“A council has sparked fury by virtually shutting a swimming pool on Sunday afternoons for ‘Muslim-only’ sessions…. Croydon Council in South London runs the sessions at Thornton Heath leisure centre between 4.45pm and 6.45pm. Similar slots are laid on for Muslim women outside opening hours, where bathers must be covered from the neck down to the ankle. Locals who flock to the area’s only major leisure centre each week are furious. Member Daniel Foley, 44, said: ‘I turned up and saw a sign saying it was closing early for Muslim afternoon – I couldn’t believe it’.”
‘Funds crackdown on religious groups’
Remember Ruth Kelly’s threat that the government was considering withdrawing financial aid from organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain and transferring its backing to more amenable outfits like the Sufi Muslim Council? Well Tony Blair pursues the same theme in a speech today at a Downing Street event. Under the headline “Funds crackdown on religious groups”, the Daily Star reports:
“Tony Blair has announced a crackdown on public funding for religious and racial groups as he set out plans to improve community integration. The Prime Minister warned that taxpayers’ cash had been too easily handed out to organisations ‘tightly bonded around religious, racial or ethnic identities’. In future they would have to prove they aimed to promote community cohesion and integration, he said.
“‘Very good intentions got the better of us,’ he said in a lecture at Downing Street. ‘We wanted to be hospitable to new groups. We wanted, rightly, to extend a welcome and did so by offering public money to entrench their cultural presence. Money was too often freely awarded to groups that were tightly bonded around religious, racial or ethnic identities. In the future, we will assess bids from groups of any ethnicity or any religious denomination, also against a test, where appropriate, of promoting community cohesion and integration.’
“He also ruled out any introduction of Islamic Sharia in the UK and called on mosques that excluded the voice of women to ‘look again at their practices’. The suicide bombings in London on July 7 last year had thrown the whole concept of a multicultural Britain ‘into sharp relief’, the Prime Minister said.”
The full text of Blair’s speech can be consulted on the 10 Downing Street website.
‘Don’t come here if you don’t like it’
Tony Blair today issued a strong warning to ethnic minorities that if they do not like Britain, they should not come here. The Prime Minister said “British tolerance” was the hallmark of the country and was a non-negotiable part of living here.
He used a keynote speech on ethnic minority relations to wade into the debate on multiculturalism for the first time, and promised a crackdown on groups who refuse to integrate into the British way of life.
Speaking at a lecture in Downing Street, he said: “London is perhaps the most popular capital city in the world today partly because it is hospitable to so many different nationalities, mixing, working, conversing with each other. But we protect this attitude by defending it. Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain. So conform to it; or don’t come here.”
This is London, 8 December 2006
In fact, if you read Blair’s speech, you’ll find that his remarks were almost exclusively directed against Muslims.
Anti-fascists to unite in battle against BNP in Dagenham
Anti-fascist campaigners and trade unionists called on the people of east London to mobilise against the racist British National Party’s (BNP) plans to hold a public demonstration in Dagenham on Saturday. Organised by Unite Against Facism (UAF), trade unionists, anti-fascists and anti-racist groups will assemble at 1pm at the Civic Centre in Dagenham.
In May this year, the BNP gained 12 seats on the Barking and Dagenham Council. It has whipped up racist lies against black, ethnic minority and immigrant communities in the area. This includes pushing the false claim that the area’s housing shortage is the fault of the local black community. In the last five years since the BNP has been targeting the borough, racist attacks have increased against black and ethnic minority people.
Dagenham Labour MP Jon Cruddas warned that the BNP was “seeking to divide us and we should resist them by joining together against a party based upon fascism and racism. I believe this counter-mobilisation is very important to show we represent the majority – our multicultural and multifaith society.”
University College Union (UCU) joint general secretary Paul Mackney vowed that his union would fight the BNP across Britain’s colleges and universities. “It is very disturbing to see that they now feel able to parade their racist poison in public spaces. UCU is fully behind this peaceful opposition to the BNP,” the staunch anti-racism campaigner added.
Morning Star, 8 December 2006
Further information on UAF website.
The phoney war on Christmas
“Luton council, we are told, has banned people from celebrating Christmas. Birmingham has renamed the season Winterval. A Reading man has been told to take his decorations down. There’s only one problem with the ‘PC campaign’ against Christmas – it’s pure nonsense.”
Oliver Burkeman demolishes the “Christmas is Banned” headlines, which have been used to stoke up hatred of Muslims and other minority ethnic communities.
