Fascists hijack Christ for attack on Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP What Would Jesus Do election poster

The extremist British National Party (BNP) is to launch an advertising campaign featuring Jesus Christ. The far-Right party will use the advert which features a bible verse quoting Jesus’ words about persecution, in the run up to the European Elections in June. It comes after the Church of England passed a resolution at its General Synod last month banning clergy from being members of the party.

The advert features a picture of Jesus Christ on the cross and quotes a part of a verse from John’s Gospel (John 15:20) in which Jesus says: “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you”. The verse comes in the context of Jesus’ teaching about love. The advert then asks: “What would Jesus do?”.

In recent years the BNP has used religious rhetoric with increasing frequency. In recent local elections, the party’s literature included copies of the controversial Mohammed cartoons. It also helped establish a “Christian Council of Britain”. The goal is to appeal to those in the population who identify with Christianity, but feel panicked both by “liberal secularism” and the growth of Islam.

In an email sent yesterday to BNP supporters, BNP leader Nick Griffin said: “The British National Party is the only political party which genuinely supports Britain’s Christian heritage. It is the only party which will defend our ancient faith and nation from the threat of Islamification.”

But Jonathan Bartley, co-director of the thinktank Ekklesia said: “This is clearly a gross misrepresentation of both Jesus Christ and Christianity. Jesus was completely opposed to bigotry. He is recorded in the Gospels as challenging those who didn’t welcome foreigners – not as working for their exclusion.

“But the church must critically reflect on how it is aiding the far-Right. Leading figures within the Church of England have become far more vocal recently in their calls to ‘stem the tide of secularism’, and to defend the predominant ‘Christian culture’ of Britain. The uncomfortable fact is that this puts the Church into the position of arguing the same political point about national identity as the BNP.”

Ekklesia, 30 March 2009

Muslim youth organisations denied state funding

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslim organisations find themselves in a strange place in relation to government policy. While being asked to tackle the ‘extremists’ and show leadership, they are denied the very infrastructure deemed necessary for every other provider of services to children and young people.

“While the YMCA and the other successful applicants can apparently be trusted to provide generic services, Muslim organisations seemingly cannot. One must ask whether an equalities impact assessment was carried out as part of this exercise. Funding will evidently be directed to young Muslims as Muslim terrorists, but not when they are mere Muslim young people. There is a name for this: it’s called Islamophobia.”

Muhammad Khan in the Guardian, 31 March 2009

How different things are if you’re a totally unrepresentative, widely despised, but enthusiastically pro-government clique like the Quilliam Foundation, in which case you qualify for a million quid’s worth of taxpayers’ money.

‘Now fire service introduces hijab headscarves for Muslim workers’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fire Service uniformThus the headline to a story in today’s Daily Mail. The report itself is in fact quite neutral, but the editorial staff presumably chose this headline to provoke a particular response among the paper’s readers. And they were not disappointed. Some examples of online comments:

“God, I’m sick and tired of minority splinter groups.”

“Pathetic, the powers at be in this country are fast becoming our enemies.”

“I wonder when the Government will wake up or we will finally elect a Government which represent the majority and not ethnic minorities?”

“If Muslim recruits insist on wearing more than standard fire service uniforms, they can pay for it themselves.”

“another National Disgrace”

“Yet more discrimination against the Indigenous population. Uniform should be UNIFORM, whatever your religion.”

“How can a woman clad in all this flowing garb be expected to fight a fire?”

“Attending a fire with flamable material wrapped around your head – they are just taking the p!ss now aren’t they? However I have no objections to sending as many as possible into burning buildings.”

“Great outfit to burn to death in, Baggy unwealdy and totally unsuited to purpose.”

Though occasionally a voice of reason breaks through:

“Oh for goodness sake, read the article properly. This uniform isn’t for fighting fires in!! It clearly says: ‘The hope is that the uniforms, designed for wearing round the station and for outings such as school trips…’.”

“This is a good idea, it will help integration. The Muslim community are just as keen to get involved in the public services as any other grouping of the population and should be encouraged.”

