A Muslim headscarf can make a big difference…

Posted on by Bob Pitt

If you’re a woman who wears a Muslim head covering or hijab, a lot of people might think you look pleasant enough but they wouldn’t necessarily want you living in their neighborhood.

That’s one conclusion to draw from research done by our friends at HCD Research Inc., using their MediaCurves technology. They showed more than 600 people photos of the same woman, one in which her hair was uncovered, the second in which her head was covered with a hijab or Muslim head covering. According to the HCD Research:

The study was conducted by HCD Research, using its mediacurves.com web site during January 2-3, to determine whether Americans possess different views of a woman based on whether or not she wears traditional Muslim headwear.

Participants were divided into two randomly assigned groups. Members of each group were asked to view one of two separate photos of an attractive young woman. Neither photo was identified in any way. Each sample was then asked identical questions about the woman, her age, perceived personality, activities, and how acceptable she might be as a neighbor.

One-third of participants indicated that they would rather have the woman with the traditional headwear live in another place, another city, and maybe out of the U.S, as opposed to living in their neighborhood. However, a clear majority of participants (89%) reported that the woman without the shawl would be welcome in their neighborhood.

It’s ironic that as President Bush prepares to travel to the Middle East to talk to Israelis and Palestinians about living side by side in peace and security, so many Americans would say that they wouldn’t want to live side by side with a woman in a hijab.

Baltimore Sun, 4 January 2008

‘Islam’s silent moderates’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi Ali returns to her favourite theme: “It is often said that Islam has been ‘hijacked’ by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates. But where are the moderates? … For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Quran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign, and so on. But the evidence mounts to the contrary.”

American Enterprise Institute, 4 January 2008

As one critic of Hirsi Ali recently remarked: “She has become well paid and famous because she demonizes her fellow Muslims. As with black Americans or any other group of despised people, the self haters, the Uncle Toms, are given a clear path to fortune and favor.”

Anti-Islamic party is playing with fear

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro Koln (2)The four young men look unremarkable in Cologne’s downtown pedestrian zone. Now and then they press a pamphlet into somebody’s hand with a smile.

These young men handing out flyers work for an organization called “Pro Cologne”. They are gathering support in the otherwise liberal-minded and open city of Cologne to protest an enormous mosque slated for construction in the district of Ehrenfeld. Around 300 members of Pro Cologne have collected more than 20,000 signatures, and a few unsavory characters on the German far right hope to use their success as a way to win seats in state parliaments.

With a new political party called “Pro NRW” (Pro North-Rhine Westphalia), stemming from the Pro Cologne movement, two leaders named Markus Beisicht and Manfred Rouhs want to win enough votes to enter the state parliament in 2010. About a dozen Pro Cologne spinoffs are already preparing local campaigns across the state – in Gelsenkirchen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen and Bottrop, among other places. Where no new mosques are being planned, Beisicht says, the party will just fight smaller existing mosques.

The methods of the anti-mosque movement have been studied by far-right groups in other countries, like Austria’s FPÖ (“Austrian Freedom Party”) and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (“Flemish Interest”) party. In November, Markus Beisicht gave a special presentation on the Cologne movement to FPÖ members in Graz. “We will lead our fight across Europe,” he told them, “whether it’s in Graz, Cologne or Vienna.” He’s invited friends from the FPÖ, Vlaams Belang and France’s National Front to a big “Anti-Islam Congress” in Cologne next September.

Spiegel Onlne, 3 January 2008

Muslim leaders back Livingstone as mayor

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MayorProminent Muslim organisations and individuals have pledged to back Ken Livingstone as mayor of London, saying it is in the “best interest” of Muslims to vote for him in this year’s elections on May 1.

A statement, published today in full on the Guardian’s website, praises Livingstone for his continued support of a multicultural society and for protecting Muslim communities against racism and Islamophobia. The 63 signatories include Mohammed Ali, the chief executive of the Islam Channel, which claims to have an audience of millions, Professor Tariq Ramadan and Dilwar Hussain from the London Muslim Centre, part of the East London Mosque.

His rival, Conservative candidate Boris Johnson, said he was “not remotely worried” by the statement of support and warned against “divide and rule” politics. “When anything is signed by so-called community leaders I take it with a big pinch of salt,” he said. “My grandfather was a Muslim and so was my great-grandfather. I am proud of my Muslim ancestry.”

Guardian, 3 January 2008

This would be the same Boris Johnson who described Islam as “the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers” and asserted that “to any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia – fear of Islam – seems a natural reaction”. Opposing the illegalisation of incitement to religious hatred Johnson stated that such a law “makes no sense unless it involves a ban on the Koran itself”.

When he was editor of the Spectator Johnson regularly published appalling examples of anti-Muslim bigotry by the likes of Rod Liddle and Anthony Browne, while the magazine’s front cover featured headlines such as “Eurabian Nightmare” and “The Muslims are Coming“.

Update:  See also the discussion on the Stormfront fascist forum. Sample comments: “Another reason why Ken must go at all costs. Vote BNP if you don’t want the whole of London and Britain, turning into the ape and reptile enclosures of London Zoo!” “People have got to wake up when muslims, the most unwestern group of people imaginable are fully supporting Livingstone.” “Boris will get my 2nd preference vote. I think Boris will get a hugh [sic] anti-Ken Livingstone vote.”

