Sunny boosts Bright

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sunny Hundal gives a plug to Martin Bright and his forthcoming Channel 4 attack on the MCB and Mockbul Ali. “When asked his thoughts on whispered accusations of him being Islamophobic, he says he finds the idea ‘laughable’.”

Asians in Media, 10 July 2006

Yeah, right. This would be the same Martin Bright who told a FOSIS conference last year that he had no problem describing himself as an Islamophobe because, he explained, there is a lot in Islam to be fearful of.

I note that on Wednesday Bright is addressing a seminar organised by Policy Exchange, the right-wing Tory think tank headed by the appalling Dean Godson. Godson is a notorious opponent of the Peace Process in the north of Ireland, and the purpose of the seminar is evidently to draw a parallel between the the UK government’s supposed capitulation to Irish Republican “terrorists” and its capitulation to Islamism. In both cases, Godson’s line is that the government should reject dialogue and co-operation with organisations that have mass support in the community and instead turn to other individuals with more “acceptable” politics who represent nobody but themselves.

People like … well, Sunny Hundal.

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More on Orr

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Letters in today’s Independent responding Deborah Orr’s disgraceful article are mainly supportive of her views. For example: “Deborah Orr is ‘offended’ by the sight of veiled women swathed in black in the streets of London. Offended? Walking past women who cover their hair with scarves, their faces with veils, their bodies in shapeless garments for so-called religious reasons does not offend me: it makes my blood boil.” Another correspondent describes the niqab as “the most sinister garment since the IRA balaclava”.

For Yusuf Smith’s comments see here and here.

Another outbreak of Islamophobia from Nick Cohen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

As IslamExpo builds bridges between Muslims and Britain’s other diverse communities, Nick Cohen – with the assistance of Martin Bright – sets about smashing them. While responsible media commentators emphasise that the 7/7 bombers were a tiny unrepresentative minority within Muslim communities in the UK, the message from Cohen and Bright is that the terrorists are part of a general problem of extremism among British Muslims and their organisations.

See “The Foreign Office ought to be serving Britain, not radical Islam”, Observer, 9 July 2006

‘Britain’s Muslims at Alton Towers’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“On 17 September this year Alton Towers is to be handed over to the Muslims for a day. There will, therefore, be no music, no gambling and of course no alcohol. The rides will be segregated between men and women and your usual ten quid botulo-burger’n’fries will be prepared in accordance with halal practice. There will be prayer mats scattered around, so that you can give thanks to Allah for not having been thrown head first out of the big dipper. Who knows – perhaps they will adapt some of the rides for the day: maybe the chamber of horrors will be full of Hasidic Jews wreathed in sinister smiles.”

Rod Liddle in the Spectator, 8 July 2006

Karen Armstrong on 7/7

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Karen Armstrong (3)“It is a year since the London bombings, an act committed in the name of Islam by a viciously disaffected minority, but which violated the essential principles of any religion. Doubtless with this anniversary in mind, the prime minister has complained that British Muslims are not doing enough to deal with the extremists. The ‘moderate’ Muslims, he said testily, must confront the Islamists; they cannot condemn their methods while tacitly condoning their anger. The extremists’ anti-western views are wrong, and mainstream Muslims must tell them that violent jihad ‘is not the religion of Islam’.

“This regrettable step will put yet more pressure on a community already under strain. It ignores the fact that the chief problem for most Muslims is not ‘the west’ per se, but the suffering of Muslims in Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Palestine. Many Britons share this dismay, but the strong emphasis placed by Islam upon justice and community solidarity makes this a religious issue for Muslims….

“It is disingenuous of Tony Blair to separate the rising tide of ‘Islamism’ from his unpopular foreign policy, particularly when Palestinians are being subjected to new dangers in Gaza. He is also mistaken to imagine that law-abiding Muslims could bring the extremists to heel in the same way that he disciplines recalcitrant members of his cabinet. This is just not how religious groups operate.”

Karen Armstrong, author of Islam: A Short History, in the Guardian, 8 July 2006

BNP in Barking & Dagenham

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The man from the BNP breezes up in a white linen suit looking like some latter-day Martin Bell and says: ‘Can you believe it? Two of our schools are having Muslim days tomorrow – on 7/7! It’s like chucking mud in people’s faces’.”

The Guardian profiles Richard Barnbrook, fascist councillor in Barking & Dagenham.

US pastor slammed for anti-Islam rant

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent US pastor and a former advisor to President George W. Bush has drawn fire from leaders in the Muslim minority, rights activists and politicians for calling Islam a “dangerous” religion.

“It appears that he doesn’t have that much knowledge about Islam,” Altaf Ali, executive director of the Florida Chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, told The Miami Herald on Saturday, July 8. He said he has tried unsuccessfully to meet with Dozier.

Appearing on the Steve Kane Radio Show, The Rev. O’Neal Dozier, a Broward clergyman and an ally of Governor Jeb Bush, criticized Islam as a “cult” religion.

“The Islamic religion in my view is a cult,” Dozier told the Herald Friday, July 7, when asked to recap the controversial comments he made earlier on the show. “On the show I said that Islam is a dangerous religion,” he added, refusing to disavow his comments.

Islam Online, 8 July 2006

‘Why the sight of veiled women offends me’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Deborah Orr“I’ve been more and more troubled lately by the sight of veiled women swathed in heavy black, getting on with their everyday business in Britain. A woman on the bus the other day looked like she was auditioning for an Islamic version of the Blues Brothers, with the only part of her body uncovered by her drapes, hidden behind very black sunglasses….

“Multiculturalism tells us that it is rude and insensitive to be critical of such garb, and that we must tolerate and even celebrate difference. But I’m afraid I find that the sort of difference these women proclaim by getting themselves up in these sinister weeds to be deeply offensive.

“I understand that in a free society they are entitled to dress as they please, just as I am. But I also understand that in a free society I am at liberty to say that the values these outfits imply are repulsive and insulting to me.”

Deborah Orr in the Independent, 8 July 2006

Nazi backs Nick Cohen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kevin Scott of Civil Liberty, the BNP front organisation, writes: “We are NOT suggesting that all Muslims are terrorist or terrorists sympathisers. But the current terrorism is inspired by Islam and its fantasies of world domination. Most terror acts in Europe have been inspired by Islam. As Nick Cohen of the Observer newspaper has pointed out such terrorism should be called ‘Islamic terrorism’.”

Civil Liberty website, 7 July 2006

Not content with endorsing Cohen, Scott also argues, in words that could have been written by David T of Harry’s Place: “… the Muslim Brotherhood is banned in several Muslim countries. We are concerned at the public recognition to some MB leaders such as Al Qaradawi who was welcomed by Ken Livingstone. We are very concerned at the activities of the Muslim Association of Britain which has links with the Brotherhood.”