parker wrote: “The stereotypical portrayal of religious communities and the use of places of worship in a sacrilegious manner are bound to offend. Insensitive actions only serve to make our life more difficult.”

She said: “We have worked hard over an extended period of time to achieve relationships and I feel that the stereotypical portrayal of Muslims as terrorists has unnecessarily jeopardised this.

“Where it is feasible to do so we continue to consider the individual customs of all communities when we enter their homes and places of worship; I make no apology for this.”

Metin Enver, editor of the magazine, told the BBC: “Much of the material we publish comes from independent parties and is not necessarily the view of the Police Federation. However, we do apologise sincerely if the cartoon featured caused any offence to anyone.

“The idea behind it featured five different scenarios. It was supposed to depict how policing has changed over the years and how the police service takes account of different cultures.”

BBC News, 4 November 2005

Posted in UK

Islam: Tony Blair’s challenge

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French journalist Claude Askolovitch is appalled by the concessions made to Muslims in Britain. Tariq Ramadan is being promoted by the Blair government “in order to appease radical Islam”. Members of Respect distribute leaflets outside mosques calling – shock, horror – for the defence of Muslim communities. The “one-time champion of the IRA”, the Mayor of London, is “today the defender of Muslim radicals”.

Still, Askolovitch does find one co-thinker. It’s our friend Kenan Malik, who declares that when he was young “racism was terrible”. Today that is no longer the case, apparently. Instead, “people fantasise about an imaginary Islamophobia”. The result is to “clear the ground for the Islamists”.

Nouvel Observateur, 27 October 2005