“Europe and Islam are traveling a path that can only end in an unparalleled clash of civilizations…. Bible prophecy assures us that this trend will only intensify in the coming months and years.”
The Philadelphia Church of God offers its take on the recent study of rising anti-Muslim sentiment in Germany.
Richard Fidler provides a useful overview of last year’s hysterical campaign against the “introduction of sharia law” (i.e. faith-based arbitration for Muslims) in Ontario. He writes:
“Among the most vociferous of the ‘anti-Sharia’ opponents was Homa Arjomand, a Toronto-based transitional counselor and refugee from Iran. She is the Coordinator of the ‘International Campaign Against Shari’a Court in Canada’, which claims a membership of 87 organizations from 14 countries with over a thousand activists. Much of the material on its web site is outrageously Islamophobic.
“One such piece, by Elka Enola of the Humanist Association of Toronto, sketches a startling ‘Worst Case (but probable) Scenario’ of the effect of allowing Muslim FBA, starting with ‘Stage One – Using the Arbitration Act, the Shari’a courts appear to get legal sanction’ and ending with ‘Stage Three – Muslims now outnumber Christians and the majority rule of democracy is turned on its head as the majority Muslims make Shari’a the law of the land’. It concludes, ‘We must protect Canada from such a scenario’. Not surprisingly, the Humanist Association of Toronto proclaimed Arjomand its ‘Humanist of the Year’ in 2005.”
One of the recurring themes of Islamophobia is the idea that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim or that there are as many and varied strands of thinking amongst Muslims as there is with the rest of humanity. The mere fact of being a Muslim is enough to make you a supporter of suicide bombings, an anti-semite, a threat to “Western Civilisation” and of course a potential terrorist.
When the racists and Islamophobes come across Muslims who are not sword wielding Mad Mullahs out to establish a world caliphate their reaction is not to temper and refine their own views but instead to attack, smear, denigrate and falsify in order to portray their target as being a reflection of their own caricature of Muslims.
We have seen this repeatedly in the past 2 years in relation to Yusuf al-Qaradawi and even Tariq Ramadan.
Inayat Bunglawala is Media Secretary for the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and is an extremely eloquent and intelligent spokesman for that organisation.
An intelligent and articulate Muslim? Now there’s a thing to get the Islamophobes ranting and foaming at the mouth.
Inayat is now 36 years old and the best that the right wing press can offer as proof of his extremism is an article he wrote for a Muslim youth magazine 14 years ago in 1992 when he was 22 years old. I don’t know about anybody else but I held some views when I was 22 that I’d wish to refine somewhat in the cold light of 14 years more experience of the world.
The fact that Inayat contributes to the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ website clearly infuriates the racists and Islamophobes and an absurd attempt to smear Inayat developed in the comments section of hislatest posting.
Regular readers of Islamophobia Watch will be aware of the vile “little green footballs” blog and it was through this site that an absurd allegation regarding a death threat Inayat is supposed to have made to that site was published.
Apparently the threat came from someone with a Reuters account and because Inayat works in the media, ipso facto it was him. Absolute hysterical nonsense of course but ludicrous claims and smear attempts are par for the course for the Islamophobes, as they have once again proved.
“The Satanic Verses, Behzti, Theo van Gogh’s Submission, Jerry Springer: The Opera, the Danish cartoons of Muhammad … now we can add the London exhibition of the work of Maqbool Fida Husain to the rapidly expanding list of works of art and satire targeted by militant religion…. Asia House closed the show on Monday after threats of violence from anonymous Hindu fundamentalists.”
Nick Cohen in the Observer, 28 May 2006
Not only does Cohen lump together a number of different cases, all of which have to be assessed on their own merits and in their social context, but he also omits to mention another recent example of a minority ethno-religious community calling for the suppression of offensive material, as described by Gary Younge:
“In January 2002 the New Statesman published a front page displaying a shimmering golden Star of David impaling a union flag, with the words ‘A kosher conspiracy?’ The cover was widely and rightly condemned as anti-semitic. It’s not difficult to see why. It played into vile stereotypes of money-grabbing Jewish cabals out to undermine the country they live in…. A group calling itself Action Against Anti-Semitism marched into the Statesman‘s offices, demanding a printed apology. One eventually followed. The then editor, Peter Wilby, later confessed that he had not appreciated ‘the historic sensitivities’ of Britain’s Jews.”
I don’t recall Cohen defending the right of the New Statesman to publish anti-semitic illustrations, or condemning members of the Jewish community for invading the magazine’s office to protest. Presumably, in this case, he was capable of distinguishing between freedom of expression and racism. Perhaps he should consider making the same distinction in cases involving other ethno-religious communities.
Yusuf Smith has picked up on an article in the latest issue of New Humanist magazine (a sponsor of the “March for Free Expression”) by one Ben Marshall, which defends Islamophobia as “an entirely reasonable and honourable intellectual position”. According to Marshall, high levels of unemployment among British Muslims are nothing to do with racism but are the result of their religious beliefs. Marshall has a go at Islamophobia Watch, describing it as “a shady confederacy of Islamists, woolly-headed, well-meaning dunces and Marxists” and he goes on to accuse us of condoning anti-semitism.