None of which has prevented Jack Straw joining the spurious campaign against “politically correct nonsense” over Christmas. See Daily Mail, 8 December 2006
Rule on veils changed after woman kept off bus in Michigan city
GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan: After a woman passenger wearing traditional Islamic dress was turned away, the public bus system in this Michigan city said Friday it will end its rule keeping those with face coverings from boarding public transit vehicles. System administrators said the refusal in July was an isolated incident.
A driver told the unidentified woman she would have to uncover her face to ride, but she was able to board another bus that same day. She reported the incident to bus system administrators, transit officials told The Grand Rapids Press newspaper.
Busing officials regret that the woman was turned away and have apologized to her, Rapid spokeswoman Jennifer Kalczuk said. She said the original order was a security issue, so that an on-board camera system could help identify riders in the event of a disturbance. She said religious dress or other coverings were not considered.
Debbie Mageed, an area Islamic activist, said she appreciated Rapid’s response. “We can’t expect all public domains to be aware of these situations until they actually come up,” said Mageed, who wears a head covering but not a facial veil. “As long as it doesn’t happen again, I’ll feel like they were sincere in their efforts to revise their policy.”
Khadija says Channel 4 didn’t tell her she’d be in competition with the Queen
Muslim Khadija Ravat wants to pull out of Channel 4’s Christimas message because she fears she may nick viewers from the Queen. The Islamic studies teacher, 34, who wears a veil, claims she did not know the broadcasts would be screened at the same time. Last night she said: “I don’t want to be competing with the Queen. I’m sure she’s a lovely person. Her speech will be far more interesting than anything I have got to say. I didn’t mean to cause a fuss. I did not know how important the Queen’s speech is to many people.” Channel 4 said that they chose Khadija because the veil debate is topical.
Daily Star, 8 December 2006
Meanwhile, in yesterday’s Evening Standard, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has taken the opportunity to denounce the niqab as the symbol of “Muslim women suffering under the cloak of oppression”.
For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 7 December 2006
Why I deplore this TV Christmas stunt
For Channel 4 , a presenter in full niqab is just another wacky idea. But the veil is a cloak of oppression and cruelty, says one Muslim writer
By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Evening Standard, 7 December 2006
WE KNOW Channel 4 is paid to be a pain, to whip up furies and controversies. The channel’s iconoclastic spirit can generate exceptionally good programmes and also abysmally bad ideas. Hip bosses sometimes want to be audacious and provocative for the sheer fun of it. So now these Armani suits have picked a fully veiled Muslim woman to deliver their alternative Christmas message.
Delight will ripple through the corridors of the trendy HQ as a storm of outrage follows this mad, bad and dangerous decision. But why stop there? I know at least two Somali mothers who support their own genital mutilation and will subject their daughters to the “purification”. Perhaps next year.
Meanwhile some liberals, the Mayor and retrograde Muslim organisations will rejoice that the niqab has thus been honoured, as will those white female commentators who have come out for the full veil. I wonder if any of these niqab groupies would be as sanguine if their own daughters decided to disappear into black shrouds.
Choice alone cannot be the sole compass for personal or political action. In any case, how do these defenders of the veil know all such women and girls have made a free and fair choice? Or that six-year-olds in a hijab are independent little misses who decided to cover their hair?
The chosen one, Khadija Ravat, is a very nice lady. We met on a TV programme and she was warm and non-judgmental. I can see why she was selected, because she gives the niqab a good name. We have emailed each other and I am going to visit her home one day. But I cannot respect her shroud. She can look at the world yet denies us access to the features which make her unique and uniquely human.
The recent employment-case judgments against the niqab reflect what society in general believes – that there have to be dress code bans on full veils at work. Most workplaces disallow semi-nudity too.
The national conversation over the veil has been open and passionate – a very important development in our complex democracy. We didn’t shut up even when instructed to by Muslim ” leaders”. Channel 4 hosted some of the best debates on the issue. Now it has decided to glamorise and validate the veil, showing cool indifference to the meanings of the most violently contested symbols in the world today.
For what some claim as their preferred attire is a cruel prison for others. Lesley Abdela, the legendary gender-rights expert, has just returned from Iraq, where she advises Iraqi women fighting for political equality. She told me this story. A top university professor in Baghdad had a corpse of a young female delivered to him. She was the brightest of his cohort. She had been raped, tortured, then killed because she dared to walk without covering her face and hair. Acid is thrown at the faces of such women; many are beaten and raped all across the Arab countries, in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In this paper I described a veiled woman who followed me home after being subjected to the most horrifying domestic violence, all signs well covered up by the unholy sheet. Since then several others have contacted me to confirm this is happening all over the country. One of them, Saima, asked this: “All those women are speaking out on TV about how they are free to decide. How can women like me tell the public our truths? We are afraid for our lives. They are not. But they should remember us.”
