Incidents of racial violence and harrasment in this, the tenth week since the London bombings.
Debate stirs hatred, Canadian Muslims say
The debate around sharia tribunals in Ontario has led to a phobia about Islam and increased the public’s misunderstanding and hatred of Muslims, according to a coalition of Muslim groups.
The recent polemic around faith-based arbitration has perpetuated negative stereotypes of Islam as oppressive to women, Katherine Bullock, with the Islamic Society of North America, told reporters yesterday. “The debate around faith-based arbitration for Muslims has raised the notion that Muslim values are somehow outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, and Jewish and Christian family law are fine but Muslim family law is somehow oppressive to women,” Ms. Bullock said at a news conference in the ISNA mosque in Mississauga. “Taliban-style Islam in Canada has been invoked as a way to suggest Ontario shouldn’t embrace faith-based arbitration.”
Shiv Malik’s threats
Shiv Malik threatens to sue Yusuf Smith! What a creep.
Sharia is gone but fear and hostility remain
The response to the proposal for Islamic arbitration tribunals in Ontario was another example of “a creeping irrationality in our own public discourse, public opinion and public policy when dealing with Muslims”, Haroon Siddiqui argues:
“Faith-based arbitration for Muslims was not going to be sharia, even if one proponent said so. The term suited the critics just fine. They raised the red herring and the platitudes flowed: Multiculturalism was eroding common values. The line separating church and state was being erased. Theocracy was being grafted onto Canada. As amusing as some of this has been at one level, at another it has been Islamophobic and deeply divisive….”
The Telegraph and Qaradawi
Another rant against Qaradawi – this time by Leo McKinstry.
“Hardline Egyptian cleric … Yusuf Qaradawi’s outlook is suffused with dogmatism, revenge and oppression … Yusuf Qaradawi’s bloodthirsty views … a group of Iraqi, Jordanian and Tunisian writers last year described him as one of the ‘sheikhs of death’ … Qaradawi has openly stated that the punishment for homosexuality should be death”.
The usual sort of rubbish, familiar from the productions of MEMRI and Outrage.
Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2005
Yet, less than two months ago, the same paper published the following characterisation of Qaradawi, by Hugh Miles:
“Although much of what the sheikh says may be hard to stomach by western standards, by regional standards he is a moderate. He condemned the London bombings, just as he quickly condemned the September 11 attacks. He has consistently said that Muslims need to think for themselves, which means they need be free of government control. This is not a message that goes down well with Arab governments.
“Al-Qaradawi has written at least 50 books attempting to reconcile Islam with democracy and human rights and he is one of the most important proponents of women’s rights in contemporary Islam. All this is utterly at odds with the teachings of fundamentalist imams, who see democracy and women’s rights as alien concepts imported from the infidel West. He practises what he preaches: his three daughters are highly educated. Each one holds a doctoral degree in the natural sciences, drives and works.”
So what explains the discrepancy? Well, maybe that Miles – author of an informative study of the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera – actually knows what he is talking about, whereas McKinstry is just an ignorant right-wing bigot.
Mind you, McKinstry has his admirers – Brett Lock of Outrage, for example, gives his wholehearted endorsement to this reactionary hack. See Lock & Load, 15 September 2005
Over a year ago year, US radical Yoshie Furuhashi pointed out that Outrage’s attitude towards Muslims was not so far removed from that of the late Dutch racist Pim Fortuyn, and she expressed anxiety that Tatchell and his co-thinkers might go the whole hog and embrace the racist Right. I think we can now say that this process has largely been completed.
Message to Karen Hughes – there’s no reasoning with Muslims
“The problem with this thinking is that the Muslim world’s position regarding the United States is rooted in fundamental political and most especially religious doctrines that will not be changed by people many of them regard as ‘infidels’ and worthy of death…. has the public relations campaign by some Muslim organizations in America converted us to the belief that they and Islam are mainly peaceful and interested in religious and political co-existence?”
