‘The Veil… and why these leading Muslims won’t wear it’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“As Channel 4 controversially celebrated women covering their faces and critics are dismissed as Islamophobics, Joan Smith talks to a group of women who fear the consequences of the veil’s acceptance.”

Independent on Sunday, 31 December 2006

Yes, it’s the familiar strategy pursued by Islamophobes of finding some Muslims who agree with them on a particular issue and then using this as a cover for attacks which feed into the wider media campaign being waged against the entire Muslim community. You’d have hoped that people wouldn’t fall for this, but they do. The irony here is that Khadijah Atkinson, the presenter of Channel 4’s “alternative Christmas message”, is a member of Minhaj-ul-Quran, which has aligned itself with an Islamophobic campaign against the proposed so-called “mega-mosque” in Newham. And now some of her fellow Muslims are collaborating with an anti-Islamic bigot like Joan Smith in attacking Khadijah and other veiled women. It’s not really the business of Islamophobia Watch to intervene in these matters, but surely some basic solidarity and an elementary sense of tactics wouldn’t come amiss here?

For the sort of comment Smith’s article has prompted from right-wing bloggers, see here and here.

Daily Mail ‘unmasks’ woman behind alternative Christmas message

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“She was presented by Channel 4 as an authentic – but anonymous – voice of moderate British Islam. And on Christmas Day the veiled woman described only as ‘Khadijah’ was given a national televison platform for propagating her views in an ‘alternative Christmas message’ designed to rival the Queen’s. She told viewers Jack Straw was wrong to criticise the veil, claiming concealing facial features ‘liberated’ women. But the Daily Mail can now unveil ‘Khadijah’ – and reveal that she is in fact Elaine Atkinson, an English convert to Islam who travels the country working for a radical muslim group trying to take political control of Pakistan.”

Daily Mail, 29 December 2006

The “radical Muslim group” is Mihaj-ul-Quran, an organisation associated with a political party – Pakistan Awami Tehrik – that gained precisely 0.7% of the popular vote in the last parliamentary elections in Pakistan and elected just one MP. So clearly it has some way to go before it takes political control of Pakistan.

And although the Daily Mail pours scorn on Khadijah’s “claims of being moderate”, the same paper recently quoted another supporter of Minhaj-ul-Quran as an example of the “moderate Muslims” who the Mail claims are opposed to Tablighi Jamaat building a new mosque in Newham.

The BNP have applauded the Mail for exposing Khadijah Atkinson’s “rejection of her traditional English background, and her determination to embrace radical Islam”. BNP news article, 30 December 2006

Ethnic smears hinder good government

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More on the “Islam won” story (see here). The statement was originally attributed to Omar Alghabra after he was selected as a Liberal Party candidate in Canada. When that account was shown to be a fraud, the accusation was shifted to another Muslim politician, Khalid Usman.

“It’s an allegation Mr. Usman vehemently denies. ‘I know for a fact I never said Islam won. It was nothing about Islam taking over something,’ he said. ‘There is no way in the world. I never would have said it.’ Mr. Usman said he was out of the room for much of the meeting and, when he came in, was invited to the stage to make a few comments. He allows he may have uttered a traditional praise to Allah, but not with the intention of bringing religion into politics. If a Christian politician were to shout ‘hallelujah’ after a victory, would there be a controversy?”

Yorkregion.com, 29 December 2005

Media Muslim coverage scrutinised

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hostile coverage is driving Muslims away from the rest of society says Rageh Omaar, a Muslim journalist and former BBC correspondent now with Al-Jazeera. He blames self-proclaimed “liberals” for the negative media coverage: “I think that how you show that you really are liberal is your stance against what you perceive to be the threat of Islam, which journalists see as this monolithic backward looking, extremist threat to your liberal traditions. And I think it is just a knee-jerk reaction amongst a lot of my friends and colleagues in the media.”

BBC News, 28 December 2006

See Charlie Beckett’s piece at Comment is Free, 29 December 2006

Both of these pieces confuse the issue by portraying Islamophobic bigots like John Ware and Martin Bright as honest reporters (“tough liberals”) who are only eager to get at the truth.

See also Mukul Devichand’s article at Open Democracy, 29 December 2006

The transcript of the Analysis programme is here.

Top Jewish group ‘terror’ apology

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain’s top Jewish body has apologised for branding a Muslim charity a “terrorist organisation”. In an out-of-court settlement, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said it should not have described Interpal in these terms.

