“The images of Muslims rampaging over rumors and unproven allegations of ‘Koran abuse’ are troubling – but not because of the behavior of the mobs. What else should we expect from fanatics whose religion justifies a toxic combination of arrogant superiority, spiritual entitlement, and corrosive resentment over history’s repudiation of their inflated estimation of their world-historical role?”
Bruce Thornton at Private Papers, 29 May 2005
Mariam Ali highlights the growing concern felt by Muslims in the UK about the loss of civil liberties being suffered under the government’s ‘anti-terror’ legislation, with a case study of Babar Ahmad, currently awaiting the Home Secretary’s decision on an extradition request by the US.
Lost in translation
By Ken Livingstone
Morning Star, 28 May 2005
Tories on the London Assembly have got themselves seriously hot under the collar about an interview I gave to the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera during the general election campaign.
They alleged, with plenty of huffing and puffing at this week’s Mayor’s Question Time, that I had said that “war has now started between the United States and the Muslims.” They based this assertion on a BBC translation into English from the Arabic translation of what I had originally said in English. I assured the Leader of the Tory group, Bob Neill, that I had said no such thing and that I had in fact warned against a new cold war against Islam.
Bob Neill refused to accept my assurances that the translation was wrong. He paid no attention in the Assembly meeting to my suggestion that he should watch the original interview. Instead he wound himself up into a right old lather, dismissing the notion that the BBC’s transcript from the Arabic back into English may not be accurate as “a fantasy.” Playing to the gallery, his flourishes suggested that I probably thought the BBC was part of a Zionist conspiracy!
Elections 2005 saw Salma Yaqoob come tantalisingly close to becoming Britain’s first ever female Muslim MP.
In a wide-ranging interview, Tariq Pandor finds out more about Salma and her thoughts on the elections and Muslim political participation in the UK.
Thousands of people across the Muslim world have rallied against the alleged abuse of the Koran by US personnel at the Guantánamo Bay military camp. Protesters in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon and Malaysia demanded the US apologise and punish those responsible.
The demonstrations came after the US military admitted some of its guards had mishandled the Muslim holy book. But the camp commander said no credible evidence had been found that the Koran had been flushed down a toilet.
“Oprah Winfrey’s popular print magazine – O – has an ongoing feature named ‘Rescuing the World’s Girls’. O‘s June 2005 edition focuses on the plight of an 18-year-old Palestinian who was tried, convicted and is currently serving time in an Israeli jail for conspiring to perform a suicide bombing. The author, David France, asks the question: ‘What would make a girl take such a radical and grisly step?’ France quotes an author and university professor who asserts that: ‘religion is not the cause [of Palestinian suicide terror]… these are people who define their situation as hopeless. They feel that they have no way to respond against what they see as Israeli military aggression.’
“Incredibly, the lengthy O article completely ignores a main factor behind Islamist terror – the incitement to violence that continually spews forth from Palestinian media and mosques …”
In a pre-emptive strike against what it calls religious fundamentalism, the Quebec National Assembly has voted unanimously to condemn efforts to introduce Islamic tribunals in Quebec and in the rest of Canada.
During the debate yesterday on a motion tabled by the governing Liberals, members from all political parties opposed Muslim groups seeking to apply sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in marriage or other disputes in the Muslim community.
The decision, which drew immediate condemnation from some members of the Islamic community, echoed France’s recent and controversial prohibition of religious symbols in schools.
“In the first of its kind for an event organized by a major national Muslim organization, Kamal Nawash and the Free Muslims Coalition (FMC) recently held the Free Muslims March Against Terrorism. Not surprisingly, the leaders of every other major Muslim organization shunned the march and declined to take a public stand against terrorism and extremism.” So Joel Mowbray claims.
Front Page Magazine, 27 May 2005
According to one report of the 14 May demonstration, only 50 people turned up – see here. So if all the US Muslims who declined to participate in Kamal Nawash’s self-advertising stunt did so because they declined to take a stand against terrorism and extremism, then you can only conclude that virtually every Muslim in the US is a terrorist sympathiser. Which is basically Front Page Magazine’s line.
For some of the reasons why mainstream Muslim organisations didn’t support the “Free Muslims March Against Terrorism” see here and here.
Andrew G. Bostom offers a tribute to “a courageous Dutch Parliamentarian dedicated to the defense of the core Western values”.
The Pentagon admitted last night that it had uncovered five instances of mishandling of the Qur’an at Guantánamo Bay, but it claimed that there was “no credible evidence” that a copy had ever been flushed down the toilet.