Melanie Phillips claims that after the Satanic Verses controversy “the promotion of Islam in Britain became fused with an agenda of murder”.
You might wonder why a liberal newspaper gives space to a hard-right journalist like Phillips to promote her vile opinions about Muslims. But Phillips’ views are not that far removed from those expressed on a weekly basis by Observer columnist Nick Cohen, and the paper has given prominence to Martin Bright’s campaign to depict maintream Muslim organisations in Britain as supporters of violent extremism. As we never cease to point out on this site, when it comes to Islamophobia the differences between liberals and the racist right have become increasingly blurred.
Some 100 journalists from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East met in Vienna this week to discuss the challenge of contemporary racism and xenophobia. It was the third such meeting since the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in European newspapers caused a diplomatic incident and violent demonstrations.
The Danish government has been condemned in an official report for its mishandling of the cartoon crisis sparked by the publication of 12 caricatures that lampooned Prophet Muhammad in the Danish mass-circulation paper Jyllands Posten in September.
“The government’s management of the Muhammad (cartoon) affair was a bigger problem than the caricatures themselves and the prime minister … should have entered into dialogue with the Muslim ambassadors,” said the government-sanctioned study, a copy of which was obtained by Jyllands Posten, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen refused in October 2005 to meet with 11 ambassadors from Muslim nations who had asked to see him in a bid to nip a looming crisis in the bud.
The study said that the Danish government has not proved forthcoming and responded negatively to Muslim bids to break the standoff. “Denmark, in practice, did not want dialogue,” said the Danish university researchers who wrote the study. “It did not acknowledge the points of view of the other party (Muslim nations) and … saw being open to dialogue as compromising its own values.”
Danish Muslim leaders had taken pains to settle the crisis, but they were given the cold shoulder by the government. They then took their case to the Muslim world, embarking on a multi-leg Arab tour that outraged the government which accused them of “internationalizing” the issue and inciting anti-Danish hatred.
Canada Paper Sorry About Erroneous Story on Iranian Jews and Christians
Associated Press, 26 May 2006
A Canadian newspaper apologized Wednesday for publishing an erroneous story last week claiming that an Iranian law would require Jews and Christians to wear badges identifying them as religious minorities.
The National Post article Friday caused an international uproar. Tehran on Wednesday summoned Canada’s ambassador to its foreign ministry.
Iran’s conservative parliament last week began debating a draft law that would discourage women from wearing Western clothing and encourage citizens to wear Islamic-style garments.
The Post erroneously said the bill included provisions requiring Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims to wear a patch of colored cloth on the front of their garments.
That incorrect description appeared to many as a chilling throwback to Nazi Germany when Jews were forced to wear the yellow star of David.
The United States, which is locked in a standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, criticized the bill. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a Jewish human rights group, had sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking him to investigate, according to the National Post.
Iranian officials labeled the newspaper account a lie and a copy of the bill, obtained by The Associated Press in Tehran on Saturday, made no mention of requiring special attire for religious minorities.
“Russian ‘nationalists’ managed to draw first blood at Moscow Gay Pride last night when they disrupted a lecture on Oscar Wilde given by the author and playwright’s grandson Merlin Holland. The lecture was at the State Library of Foreign Literature where the nationalists managed to breach security to gain access to the lecture theatre. Merlin Holland was minutes into his talk when he was heckled in Russian. Others in the audience then joined in as police and stewards rushed to restore calm. ‘No faggots in Russia’, was the cry of the nationalists, who also called for gays to be removed from the country. As they were being removed, the nationalists threw vials of an irritant gas in the auditorium, which then had to be evacuated.”
It’s probably the same rightwingers who attacked a gay and lesbian party at a Moscow nightclub earlier this month, shouting “Down with pederasts” and “No perverts here”. See Gay.com, 1 May 2006
Note that the religious component to this upsurge of violent right-wing homophobia derives, as you would expect, from Orthodox Christianity. This hasn’t prevented Peter Tatchell from attributing to Islam the primary place in the anti-Pride campaign in Moscow and suggesting that Russian Orthodox Church is merely following the lead of the chief mufti! He writes:
“Much of the anti-gay sentiment that is sweeping Russia has been whipped up by religious leaders. Threatening violence against Moscow Gay Pride, the chief mufti of Russia’s Central Spiritual Governance for Muslims, Talgat Tajuddin, said: ‘Muslim protests can be even worse than these notorious rallies abroad over the scandalous cartoons. The parade should not be allowed, and if they still come out into the streets, then they should be bashed. Sexual minorities have no rights, because they have crossed the line. Alternative sexuality is a crime against God,’ he said, calling on members of the Russian Orthodox Church to join Muslims in mounting a violent response to Moscow Gay Pride. Russian Orthodox leaders responded by lobbying Mayor Luzhkov to ban the parade….”