“… yesterday evening, as the BBC multi-culti propaganda machine was spewing out its usual ‘wonders of diversity’ fantasies, Nick Griffin was speaking to BNP members from Beeston, who were attending a Leeds BNP meeting to reveal the truth about life for Christians in general and the English in particular in what young Muslims now proudly call ‘the Terror Capital of Britain’. Local people whose families have lived in the area for generations face daily acts of vandalism to their cars and homes, anti-white racist abuse, threats and violence. Time after time they have told visiting reporters and TV cameras what they and their friends have to suffer at the hands of the thugs among their ‘peaceful’ Muslim neighbours, and time after time they have found their plight ignored.”
The Sun interviews Tariq Ramadan
British people must reach out to the Muslims’ – Academic Tariq Ramadan
One hero of young Muslims is Tariq Ramadan, the controversial Islamic thinker banned by America and briefly by France. Prof Ramadan is Scotland Yard’s favourite Muslim and has been invited to address a conference of young supporters in London on Sunday. Despite US suspicions of terror links, the Home Office believes he is a voice of moderation. The Swiss-born academic, who is of Egyptian descent, urges hardline Muslims to modernise and embrace the modern world.
But in an astonishing interview with The Sun’s Political Editor Trevor Kavanagh he accused Tony Blair and George Bush of fanning the flames by invading Iraq and failing to give Palestinians a homeland. And he insisted it was the job of the British public to “reach out” to Islamic communities if they are to avoid further catastrophes.
Prof Ramadan condemned the fanatics who turned four young Muslims into weapons of self destruction in London with suicide bombs on three Tube trains and a No30 bus. He told The Sun: “To kill innocent people by suicide bombing is to be condemned. We have to understand what is going on in Palestine and Iraq. In the context of injustice and people being killed, we can explain. To explain is not to justify. There is no justification. But if you want to solve the problem it is wrong to say, ‘We condemn’ and that’s it. That means we keep silent on the oppression people are facing. Our silence is promoting their violence. Resistance can be legitimate. There is nothing in Islam that says the ends justify the means.”
Boris Johnson on Islam
“What makes modern Islam so politically troublesome is that some Muslims can be induced to take offence not just at an insult to Islam, but at any injustice suffered by one of their co-religionists, and it is this deep personal sense of outrage – scarcely explicable to our post-enlightenment souls – that helps the whacko imams to warp the alienated young men into becoming suicide bombers….”
Boris Johnson outlines his – sorry, “our” – attitude to Islam. He adds: “The proposed ban on incitement to ‘religious hatred’ makes no sense unless it involves a ban on the Koran itself…”
Omar Bakri shoots off his mouth again
Yusuf Smith on the way Omar Bakri’s provocative statements play into the hands of the anti-Muslim press.
Livingstone defends ‘progressive’ Qaradawi
Defying calls by pro-Israeli lobby in Britain to ban Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi from visiting the country, London Mayor Ken Livingstone has defended the prominent Muslim scholar as a “leading progressive Muslim” and blamed decades of western hegemony over the Arab world for recruiting “terrorists and extremists”.
Speaking at his first mayoral press conference Tuesday, July 19, since the terrorist July 7 attacks, Livingstone said he invited Qaradawi to a conference in Manchester next month on means of fighting extremism, the Financial Times reported.
“I believe it (is) important that Britain’s Islamic community hears, through every means possible, condemnation of this [London blasts] from leading Islamic figures and urge them to speak out with all the means they possess on this issue.”
“All information I have received is that [Qaradawi has] condemned the London bombings unequivocally as wholly incompatible with Islam,” he said.
Qaradawi, head of the Dublin-based International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), was quick to condemn the grisly attacks on London, which were carried out by four bombers, including three British-born Muslims, and killed at least 56 people and injured up to 700.
“We were dumbfounded by the grave news of the London bombings which killed tens and wounded hundreds of innocent people who committed no crime,” Qaradawi had said.
His office told IslamOnline.net Tuesday, July 19, that the respected scholar was not expected to show up in the August conference because of his illness.
What motivates the terrorists?
