Tarek Fatah claims Dalai Lama is Islamist dupe … for sharing platform with Tariq Ramadan

The Dalai Lama will join controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan in Montreal on Wednesday for a conference on world religions and peace in the aftermath of 9/11.

But rather than promising inspiration in a world plagued by religious tumult, the conference has already stirred up controversy and dissension as critics charge that the Dalai Lama is being duped into promoting Islamc fundamentalism.

The Second Global Conference on World’s Religions After Sept. 11 is being organized by McGill University and the Université de Montréal and organizer Arvind Sharma, a professor of comparative religion at McGill, says the goal is to debate how religions can contribute to peace in the world.

He is also hoping to have the participants adopt three resolutions, including one that says violating the sanctity of the scripture of any religion amounts to violating the sanctity of all religions.

To Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, this is just a way of saying religions are above reproach and tacitly endorsing Sharia, or Islamic law, and he is furious the Dalai Lama would be asked to support that.

“This is a sugar-coated attempt by Islamists to co-opt other religious leaders being asked to come here in good faith,” said Fatah, a critic of Ramadan who, he charges, masks his true views of Muslim fundamentalism behind a fake facade of moderation.

Montreal Gazette, 6 September 2011

Yes, that’s the same Muslim Canadian Congress that recently joined the EDL-supporting Jewish Defence League in a protest against Muslims being allowed to pray in Toronto schools.

Update:  See “Stop painting religions in image of their destructive followers: Dalai Lama”, CTV, 7 September 2011

 

Anders Breivik’s ‘spider web of hate’ includes Melanie Phillips

Melanie Phillips Jihad in BritainOver at Comment is Free Andrew Brown introduces a Linkfluence map based on a list of the websites to which Anders Breivik’s manifesto provides links and the sites to which they link in turn. Maybe I’m just a technophobic old fart, but I’m not convinced that this adds much to our understanding of the ideological inspiration behind Breivik’s terrorist acts.

Brown’s own interpretation of the data is hardly flawless either. He states that it is particularly “unfair to blame Melanie Phillips” for Breivik’s crimes, adding: “Although she was cited by Breivik at length for an article claiming that the British elite had deliberately encouraged immigration in order to break down traditional society and she has written that ‘Bat Ye’or’s scholarship is awesome and her analysis is as persuasive as it is terrifying’, she has also argued, with nearly equal ferocity, against the ‘counter-jihad’ belief that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.”

But Phillips’s definition of a “moderate Muslim” is highly restrictive to say the least. The one prominent Muslim she has a good word for is Irshad Manji, whom Phillips applauds for “her passionate defence of Israel and her attack on the lies told about it by the Arab world”. And that’s how you get to qualify as a “moderate Muslim” as far as Mad Mel is concerned. Show the slightest hostility towards Israel and you’re an extremist. She even accused Ed Husain, of all people, of having “adopted the very narrative and rhetoric that are driving Muslims to mass murder” after he criticised the British government for failing to condemn Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. This position may not be quite identical to “the ‘counter-jihad’ belief that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim”, but the difference is clearly marginal.

And while nobody is accusing Phillips of supporting Breivik’s terrorist attacks, the reality is that it was her inflammatory rhetoric, along with that of Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, which helped fill him with the hatred that led to those attacks. Just try reading through Phillips’s Daily Mail article that Breivik reproduced in full in his manifesto. According to Phillips, the then Labour government had “engaged upon a deliberate and secret policy of national cultural sabotage”, having “secretly plotted to flood the country with immigrants to change its very character and identity”, in “an act of unalloyed treachery to the entire nation”. This is the language of the far right, given legitimacy through its appearance in a mainstream newspaper under the by-line of a well-known journalist.

Paraphrasing Phillips’s own attack on Ed Husain, you can only conclude that her Daily Mail article adopted the very narrative and rhetoric that drove Breivik to mass murder.

Wilders’ PVV will boycott parliamentary debate on xenophobia

Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam party PVV will boycott any eventual parliamentary debate on xenophobia, MP Joram van Klaveren is reported as saying in Trouw. GroenLinks MP Tofik Dibi said this summer he plans to call for such a debate in relation to the Norwegian killings but has not yet done so.

