Hijab-wearing women complicit in their own oppression – A.C. Grayling

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When I hear or read an eloquent Muslim woman defending the headscarf or the more extreme forms of covering which, they say, are so liberating, I am reminded of that dangerous idea: the idea of complicity in one’s own repression, the state of willingly accepting and enacting what the oppressor, or the oppressive mindset, dictates….

“Tradition and religion between them – such partners – make shackles of iron. And the shackles are mainly worn by women. They are forged as much in the fires that burn down girls’ schools as in the cool conceit of those who celebrate the fact that an iron shackle can look like a piece of cloth draped over a head.”

A.C. Grayling in the Guardian, 7 August 2008

Muslims ‘not welcome’ at interfaith prayer centre in Genoa

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A proposal to turn a medieval palace in Genoa founded by Crusader knights into a multi faith prayer centre for Muslims, Jews and Christians has run into opposition from local politicians who say Muslims are “not welcome”.

Members of the anti immigrant Northern League – which is part of the centre Right government led by Silvio Berlusconi – said the Genoa council’s plan to use the Commenda di Pre for multi faith prayer was unacceptable.

Francesco Bruzzone, a regional councillor for the Northern League, said Muslims had “no business coming” to the hospital and hostel where crusaders and pilgrims had gathered and said mass before leaving for the Holy Land.”This shows a lack of respect for history” Mr Bruzzone said. He said he had been due to go on holiday but instead had decided to stay in Genoa to protest.

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Let Muslims choose their own committee

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ziauddin Sardar“The government is to set up a board of Muslim theologians. Once established, it will steer the more radical elements of the Muslim community away from violent extremism and issue fatwas on controversial issues such as the position of women and loyalty to the UK.

“This is bonkers! And everyone should know it. Who in our diverse Muslim communities would actually listen to such a board? …

“There is a stench of social engineering and misguided and misbegotten patronage about the project. A steering committee of the government’s favourite Muslim advisers, people who themselves command little respect among Muslims, will be established. The committee will hand-pick ‘theologians’ and weed out extremists, undesirables, and those critical of the government and its foreign policy. Not surprisingly, the whole exercise has generated suspicion. It is doomed to failure….

“There is, however, a particularly Islamic way of rescuing the enterprise. Why not let Muslim communities themselves decide who should be on the board? In Islamic parlance, such an exercise would be shura, or consultation. Muslim communities could nominate their representatives.”

Ziauddin Sardar in the New Statesman, 7 August 2008

Update:  See also Yusuf Smith’s comments at Indigo Jo Blogs, 12 August 2008

Muslim holiday at US factory provokes Islamophobic backlash

Posted on by Bob Pitt

RWDSU logoThe union that represents workers at a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Tennessee has negotiated a contract that substitutes a Muslim holiday for Labor Day as one of the eight paid holidays at the plant.

The provision, which was proposed by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, has delighted the plant’s Somali workers, who account for hundreds of its 1,200 employees. But it has infuriated many outsiders, leading some to denounce Tyson and the union alike.

“You are a union that is proud of achieving a Muslim holiday and prayer room?” one person wrote the union. “A union in the U.S.A., a country based on Christianity. You call yourselves Americans? Have you forgotten 9/11?”

Another wrote: “You had no right to drop Labor Day. Muslim employees must integrate Labor Day into THEIR lives if they are going to live in America.”

Stung by the criticism, Stuart Appelbaum, the union’s president, said the decision was fully consistent with the spirit of Labor Day.

“We in the labor movement have always understood that unions are only strong when we work to protect the dignity of all faiths, and that includes Muslims,” said Mr. Appelbaum, who also serves as president of the Jewish Labor Committee.

“What we negotiated was the will of the workers,” said Mr. Appelbaum, who added that his was the first union to negotiate a paid day off for a Muslim holiday and that he was sure Tyson would not be the last employer to agree.

New York Times, 6 August 2008

Over at Front Page Magazine Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch warns that this represents one more step down the slippery slope towards the Islamisation of the USA: “The problem is that the accommodation of Islamic holidays and practices abets, however unwittingly, an avowedly supremacist agenda that is directed toward supplanting American laws and mores and imposing Islamic law here.”

And the inimitable Debbie Schlussel writes: “Well, folks, here it is – the beginning (or maybe the middle) of the end of America as we know it…. Since I keep kosher, I don’t eat Tyson Foods products anyway, but I call on you my readers to boycott the company. It’s absurd to replace labor day with the holiday of those bent on our destruction. Any company that does that doesn’t deserve your business.”