Another right-wing pundit expresses scepticism regarding Karen Hughes’ mission to improve the image of the US among Muslims. Typically, the author makes use of material supplied by MEMRI in order to demonstrate the impossibility of reasoning with these Islamic fanatics.
Two Muslims offloaded from plane as nervous passengers refuse to fly
Jittery British holidaymakers grounded an airliner in Cyprus for nearly a day when two British Muslims alarmed other passengers. The Excel Airways flight from Larnaca to Manchester was due to leave Cyprus on Sunday – the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – but was cancelled after passengers refused to fly amid fears they were being targeted by bombers.
The scare began when two Muslim men, believed to be British of Pakistani origin, boarded the flight. Passengers yesterday said cabin crew became suspicious when one of the men refused to leave the onboard toilet as the plane prepared for take-off. When he finally emerged, he told a stewardess he had been praying. The men were then removed from the aircraft and questioned by police, and the flight was cancelled after many of the passengers remaining on board refused to fly.
‘Radical imam like pope, says mayor’
An Islamic scholar who has been accused of supporting suicide bombers was likened by Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, yesterday to Pope John XXIII. He said that Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Qatar-based imam who is banned from America, was “an absolutely sane Islamist engaged with the world” who believed in democracy and an increasing role for women. “Of all the Muslim leaders in the world today, Sheikh Qaradawi is the most powerfully progressive force for change and for engaging Islam with western values,” Mr Livingstone told the Commons home affairs select committee. “I think his is very similar to the position of Pope John XXIII.”
Daily Telegraph, 14 September 2005
See also “Livingstone Likens Qaradawi to Reformist Pope”, Islam Online, 14 September 2005
Tancredo: scrap ‘Muslim symbol’ at 9/11 site
A congressman is asking the US government to reconsider the crescent-shaped design of the memorial to those aboard a plane hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, because some may think it honors the terrorists. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican, says the design, called “Crescent of Embrace”, could invite “controversy and criticism”. In a letter sent Tuesday to National Park Service Director Fran Mainella, Tancredo said many have questioned the shape “because of the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam – and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists”. In July, Tancredo angered Muslims and others by suggesting on a radio program that the United States could “take out” Muslim holy sites if Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. with nuclear bombs.
Salt Lake Tribune, 14 September 2005
For CAIR’s response, see here.
‘Political correctness trumps justice and common sense’
“Western societies’ fundamental philosophical and ideological structures and institutions including our democratic government, laws and rights and freedoms have derived from and are based on the bedrock of Judeo-Christian perceptions, principles, values, mores and ethics. Though evolving over the centuries, our Western societies have remained true to our Judeo-Christian heritage.
“It has been pointed out in countless news reports, sage and well researched and documented articles and books that there is much within the doctrines of Islam that is incompatible and antithetical to our Western societies. Add to that, the various Islamic edicts against non-Muslims and the often noted mandated obligation on all Muslims to aid in achieving Islam’s manifest destiny of world domination and Islam appears to many to be a very real threat to our Western way of life….
“In the case of lawful and religious based arbitration in Ontario, until now Christians and Jews have had that right. Both Judaism and Christianity as religions and as a Judeo-Christian ethic forming the foundation of our Western society, teach tolerance and respect of others and other religions. Jews and Christians practice what their religions preach in that regard.
“There has never been an issue of discrimination of Jewish or Christian women by Jewish or Christian men, nor even a hint of fear from women that such discrimination or could happen in the context of religious based arbitration or that they might be forced to participate in such process against their will.
“Much has been written of discrimination of Muslim women by Muslim men. The fact that many Muslim women joined the protest against McGuinty allowing Sharia to be a lawful basis for Muslim family dispute arbitration speaks volumes to the concern that discrimination against women in Muslim communities, even Western communities is very real and no safeguards McGuinty was contemplating in that regard would be protection enough for Muslim women.”
Of course, in reality, the participation of “Muslim women” in the protest spoke volumes about the deceitfulness of the Worker Communist Party of Iran.