Århus: Muslim woman refused travel on bus due to veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bus company Arriva said that it was a case of confusion and not racism that led a bus driver to refuse travel to a woman wearing a headscarf.

A Muslim family was shocked when a local bus driver refused to continue driving unless the mother, who was wearing a traditional headscarf, got off the bus.

Århus Stiftstidende newspaper reported that Houria Nouioua, together with her husband and three young children, was told by the young male bus driver that she couldn’t travel on the bus because she was wearing a niqab – a traditional Muslim veil that covers the face.

“The driver said that the rules in Denmark meant he couldn’t carry passengers that were masked,” said the woman’s husband, Mohamed Belgacem. “I was so shocked that she couldn’t travel on the bus. I’ve lived in Denmark for 12 years and have never experienced anything like this.”

The Arriva bus remained at the bus stop for 15 minutes while other passengers became involved in the incident, outraged at the behaviour of the bus driver. “It’s pure racism and discrimination,” said a female passenger who rang the Arriva head office and spoke to an official who instructed the driver to accept the Muslim passenger.

Martin Wex, press manager with Arriva said the driver will not be fired as it was not a case of racism but one of confusion. “The driver said he had heard that masks were forbidden during demonstrations in Denmark and thought that it also applied to buses,” said Wex, who confirmed that in the next issue of the employee magazine rules will be made clear to all personnel.

Copenhagen Post, 31 March 2009

Policy Exchange forced to apologise, takes report off website

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Policy Exchange (1)The right-wing thinktank Policy Exchange has been forced into a humiliating climbdown over its report, “The Hijacking of British Islam”, for making allegations in the report that it now admits were unsubstantiated.

In late 2007 Policy Exchange published the report, reported in the right-wing press without any further fact-checking, that around a quarter of Mosques and Muslim centres of the 100 they visited, were carrying “hate literature”.

Only BBC Newsnight bothered looking further and found that some of the allegations made in the report were refuted by the very organisations accused of selling hate literature.

Policy Exchange has withdrawn the entire report from its website. It has also published this humiliating apology:

The Hijacking of British Islam:
Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre

In this report we state that Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre is one of the Centres where extremist literature was found. Policy Exchange accepts the Centre’s assurances that none of the literature cited in the Report has ever been sold or distributed at the Centre with the knowledge or consent of the Centre’s trustees or staff, who condemn the extremist and intolerant views set out in such literature. We are happy to set the record straight.

Sunny Hundal reports, at Pickled Politics, 30 March 2009

Can we expect that Hazel Blears who addressed a Policy Exchange seminar last July, or Ruth Kelly who provided a foreword to the latest anti-Muslim “report” by Policy Exchange, will now break all links with this discredited right-wing organisation that does so much damage to community cohesion? On balance, probably not.

Europe’s far Right turns towards the Jewish community

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thurrock Patriots

A wave of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric in Europe is being met by a surprising countertrend: right-wing political factions, including those rooted in Nazism, who have embraced Jews and Israel as “the quintessential guardians of European culture.”

So argues Matti Bunzl, director of the program in Jewish culture and society at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who contends that the European far Right is becoming “genuinely philo-Semitic.”

Such parties have thrown their support behind Jewish candidates, have had their leaders appear at pro-Israel rallies, and have written extensively about the virtues of Jews. “It is not an aberration,” said Bunzl, an anthropologist who specializes in the history and culture of European Jewry.

Bunzl cited numerous instances of this newfound fondness for Jews. Austria’s Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis after the war, has run Jewish candidates, and its website “celebrates Jewish contributions to civilization.” Filip DeWinter, a Flemish nationalist in Belgium, whose party grew out of Flemish Nazism, has praised Jews as law-abiding citizens.

One explanation he offers is Islamophobia – antagonism toward Muslim immigrants or Muslims whose families have migrated to European countries in recent generations.

“Even strong support of Israel among the Right is driven by Islamophobia and perception of Israel as a bastion of European civilization,” said Bunzl, author of Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Hatreds Old and New in Europe. For European nationalists, “the Jewish state is trying to preserve its European values against the onslaught of Muslims.”

