Category Archives: USA

‘Martin Amis is no racist’ (it says here)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HitchensWell, that the claim made by ex-leftist-turned-Bush-supporter Christopher Hitchens, who rallies to the defence of his friend and fellow writer. Let us remind ourselves what Amis said in his September 2006 interview with Ginny Dougary:

“There’s a definite urge – don’t you have it? – to say, ‘The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order’. What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan. Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community…”

So how does Hitchens justify this appalling rant? He tells us that “the harshness Amis was canvassing was not in the least a recommendation, but rather an experiment in the limits of permissible thought”.

Guardian, 21 November 2007

In a letter in the same issue another friend and author, Ian McEwan, also attempts to defend the indefensible.

For Yusuf Smith’s response to Hitchens, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 21 November 2007

LA police chief scraps Muslim mapping

Posted on by Bob Pitt

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton said Thursday a plan to map out where Muslims lived had been scrapped, saying strong reaction from Muslim communities forced the department to change course. “The proposal will not be moving forward,” Bratton said, standing with several Muslim leaders after a closed-door meeting. “It’s dead on arrival.”

Muslim groups praised the move, but said reversing the damage would take a long time. “We hope to receive a written statement from the chief on the demise of the plan, and a recognition of the pain it caused in our communities,” said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. “We’ll also wait to get new ideas of engagement from the chief.”

Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing announced last week that the department’s counterterrorism bureau planned to identify Muslim enclaves to determine which might be likely to become isolated and susceptible to “violent, ideologically based extremism.”

The plan was immediately and roundly criticized by Muslim and civil rights groups who said it amounted to religious profiling. Many argued it would achieve the opposite of its intent, making Muslims hesitant to work with authorities. “My first mistake was not reaching out to more groups” before announcing the plan, Downing said.

Associated Press, 16 November 2007

Stand by for a denunciation of the LAPD at Dhimmi Watch.

The strange journey of Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi Ali“The former ‘liberal’ who becomes an outspoken right-winger has become an American political archetype. Ronald Reagan and David Horowiz are two prime examples of the breed….

“Recently, a related version of this turncoat persona – former Dutch Member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali – has emerged: a ‘reformed’ Muslim woman who favors crushing Islam under the boot of Western militarism. Once very devout in her Muslim beliefs, Ali has gained a great deal of media attention – including horrific tales of her abuse at the hands of Muslim men – and has transformed into an outspoken critic who bases her calls for the destruction of Islam on feminist and human rights principles….

“She is poised to become the most recognizable face of naked Islamophobia in America. Expect to see her as a ubiquitous guest on cable news channels and frequent contributor of op-eds reinforcing the worst stereotypes about the Muslim world. She’ll validate already disturbingly common narratives about the perfidy of Islam, and she’ll tout the vast superiority of Western thinking in stark terms that would be shocking coming from a more traditional (read: white, Christian) right-wing commentator….

“Hirsi Ali has become a darling of those who believe in the benevolence of Western hegemony; The Economist described her as a ‘cultural ideologue of the new right’…. Her outspoken advocacy on feminist ethical issues – roundly condemning ‘honor killings’ and female circumcision – has also made her a poster-girl for the aggressive brand of atheism typified by figures like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, all three of whom have held her life-story up as an example of the harms caused by religion in general, and Islam in particular. For them, she’s a living testament to the idea that rational liberal interventionists in the post-Enlightenment West have a moral duty to wage a new crusade against the Muslim world.”

Joshua Holland at AlterNet, 12 November 2007

Islamophobia on the internet – even the Mail draws the line at Jihad Watch

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jihad Watch logo

The Mail on Sunday examines the hatred generated by the right-wing internet campaign against the so-called “Rage Boy”, Kashmiri Islamist protestor Shakeel Ahmad Bhat:

“Don’t you hate Islamic Rage Boy? ‘MoBlows’, writing on the Jihad Watch website, certainly does. ‘I just want to put my fist down his throat’, he says. The ‘boy’ in question rose to prominence earlier this year when he was photographed at a demonstration in Srinagar, capital of Indian-administered Kashmir…. On Jihad Watch, which says its aim is to bring public notice to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world, ‘The Goobs’ writes: ‘Can you IMAGINE how nasty it would smell standing next to this nutter? Whatcha wanna bet he hasn’t ever owned a can of Right Guard?’ … Many other internet postings about Rage Boy are so revolting that they cannot be published in a family newspaper.”

