Category Archives: USA

Fallaci rails against Muslim immigration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fallaci in NYOriana Fallaci told a Manhattan audience on Monday that she hates Islam and fears that Muslim immigration poses a greater danger to the West than Islamic terrorism.

The Italian journalist and author, who came out of retirement after September 11, 2001, to sound the tocsin on what she viewed was a clash of civilizations, said in a lengthy speech that she doesn’t believe in the existence of moderate Islam. “There is no such thing as good Islam,” she said.

She compared the Koran, the Islamic holy book, to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and said she opposed the notion of dialogue between followers of Islam and other religions.

New York Sun, 30 November 2005

Even Daniel Pipes thought Fallaci’s speech was a teensy bit over the top. Not so Robert Spencer, who wholeheartedly endorsed this racist diatribe: “Fallaci’s a voice of rare courage…. When she is gone, we may hope – for all our sakes – that many others will be ready to step into the breach and speak the truth as she did, whatever the cost, as she did. As Oriana Fallaci so memorably demonstrated in her address on receiving the Annie Taylor Award, nothing less than our civilization itself is at stake.”

Front Page Magazine, 30 November 2005

It’s worth recalling that not so long ago Nick Cohen published a defence of this revolting bigot in the Observer. See here.

Anti-Muslim racist receives award

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Oriana FallaciItalian racist Oriana Fallaci has received an award for her “lifelong struggle against totalitarian ideologies”, FrontPage Magazine reports.

At a dinner in New York, ex-leftist David Horowitz gave a speech paying tribute to Fallaci’s contribution to “the war against Islamofascism” and acclaiming her as “a warrior in the cause of human freedom”.

Yes, that’s the same Oriana Fallaci who complained that Muslims in the West had “multiplied like rats”, turning Europe into “an Islamic province, an Islamic colony”, and who declared that “to believe that a good Islam and a bad Islam exist goes against all reason”.

Tendencies within political Islamism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John Esposito“John Esposito and other scholars assert there are at least two trends within political Islam:

“A mainstream reformist trend that accepts democratic process, and believes in gradual change internally and coexistence externally. The majority of the Islamic movements belong to this category; including the eldest and largest ones, like the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and its branches all over the Arab world; and the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan, the leading Islamic movement in southern Asia.

“A radical confrontational trend that believes in violence as the only efficient means, and does neither believe in democracy within their countries nor in coexistence with the Western world, especially with the US. Al-Qaida is the most obvious example of such movements. Although this trend is highly publicised in the American media, it is statistically very marginal element within the religious revival and activism spreading across the Islamic world today.”

Mohamed El-Moctar El-Shinqiti at Aljazeera.net, 27 December 2005

‘The first step to Britishness is your poppy’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Carol Gould claims she got into an altercation with “a young Arab man” on London’s Edgware Road because she was wearing a Remembrance Day poppy. Fortunately help was at hand, in the form of a BNP-sympathising taxi driver:

“I hailed a taxi and, thankfully, my pursuer, who was by this time shouting, did not get into the taxi. The driver was enormously sympathetic but told me that I had been ‘asking for it’ by walking in what he called ‘Little Beirut’. He then told me that we were in World War III. His white, working class anger at what he perceived as ‘the Islamic takeover’ of Britain was palpable. He was not the first London cabbie who has told me he would gladly join the far-right British National Party if pushed.

“(It is worth noting in this context that London Mayor Ken Livingstone is trying to institute an initiative to bring ethnic minorities into the taxi fleet, to tackle its almost exclusively white domain. Keeping in mind that Washington D.C. has one of the worst taxi systems in the world, in part because most drivers can barely speak English and do not know the meaning of the words ‘cordial’ or ‘polite’, especially where female passengers are concerned, one prays the Livingstone initiative will be approached with caution.)

“The driver dropped me at Marble Arch. I decided to walk back slowly should my scary have made his way in my direction. As I walked, I realized that not one of the hundreds of Middle Eastern and British-born Muslims who run all of the establishments along Edgware Road was wearing a poppy.”

Front Page Magazine, 25 November 2005

US citizen faces terrorism trial after 3½ years in custody

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jose Padilla badgeJose Padilla, a US citizen held without charge for more than three years after being accused of planning to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a large American city, was yesterday indicted on the lesser charges of conspiring to “murder, kidnap and maim persons” overseas.

The original allegations against Mr Padilla, a Brooklyn-born Muslim convert who until yesterday was being held as an “enemy combatant” at a navy prison in South Carolina, were used by the White House as evidence of the continued threat posed by al-Qaida to the US homeland.

Announcing the charges against Mr Padilla yesterday, the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, refused to comment on why no allegations involving attacks on America were included.

