Salma Yaqoob poses the question.
My answer, for what it’s worth, is – almost certainly not, Cameron was just making a pitch for Muslims’ votes. After all, this is a man who has attacked multiculturalism on a number of occasions. A 2006 speech by Cameron, which repeated the familiar Cantle-inspired cliche about multiculturalism resulting in communities leading “parallel lives”, was reported under the headline “Ban Muslim ghettos”.
In delivering his speech, Cameron clearly had in his sights a domestic audience, wooing the Sun and the Daily Mail, both of which, in calling for the disciplining of Muslim communities, have promoted a crude British nationalism based on uncritical support for the armed services and military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Only the day before, the Daily Mail had carried a feature attacking two Birmingham Muslim councillors, Salma Yaqoob and Mohammed Ishtiaq, for refusing to participate in a standing ovation for a British soldier awarded the George Cross for bravery in Afghanistan.)
But Cameron’s speech was also intended to send a clear signal to the United States and the European center-Right that Britain would no longer pursue different ethnic minority and race policies from its European counterparts. In particular, Cameron was showing his support for Angela Merkel and her German Christian Democrat party’s idea that security and cohesion are brought about not through integration and pluralism, but through monoculturalism and assimilation into the dominant Leitkultur (lead culture).
Cameron’s speech was reported as a trailer for the up-and-coming government counter-terrorism review and Lord Carlile’s review of the Prevent strategy. And it is here that Cameron indicated to a German security audience support for the German intelligence services’ approach to the compartmentalisng of Muslim organisations into ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’, with greater surveillance of those deemed ‘illegitimate’. In his speech, Cameron promised that the British government would no longer fund or share platforms with Muslim organisations that, while non-violent, were also a part of the problem because they belonged to a ‘spectrum’ of Islamism. While those who openly support terrorism are at the ‘furthest end’ of this spectrum, it also includes many Muslims who accept ‘various parts of the extremist world view’ including ‘real hostility towards western democracy and liberal values’.
In this, what should be feared is that Cameron is indicating that the government’s review of counter-terrorism policy has been greatly influenced by the approach taken by the German intelligence services (Verfassungsschutz) which has at its base a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate Muslim organisations coupled with the most widespread system of religious profiling in Europe.
Liz Fekete analyses Cameron’s Munich speech.
“Although he has not named names, it seems clear that some of the most effective opponents of al-Qaida influence in Muslim communities in the UK are set to be reclassified as extremist and subversive.”
Bob Lambert replies to David Cameron.
Muslims and migrants are being used to distract people from the planned chaos implemented by this unpopular coalition. It is politicking of the worst kind.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown replies to David Cameron’s speech.
The Pew Center on Religion & Public Life recently released a comprehensive study of Muslim populations around the world that should allay fears among many of an impending global Muslim takeover and debunk widely held beliefs about Muslims. The findings of “The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030” should also challenge the public to reconsider its perception of Islam and Muslims.
Skeptics, particularly those in Europe and North America, have long sounded alarm bells regarding the growth of the Muslim population.
Such scaremongers claim that Islam is a demographic threat, warning of an impending “Eurabia” within a few decades. This picture, of a triumphant Islam over a Europe that has lost its Christian roots, has contributed to the growth of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim political parties and to their notable successes in European elections last year. In America, this fear began in the late 1990s with articles that warned “The Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming!” and continued with the recent Park51 debate over a plan to build an Islamic center near ground zero.
This paranoia – based more on fear and misperception – fuels anti-Islam and anti-Muslim hysteria across Europe and North America and undermines our multicultural society.
While Pew finds that the world’s Muslim population is expected to increase from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030, what of an “Islamic wave” across Europe?
Muslims will remain a relatively small minority, but they will make up a growing share of the total population. According to the study, Europe’s Muslim population is projected to grow from 44.1 million in 2010 to 58.2 million in 2030. The greatest rise is expected to be seen in Western and Northern Europe, where Muslims are expected to approach double-digit percentages. For example, in France, the population is expected to rise from 7.5 percent currently to 10.3 percent.
The Muslim share of the U.S. population is projected to grow from 0.8 percent in 2010 to 1.7 percent in 2030, meaning that Muslims will share the same population figures as Jews and Episcopalians. Interestingly, the United States is projected to have a larger number of Muslims by 2030 than any European country, except Russia and France.
Pew’s findings demonstrate that fear of a European Muslim takeover is largely the product of hysteria – France is not destined to become an “Islamic republic” by 2048.
John Esposito and Sheila Lalwani in the San Francisco Chronicle, 7 February 2011
The leader of a newly created anti-Islamic party in Germany said he wants to stop the immigration of Muslims and described Islam as a “totalitarian system” bent on supplanting western liberal values.
In an interview with The National, Rene Stadtkewitz, 46, said Muslims were not integrating into German society as well as other immigrants and that authorities should become stricter, by banning headscarves in school, stopping public funding for teaching young children the Quran and curbing the influence of Islamic organisations.
“Islam is far more than a religion. It’s an entire model of society that is incredibly binding for many people,” he said. “It’s basically a political system with its own legal system that seeks to regulate all aspects of life. We criticise the socio-political component of Islam, which I see as an ideological one similar to other totalitarian systems, and which I think is dangerous.”
