Category Archives: UK

Muslims fear hate attacks in wake of bombings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A backlash against British Muslims began almost immediately as news of the bomb explosions spread. The Muslim Council of Britain received more than 1,000 emails containing threats and messages of hate, several reading: “It’s now war on Muslims throughout Britain.”

Government planning for how to cope with a terrorist attack has included how police and the authorities will calm community tensions and crack down on any surge in hate crimes directed at British Muslims.

Last night an emergency meeting was held of the Muslim Safety Forum, where top police officers and representatives of Muslim communities meet to discuss the policing of terrorism and other issues.

Azad Ali, chair of the MSF, said: “This is the biggest test for community relations. The years of planning, of ifs and buts – now the time has come. Our concern is of the potential backlash. We have already received numerous reports of spitting, verbal abuse and attacks.”

Guardian, 8 July 2005

See also ‘Religion has no part in this’, by Sher Khan of the MCB: Guardian, 8 July 2005

And Tariq Ali, who argues that “The principal cause of this violence is the violence being inflicted on the people of the Muslim world. And unless this is recognised, the horrors will continue.” Also in the Guardian, 8 July 2005

‘The jihad comes to Britain’ – Mad Mel reflects on the London bombings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It was nauseating to witness the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, deliver his ringing condemnation of terrorism yesterday – the same Ken Livingstone who invited the terrorism supporter and Islamic extremist Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi to speak in the capital last summer and physically embraced him on the platform.

“Even more alarmingly, the country’s principal police force involved in counter-terrorism is now under the control of an officer whose obsession with the ‘diversity’ agenda is thought to be undermining the fight against terror…. Sir Ian’s obsession with attacking ‘Islamophobia’ is now raising serious concerns among certain police officers and security sources. It is getting in the way of the job the police are called upon to do. Officers who try to address the delicate issue of terrorism and its supporters within the Muslim community now find themselves in danger of being accused within their own force of Islamophobia.”

Mad Mel on the lessons of the London bombings.

Daily Mail, 8 July 2005

‘The twisted logic of Galloway’ (and Max Hastings)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

GeorgeGallowayUnder the headline “The twisted logic of Galloway” (“Outrage as he claims capital has ‘paid the price’ of war on Iraq”), the Daily Mail denounces George Galloway’s statement on the London bombings.

The Mail is appalled that Galloway should point out: “We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings.”

Ironically, the same issue of the Mail features an article by Max Hastings which makes an almost identical point:

“We must acknowledge that, by supporting President Bush’s extravagances in his ill-named War On Terror and ill-justified invasion of Iraq, Blair has ensured that we are in the front line beside the U.S., whether we like it or not. We could help to stem recruitment to Al Qaeda by achieving a more constructive engagement with Muslim nations…. But … Bush’s bellicose rhetoric, his commitment to crude military might as a means of imposing his vision of U.S. universalism on the world, form a huge obstacle…”

Of course, the practical conclusions drawn by the two authors are rather different. Galloway calls for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, Hastings for a crackdown on civil liberties.

Daily Mail accuses Ian Blair of undermining counter-terrorism by opposing Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Even more alarmingly, the country’s principal police force involved in counterterrorism is now under the control of an officer whose obsession with the “diversity” agenda is thought to be undermining the fight against terror.

The oppressive side of this philosophy surfaced recently when Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, was rebuked by an employment tribunal for “hanging his own officers out to dry” to prove his anti-racist credentials.

This was after his force was found to have racially discriminated against three white officers who were disciplined after alleged racist remarks at a training day, in which one of them had referred to Muslim headgear as “tea cosies”, mispronounced Shi’ites as “shitties” and said he felt sorry for Muslims who fasted during Ramadan.

Yet following this institutional bullying over Islamophobia, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick yesterday made the astonishing comment: “As far as I am concerned Islam and terrorists are two words that do not go together.” So what, then, does he think Al Qaeda is?

While few would disagree that the Met has to be sensitive to the needs of ethnic minorities, Sir Ian’s obsession with attacking “Islamophobia” is now raising serious concerns among certain police officers and security sources.

It is getting in the way of the job the police are called upon to do. Officers who try to address the delicate issue of terrorism and its supporters within the Muslim community now find themselves in danger of being accused within their own force of Islamophobia.

Daily Mail, 8 July 2005

Victims of terrorism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terrorism should be condemned absolutely, whether it is waged by a shadowy group placing bombs in buses and Tube trains or by powerful states that use high explosives and napalm to destroy entire cities, as was done to Fallujah.