Other parties support the debate, but not in connection to events in Norway. Trouw says they would prefer to discuss the issues as part of the general debate on the queen’s speech and government policy following the presentation of the cabinet’s 2012 spending plans later this month.

Van Klaveren said the PVV sees no merit in any debate and will not attend.

Dutch News, 7 September 2011

See also “De Pers: Do we really have to talk about this?”, Dutch News, 6 September 2011

Billboards tell stories of Michigan Muslims

CAIR American Muslims billboard

Billboards are going up around Metro Detroit highlighting contributions by Michigan Muslims as the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks nears.

The “Remember Through Service” campaign by the Council on American-Islamic Relations – Michigan will run for a month. The billboards are up in Wayne and Oakland counties, and a third will be up by this weekend on the Lodge near Seven Mile Road.

“As we reflect on the 10th anniversary of the national tragedy of 9/11, it is important for all Americans to recognize the positive contributions that Muslims have always made to our society,” CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid said. “Our fellow Americans need to know that we are first responders, law enforcement officers and military veterans who serve and protect our nation like citizens of other faiths.”

The billboards feature a doctor who was a first responder at Ground Zero in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001; a Detroit police officer; a Wayne County assistant prosecuting attorney; an assistant principal in a Canton public school; a Vietnam veteran; and a volunteer doctor at a free medical clinic in Wayne.

The campaign is designed to tell the stories of Michigan Muslims and their contributions to society, Walid said.

Detroit News, 7 September 2011

See also CAIR press release, 7 September 2011

EDL members protest outside Bedford prison

Political activists have gathered outside HMP Bedford in a show of support to their leader who is currently remanded in the jail.

Around 30 members of the English Defence League (EDL) were stood near to the entrance of the prison in St Loyes Street with pictures of Tommy Robinson claiming his human rights are being breached.

Mr Robinson is currently on hunger strike in the prison after he allegedly broke his bail condition by attending a demonstration of the EDL in Tower Hamlets over the weekend.

One EDL supporter, Dave Hedges of Dunstable said: “Why shouldn’t he be able to speak? Tommy Robinson is being persecuted and we are all here to show our support to a great bloke.”

Bedfordshire News, 7 September 2011

Bomb threat against Murfreesboro Islamic Center

Not WelcomeAuthorities say an anonymous caller threatened to detonate a bomb inside a mosque in Tennessee on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

According to a police report, an unidentified person made the threat Monday in a voicemail left at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. The report says the message included extreme profanities and derogatory remarks toward Muslims.

Murfreesboro Police spokesman Kyle Evans told The Associated Press on Wednesday that security at the mosque has been increased and that marked and unmarked vehicles are patrolling the area. Evans says federal authorities are helping in the investigation.

The mosque has been the target of vandals who defaced signs at the site where it plans to build a bigger site of worship. Last year, arsonists also torched construction equipment there.

Associated Press, 7 September 2011

See also Daily News Journal and News Channel 5.

And see “Tenn. 9/11 event features anti-Islamic speakers”, Associated Press, 7 September 2011

Berlin court rules far-right posters can remain

NPD election posterA Berlin court ruled Wednesday that campaign posters for the far-right National Democratic Party with the slogan “step on the gas” may remain on display.

The placard is one of several the far-right party is using in an effort to attract votes for upcoming Berlin state elections. One shows caricatures of Muslim immigrants on a flying carpet with the slogan “have a nice flight home.” Another bears the slogan “step on the gas,” with a picture of the party’s leader on a motorcycle.

Berlin’s Kreuzberg district had ordered the posters taken down, saying they violated German incitement laws. But the Berlin state court ruled Wednesday that the posters were protected under freedom of speech laws. It noted that although the “step on the gas” poster “could well be intended to arouse associations with Nazi atrocities,” it could also have other meanings.

Associated Press, 7 September 2011

Allen West promotes anti-mosque film

Sacrificed SurvivorsWASHINGTON — Florida Congressman Allen West, no stranger to controversy for his remarks about Muslim-Americans, on Wednesday renewed the debate over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York, just days before the country marks the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

West, who sponsored the screening of a movie about the opposition to the Islamic center, said he hosted the event because he believes the center’s backers have a moral responsibility to honor the wishes of the families of the victims of the attacks who don’t want it near what will soon be a public memorial to those killed.