Guardian, 23 November 2005

See also “US man guilty of Bush death plot”, BBC News, 22 November 2005

Anti-Muslim ‘racism’? There’s no such thing, Daniel Pipes assures us

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pipes 9-11Daniel Pipes complains: “My talks at university campuses sometimes occasion protests featuring Leftists and Islamists who call me names. A favorite of theirs is ‘racist’. This year, for example, a ‘Stand up to Racism Rally’ anticipated my talk at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I was accused of racism against Muslim immigrants at Dartmouth College, and pamphlets at the University of Toronto charged me with ‘anti-Muslim racism’.”

And it’s not just Daniel who is traduced in this way: “When U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo raised the idea of bombing Islamic holy sites as a form of deterrence, a Nation of Islam leader in Denver, Gerald Muhammad, deemed his comments racist.”

Pipes has the answer to these slanders. “Islam being a religion with followers of every race and pigmentation, where might race enter the picture?” he demands.

New York Sun, 22 November 2005

This is, of course, precisely the argument used by the Nazi BNP to evade Britain’s racial hatred laws. According to Pipes’ reasoning, those of us who argue that the fascists’ hatred of Islam is inspired by the fact that the vast majority of Muslims are non-white are guilty of misrepresenting poor innocent Nick Griffin and his friends as racists.

Sky censured for ‘Muslim wrestler’ show

Posted on by Bob Pitt

'Muhammad Hassan'Sky Sports has been censured by a media watchdog for resurrecting a character from the larger than life world of American wrestling who had been “killed off” after being accused of inciting anti-Muslim sentiment among fans.

World Wrestling Entertainment, the successor to the World Wrestling Federation franchise that became popular in the UK during the 1990s, was forced to axe the character of Muhammad Hassan from the ring after complaints in the wake of the July 7 London bombings.

But Sky Sports was yesterday censured by the media regulator Ofcom after the digital channel included the character in a programme which went out just over two weeks later on July 25.

The Great American Bash, a highlight of the WWE calender, brought together characters from its Raw and Smackdown strands of programming.

The character, played by an American, Mark Copani, entered the ring wearing an Arab headdress and surrounded by a phalanx of masked men in combat clothes who were described by the commentators as his “sympathisers”.

There was also use of emotive language, including the words “martyr”, “sacrifice” and “infidel” and footage of a previous clash between him and another wrestler was set to music that sounded like the Muslim call to prayer.

After the programme, Sky approached WWE to ensure the character would be withdrawn, and it ended his contract.

Guardian, 22 November 2005

‘Moslem’ rioters driven by hatred of indoor plumbing – shock claim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The rioters in Clichy-sous-Bois are immigrants alright, immigrants (or the children of immigrants) from North Africa – Moslem immigrants driven by the same burning hatred of the West (democracy, tolerance, sanitation, in-door plumbing) seen in the streets of Tehran, Ramallah, Jakarta and Islamabad.”

Don Feder in Front Page Magazine, 21 November 2005

Mayor launches Islam Awareness Week

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A leading Islamic organisation was today kicking off its nationwide awareness week in the capital in an effort to promote better understanding of the religion and its historical links with Britain.

Mayor Ken Livingstone was launching Islam Awareness Week at a ceremony at City Hall with the message “One London”. Guest speakers at the ceremony include author and leading historian Professor Nabil Matar and secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain Sir Iqbal Sacranie.

Shafeeq Sadiq, national co-ordinator of Islam Awareness Week, said: “We need to remember the positive spirit that embraced the nation, and especially the capital, after London won the Olympic bid. It is with such optimism and hope that we will defeat terrorism.”

Now in its 12th year, the Islamic Society of Britain’s initiative aims to bring Muslims and non-Muslims together through a host of events and activities being held in towns and cities across the country.

During the week, the capital will see an east London mosque throw open its doors to the public, the staging of Islam-themed exhibitions and lectures and the screening of a film exploring the life of a great Muslim philosopher.

Continue reading →

And you think our website is sarcastic

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When we saw the title of Paul Akers’ Oct. 30 essay, ‘Why Islam didn’t conquer the world‘, we were pleased to see a too-often-ignored subject such as the early history of Muslim-Christian relations receive space in our community’s newspaper. Mr Akers’ attempt to bring what is clearly a keen interest in European history to the attention of readers is to be commended. His vivid prose style, clearly reminiscent of the comic books that inspired him as a child, retains the reader’s attention.”

Nabil Al-Tikriti, Mehdi Aminrazavi, Ian Campbell, Farhang Rouhani and Ranjit Singh reply to Paul Akers’ article on the horrors that would have befallen the world if Charles Martel had lost the battle of Tours in 732.

Free Lance-Star, 19 November 2005