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch is indignant that his hate-filled website should be criticised in this way (particularly by the Mail, which he regards as “a cut above the general run of clueless, collaborationist and dhimmi fishwraps”). He writes: “As I’ve said many times, I believe in free inquiry, and that the antidote to bad speech is more speech, not forcible silencing.”

LAPD to build data on Muslim areas

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An extensive mapping program launched by the LAPD’s anti-terrorism bureau to identify Muslim enclaves across the city sparked outrage Thursday from some Islamic groups and civil libertarians, who denounced the effort as an exercise in racial and religious profiling.

Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing, who heads the bureau, defended the undertaking as a way to help Muslim communities avoid the influence of those who would radicalize Islamic residents and advocate “violent, ideologically-based extremism.”

“We certainly reject this idea completely,” said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. “This stems basically from this presumption that there is homogenized Muslim terrorism that exists among us.” Syed said he is a member of Police Chief William J. Bratton’s forum of religious advisors, but had not been told of the community mapping program. “This came as a jolt to me,” Syed said.

Hussam Ayloush, who leads the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the mapping “basically turns the LAPD officers into religious political analysts, while their role is to fight crime and enforce the laws.”

Los Angeles Times, 9 November 2007

See also Associated Press, 9 November 2007

The threat of the ‘mega-mosque’ – part 687

Posted on by Bob Pitt

You might have thought that we were already suffering from media overkill on the subject, but the New York Times carries yet another article on the proposed so-called mega-mosque in Newham.

We get the usual stuff about Tablighi Jamaat being “a fertile recruiting ground for terrorists” and we’re told yet again that there is some significance in the report that “two of the suicide bombers who attacked the London transit system in July 2005 had attended Tablighi Jamaat gatherings”. Christian People’s Alliance councillor Alan Craig is trundled out once more to tell us that “We don’t want this mosque in East London. It will be disastrous.”

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer expresses his distaste for the role of the British National Party in whipping up hysteria over the issue (rather unfairly, given that he and the BNP have so much in common) and opines: “If the major parties in Britain were worth anything at all, they would be leading the fight against this mega-mosque, and exposing the Islamic supremacist agenda of the Tablighi Jamaat.”

Maryland town opposes construction of Ahmadiyya mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A local politician is seeking to prevent the Ahmadiyya Community USA from building a mosque and recreation center on 224 acres of farmland at Walkersville, Maryland. Chad Weddle, a lawyer and a town commissioner, has proposed a zoning amendment that would prevent the construction of places of worship on land zoned for agriculture there. “Agriculture shouldn’t have buildings on it,” Weddle said.

Walkersville, 56 miles northwest of Washington, has 5,800 residents – 90 percent white and mostly dairy farmers. Many members of the community are opposing the group’s plans to build. Some residents are “apprehensive of Muslims”, Mayor Ralph Whitmore says. “Tensions are still there. We have a lot of people here who haven’t forgotten 9/11”. Whitmore says people who have loved ones fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have reservations about Muslims in the community. “We’re not a very diverse community.”

Fox News, 2 November 2007

The ‘bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric’ of US Republicans

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Juan Cole argues that the aspiring Republican candidates for the US presidency “have taken their cues from Bush and his Administration. They have continued to vastly exaggerate the threat from terror attacks (far more Americans have died for lack of healthcare or from hard drugs) and have demonized Muslims”. He concludes: “The Republicans are playing Russian roulette with America’s future with their bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric.”

The Nation, 1 November 2007