Minister told to stay away from Islam event by Labour officials

Posted on by Bob Pitt

expoBritain’s first Muslim minister has been prevented from addressing an Islamic conference after an interdepartmental row over the alleged political affiliations of an organiser of the London event.

Shahid Malik, the international development minister, had been due to speak at the opening ceremony of Islam Expo on Friday evening, alongside the Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes and Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London.

The behind-the-scenes dispute, involving fierce opposition to the event voiced by the Department of Communities and Local Government, lasted for several days, and is understood to have dragged in officials at Downing Street. A spokesman for the department said: “We have reservations about the organisers of the event, therefore we [the government] chose not to send any ministers.”

Around 40,000 people will have attended the four-day event in Olympia, in west London, by the time it closes later today. It featured sessions on Islamic art, cooking and culture, as well as debates.

Hours before the event, Malik contacted Anas Altikriti, one of the directors of the conference, and apologised for the fact that he would not be able to attend.

Malik had accepted an invitation to speak at the opening ceremony. “It seems that by Wednesday he got into difficulty with certain people – within his own party – advising him not to come,” Altikriti said. “Shahid realised the importance of the event and was going to try everything in his power to make it. He realised … how untrue the criticism of the events and the organisers were.

“A few hours before, he informed me that the pressure was mounting from all quarters … After that he called and apologised for not being able to turn up.”

During their discussion, there were exchanges about alleged political support by another of the organisers for the Palestinian group Hamas.

Altikriti said: “It’s quite breathtaking … to ban one of the most prominent Muslim politicians and [stop] him saying what he wishes. [Malik] had been told that among the organisers were people associated with Hamas. This isn’t a Hamas project.”

Asked about his withdrawal, Malik said: “I obviously apologised to the organisers. It was unfortunately due to matters outside of my control.”

Guardian, 14 July 2008

It would be interesting to know who persuaded the DCLG to adopt such a stupid position. Hazarding a rough guess, perhaps Azhar Ali of the Sufi Muslim Council, a tiny and unrepresentative sect whose primary purpose is to poison relations between the government and mainstream Muslim organisations?

Meanwhile, in today’s Independent, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown reports: “Off to IslamExpo 2008 at Olympia where more than 20,000 came and went over two days, an event pre-emptively and roundly condemned by Charles Moore as a showpiece of ‘Islamism’. I usually avoid such jamborees for other reasons – most are too thick with self righteous piety and too disapproving of liberal, secular Muslims.

“Well this time, invited to a debate on radicalisation I turned up, daringly uncovered. Sure enough, those without hijab and niqab were a minority – and my opposition to both is well known. That aside, the hall was infused with charm and courtesy, and controversial subjects were discussed without malice. And when some of us spoke about the importance of moving beyond the siege mentality we even got some applause.

“Jolly rabbis and white families were having a good time, wandering between food shows, media interviews, a garden, human rights stalls and even five-a-side football matches between Muslim teams and Chelsea, Arsenal and other professionals.”

Update:  See also Seumas Milne at Comment is Free, 14 July 2008

TV ignores Muslim extremism (it says here)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Our TV controllers have a tendency to make like the three wise monkeys when it comes to Muslim extremism: hear no evil, see no evil, broadcast no evil. During this year’s 7/7 anniversary it was the great unmentionable. Over the weekend we had a feature-length documentary that invited us to view 9/11 from the point of view of conspiracy theorists. Then, on the day itself, there was a Dispatches special on Islamophobia in the UK, entitled It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim, though ‘It Shouldn’t Happen to a Commuter’ might have been more appropriate.”

Hermione Eyre in the Independent on Sunday, 13 July 2008

Is the burqa compatible with French nationality? Apparently not

Posted on by Bob Pitt

La burqa est-elle incompatible avec la nationalité française? Une Marocaine de 32 ans, mariée à un Français et mère de trois enfants nés en France, vient de se voir refuser la nationalité au motif qu’elle “a adopté, au nom d’une pratique radicale de sa religion, un comportement en société incompatible avec les valeurs essentielles de la communauté française, et notamment le principe d’égalité des sexes”.

Pour la première fois en France, le Conseil d’Etat, dans un arrêt du 27 juin, a pris en compte le niveau de pratique religieuse pour se prononcer sur la capacité d’assimilation d’une personne étrangère.

“Cette affaire montre que le droit est de plus en plus amené à se prononcer sur les conflits de valeurs que pose l’islam à la société”, constate Didier Leschi, ancien chef du bureau des cultes au ministère de l’intérieur, spécialiste de la laïcité.

Le Monde, 11 July 2008

Via Islam in Europe

Update:  See also the Guardian, 12 July 2008 and the Independent, 12 July 2008

And the report has been taken up at the”left-wing” neocon blog Harry’s Place, where it has attracted the usual selection of thoughtful, humane comments. For example:

“It is the perogative of any Government to deny citizenship to immigrants if they feel they will not contribute to society.”

