Munira Mirza joins Boris’s team

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Munira_MirzaA glamorous young Muslim [sic] woman is the latest Cameron favourite to be parachuted in to keep a close eye on Johnson. Munira Mirza, who argues that racism in the UK is greatly exaggerated, is to serve as a cultural adviser to the mayor.

She is the third member of his new team to have worked for Policy Exchange, the organisation behind many of the policies adopted by Cameron’s Conservatives.

Mirza’s appointment will also be viewed as an attempt to neutralise any accusations that Johnson is racist, especially as he seeks to slash grants to fringe ethnic groups, many of which received lavish funding from Livingstone.

Mirza believes race relations policies based on multicultural ideas have been divisive.

Sunday Times, 11 May 2008

For more on Munira Mirza and Policy Exchange see here. Pointing to Mirza’s asssociation with the tendency around Spiked Online and the Institute of Ideas, which was formerly the Revolutionary Communist Party, we wrote that the ideology promoted by the ex-RCP these days “fits in quite well with Tory values”. And in another piece we observed that the RCP had “morphed into a bunch of right-wing libertarian individualists whose obvious natural home now is the Tory party”. How right we were.

Update:  See also Jenny Bourne’s comment piece on the Institute of Race Relations website.

Calderoli says T-shirt gesture misunderstood

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Italian minister from an anti-immigrant party who wore a T-shirt that offended Muslims in 2006 said on Friday the gesture was misunderstood and his appointment should not damage relations with Libya.

Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League was appointed this week to the new government of Silvio Berlusconi, who was installed as prime minister for a third term. Berlusconi faced a diplomatic clash with Libya – and possible energy sanctions – after Tripoli made it clear it objected to Calderoli’s appointment.

He quit Berlusconi’s last government in 2006 after wearing a T-shirt showing a Danish cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that angered Muslims worldwide. He was blamed for rioting that broke out at the Italian consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Calderoli was asked by Italian television about Libya’s angry response to his appointment, and whether he regretted the T-shirt incident. He said he was sorry for the consequences of his act which he said was misinterpreted as anti-Islamic provocation. “Mine was a message of peace and rapprochement between the monotheistic religions but was misunderstood,” he said.

Since the T-shirt incident, Calderoli has continued to offend Muslims in Italy by protesting at the construction of new mosques and threatening “pig day” protests to defile them. He once walked his own pet pig over a site intended for a mosque.

Reuters, 9 May 2008

BNP leadership challenger to Griffin says Muslims taking over Dewsbury

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Colin AutyDewsbury BNP councillor Colin Auty has launched a claim for the party’s leadership in a bid to save the town from being “swamped by immigration”.

Coun Auty, who has represented Dewsbury East since 2006, said he would bring a more moderate approach than that of current BNP leader Nick Griffin. But one anti-BNP campaigner told the Reporter that Coun Auty was still a fascist representing a far-right party.

Coun Auty claimed no other parties were addressing the problems in Dewsbury and without action the town’s culture and traditions would be lost. He said:

“In 30 years Dewsbury will not be a British town. We already have six Muslim councillors and a Muslim MP. In 30 years it will be unrecognisable to me as an indigenous British town. As far as I’m concerned this is a country called England and we’ve got our roots, our traditions, our values. I don’t want to diversify.

“It isn’t an issue of skin colour – that doesn’t matter to me – it’s the cultural thing. It’s what’s happened in towns like mine. I feel, and many people feel, that we’re being swamped by immigration. Unless we can get some semblance of equality for the indigenous white Britons in areas like this, then the cohesion will go out of the window.”

Dewsbury Reporter, 9 May 2008

Islamic group offended by ‘mosque’ drill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

'Irving mosque' drill

A U.S. Islamic group said an emergency drill at a simulated mosque in Irving, Ill., inaccurately stereotyped Islamic mosques as safety risks.

Nearly 30 government agencies took part in last week’s drill, during which the village’s Continuing Recovery Center was referred to as “Irving Mosque,” a “home-base for a radical, heavily armed group with suspected terrorist ties,” the Springfield (Ill.) State Journal-Register reported Thursday.