He called Islam “the opposite of a free society” and said the faith posed a threat because it sought to instil different values in Germany, and because it encouraged immigrants to segregate themselves.
Mr Stadtkewitz, a former member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), set up his party, Freedom, last October. He had been expelled from the CDU’s parliamentary group in the Berlin city assembly for inviting Geert Wilders, the controversial Dutch Islam critic and head of the Party for Freedom, to Berlin for a conference.
Mr Stadtkewitz said his party now had 1,400 members and was setting up regional branches across Germany. It plans to contest its first election in September when Berlin votes for a new mayor and city parliament. Mr Stadtkewitz said the aim was to cross the 5 per cent threshold needed to obtain seats in the assembly. “If that goes well, we’ll prepare for the general election in 2013,” he said.
He wants a temporary halt to immigration and favours introducing Swiss-style referendums in Germany. He said he would not stand in the way of a public vote on banning the construction of minarets, as Switzerland did in 2009, although he saw such a move as just “scratching at the surface” of the problem.
Mr Stadtkewitz denied accusations that he was a far-right populist. He said his party was espousing mainstream views about Islam and was part of an “uprising” by people across Europe against growing Islamic influence. “Anyone who criticises Islam stands in the centre of society,” he said. “Islam is becoming more visible in western countries and people are starting to rise up against that.”
Outside of Germany, it may be recalled, one of the Freedom Party’s most prominent supporters is Daniel Pipes.
The trial of anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders on discrimination and inciting hatred charges resumed in Amsterdam on Monday with both defence and prosecution saying the entire case should be heard again.
Last October the trial was abandoned after senior court officials ruled several irregularities in the proceedings could be deemed prejudicial. New judges have now been appointed.
The leader of the anti-Islam PVV party faces several charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims, Moroccans and non-Western immigrants.
Wilders took the stand at the end of Monday’s hearing and said the trial is about a “much bigger” issue than him alone. “Freedom is being sacrificed because a totalitarian ideology wants to turn it into a sin,” Wilders said. “It is the duty of free people to resist this.”
One of the Birmingham councillors who snubbed a George Cross hero is embroiled in a new row after being accused of wishing to see people stoned to death if they do not follow a strict Muslim way of life.
Coun Salma Yaqoob was criticised when she refused to take part in a standing ovation for Afghanistan veteran Lance Corporal Matt Croucher. Along with Respect Party colleague Mohammed Ishtiaq, she remained seated in the city council chamber as everyone else in the room rose to give guest of honour L/Cpl Croucher a spontaneous round of applause.
The protest led prominent Liberal Democrat councillor Martin Mullaney to accuse Coun Yaqoob of wanting to see Britain become an Islamic republic. He also suggested that she would have risen to applaud a suicide bomber.
Writing on the Re-Stirred website, Coun Mullaney claimed: “If Coun Yaqoob had her way, she would be implementing Hadood Law, with hands cut off and stonings.” He went on: “I can only assume that if one of the failed 21/7 London suicide bombers had been in the council chamber, Coun Yaqoob would have been demanding the council applaud the failed suicide bomber for their past heroic actions.”
Birmingham Mail, 5 February 2011
See “Mullaney sinks into the sewer”, Salma Yaqoob’s website, 7 February 2011
Update: See “Moseley Lib Dem warned after labelling rival an Islamic extremist”, Birmingham Mail, 10 February 2011
ST. PETERSBURG — Authorities have arrested a 52-year-old man they say committed a hate crime against a man he learned was a Muslim.
According to an arrest affidavit, Bradley Kent Strott, of 4300 58th Ave. N, stabbed the unidentified victim in the neck with a pocket knife on Friday evening.
The two men had been talking about religion when the victim told Strott he was a Muslim, the report said.
“The defendant then became upset, grabbed the victim by his shirt, and stabbed him in the neck with his pocket knife,” a Pinellas County sheriff’s deputy wrote in the affidavit. “The defendant stated that Muslims are the root of the problem,”
The victim required medical treatment, the report said, but his condition was unknown Saturday.
Strott was arrested on a charge of aggravated battery and booked into the Pinellas County Jail late Friday night.
St Petersburg Times, 5 February 2011
See also “Stabbing of Fla. Muslim prompts call to reject Islamophobia”, CAIR press release, 6 February 2011
Tooting’s MP has reacted furiously to David Cameron’s claim yesterday that multiculturalism in Britain has “failed”. In a speech in Germany, the Prime Minister said the Government should no longer tolerate and engage with extremist groups whose members did not believe in crucial western and British values.
But Sadiq Khan, Britain’s most prominent muslim MP who represents thousands who follow Islam in Tooting, claimed Mr Cameron was “writing propaganda for the English Defence League”.
Yesterday, Mr Cameron told the Munich Security Conference: “Let’s properly judge these organisations… do they believe in universal human rights – including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law?”
In reponse to Mr Khan’s comments, Tory co-chairman Baroness Warsi called for an apology. She said: “For Sadiq Khan to smear the prime minister as a rightwing extremist is outrageous and irresponsible.”