Boris cancels Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ramadan 5Ken Livingstone has told his Leftwing supporters in City Hall to hang on in there, however unpleasant it may be working for a Tory Mayor such as Boris Johnson, because he intends to be back in 2012.

Among those who probably will not be able to survive the regime change at City Hall is the Lokahi Foundation, an outfit with extremist Islamist links that boasts academic Tariq Ramadan as a leading light.

Almost half a million pounds of council taxpayers’ money was handed over to its coffers under Ken. “The funding agreement ran out in July 2008 and I understand that all payments have been made,” says a City Hall spokesman.

Ramadan, Lokahi’s “Senior Research Fellow”, sparked controversy in the mayoral elections by signing a letter urging Muslims to vote for Livingstone without declaring the £450,000 his organisation had been paid by the then Mayor. He has been denied entry to the United States in the past because of allegations concerning his terrorist sympathies.

“Our funding has run out from the Greater London Authority,” Lokahi’s director, Gwen Griffith-Dickson, tells me. “There might be a problem about Tariq Ramadan’s personal letter urging people to vote for Ken Livingstone and the tug of war over some of his comments but he is one of a team.”

Evening Standard, 6 August 2008

Dawkins blames Muslims for ‘importing creationism’ into classroom

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dawkins God DelusionDevout Muslims are importing creationist theories into science and are not being challenged because of political correctness, one of the country’s most famous scientists said tonight.

Professor Richard Dawkins argued that as a result teachers were promoting the “mythology” of creationism over the science of evolution.

Professor Dawkins, a geneticist and author of the best-selling book The God Delusion, said:

“Islam is importing creationism into this country. Most devout Muslims are creationists – so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught. Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more but it doesn’t want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come.”

He added: “It seems as though teachers are terribly frightened of being thought racist. It’s almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country because if you do you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic.”

Daily Mail, 4 August 2008

On the other hand, there are those of us who would argue that paranoid delusions about the impact on educational policy of a minority faith community who comprise less than 3% of the population of the UK are quite accurately categorisable as Islamophobia.

See also the Daily Telegraph, which reports: “Prof Dawkins said the failure in classrooms meant religious fanatics had a chance to get hold. ‘Because we are all brought up to respect faith, it leaves open a gap through which fanatics can charge’, he said.”

Update:  Predictably, Dawkins’ views are approvingly reproduced by the British National Party. Of course, the BNP’s own position is that they’re defending “Christian civilisation” against Islam. But they’re prepared to overlook minor differences like that when it comes to whipping up hatred against Muslims.

Update 2:  See Terry Sanderson, “Is Bob Pitt a new McCarthy?”, National Secular Society, 8 August 2008

Policy U-turn on hijab in Irish schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Department of Education outlined its policy on students wearing hijab in a letter to a Dublin school as long ago as 2005. It told a Dublin teacher that she should allow a student to wear the hijab, a Muslim headscarf covering the head but not the face, during PE.

The clearly defined policy contrasts with the lack of guidance given to a principal in Gorey Community School last year when the same issue arose. He was told that it was up to the school’s board of management to decide whether pupils could wear Muslim headdress.

The advice issued in 2005 is contained in a letter released under the Freedom of Information Act. Brian Hayes, Fine Gael’s education spokesman, said it showed that the department had shifted opinion on the wearing of the hijab since first issuing advice three years ago. “It shows that instead of drawing up clear guidelines and sticking to them, the department has just confused its position in the intervening period,” he said.

In 2005, Matthew Ryan, the principal officer in the department’s post-primary administration section, issued a clear directive to Our Lady’s Grove in Goatstown. In a letter he stated: “Where a school admits a person of a religious denomination but then seeks to impose a dress code requirement which runs contrary to that student’s religious beliefs, it may constitute unlawful discrimination against that student.”

The letter states that the Equal Status Act 2000 prohibits a school from discriminating against a student on religious grounds. “It follows that this department would expect schools to allow students of that denomination to wear the hijab and indeed it is our understanding that this approach is being followed by schools,” the department wrote at the time.

Liam Egan, the father of the girl from Gorey Community School whose wearing of the hijab prompted her principal to seek advice from the department, said that equality legislation had not changed since 2005. “The law has not changed, so why has the department changed its position? Since 7/7, this has become more of a political issue. My daughter wore the hijab all through her first year in school and it was not contentious. Then, at the end of the year, it suddenly became an issue,” he said.

Sunday Times, 3 August 2008