Instead of expressing solidarity with these females, sanctimonious British niqabis (with beautifully made-up eyes) are siding with their foes.
There are practical issues too. Veiled women cannot swim in the sea, smile at their babies in parks, feel the sun on their skin. Millions of progressive Muslims watch with disbelief as young women, born free, seek subjugation. It breaks our hearts.
In the first century of Islam, there were Muslim feminists resisting seclusion and covers. The First Lady of Rebellion was Sakina, who got a pre-nup agreement from her husband. He was to be faithful and let her keep her will and liberty. When he went to a concubine she publicly humiliated him in court in Medina. An Arab historian described her fire: “She was a delicate beauty, never veiled. Poets gathered in her house. She was playful and refined.”
Ayesha, married to the son of a close associate of Prophet Mohammed, was a feisty resister too: “I will not veil. No one can force me to do anything.” The veil predates Islam and was common among the Assyrian royalty, Byzantine upperclass Christians and Bedouins – men and women – when sand storms blasted their faces. Women from the Prophet’s family covered themselves, it is said, to prevent harassment from petitioners. He proclaimed that “the true veil is in the eyes of men.”
The Koran does not ask women to cover their faces. The growing use of the niqab represents the terrifying march of Wahhabism, which aims to expunge the female Muslim presence from the public space. Exiles from religious authoritarian regimes who fled to the West now find the evil has followed them.
Veils affirm the pernicious idea of women as carriers of original sin. The brilliant Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi asks why powerful men “can’t look at our hair and appreciate a Muslim woman standing defiant, her shoulders back, her breast advanced, her eyes boldly scrutinising them? Why do they all dream of this fully veiled self-deprecating creature?”
And if I were one of millions of decent Muslim men, I would be incandescent at the assumptions made about Muslim male lust and self-control, which supposedly collapses at the sight of a lock of hair.
As long as it ensures genuine equal standards for all, a liberal nation has no obligation to extend its liberalism to condone the most illiberal practices. Europe still treats Muslims as undeserving inferiors. The media lurches drunkenly between pandering to Muslim separatists and maligning us all as the aliens within. It is hard to be a Muslim today. And it becomes harder still when some choose deliberately to act and dress as aliens.
To Luke Johnson, chairman of Channel 4, and to its director of programmes, Kevin Lygo, Ms Ravat is just one more off-the-wall, wacky Christmas messenger – joining Sharon Osbourne, Brigitte Bardot and Ali G, its bearers in previous years. But Muslim women suffocating under the cloak of oppression will not see the funny side. And as a Muslim feminist, I don’t either.
Bikini march sparks retort
Muslims, socialists, unions and other groups will conduct a counter-rally against bikini protesters who plan to march on a Brunswick mosque on Saturday. Police will monitor the demonstrations, with white supremacists claiming to have infiltrated bikini protest ranks, increasing the potential for confrontation.
Organisers of the “Great Australian Bikini March” had planned to march against the Michael St mosque last Saturday, anniversary of the Cronulla riots in NSW. Though the bikini march has been postponed until Australia Day next year, some supporters say they will still hold the rally on Saturday. The march has been promoted on white supremacist websites.
In response, the Islamic Information and Support Centre and the Socialist Party Australia are organising a barbecue and mosque open day for Saturday at the same time.
David T gets something right shock
Yes, it does occasionally happen. Over at Harry’s Place, David T quite rightly urges support for Saturday’s important Unite Against Fascism rally in Dagenham against the fascist British National Party.
What attracts the attention of this blog, however, is the response of Harry’s Place readers to David T’s proposal, which is almost uniformly and sometimes rabidly hostile. It’s all well and good to support an anti-racist rally, but David T should ask himself this – what role is his website in fact playing in relation to the growth of racism if it attracts vicious anti-Muslim bigots and outright fascist sympathisers like these?
In defence of faith-based identity
An excellent piece by Madeleine Bunting arguing, against Amartya Sen, that the rise within minority communities of organisations based on faith rather than ethnicity is not the product of some top-down plot implemented by the government but has rather arisen as the result of bottom-up spontaneous self-organisation.