“Bravo France! Now you should put the icing on the cake and deport the entire family.”

“Why be a citizen of a country that you have no interest or knowledge of, but in fact live in complete alienation to?”

“… if I were a Muslim and didn’t want to work, I’d move to London, claim persecution and get benefits. It’s free money rammed down my throat. Not only that, but the native Britons won’t care a whit if I start saying that their country should be more like the country I ‘escaped’ from. In fact, even if I get a bunch of my friends to blow up a train and kill 50+ people, they will defend me, and maybe even give me a bigger house.”

“… the problem is not whether the woman wears the Burqa of her free will, but rather that her desire to be a devout Muslimah may eventually spill over as a desire to impose her norms on the host nation.”

“Judaism is not a proselytizing or supremacist religion while Islam is.”

“The burqa is the 21st century’s swastika armband.”

“The sad thing is the West has become so remiss – if not complacent – in defending its values. It’s a shame this sort of thing does not happen much more often.”

“Yes, the French are right; the UK should have done the same thing years ago.”

“Excellent news. The French judiciary has much more sence [sic] than ours! … citizenship is more than just a recognition of residency, it is membership of a community with a particular history and values. We have lost sight of this in Britain, as the Islamists are well aware.”

“There should be no Burqas in this continent or in this century. I shouldn’t even have heard of the word. Vive la France.”

“Truly devout and reclusive Muslim Women may be good breeding machines, but their contribution to society is at best doubtful. There is a good reason for keeping them out. A woman may breed an indefinite number of jihadis, whereas a man is hopefully only blowing himself up.”

“… the burqua is a reliable flag for strong mainstream Islamic views, which it is not hyperbole to describe as fascist; it’s really that simple.”

“Why on earth would this woman wish to be a French citizen? Surely it stands for so much that she opposes, especially women who think for themselves and live independent lives and flaunt their faces in public. Wouldn’t she be much happier in say, Saudi Arabia?”

“There is no reason to be, on an institutional level, tolerant of the very most intolerant people on Earth.”

Further update:  For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 13 July 2008

Anti-mosque slogan removed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A sheet daubed with an anti-mosque slogan has been hung from a bridge over a main road. Police removed the sheet from a bridge over the A39 which read: “No mosques wanted here”. The sign was placed on a bridge near Carnon Downs in West Cornwall. The sign is thought to be in response to plans to convert a nearby derelict Methodist chapel into an Asian community centre.

Last month we reported how a pig’s head attached to a cross was nailed to the door of the chapel in Quenchwell Road and racist graffiti were scrawled on walls. Police said yesterday that displaying a sign was not an offence in itself but they are examining the sheet for any links to the attacks on the chapel.

Cornish Guardian, 11 July 2008

Posted in UK

Saying ‘Islamic threat’ over and over doesn’t make it real

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Soumaya Ghannoushi2“Pick up any newspaper today in Britain or elsewhere in Europe, switch on the TV or tune in to any radio station, and you’re very likely to get the impression that ‘our societies’ – if not western civilisation in its entirety – face an imminent Islamic threat, on a par with the old dangers of fascism.

“Since the terrorist bombings of New York, Madrid and London, the ‘fundamentalist peril’ has become part of the air we breathe. It has become a rhetorical crutch for everyone from rightwing bigots to opportunistic politicians and repenting ‘former extremists’, each with their own agenda….

“Years of peddled fear and demonisation have had severe consequences: a widening of ignorance and bigotry, deepening mistrust between individuals and communities, and the resurrection of the pernicious language of racism and fanaticism – as journalist Peter Oborne illustrated in his Channel 4 Dispatches documentary earlier this week….

“The much hyped Islamic threat is one of the greatest lies of our time. The ‘Muslim world’ – though no such bloc really exists – is politically fragmented and economically impoverished. It is reeling under the weight of crises and a long colonial legacy. Militarily, it is of scant significance. It is laughable that we should be discussing the Islamic threat when in the past seven years alone two Muslim countries have come under direct military occupation, ending hopes that the world had firmly closed this chapter of history decades ago.

“I suspect many military experts must struggle to keep a straight face every time the subject of the ‘Islamic threat’ is broached. They know that strategic threats are not founded on mere anxieties, imagination and illusions, but on concrete military and political facts. This is not to play down the seriousness of the dangers presented by al-Qaida and other violent groups. But these constitute a security problem to be dealt with through the intelligence and security services. Whatever its braggadocio, al-Qaida does not amount to a strategic military threat, let alone a menace to ‘western civilisation’….

