Dutch convert to Islam: veiled and viewed as a ‘traitor’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BREDA, Netherlands – Rabi’a Frank sees her Dutch home town through the narrow slit of the black veil that covers her face. The looks she receives from the townspeople are seldom kindly.On a recent winter afternoon, the wind tugged at her ankle-length taupe skirt, olive head scarf and black, rectangular face veil as she walked to her car from an Islamic prayer meeting in downtown Breda. Two blond teenagers on bicycles stared, their faces screwed into hostile snarls. Other passersby gawked. Some stepped off the sidewalk to avoid coming too near.

She tried to act like it didn’t offend her. But it did. She knows what they think of Muslim women like her. “If you cover yourself, you are oppressed – that’s it,” said Frank, a lanky, 29-year-old Dutch woman who converted to Islam 11 years ago, about the time she married her Moroccan husband. “You are being brainwashed by your husband or your friends.” Or, you’re a potential terrorist.

Washington Post, 19 March 2006

Nick Cohen supports anti-Muslim demo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nick Cohen (surprise, surprise) throws his weight behind the “March for Free Expression”:

“Next Saturday at 2pm in Trafalgar Square, there will be a rally for freedom of expression. I think it’s fair to say that previous generations would be astonished that their descendants would have to take to the streets to demand such a basic right, but after the death threats against cartoonists, it seems we do. Fortunately, the British National Party is nowhere to be seen and the rally will be filled with democratic leftists, Liberal Democrats, secularists and Iranian and Saudi Arabian dissidents.

“With the white far right out of the picture, the brown far right has barged in and Islamic fundamentalists are proposing to hold demonstrations against free speech away from central London. So, if you want to protest on Saturday, you have a choice: for free speech or against? Come on, it’s not that hard a choice. All will be welcome in Trafalgar Square. Dress? Danish.”

Observer, 19 March 2006

Well, we’ll see how it turns out. I would expect the “Free Expression” event to attract a full complement of right-wingers and racists. But then, as we’ve pointed out before, it’s not that easy to distinguish them from “democratic leftists” of Cohen’s ilk.

As for the “brown far right”, this refers to the Muslim Action Committee, an umbrella organisation that includes Q News among its affiliates. You begin to wonder whether Cohen has finally lost his marbles.

‘Alliance with bigots won’t halt fascists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Another anti-Muslim diatribe from Peter Tatchell, who resurrects his campaign to get the MCB banned from February’s Unite Against Fascism conference. A phrase involving the words “dog” and “own vomit” immediately springs to mind. For coverage of this issue on our site, see here, here, here, here and here.

While the uncritical support given to Tatchell by Tribune may serve the personal political agenda of the magazine’s deputy editor, it is extremely damaging to the Labour Party’s relations with Muslim communities, which are already under severe strain following the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps readers of our site might like to point this out (in appropriately restrained language) to Tribune‘s editor, Chris McLaughlin?

Alliance with bigots won’t halt fascists 

By Peter Tatchell

Tribune, 17 March 2006

Human rights campaigners claiming victory after Sir lqbal Sacranie failed to speak, as advertised, at the recent trade union-sponsored Unite Against Fascism (UAF) conference in London. His no-show followed widespread protests against his participation. Sacranie has condemned gay people as immoral, harmful and diseased.

Supported by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, plus five trade unions and the South East Region of the TUC, the UAF conference theme was “Stop the BNP”. Why did UAF invite a speaker whose views on homosexuality echo the bigotry of the far Right?

Continue reading →

‘When Danes pay Danegeld – dealing with Islam in Scandinavia’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“One thousand years ago Scandinavians were the barbarians of Europe, spreading fear and extracting ‘Danegeld’ from their more civilized neighbors. In the 21st century Scandinavians are peaceful and soft-spoken, and the roles seem to have been reversed with certain newly arrived immigrants. There are claims that immigration costs Sweden 40 to 50 billion Swedish kroner every year, perhaps even several hundred billions, and has greatly contributed to bringing the Swedish welfare state to the brink of bankruptcy.

“In Denmark right-wing politicians are already debating the threat of immigrant ‘welfare tourists’, should the Swedish system collapse. In Norway almost half of all children with a non-Western background claim social security benefits. This is ten times the rate of the native population. A Danish commission concluded that Denmark could save 50 billion kroner every year by 2040 if it shut the door to third world immigration. At the same time, statistics indicate that Scandinavians will become a minority in their own countries within a couple of generations, if the current trends continue. While their political elites insist that immigration is ‘good for the economy’, Scandinavians are in reality funding their own colonization.