London-based Interpal, which raises millions for Palestinian causes, had launched a libel action against the Board, due in the High Court next year. The board has now published a retraction and apology on its website.

In the statement, the Board said it had reached a settlement with Interpal in relation to a September 2003 article on its website which referred to “terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Interpal”. “We would like to make it clear that we should not have described Interpal in this way and we regret the upset and distress our item caused,” said the statement.

Interpal is one of the largest Muslim-led charities in Europe and says its funds humanitarian, educational and medical projects in the Palestinian territories. The charity, which spends approximately £5m a year, insists it keeps exhaustive records and audit trails of how its Palestinian partners spend money.

BBC News, 29 December 2005

For the BoD’s retraction, see here.

Spain cathedral shuns Muslim plea

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cordoba cathedralThe Roman Catholic bishop of Cordoba in southern Spain has rejected an appeal from Muslims for the right to pray in the city’s cathedral, a former mosque.

Juan Jose Asenjo rejected the request made by Spain’s Islamic Board in a letter to the Pope. It had asked that the cathedral become an ecumenical temple where believers from all faiths could worship.

The bishop said such a move would not contribute to the peaceful co-existence between people of different religions. On the contrary, he said in a statement late on Wednesday, the joint use of temples and places of worship would only generate confusion amongst the faithful.

Spain’s Islamic Board, which represents a community of some 800,000 in a traditional Catholic country of 44 million, argued in its plea to the Pope that such a move in Cordoba could serve to “awake the conscience” of followers of both faiths and help bury past confrontations.

“What we wanted was not to take over that holy place, but to create in it, together with you and other faiths, an ecumenical space unique in the world which would have been of great significance in bringing peace to humanity,” the letter said.

The board’s general secretary, Mansur Escudero, said Muslims came from around the world to see Cordoba’s cathedral. But security guards often stopped Muslim worshippers from praying inside the old mosque, he added.

BBC News, 28 December 2006

[The photo shows Mansur Escudero praying outside the cathedral following the bishop’s statement that Muslims will not be allowed to pray inside the building.]

BNP sympathiser Giraldus Cambrensis comments: “… now, once more, political Islam in Spain is trying to assert itself. The trial of the Moorish terrorists and their accomplices who attacked Madrid is due to start in the New Year. On Tuesday December 26, only a day after Spain celebrated Christmas, the birth of Christ, Spain’s Islamic Commission announced that it had decided to petition the new Pope, Benedict XVI, to allow Muslim worship at the Mezquita.”

Western Resistance, 27 December 2006

Fascists announce Jihad Watch Bulletin

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The British National Party announces the latest issue of its “Jihad Watch bulletin” (no organisational link to Robert Spencer’s site – though no doubt there’s a considerable ideological overlap). It promotes a particularly barking piece from The American Daily detailing the Islamist “plan for world domination”. The BNP may have have dispensed with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but they have evidently retained their enthusiasm for wacko racist conspiracy theories.

BNP news article, 29 December 2006

Clash of civilisations conference in London

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Conference: A World Civilisation or a Clash of Civilisations

20 January 2007, Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London SW1

The controversial “clash of civilisations” theory is the subject of a special one-day conference organised by the GLA on Saturday 20 January.

The view has been put forward that the world is going into an era of conflict and war driven by a clash of civilisations. The Mayor’s policies are based on the exact opposite idea: that the multicultural city is part of creating a new concept of world civilisation that corresponds to a globalised world.

This conference will debate these contrasting approaches and their implications. The conference will feature a debate between the Mayor and Daniel Pipes, Director of the Middle East Forum, an American think tank that advises US policymakers on the Middle East. He has argued that “there is not so much a clash of civilisations as there is one of civilisations vs. barbarism”.

Other sessions will see scholars and policy-makers discuss the impact of international events on London’s communities and examine issues such as religious tolerance, human rights, diversity and the approach to multiculturalism.

Further details on GLA website here and here.

East Berlin’s first mosque: The Muslims are coming!

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A citizens’ group in Berlin turned out this week for a candlelight vigil to protest plans for a new mosque in their neighborhood. It will be the first to be built in the former East Berlin, where almost no Muslims live – but no one can quite explain why it shouldn’t be there.

Spiegel, 28 December 2006

Update:  See “Local protests greet East Berlin’s first mosque”, Deutsche Welle, 2 January 2007