“In the fog of the so-called war on terror, al-Qaida, terrorism, extremism and Islamism – the list of -isms goes on – have been employed as potent weapons in a range of battles. They have been deployed to demonise vulnerable minorities – their community groups and their leaders, mosques and faith schools. They have been adopted to eat away at civil liberties. And they have been exploited to target mainstream Islamist political parties. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development party; the Muslim Brotherhood – the largest opposition in the Egyptian parliament; and Anwar Ibrahim’s People’s Justice party in Malaysia, are among the movements cast in one terrifying category labelled ‘Islamism’, alongside al-Qaida. The huge differences are wilfully ignored to justify this strategy of unrelenting confrontation.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi in the Guardian, 11 July 2008

Labour MP sets police on Peter Oborne

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Labour Party, or at least one of its number, Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman, does not appear to be aware of the concept of freedom of speech.

On Wednesday, he spotted Peter Oborne, the political commentator and broadcaster, handing out a pamphlet about his current bugbear, Islamophobia in the UK, in the passage between Portcullis House and the House of Commons. Instead of seeing this as a laudable example of democracy in action, the MP called the Commons police to remove him.

Says Oborne: “I was obviously committing the very offensive act of exercising democracy in the House of Commons. In honesty, the policeman couldn’t have been more charming, but when we asked him on what grounds we were being removed, he couldn’t provide an answer.”

Why Sheerman took such offence to Oborne, who along with the pamphlet’s co-author James Jones were escorted from the area, is not known. A more obvious copper’s nark would have been former Labour Home Secretary Charles Clarke, who had earlier told Oborne he was “making a fool of himself”.

The Week, 11 July 2008

Racism row in Switzerland over minaret ban referendum

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SVP sheep posterAnother racism row flared up in Switzerland after the country’s far-right party managed to trigger a referendum on banning minarets in the country.

The demand for a popular vote was driven by the nationalist Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which used an image of a white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag to illustrate its anti-immigration policies in last year’s election campaign.

The SVP has a record of using the country’s system of direct democracy to provoke debate about immigration. This year it lost a referendum on moves to make it harder to obtain a Swiss passport.

The party said it had chosen minarets because they were “symbols of political-religious imperialism” rather than simply traditional architecture. Dominique Baettig, an SVP MP, said: “It is like the veil, it is a symbol of non-integration. We hope that this initiative sends a clear signal that we are calling a halt to the Islamisation of Switzerland. Our hard-won individual liberties are being eroded and that is not acceptable.”

Jasmin Hutter, vice-president of the party, added: “Many women, even socialists, signed this petition because not one Swiss woman can tolerate the way that Muslim men treat their wives.”

Times, 9 July 2008

Canadian mosque targeted with hate messages

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Moncton mosqueCodiac RCMP are attempting to link a series of spray-painted messages, including swastikas and racist declarations, at five different Moncton locations during the last 48 hours.

Two large swastikas and racist messages were spray-painted on the side of Moncton’s two-year-old mosque on High Street. One swastika was painted in black, while the other and the message were painted in red.

“Why?” asked worshipper Abdullah Delancey as he attempted to scrub the thick paint off the vinyl siding during yesterday afternoon’s heat wave. “It scares our kids. In fact, it scares a lot of our members. That’s probably why I am the only one here working on this. Some of our members are afraid to come back.”

Other offensive messages were found during the last two days at the Tiferes Israel Synagogue on Steadman Street, the Mapleton Road Shell station and Beaverbrook School and St. Hubert restaurant, both on Mountain Road.

At the mosque, Delancey, who also serves as a volunteer chaplain at The Moncton Hospital and is the father of seven and nine-year-old children, was confused by the hate crimes. “It’s sad because people come here to pray and it is a place of peace,” the 38-year-old Monctonian said. “In the past, we’ve had people throw rocks through the front window and now we have this.”

Times & Transcript, 10 July 2008

Italy: Mosques must recognize Israel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Italy may take its discriminatory practices to a new level, calling for measures to make mosque leaders quit unless they recognize Israel.

Action must be taken so that mosque supervisors recognize Israel, said European Affairs Minister Andrea Rochi. We must force those who do not recognize Israel to leave the mosques, he added, according to Italian news agency Il Tempo.

Press TV, 10 July 2008

Update:  Over at Atlas Shrugs mad Pamela Geller applaud’s Rochi’s statement: “How lucid and human  is that. Of course the jihad loving media is calling that “discrimination”. Ugh. Theeir hatred of the Jews infects everything they say, do — every position they take.”

Maajid Nawaz explains the root cause of terrrorism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A former leader of a radical Islamic organization told Congress extreme Muslims are motivated by an ideology similar to Marxism and that Islamism has much in common with the former Soviet Union. Maajid Nawaz, a native of England and once prominent figure in the London-based extremist group Hizb ut-Tharir [sic], testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the root cause of Islamic terrorism was its fanatical ideology.

Townhall.com, 10 July 2008