Bruce Bawer and Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

While Europe Slept“So what are Mr. Bawer’s views? He calls himself a ‘liberal’ cultural critic but his views are anything but liberal, and he is much in vogue with the ultraconservative National Review types as well as the ethno-nationalist ‘intellectuals’ in Europe where he lives….

“Bawer has his own solution to the ‘immigrant question’. He tells us his views are unfairly attacked by people who call him names ‘instead of trying to respond to irrefutable facts and arguments’. If Mr. Bawer’s arguments are indeed ‘irrefutable’ what would be the point of trying to respond to them? People who believe their opinions and arguments are ‘irrefutable’ are manifesting that very same fundamentalist mentality they claim to be opposing.

“Here is Bawer’s solution. ‘European officials’, he writes, ‘have a clear route out of this nightmare. They have armies. They have police. They have prisons. They’re in a position to deport planeloads of people everyday. They could start rescuing Europe tomorrow.’ Clearly, when you are calling out the army and advocating deportation of planeloads of people daily, there is more to it than a crackdown on violent militant Islamists. This looks like a call to a general assault on Muslim immigrants in general.

“This may also explain his sympathetic defense of the Sweden Democrats in an opinion piece he wrote for the December 8, 2006 New York Sun. This article, ‘While Sweden Slept‘ is an incontinent attack on Swedish Social Democracy. The Sweden Democrats he champions in this article are a small radical right-wing party of ethno-nationalists. It grew out of the racist ‘Keep Sweden Swedish’ movement of the 1980s. Their basic ideology is the ein Volk, ein Reich variety. One of their own leaders resigned saying the party was infested with neo-Nazis, racists and holocaust deniers. The party is opposed to immigration and if it ever got into power would no doubt take Bawer’s views on how to ‘rescue Europe’ (or at least Sweden) seriously.”

Thomas Riggins in Political Affairs, 13 February 2007

The hypocrisy of Richard Littlejohn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Livingstone damns Daily Mail as foolish and irresponsible

Morning Star, 12 February 2007

London Mayor Ken Livingstone attacked the Daily Mail newspaper on Sunday after a columnist appeared to endorse letter bombing offices connected with the congestion charge.

Populist ranter Richard Littlejohn wrote in Friday’s edition of the newspaper: “Be honest, until you heard that a woman had been injured, how many of you suppressed a cheer at the news that someone had sent a letter bomb to the company which runs London’s congestion charge?

“Even after we learnt that two men were treated for blast injuries, I’ll bet that there were still plenty of motorists who thought: ‘Serves the bastards right’.”

Police are probing seven mail bomb attacks on businesses since January 18 – three of which took place last week.

Although Mr Littlejohn insisted that protests that harm others can never be justified, Mr Livingstone branded the Daily Mail “foolish and irresponsible” for printing the column.

“He has sought to legitimise the idea that it was normal to cheer the bombing of the offices of a company managing the congestion charge. His whole column is dangerous and stupid,” said the mayor. “The Daily Mail give Richard Littlejohn a big cheque for writing his column, but they shouldn’t give him a blank one.”

Green London Assembly member Jenny Jones added: “If a Muslim publication had printed similar inflammatory remarks about an international issue, there would be a huge outcry. Littlejohn’s hypocrisy is stunning.”

‘Can one woman beat Islam’s hate mongers?’ asks Sun

Posted on by Bob Pitt

PD*1006852Another plug for Gina Khan, Britain’s answer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali – this one by Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun. Kavanagh writes:

“Gina Khan, 30, risked her safety by attacking the extreme interpretation of Islam spreading like wildfire through the Pakistani community in Britain. She believes Muslim women and children are paying dearly for a closed, male-dominated society which wants harsh Sharia law to replace the law of the land. Gina Khan is one of many British-born victims of what she describes as a ‘cult’ flourishing under the noses of the government. And she fears it may be too late to stop vulnerable young Muslim men being turned into suicidal killers by a voodoo version of Islam.

