Freedom of speech is not absolute – Sivanandan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Institute of Race Relations has reprinted an interesting interview with A. Sivanandan from Race & Class, conducted by the Norwegian Maoist daily Klassekampen.

In connection with the cartoons crisis, Sivanandan points out that “in our time – after Hitler and the Holocaust, in an era of ethnic cleansing and genocide and Islamophobia – the freedom to life comes before the freedom of speech. You cannot use freedom of speech to endanger other people’s lives by incitement to racial, ethnic or religious hatred”.

He also explains Islamophobia as the ideology of western imperialism:

“Racial superiority is back on the agenda – in the guise this time not of a super-race but a super-civilisation on a mission to take the ideals of freedom and democracy, by force if necessary, to the benighted people of the Third World, especially to those who have got oil in their backyards. ( ‘Post-modern imperialism’ Robert Cooper, one-time adviser to Blair and the EU, calls it.) Conversely, western civilisation and its values should be jealously guarded against the pagan hordes now circulating in Europe’s midst.”

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London mayor attacks extradition treaty

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ashfaq AhmadPress Association report, 14 February 2006

Ken Livingstone today blasted a controversial extradition treaty being used to send a British Muslim to face terror charges in the US as “offensive”.

It will also guarantee that Babar Ahmad, a computer expert from Tooting, south London, accused of running websites inciting murder and urging Muslims to fight a holy war, will never get a fair hearing.

“The reality is that anybody who has seen the condition of the American prisons or nature of the the US justice system can not have any confidence that anyone of a Muslim background extradited from Britain can have a fair trial,” Labour’s London Mayor said. “It is offensive.”

His opinion clashes with that of Home Secretary Charles Clarke who approved the extradition under the 2003 Extraditon Act last year.

Mr Ahmad, currently in Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes, is appealing the decision at the High Court on February 20 as civil rights leaders and former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzem Begg step up their campaign for the treaty to be overhauled. They are holding a cross-party meeting at the House of Commons on Thursday.

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Freedom to hate?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Freedom to hate?

By Jamil Hussein

Morning Star, 14 February 2006

The right-wing Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten sanctioned the inflammatory cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed to stir up controversy. The intention was to offend.

It is peculiar that, having succeeded in offending Muslims, the Danish paper and its right-wing counterparts in Europe were angered by the “expected” response and decided to reprint the same images – causing more offence.

In Britain, the issue escalated when a small number of ill-informed Muslims hijacked a march in London with abusive slogans, with the mainstream media depicting them as the voice of Muslims all over – something like assuming that Nick Griffin and his motley crew are representative of all white people.

Even though most Muslims warned beforehand that the reprinting of the pictures would be fodder for the trouble makers, the onus fell on Muslims to explain the backlash and condemn the “extremists.”

There have been subsequent “peaceful” marches, including a 10,000-strong demo on Saturday, but the mainstream press continue to concentrate on the few from the week before.

Having shown restraint in not publishing the caricatures, certain sections of the UK media have seized the opportunity to attack Muslims by focusing solely on the demonstrators and ignoring the initial “cause” of the demonstrations.

So what was the cause? Setting aside Islamic tradition, which bans any images of the Prophet to prevent idolatry, the caricatures themselves were offensive, insulting and provocative.

One of the pictures shows the Prophet with a bomb inside his turban with the Khalimah (the Islamic creed) on his forehead.

The Khalimah is one of the major pillars of Islam, a declaration of faith uttered by all Muslims. “There is no god except Allah and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah.” We Muslims live our religion on a daily basis and try to emulate the prophet, who we believe to be the model human being, in everything that we do.

So the message in the caricature was simple – all Muslims are terrorists, since the founder of the faith was one.

It was not a constructive critique of Islam. Muslims would encourage that kind of discourse.

It was instead pure hate propaganda akin to the caricatures published by the nazis’ Der Sturmer, which evoked the myth that all Jews practised ritual religious murder.

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Contradictions of the Enlightenment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ali provides a corrective to those secularist Islamophobes who uncritically uphold the contribution of “Enlightenment values” to European civilisation:

“How many citizens have any real idea of what the Enlightenment really was? French philosophers did take humanity forward by recognising no external authority of any kind, but there was a darker side. Voltaire: ‘Blacks are inferior to Europeans, but superior to apes.’ Hume: ‘The black might develop certain attributes of human beings, the way the parrot manages to speak a few words.’ There is much more in a similar vein from their colleagues. It is this aspect of the Enlightenment that appears to be more in tune with some of the generalised anti-Muslim ravings in the media.”

Guardian, 13 February 2006

London rally voices anger on Danish cartoons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A rally of over 20,000 packed Trafalgar Square on Saturday 11th February – a further rally is planned for next Saturday by the British Muslim Forum.

The well-organised rally of 11th February was supported by the Muslim Council of Britain with three leading national affliates, Islamic Forum Europe, Muslim Association of Britain and Da’watul Islam – drawing on its UK networks to mobilize the community.

The mood of the rally was angry but dignified. Dr Abdul Bari, Deputy Secretary General of the MCB in his address said that “this peace rally is about solidarity against incitement, against Islamophobia and against the vilification of Prophet Muhammad, peace be on him”.