New Jersey Jewish News, 30 March 2009

Apology call in M65 ‘terror’ arrest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

M65 'terror' arrest

Police chiefs have been urged to give a public apology to the Muslim community in Lancashire over their handling of recent terror arrests. Nine men, from Burnley and Blackburn, were arrested on the M65 near Preston but later released without charge.

At a meeting attended by 200 people on Sunday in Blackburn, Lancashire Police were asked to apologise. Cmdr Andy Rhodes refused to give a full apology but said the incident was “regrettable”.

Ibrahim Master, a former chairman of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said there has been disappointment about the way the men were treated.

Two vans and an ambulance were travelling in convoy to London last month when they were stopped by counter-terrorism officers. Although six men were later released, three faced extended questioning and several homes in Burnley were also searched.

BBC News, 30 March 2009

Nazir-Ali resigns – Mad Mel inconsolable

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips Jihad in Britain“The resignation of Michael Nazir-Ali as Bishop of Rochester is a terrible blow, not just for the Church of England but for Britain.

“…. when Dr Nazir-Ali warned last year that Islamic extremists had created ‘no-go areas’ across Britain where non-Muslims faced intimidation, he was disowned by his fellow churchmen who all but declared that he was a liar – even though he was telling the truth….

“Dr Nazir-Ali is one of the very few inside the church to make explicit the link between Christian and British values, and to warn publicly that they are being destroyed through the prevailing doctrine of multiculturalism….

“With the church refusing to assert itself, this vacuum has allowed radical Islam to promote itself as an influential force in public life. Indeed it is rubbing its hands at the opportunity. And in the longer term that risks destroying our basic values of individual freedom and equality – and with them the identity of Britain itself.

“Dr Nazir-Ali understands this very clearly…. Back in the Eighties, he warned of the rise of radical Islamism. No-one listened. Now he urges an ‘ideological battle’ against fundamentalist Islam, which he likens to the Western struggle against Marxism. But the church still isn’t listening, and is falling over itself to accommodate it instead. Thus Dr Williams’s lamentable statement that there was no reason why sharia law should not be accepted in Britain over certain areas of Muslim life….

“Dr Nazir-Ali’s outspoken opposition to such developments has made him powerful enemies within the church. Last summer, a group of influential churchmen met to work out how to sideline those ‘aggressive’ Christians who were ‘increasing the level of fear’ by talking about the threat from radical Islam. Among those in their sights was the Bishop of Rochester.

“In any sane world, Michael Nazir-Ali – a church leader whose intellect is matched by his courage and insight – should be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury to defend our society at this most dangerous time. Instead, he is out.”

Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail, 30 March 2009

See also “The resignation of Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali is a victory for Islamism” by Damian Thompson.

For a rather different take on the issue, see Sunny Hundal’s comments at Pickled Politics.

Government moves to isolate MCB

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mosques and local Muslim community groups are to be given money and direct access to government ministers under a radical plan to isolate Britain’s largest Islamic organisation, which the Government accuses of endorsing violent extremism.

The Government is planning to deny the organisation’s representatives ministerial briefings across all departments in a move designed to undermine its standing among British Muslims.

A Government source told The Times: “The Government is already talking about different ways to engage with the Muslim community instead of just through large organisations. It will deal with regions or trusted individuals. Why do you need to deal with national umbrella bodies?”

The government source said that Dr Abdullah’s endorsement of the pro-Hamas declaration at a conference on Gaza in Istanbul last month threatened to radicalise Muslims and could be used as a justification for attacking Jews and British troops. The declaration celebrates Hamas’s “victory” against “Zionist Jewish occupiers”.

It also states that the “Islamic nation” should regard the foreign warships in Muslim waters “as a declaration of war, a new occupation, sinful aggression, and a clear violation of the sovereignty of the nation. This must be rejected and fought by all means and ways.”

The source said: “That’s the kind of rhetoric that the London bombers used to justify their attacks. And the message in this case is not coming from the internet or Bin Laden, but from the second most senior guy in Britain.”

Times, 30 March 2009

Posted in UK