“In emails to me over the past year, she has spoken privately about the abuse of women sanctioned by religious leaders – polygamy, beatings, forced marriages and, in extreme cases, honour killings…. Gina is appalled by the reaction of fellow Muslims to the arrest of nine terror suspects near her home in West End, Birmingham…. She wants faith schools abolished, along with the veil. And she wants to stop mosques and madrassas being built on ‘every street corner’ as channels for blood-curdling extremism.

“Gina is scathing about the veiled woman pictured raising a V-sign after the police terror raid. ‘This woman shames moderate liberal Muslim women by sticking two fingers up like louts do in public’, she says. ‘The veil should be banned because people like her prove all is not necessarily pious or dignified under that Seventh Century garment.’

“Most Muslim women are reluctant to anger their menfolk by speaking out. Instead they endure medieval repression that would be utterly unacceptable to non-Muslims – banned from leaving home unless accompanied by a male relative, barred from higher education and forced to accept their husbands’ second wives. They watch dumbly as daughters are removed from school and whisked away for weddings to strangers. Some silently endure their fate. Others join the wild eyed conspiracy frenzy peddled by superstitious men and cunning propagandists….

“Can women turn the tide against deluded men who seem to inhabit an Arabian Nights fantasy? … Gina Khan is one woman with no resources. She needs help from other sensible Muslim women. They can email her at gina-khan@hotmail.co.uk.”

Sun, 12 February 2007

Somehow I can’t imagine there’s going to be a rush by “sensible Muslim women” to finance a campaign by someone who is at best unbalanced and at worst intent on furthering her own career by reinforcing the worst stereotypes about the Muslim community. On the other hand, Gina Khan may well receive some support from the racist Right, for whom she is providing a valuable service.

‘Niqab school is fighting for girls’ equality’, Torygraph claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In today’s Daily Telegraph, Philip Johnston examines the issues behind the current court case over the right of a young Muslim woman (“X”) to wear the niqab at school. He recounts:

“The head teacher sent X home last autumn when she saw her in a lunch queue dressed in a niqab, which covers the face apart from a slit for the eyes…. She asked the girl to remove the veil before returning to school. But being relatively new, she had not appreciated that X’s three sisters had already passed through the school wearing the niqab. X, therefore, felt aggrieved that she was being treated differently….

“X’s eldest sister – the first to attend – told the court: ‘When I started I was not certain about wearing the niqab. However, having spoken to my parents and religious scholars, I decided that I did want to wear the niqab and began doing so.’ Does that sound to you like a child who arrived at this decision unilaterally through her religious devotions?”

Well, actually, it does. Indeed, Johnston reports that “X’s father said she was not forced to wear the niqab and to do so was her own choice.” But let us allow Johnston to continue:

“The sister started wearing the niqab in 1995. ‘The school and staff were very supportive,’ she said. ‘I was even told I could wear the jilbab as well if I wanted’.”

Good for the school and its staff, I would say, for handling the issue so sensitively. But Johnston lectures us sternly:

“This was the high-point of multiculturalism, that benighted concept now disavowed by its most enthusiastic proponents. Had the school put its foot down then – along with many other public institutions in thrall to a well-intentioned, but ultimately self-defeating, concept – we might not be in the mess we are now. But it was felt to be the right thing to do, even if it exacerbated division and made integration difficult.”

So, did their wearing of the niqab prevent the sisters from integrating? Not according to them. Johnston reports:

“X’s sisters testified that they had never been held back by wearing the niqab. It could be adapted for sports or for science work in the laboratory. It was taken off when there were no male teachers present. They all came through the school with excellent qualifications and all went to university. Two are now working in good jobs, still veiled. They all made friends and felt they had integrated well.”

So, no problem there, then.

All in all, you might think, a pretty good argument in favour of allowing X to continue wearing her niqab at school? Not according to Johnston, who comments that X’s decision was “hardly surprising given her age and the fact that her three sisters had all worn the garment. Yet we now know that the eldest sibling did so only after consulting a religious scholar. And not only did the school do nothing 12 years ago to help her reach a different decision, it actively conspired in an extraordinary piece of gender apartheid carried out in the name of ‘cultural inclusion’.”

