George Bush and the “right-wing neo-con establishment” have promoted a “clash of civilisations” between Muslims and the West, Ken Livingstone has said. The London mayor made the remarks at a TUC fringe meeting in which he called for vigilance against a growing threat from the British National Party. He warned that if certain ideas were allowed to grow in a society, such as that a clash of civilisations was inevitable, then groups such as the BNP were able to exploit the situation.
Diary of a British man on hunger strike in Guantánamo
More than 200 detainees are starving themselves to protest against conditions at the camp in Cuba where they are being held without trial. The Independent on Sunday publishes a shocking extract from the journal of Omar Deghayes, a British resident, who has been imprisoned there since September 2002.
How militant Islamists are infiltrating Britain’s top companies
Shiv Malik continues his witch-hunt of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Independent on Sunday, 11 September 2005
Update: For Yusuf Smith’s demolition of Malik, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 12 September 2005
Jihad Watch backs WPI
Robert Spencer returns to the protest against the establishment of Islamic family arbitration bodies in Ontario. He approvingly quotes Homa Armojand of the Worker Communist Party of Iran, the co-ordinator of the protest, who claims that the lobby to allow faith-based arbitration for Muslims is “not a coincidence, but part of a global move pushed by leaders of political Islam who need validation from the government of the West”. Spencer also endorses Arjomand’s attack on Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty: “McGuinty flirting with political Islam is playing a dangerous game. He is putting the lives of women and children in jeopardy. Shame.”
Dhimmi Watch, 11 September 2005
This is not the first time that the WPI has received Spencer’s backing. A couple of months ago, he gave his seal of approval to a speech by Maryam Namazie. It is clear that the hysterical Islamophobia of the WPI, just like that of Outrage! in Britain, dovetails neatly with the right-wing anti-Muslim bigotry of Jihad Watch.
Australian Muslims condemn terror, anti-Islam hysteria
Australian Muslims condemned on Sunday, September 11, terrorist attacks against civilians and pledged loyalty to the country, while accusing new anti-terror measures of fueling anti-Muslim hysteria.
“These were warriors from an Islamic background that hijacked Islam,” Keysar Trad, the president of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, told the National Security and Harmony Summit in Sydney University Sunday, reported Agence France Presse (AFP).
“They hijacked our lifestyle and our freedoms. And the spin machine of Western governments is exploiting these hijackers of Islam, these murderers.”
Australian Muslim leaders gathering for the meeting observed a minute of silence to remember the victims of 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, which claimed almost 3,000 lives.
Islam Online, 11 September 2005
See also ABC News, 11 September 2005
Appease zealots at your peril
A fateful kowtowing to Muslim sensibilities began with the Rushdie affair, writes David Selbourne – author of The Losing Battle with Islam (forthcoming).
Mad Mel discovers ‘The monster in Britain’s midst’
“No fewer than three separate and deeply disturbing stories in today’s newspapers serve to confirm that Britain’s core values are not only now under sustained and entrenched assault from a section of its Muslim minority but that its governing and intellectual class remains unable or unwilling even to grasp the nature and extent of the threat.”
Double standards against Muslims and Islam in Canada
“The polemic on the possible introduction of the so-called sharia law in Ontario … highlights the double standards against Muslims and Islam. It exposes the polarizing methodologies of our media. It tests the Dalton McGuinty government’s commitment to the core liberal-democratic principle of the equality of all citizens. The dominant theme of the news coverage is clear: Medieval Muslims want to import the misogynistic Islamic penal code to Canada. And Queen’s Park is crazy to even consider it. There are sub-themes: Muslims have been plotting for long to supplant our secular laws with Allah’s. They are using multiculturalism to undermine it. Why would we let them, given what they do to women in Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, etc.?”
Haroon Siddiqui in the Toronto Star, 11 September 2005
Siddiqui asks: “why are journalists drawn to the same handful of critics? … Is it that the critics are media savvy? If so, it only confirms our vulnerability to manipulation. Or, is it that the critics are saying what the journalists want to hear? It seems so. Is it an accident that the only Muslims the media idolize are those who attack Islam or the broader Muslim community?”
Of course, some of the most prominent “Muslim” opponents of the Ontario proposal, who have been boosted by the Canadian media, are not Muslims at all, but members of the Islamophobic sect, the Worker Communist Party of Iran.
Jihad Watch applauds Peter Tatchell
A UK supporter of Jihad Watch reports on a protest in London against the proposed introduction of Islamic arbitration bodies in Ontario: “there were only about 15-16 people, mostly men, including a reporter from Canadian television”.
Dhimmi Watch, 10 September 2005
Not to worry, though – they took turns to address each other on the iniquities of the Ontario proposal: “representatives from Sharia.com, the International Committee against Stoning, the British Humanist Association, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and Peter Tatchell made speeches. There was also a guy from a gay and lesbian association there. They basically made the same objections to Sharia law that we’ve all seen here at Jihad Watch/Dhimmi Watch”.
Perhaps Outrage, GALHA and their co-thinkers might consider organising a UK visit for Robert Spencer? After all, they have so much in common.
Not a fanatic after all?
The Sun thinks he’s dangerous and the US won’t let him in, but he is welcome at Oxford and the Home Office wants him as an adviser. Andrew Hussey interviews the Muslim thinker Tariq Ramadan.