“Although the cost of welfare is significant, it pales in comparison to the price paid through rapidly declining social harmony and increasing insecurity caused by Muslim immigration. Some of the increase in insecurity is due to the rise of mafia groups and organized crime, but most is mainly due to terror threats and intimidation of critics of Islam and Muslim immigration.”

Fjordman in the Brussels Journal, 17 March 2006

Fascists support ‘March for Free Expression’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islam is a blastThe “March for Free Expression” (which, as we have already noted, is essentially a march for the right to incite hatred against Muslims) is due to go ahead in Trafalgar Square on 25 March. Its website today features an attack on the Muslim Action Committee, a broad-based body involving Muslim organisations from Q News to Hizb ut-Tahrir which organised a mass protest over the Danish cartoons in London on 18 February.

The “March for Free Expression” organisers take particular exception to an Islamic Human Rights Commission press release which quotes Faiz Siddiqi of MAC condemning the “Free Expression” protest as “a provocation to 1.6 billion Muslims”. Faiz Siddiqi goes on to state that “The continued irresponsible actions of the BNP in distributing leaflets with the cartoons on across the country are also provoking anger throughout the Muslim community.”

The MFE statement complains: “We think the inclusion of a reference to the BNP in this press release is an attempt to associate this campaign with that political party which, as anyone who has looked at this site will know, is deeply dishonest.”

Oh yeah? Well how about this press release from the so-called “Civil Liberty” campaign, a fascist front organisation headed by the BNP’s North East organiser Kevin Scott? It states: “Civil Liberty are to attend the Support Free Speech Demo and rally in Trafalgar Square between 2:00pm and 4:00pm on Saturday March 25th 2006…. We ask all supporters to attend the rally.”

Backing from the extreme right is hardly accidental. One of the posters available for promoting the “March for Free Expression” is a version of the Danish flag, described as the “Heart for Freedom“, which plainly solidarises with the decision of Jyllands-Posten to publish racist anti-Muslim caricatures. And the MFE site advertises T-shirts carrying slogans such as “Get your fatwa out of my face. Support Denmark. Support free speech”, “Up yours, ‘religion of peace’!” and “Islam is a blast”.

The claim by the organisers that “This will be a march in favour of free expression, not a march against Muslims” can, I think, be treated with the derision it deserves.

Oriana Fallaci: Muslim takeover of Europe was planned by Palestinians

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Oriana FallaciOriana Fallaci claims that when she interviewed George Habash in 1972 he let slip the Muslim grand strategy of conquering Europe by breeding.

At first she thought the leading Palestinian politician was just talking about terrorism but now she realises that he “also meant the cultural war, the demographic war, the religious war waged by stealing a country from its citizens … In short, the war waged through immigration, fertility, presumed pluriculturalism.”

This of course fits in with her statement that Muslims have “multiplied like rats” in Europe.

If only she’d spotted it then, she could have told, and presumably saved, the world.

And of course the dear old lady is “stricken with cancer and has been hounded by death threats and charges of ‘Islamophobia'”.

We’re genuinely regretful about her medical condition; the longer Oriana Fallaci is on this earth spouting her foul racist poison, the more the true motivations of the Islamophobes are exposed.

LA Weekly, 15 March 2006

Use the LA Weekly Feedback facility to let them know what you think about this ultra racist garbage being given credibility.

Islamophobia Watch articles on Oriana Fallaci here.

Is Muslim immigration to Europe a conspiracy?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In The Force of Reason, the controversial Italian journalist and novelist Oriana Fallaci illuminates one of the central enigmas of our time. How did Europe become home to an estimated 20 million Muslims in a mere three decades?”

More racism in the form of wacko conspiracy theories in LA Weekly, 15 March 2006

For a comment by American socialist Louis Proyect, in which he attacks the “left” Islamophobia that is as rife in the US as it is in the UK, see here.

Fascists launch election leaflet

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP council electionsThe British National Party have launched their leaflet for the May council elections. It reads:

“Terrorist atrocities in London, militant marches on our streets and ‘preachers’ calling for the deaths of normal British people simply because they don’t follow Islam. This is not some nightmare vision – but the reality of Islamic extremism in Britain today, yet our government do nothing but pander to these people.

“The BNP say enough is enough! We are the only people speaking out against the dangers of the Islamification of Britain. If you want to make Blair and Co hear you [sic] voice, vote BNP, and use this election as a referendum on Islam.”

BNP news article, 14 March 2006

Top US evangelist targets Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pat RobertsonOutspoken US Christian evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson has accused Muslims of planning world domination, and said some were “satanic”.

On his live television programme, The 700 Club, he said radical Islamists were inspired by “demonic power”.

He went on to say that “Islam is not a religion of peace”, and “the goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen whether you like it or not, is world domination”.

BBC News, 14 March 2006