Mr Blair berates the London bombers for their “desire to impose extremism on the world,” but he ignores their motivation, which has found expression in Madrid and now London.

That motivation is to retaliate against the actions of the US and its subservient allies, including Britain, to impose an imperialist world order that allows Washington to use force to dictate its will globally and to control scarce resources.

Editorial in the Morning Star, 8 July 2005

Muslim leaders fear revenge attacks by the extreme Right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim leaders voiced fears yesterday that racist right-wing groups are already seeking to stir up hatred against their community after the bomb attacks.

Talks were being held with police and local authorities to ensure the security of mosques and areas where there are large Islamic populations.

Although the Government emphasised that it would not “jump to conclusions” about responsibility for the attacks, there was a grim acceptance among many community leaders that the perpetrators would turn out to be extremists linked to their religion.

All the large Muslim groups in Britain swiftly condemned the bombings, which they said were contrary to Islam’s highest principles of peace, justice and humanity.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary- general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The evil people who planned and carried out this series of explosions want to demoralise us as a nation and divide us as a people. All of us must unite in helping the police to capture these murderers. We must remember the victims will have been people of all faiths, all races and many nationalities.”

But he later told The Times that his organisation had received thousands of e-mails from right-wing extremists threatening revenge. Sir Iqbal said: “One, which is particularly awful, reads, ‘It’s now war on Muslims throughout Britain’. These messages are all being copied and sent on to the police.

“We are advising our community to remain calm but vigilant. There are elements who will want to exploit this tragedy. In the meantime we will do everything we can to ensure that those responsible for the bombs are brought to justice.”

The British National Party immediately predicted that an Islamic terrorist group would be shown to have been behind the attacks, which would “undoubtedly lead to a fall out” in politics, increasing pressure on Tony Blair’s policy in the Middle East and his stance on immigration or asylum issues.

The party claimed that Nick Griffin, its chairman, who faces trial on criminal charges for inciting racial hatred, could be vindicated by the events of yesterday morning. In a statement it said that Mr Griffin had specifically referred to attacks on soft targets by suicide bombers who were either asylum-seekers or second generation Muslims recruited in places such as Bradford. It added: “If these bomb blasts are indeed the work of Islamic fundamentalists, the prosecution case is likely to collapse. No one is likely to be convinced that crying wolf is unlawful when the wolf has just run riot through the lambs’ pen.”

Times, 8 July 2005

WPI blames ‘the Islamic movement’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Such attacks are part of the wretched and cruel track record of the Islamic movement against innocent people, which places bombs in public places, carries out assassinations, killings, torture, execution and repression.” Thus the Worker Communist Party of Iran on the London bombings.

Note the use of the term “the Islamic movement” – which conveniently blurs the distinctions between Islam, political Islamism in all its shades, and Islamist terrorist groups.

WPI press release, 8 July 2005

For an alternative assessment, which analyses the terrorist acts of violent jihadist groups in terms of the contradictions and conflicts within Islam and Islamism, read Marc Lynch. He argues that the London attacks arise in part from an attempt at reassertion by the terrorist tendency within Islamism, who had been increasingly marginalised by reformists such as Qaradawi and Huwaydi:

“The London attack can be seen as an attempt by al-Qaeda to impose itself on this internal argument among Islamists and Muslims in the way it knows best: a spectacular, violent attack. A throw of the dice – an attempt to turn the debate back to clashes of civilizations, of an inevitable conflict between the West and Islam, of war and mistrust and fear. To shut down any rapprochement between the West and moderate Islamism – the kind of rapprochement which threatens al-Qaeda and the radicals where it counts, among the Muslim umma.”

Abu Aardvark blog, 7 July 2005

Drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay speaks out

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HitchensChristopher Hitchens joins in the attack on Galloway: “By George Galloway’s logic, British squaddies in Iraq are the root cause of dead bodies at home. How can anyone bear to be so wicked and stupid? How can anyone bear to act as a megaphone for psychotic killers?”

So, if the atrocities weren’t motivated by the British government’s participation in Bush’s wars of imperialist aggression, what grievances did lie behind them? Christopher explains:

“The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won’t abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art…. All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way.”

Daily Mirror, 8 July 2005

‘Deport them now’ – BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“1 million illegal immigrants are hiding in Britain. They are the sea in which Islamic terrorists swim. The cowards of the Lib/Lab/Con governments that have allowed them to enter and stay in this country over the years will never have the will or determination to remove them. The fact that we all have to realise is that unless those 1 million illegal immigrants are removed from the country then we can never be safe again.”

BNP news article, 8 July 2005