Dawatul Islam President, Sheikh Mahmudul Hasan Khan, noted,”at this critical juncture in world history, the current controversy presents us with enormous challenges in our efforts to build a global society, which values diversity, and upholds human honour and dignity, regardless of faith or race”.

There was a moving address by the Rev’d Peter Sulston of Churches Together, pledging “we care as Christians about the name of Islam and will work with all our energy to dispel the stereotypes”. Solidarity was also conveyed by Kate Hudson of the CND and Lindsey German, Convenor of Stop the War Coalition.

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone was represented by Lee Jasper, who made a brief but impassioned statement – “we will stand together in this great city”.

Other speakers included Anas Al-Tikriti (MAB), Dr Daud Abullah (MCB), Ismail Patel (Friends of Al-Aqsa), Maulana Shahid Raza (British Muslim Forum), Asghar Bukhari (MPAC), Ismail Satti (Islamic Revival), Yusra Gennoushi (MAB Youth) and Sulaiman Mulla (FOSIS). Dr Kamal Helbawi and Azzam Tamimi also delivered speeches.

MCB press release, 13 February 2006

More disgusting bigotry from Mark Steyn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“From Europe’s biggest-selling newspaper, the Sun: ‘Furious Muslims have blasted adult shop [i.e., sex shop] Ann Summers for selling a blowup male doll called Mustafa Shag.’ Not literally ‘blasted’ in the Danish Embassy sense, or at least not yet. Quite how Britain’s Muslim Association found out about Mustafa Shag in order to be offended by him is not clear. It may be that there was some confusion: given that ‘blowup males’ are one of Islam’s leading exports, perhaps some believers went along expecting to find Ahmed and Walid modeling the new line of Semtex belts.”

Telegraph and Spectator columnist Mark Steyn, upholding the values of western civilisation in the New York Sun, 12 February 2006

Nazis ask ‘Where are the moderate Muslims?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Yesterday we were treated to the sight of about 4,000 ‘moderate’ Muslims plus a few hundred Christian peaceniks holding a protest in Trafalgar Square….  The question has to be asked what about the rest? Yes where were the rest of Britain’s moderate Muslims? … Why did so many Muslims stay away from a protest on their very doorsteps? Is it because the event organisers are not representative of the wider Muslim community?”

The fascists utilise the media’s downplaying of the size and significance of yesterday’s impressive Trafalgar Square rally to imply that the ex-Al-Muhajiroun groupuscule Al-Ghurabaa (an organisation of perhaps fifty people) is more representative of British Muslims.

BNP news article, 12 February 2006

Mohammad cartoon protests aren’t unique to Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The violence linked to cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad is not unique to Islam, experts say, and the protests reflect political and cultural passions more than the faith’s core values.

Looking for distinct features that would make Islam liable for the cartoon-related violence around the world does little to explain it, said the Rev. Patrick Gaffney, an anthropologist and expert on Islam at the University of Notre Dame.

“There are parallel behaviors in every tradition,” he said. “Buddhism has a violent strain despite its pacifism … You think about Hinduism and nonviolence but (Mohandas) Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu.”

Other examples of religious violence involving various faiths abound in recent and past history. But attention has focused on Muslims this year as at least 11 people have been killed in protests in the Middle East, Asia and Africa after the publication of cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammad in newspapers in Denmark and elsewhere.

“You can’t say Islam has a gene for violence,” Gaffney said. “It has to do with the dynamics, political and economic, that are at play right now,” especially in Europe where there has been a long history of anti-Islamic prejudice that represents “an underlying kind of powder keg.”

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Muslims fly flag for peaceful protest against cartoons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Trafalgar Square rallyThousands of British Muslims flocked into Trafalgar Square yesterday to express their anger at the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist.

But they also voiced their rejection of the wave of violent protest that has swept the Muslim world during the past two weeks over the cartoons, first published in a small Danish newspaper.

“This is the Muslim community,” said the rally chairman, Anas Altikriti, of the Muslim Association of Britain. “Not a handful of people claiming vile things like those last Friday.” He was referring to protesters who took to the streets of London with placards embracing al-Qaeda and calling for the beheading of non-believers.

Five thousand men, women and children gathered in the square to listen to an array of speakers. Many shouted “Allah Akbar” (God is great) as people from many faiths addressed the crowd.

The organisers had carefully chosen calm, co-ordinated banners that were lifted in the air to create a sea of white and blue. The messages simply read: “United against Islamophobia, united against incitement, mercy to mankind and Muhammad, symbol of freedom and honour.”

Observer, 12 February 2006

The same issue of the paper features a letter pointing out that “Islamophobia is the new anti-semitism“, though this is more than offset by an article from the appalling Andrew Anthony entitled “The end of freedom?“. Anthony completely ignores the issue of anti-Muslim bigotry as a manifestation of racism, criticises British newspapers for their responsible decision not to re-publish the offensive cartoons, opposes yesterday’s Trafalgar Square demonstration, takes a swipe at multiculturalism, and offers yet another ignorant attack on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Predictably, it’s backed up with the usual favourable references to Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Kenan Malik.