“Again and again we are told that terrorism is associated with poverty and the basic, Qur’anic education provided by madrasas. We are told that the men who carry out this work are evil madmen with whom no debate is possible and who, according to Frank Field on last week’s Question Time, ‘aim to wipe us out’. All links with Iraq and Afghanistan are vehemently denied.
“In actual fact, al-Qaida operatives tend to be highly educated and their aims clearly and explicitly political. Bin Laden, in his numerous communiques, has always been completely clear about this. In his first public statement, ‘A declaration of war against the Americans’, issued in 1996, he announced he was fighting US foreign policy in the Middle East and, in particular, American support for the House of Saud and the state of Israel. His aim, he stated, is to unleash a clash of civilisations between Islam and the ‘Zionist crusaders’ of the west, and so provoke an American backlash strong enough to radicalise the Muslim world and topple pro-western governments.
“Bush has fulfilled Bin Laden’s every hope. Through the invasion of secular Ba’athist Iraq, the abuses in Abu Ghraib, the mass murders in Falluja, America – with Britain’s obedient assistance – has turned Iraq into a jihadist playground while alienating all moderate Muslim opinion in the Islamic heartlands and, crucially, in the west. Of course, we must condemn the horrific atrocities these men cause; but condemnation is not enough. Unless we attempt to understand the jihadis, read their statements and honestly analyse what has led these men to blow themselves up, we can never defeat them or even begin to drain the swamp of the grievances in which they continue to flourish.”
William Dalrymple in the Guardian, 20 July 2005
‘Islamic terror Labour failure’ – BNP’s racist leaflet
The British National Party seeks to exploit the London bombings with an inflammatory leaflet.
See also “Getting the message across”, BNP news article, 20 July 2005
Banned (so the Express claims)
“Daily Express crusade [sic] forces Muslim cleric to call off his visit to Britain. Now we want all other preachers of hate thrown out.”
So the Express announces on its front page today.
It seems to have escaped the attention of the paper’s intrepid reporters that Dr al-Qaradawi’s office stated that he never had any plans to come to Britain for a conference in Manchester next month and had no idea that he had even been invited.
But the Express has no hesitation in headlining its piece “BANNED”.
Inside, a double-page spread features pictures of Dr al-Qaradawi alongside Omar Bakri and his sidekick Anjem Choudary.
Where would we be without a free press?
Don’t fear preachers, Ken tells the capital
Don’t fear preachers, Ken tells the capital
By Isabel Oakeshott
Evening Standard, 20 July 2005
Londoners should not get too worked up by radical Muslim clerics living in the capital, Ken Livingstone suggested today.
The Mayor attacked the media for highlighting the activities of preachers such as Omar Bakri Mohammed, who blames the British public for the bombings. Mr Livingstone claimed it was “utter nonsense” to focus on such individuals and stressed that high-profile figures such as Bakri have only a handful of followers.
The Mayor’s comments are likely to be rejected by police and intelligence services, who will point out only small numbers are needed to carry out attacks.
Today the Mayor said: “I do regret the fact that the British media, or some of them, pick on the most minority strand amongst the Muslim community – people whose followers are numbered in tens, not even hundreds, and elevate them to the front page as though these are leading figures of the Muslim community in Britain.
“We have three-quarters of a million Muslims in this city of London, and yet the same three or four totally unrepresentative individuals are always stuck on the front page of the papers. Some of them are serial fantasists. I mean, it’s utter nonsense.”
He spoke out amid mounting calls for Charles Clarke to deport Bakri. Today the Home Secretary was explaining to MPs his proposals for dealing with foreignborn extremists in Britain and will reveal plans for anti-terror laws agreed with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
But ministers admit they do not know how to deal with foreign clerics who won the right to stay in Britain many years ago and now have families here.
Qaradawi – advocate of democracy and women’s rights
“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.”
Hugh Miles, author of the excellent Al-Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World, provides an accurate assessment of Dr al-Qaradawi in, of all places, the Daily Telegraph. This message is obviously not to the liking of the Telegraph‘s editorial staff, who head the article “Two faces of one of Islam’s most important clerics” and append a number of quotes from Qaradawi, drawn from MEMRI and other sources, which are designed to portray him as an extremist.