“If 10 years, or nine years after Pearl Harbor, if the country of Japan had come to the United States of America and said ‘we want to erect a memorial to Japanese naval seamanship at Pearl Harbor’, what would we have said?” West said. “Decades from now, centuries from now, we must remember what happened on Sept. 11, 2001.”

The film, “SACRIFICED SURVIVORS: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mega Mosque,” was produced by Martin Mayer of the Christian Action Network, and shown in a conference room in the Rayburn House Office Building across from the Capitol.

The film’s producers bill their movie as a depiction of how “survivors and family members are experiencing yet another type of Islamic jihad.” Survivors, the filmmakers said, “believe they must work to keep people vigilant and fighting against the march of radical Islam,” including efforts to build the center two blocks from Ground Zero.

At Wednesday’s press event, West was flanked by about a half-dozen relatives of people who died in the terrorist attacks. One man, Bruce DeCell, held up a photo of his son-in-law who was killed on 9/11, and said he wanted to tell people that “we are at war with the Islamic culture.”

West didn’t disagree with him publically, but said he believes there needs to be “a recognition of some concepts, such as Sharia, that are the antithesis of what we believe in here in the United States of America,” he said, referring to a system of Islamic law.

Although billed as a press conference before the film’s screening, most of the people asking West questions were those tied to the movie or participants in a panel the filmmakers and other groups were organizing later in the day.

West didn’t disagree with those asking questions at the event, including one man who suggested that “Islam has a history of building victory monuments on places it has triumphs.”

“Throughout the history of Islamic conquest, you do see the same type of parallels,” West said, citing his recent trip to Israel and Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, a spot sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.

Miami Herald, 7 September 2011

See also “Supporters praise Allen West comments on Islam”, Sun-Sentinel, 7 September 2011

And “Islamic leader blasts Congressman Allen West’s comments”,Sun-Sentinel, 7 September 2011

Update:  See “Allen West brings ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ controversy out of hibernation”, TPM, 8 September 2011

More evidence of Cory Bernardi’s anti-Islamic views

Cory Bernardi (2)The Liberal senator accused of supporting a self-confessed Islamophobic Dutch politician has asked a Sydney Muslim to “publicly denounce” fundamentalist Islam before he corresponded with him.

Arch-conservative South Australian senator Cory Bernardi has been under fire from moderates in his own party for extending an invitation to visit Australia to Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

Yesterday, more evidence of Senator Bernardi’s anti-Islamic views were revealed when the online Muslim forum muslimvillage.com published a letter from the senator to a Sydney Muslim.

Senator Bernardi was responding to concerns expressed by the man about his comments regarding Islam. In the letter he declared Islam had been linked with hate speech, terrorism, gang rapes, racism, segregation and isolationism.

He wrote: “You have identified yourself as an Australian Muslim. I would be interested to know if you subscribe to fundamentalist Islamic practices. If not, I ask then for evidence that you have publicly denounced the above mentioned practices and the preachers who advocate for non-engagement of Muslims and ‘infidels’.”

The Sydney man replied and listed types of extremism associated with other religions.

On August 12, Senator Bernardi wrote another letter stating the man was ”incapable of critically analysing the actions of Islamic fundamentalists”. ”In the absence of your condemnation, one can only conclude you agree with their conduct.”

The Age, 8 September 2011

See also “Is Cory Bernardi Australia’s Geert Wilders?”, MuslimVillage.com, 7 September 2011

Why don’t you join us? EDL responds to Tatchell

UNISON LGBT banner on Tower Hamlets demo
UNISON LGBT Group banner on Saturday’s United East End/UAF demo

I had originally decided to ignore Peter Tatchell’s predictably divisive and disruptive intervention in Tower Hamlets on Saturday (see here and here), on the grounds that giving prominent coverage to an individual publicity stunt by an attention-seeking narcissist would be a distraction from the impressive show of mass unity against the EDL. However, this made me change my mind:

EDL Tatchell Tower Hamlets