Johnston concludes: “this is a case about rights. Not of Muslims to pursue their religion, for they have that freedom already. It is about the right of a 12-year-old girl, living in Britain, to grow up in a world that treats men and women equally.”

Johnston’s arrogance and condescension defy description. His argument is both sexist and racist. In his view, a young Muslim women is incapable of making up her own mind over whether or not to wear the veil, and if she does decide to wear it she must have been pressurised by her family and by older Muslim men. Her decision can therefore be discounted and she must be forced to remove her niqab – all in the interests of imposing upon her Johnston’s narrow, dogmatic, culturally-determined conception of what constitutes “equality”.

Islamophobic political party launched in Denmark

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“As a consequence of the lack of political leadership in Denmark in general, and within the Government in particular (not meeting the increasing Islamization of Denmark), the resistance group ‘Stop islamiseringen af Danmark’ (SIAD) has decided to stand for Parliament…. In Parliament – as well as outside of Parliament – we shall fight every initiative to sell out Danish values to the Islamic power.”

Gates of Vienna, 11 February 2007

Worldwide protests greet Guantánamo anniversary

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Five years of tortureFive years of torture: worldwide protests greet Guantánamo anniversary

By Tom Mellen

Morning Star, 12 January 2007

HUMAN rights activists gathered outside the US embassy in London on Thursday as part of an international day of protest marking the fifth anniversary of the opening of the notorious Guantanamo Bay concentration camp.

Under the fluttering stars and stripes, the imperial eagle and a couple of machine-gun toting police officers, more than 500 protesters, including jumpsuited Amnesty International campaigners muzzled with masks and earmuffs, filled Grosvenor Square, graphically hammering home the daily brutality taking place in the legal black hole.

Amnesty spokesman Neil Durkin said that, “if we allow Guantanamo to continue unopposed, human rights standards all over the world will be eroded.” Calling for everyone to show solidarity with those who remain languishing in the camp five years on, Mr Durkin warned that “everyone is at risk of Guantanamo-style treatment.”

In Scotland, over 40 Amnesty supporters braved driving wind and rain to protest outside the US consulate in Edinburgh, where they chained themselves together to highlight the suffering of the Guantanamo detainees.

Rallies also took place in New York, Tokyo, Rome, Madrid and Israel, while international peace activists including US “peace mum” Cindy Sheehan and the brother of British citizen Omar Deghayes marched to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay to demand its closure.

The “icon of lawlessness” has drawn criticism from lawyers and rights activists ever since the first 20 prisoners were transported there from Afghanistan in 2002.

US President George Bush was dealt a blow by the US Supreme Court in June last year, when judges ruled that the military tribunal system at the base was illegal, breaching both the Geneva conventions and US law.

In total, some 775 men have been detained, with just under half – 379 – released. Just 10 detainees have been charged, but none has gone to trial.

Continue reading →

‘The onus is now on Muslims to integrate’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Today’s Observer publishes a number of letters in response to Henry Porter’s article in last week’s issue. All of them support Porter’s stance – “a wake-up call to all liberal, law-abiding citizens” – and they include one by raving US right-winger Carol Gould (for an example of her balanced view of British Muslims see here and here).

Yet another illustration of how liberals and the most obnoxious sections of the Right find common ground in their ignorance of, and prejudice against, the Muslim community.

Though, to be fair, even the Sunday Times manages to fit in a couple of pro-Muslim letters in today’s issue. When it comes to Islamophobia, the Observer manages to be marginally worse than the Murdoch press.

Critic of Islam finds new home in US

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yet another article about the appalling Ayaan Hirsi Ali, though this one is a bit more balanced than the eulogies that have appeared in the British press (even if it does fudge this issue of why Hirsi Ali left the Netherlands).

Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR is quoted as saying: “We believe that she will bring an increase to the level of anti-Muslim bias in this country that we saw her bring to the situation in Europe. Unfortunately her message is one of bigotry, not one of mutual understanding.”

Hooper is reported as accusing Hirsi Ali of exaggerating her attacks on Islam in order to further her own agenda. “She is just one more Muslim-basher on the lecture circuit.”

Associated Press, 10 February 2007