“It really was in poor taste, probably as a result of a lack of cultural prowess on the part of the person who made that choice,” said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’.

The drill used simulated blasts, hostage situations and nerve gas to train law enforcement officers how to respond to such situations.

Diana Holmes, coordinator of the Montgomery County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency, said she was unaware of the council’s criticism, the newspaper reported.

UPI, 8 May 2008

See also CAIR press release, 6 May 2008 and Op Ed News, 9 May 2008 … and, for a different view, Pipe Line News, 6 May 2008.

Practising Muslims ‘will outnumber Christians by 2035’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

By 2035, there will be about 1.96 million active Muslims in Britain, compared with 1.63 million church-going Christians, according to calculations by Christian Research, a think-tank. The figures are published in the latest in a series of reports entitled Religious Trends.

The think-tank has warned that 4,000 churches could close by 2020 if congregations continue to shrink at current rates. Christian Research describes its aim as encouraging “change in Christian culture so that by 2010 more churches are growing”.

The Church of England moved to discredit the research last night, criticising its methodology and saying the results were “flawed and dangerously misleading”. A C of E spokesman said: “These sorts of statistics, based on dubious presumptions, do no one of any faith any favours. Faith communities are not in competition and simplistic research like this is misleading and unhelpful.”

The research does not compare like with like, according to the spokesman. The number of practising Muslims, for instance, is based on the number of people who said they were active in the 2001 census. If the same process were applied to Christians it would give a figure of 20 million active churchgoers, according to Church House, the headquarters of the C of E.

Daily Telegraph, 8 May 2008

See also the Times and the Daily Mail.

Israeli ambassador warns of Muslim threat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

OTTAWA — Israel’s ambassador says he is concerned that the growing number of Muslim Canadians might cause a shift in this country’s Middle East policy. Alan Baker said Muslim communities have had an impact on the foreign policies of such countries as France, and he is concerned Canada might follow.

“The question is, how do you treat the results of this fact? Do you expect from these greater numbers that they will absorb themselves into Canadian society as Canadians or that they’ll try to push Canadians to adopt their own values and principles? And this is the gist of the problem,” Mr. Baker said in an interview.

Globe and Mail, 8 May 2008

‘Hijab’ should be woman’s personal choice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“We have a bad habit in Western secular society of thinking that we know best. And Western feminism often has an equally bad habit of thinking that its ideals are the right ideals for women of all cultures.

“In our society, the veils and scarves worn by Muslim women are commonly seen as symbols and tools of an oppressive Islamic patriarchy. This sort of establishment thinking makes feminism inaccessible for women of different beliefs, which robs the movement of its global power. Women who would like to be identified as feminists but choose to wear a headscarf don’t always seem to have a place.

“Western stereotypes surrounding the hijab – the scarf that covers the neck and hair of Muslim women – include the assumption that women are wearing it because of subjugation and religious indoctrination. Some argue that such coverage is used to make women subservient and invisible. But what really makes them invisible is assuming that the women who choose to wear the hijab, the abaya or anything else did not make the choice themselves.”

Amanda Teuscher in The Post, 6 May 2008

See also “Front Page news: Islamophobia makes you an expert on niqab” at Muslimah Media Watch.

Agreeing with the BNP …

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Well, even a stopped clock is right two times a day and so it is that I find myself rather agreeing with the BNP’s recently elected to the London Assembly Richard Barnbrook who says that he will press for the Union Flag to be flown permanently over City Hall, for burkas to be banned from public buildings and for official celebrations to mark St George’s Day. He will resist the planned construction of a huge new mosque, the biggest place of worship in Britain, in Newham, East London.

“This seems fair enough to me – after all London IS British and not merely an overseas branch of Islamabad. I think the Burqa SHOULD be banned, and feel that the huge new mega mosque planned for East London should also be banned until such times as existing mosques prove they are not little more than recruiting offices for Jihad, and surely the flying of the Union Flag over City Hall is non-controversial?”

A Tangled Web, 6 May 2008