“Last month’s bombings seem to have changed so many attitudes – and yet still, it would seem, some of the most mainstream Muslim leaders refuse to face up to extremism. Last night’s Panorama documentary on the leadership of the Muslim Council of Britain and the views of leading British Muslims gave some indication of the distance the Muslim establishment still has to go.”
The Evening Standard takes up John Ware’s attack on the MCB.
US Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph has been sentenced to life in prison for the attack on the 1996 Atlanta games, which killed one person and injured 111. Rudolph, 38, received life terms for the Atlanta bombing and attacks on an abortion centre and a gay nightclub. In July he was sentenced to life for bombing an Alabama abortion centre. Rudolph, who is suspected of links with white supremacists and describes himself as a devout Christian, had used his trial to portray himself as a campaigner against an immoral government.
We look forward to seeing numerous headlines reading “Christian terrorist sentenced”, while Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer will no doubt provide us with articles, backed up with relevant quotes from the Bible, explaining how Christianity is a religion that encourages its adherents to embrace political violence.
“The row between the Muslim Council of Britain and the BBC intensified last night as the corporation accused the MCB of putting pressure on interviewees on a controversial Panorama documentary to withdraw from the programme.”
For Iqbal Sacranie’s response to last week’s Observer attack on the MCB, see here.
The Observer also includes “a selection” of the responses they received to last week’s witch-hunt of the MCB. See here. Read it and ask yourself, does this selection reflect an earlier statement by Rafael Behr at the Observer blog that “the overwhelming balance of correspondence we have received has been towards defence of the MCB and anger at the tone and content of our story”? See here.
“A Muslim accused of anti-Semitism is to be appointed to a government role in charge of rooting out extremism in the wake of last month’s suicide bombings in London.”
The witch-hunt of the MCB continues, with an attack on Inayat Bunglawala.
Britain’s most powerful Islamic body is “in denial” about the prevalence of extreme views among its members, one of its founders has told the BBC. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) pledged to tackle extremism “head on” after the 7 July attacks in London. But in a BBC Panorama special, Mehbood [sic] Kantharia and other prominent British Muslims question the MCB’s commitment to meeting this challenge.
The MCB has branded the programme “deeply unfair” and a “witch-hunt”. Secretary general Sir Iqbal Sacranie said Panorama had used “deliberately garbled quotes in an attempt to malign the Muslim Council of Britain”. He said it had “the barely concealed goal of drawing British Muslims away from being inspired in their political beliefs and actions by the faith of Islam”.
“It is unfortunate that just when Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims are beginning to make progress in terms of their political participation in the mainstream, there are those who are purposefully trying to sabotage that process,” he added.
“At last, a Christian leader breaks the deafening silence that, for too long, has muzzled those whose duty it was to speak out on behalf of the values of western society. The courageous comments of the Rev David Lacy, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, condemning the Islamist ‘hypocrites’ who treat their hosts as ‘enemies’ while leeching off the National Health Service, will find an echo among many of those people who fill his church’s pews – just as they will no doubt be deplored by voices within the liberal Kirk establishment. We say ‘courageous’ because, in recent decades, a climate has been generated, across all the Christian denominations, enforcing a liberal orthodoxy on church leaders from which they deviate at their peril.”
Editorial in Scotland on Sunday, 21 August 2005
Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer applauds this as a welcome example of “anti-dhimmitude”.
A member of the Muslim Council of Britain has insisted he would sit on a government task force aimed at tackling Islamic extremism and denied suggestions he was anti-Semitic. But Liverpool Riverside MP Louise Ellman said the invitation should be withdrawn until Mr Bunglawala explained comments he made about Jewish influence in the British media.
She said: “I am calling on the Home Office to withdraw its invitation and I’m asking Mr Bunglawala to clarify his statements about Jewish people in the media. I heard him on the Radio 4 Today programme recently and he said that there are ‘highly-placed friends of Israel’ in the media.”
Scotland’s most senior churchman says extremist Muslim clerics should leave the country, and has branded them “hypocrites” who treat their neighbours as “enemies”. Church of Scotland Moderator, Rev David Lacy, also accuses radical Islamists of speaking out “against us from within” while receiving “heart operations and care on our system”.
Muslims rebuff Tebbit’s rant on culture
Morning Star, 20 August 2005
Muslims condemned a primitive attack on their culture from crackpot Tory bigot Lord Tebbit yesterday.
The Tory former chairman denounced multiculturalism and claimed that there had been “no real advances” in art, literature or science in the Muslim world in the last 500 years. The venomous peer proclaimed that the London bombings may never have happened if the nation had listened to his demand 15 years ago that British Asians must pass the “cricket test” and support the England team. In an interview with ePolitix.com, he claimed that multiculturalism was now in danger of undermining British society.
The Muslim Council of Britain accused him of a “blinkered and dangerous” attempt to reduce the terrorism problem to simply blaming multiculturalism. The spokesman conceded that science had not progressed in the Muslim world as it had in the West. However, this was caused not by Islam itself, but “a restrictive interpretation of the faith by too many Muslims”.
“Tory relic Lord Tebbit claims, in his mindless diatribe against Islam, that communities have to look forward alongside other communities rather than backwards to where they came from. In saying this, he exemplifies his own backwardness by harking back to a society that he imagines existed in Britain before multicultural society. In fact, such a society hadn’t existed for at least 2,000 years. People from different cultures, with different religions and mother tongues, had arrived and settled throughout that time. They became part of society while retaining respect for their roots and keeping alive aspects of their own cultural heritage.”
Morning Star, 20 August 2005