Read the official BNP response here.

Further update:  Scroll down to the bottom of the comments on the Guardian website and you’ll find the following statement by Comment is Free editor Georgina Henry:

“Sorry, but we’re closing this thread due to the continual breaches of the talk policy. Our moderators have had to take down almost 40 offensive comments, and banned 16 people. It’s incredibly depressing that so many pieces on this site written by or about Muslims degenerate into racist/sectarian abuse.”

Evangelical leaders condemned for ‘pledging common cause with Islam’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An attempt by leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) to win friends and influence Muslims is alienating another group – evangelical Christians. Reactions have been negative and strong. Islam expert Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo has called it a “betrayal” and a “sellout.” Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Seminary (Southern Baptist), termed it “naiveté that borders on dishonesty.”

In November, NEA President Leith Anderson and NEA Vice President Richard Cizik signed onto a Christian response to an invitation to dialogue from 138 Muslim leaders around the world. Their response – initiated by Yale Divinity School and endorsed by other liberal Christian leaders – apologized for the sins of Christians during the Crusades and for “excesses” of the global war on terror, without mentioning Muslim atrocities. It appeared to leave the fundamentals of Christianity – especially the deity of Christ – open for discussion. It even seemed to acknowledge Allah as the God of the Bible.

Mohler said the agreement “sends the wrong signal” and contains basic theological problems, especially in “marginalizing” Jesus Christ. He also condemned the apology for the Crusades. “I just have to wonder how intellectually honest this is,” he said. “Are these people suggesting that they wish the military conflict with Islam had ended differently – that Islam had conquered Europe?”

Citizen Link, 3 January 2008

German Muslims angry at ‘anti-foreigner’ campaign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BERLIN – German Muslim groups on Wednesday accused a senior politician in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party of stirring up hostility against foreigners in a bid to win a regional election.

Roland Koch of the Christian Democrats (CDU) has focused his campaign for re-election as premier of the prosperous western state of Hesse on crime, in particular offences by foreigners. He reacted to an assault on a German pensioner by two youths – one Greek, one Turkish – in a Munich railway station by saying Germany had too many young foreign criminals and urging an end to “multicultural” coddling of immigrants.

The brutal attack, caught on a surveillance camera and played repeatedly on German television in recent days, prompted calls for tougher sentencing, boot camps and even the deportation of criminals of foreign origins.

“The debate is shameful and scandalous,” head of the TGD Turkish Communities in Germany Kenan Kolat told Reuters on Wednesday, saying the deportation issue was “political arson”. “This is pure populism,” he said, urging Merkel to speak out against it.

Germany is home to about 15 million people with an immigrant background – about 18 percent of the population – and Merkel has talked often about the need to integrate the country’s 3.2 million Muslims, most of whom are of Turkish origin. But she says immigrants must accept German culture and won rapturous applause at a conference of her mostly Roman Catholic party last month for saying mosques should not dwarf churches.

Reuters, 2 January 2008

Update:  See also criticisms by Stephen Kramer of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who has said that Koch’s campaign “can hardly be distinguished from the NPD,” a neo-Nazi party.

Giuliani on Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“If you’ve been listening to the war-mongering coming out of Rudy Giuliani since the start of his deteriorating presidential campaign, you’d think the United States isn’t fighting just jihadists but the entire Muslim ummah.”

Matthew Harwood examines the aspiring Republican candidate’s campaign ad which refers to Muslims as “a people perverted”.

Guardian Unlimited, 3 January 2008

See also Josh Marshall at TCM, 2 January 2008

Select committee chair says there is a particular problem with Muslim schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Commons children, schools and families select committee will grill the schools secretary, Ed Balls, at a meeting on January 9 about the government’s plans to allow local authorities to open as many faith schools as they want. Members are concerned the plans will damage social cohesion and widen existing divisions.

The committee’s chairman, Barry Sheerman, said: “I am getting reports from people in local government who find it difficult to know what is going on in some faith schools – particularly Muslim schools.”

But Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, warned that the debate over Muslim faith schools risked fuelling Islamophobia. “They need to be very careful how they handle this sensitive issue,” she said.

Guardian, 2 January 2008

See also “MPs’ fears on cash for Muslim schools” in the Daily Express, 2 January 2008.

Dutch opinion leaders plead for tolerance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dutch opinion leaders published a page-size advertisment in the daily Trouw on Wednesday calling for tolerance and a softer tone in the debate about migration and Islam. In their statement, the 717 signatories, including prominent politicians, artists, authors, relgious leaders and academics, called on the Dutch to “break the downward cycle of intolerance and indifference” in the Netherlands.

Dutch nationals can support the statement by signing it on the website www.benoemenenbouwen.nl.

The statement was initiated by Christian Democrat Doekle Terpstra, who called upon Dutch society to counter the “wilderization,” a sarcastic reference to Dutch liberal-right politician Geert Wilders, one of the Netherlands’ most outspoken Islam critics. Responding to the publication in Trouw, Geert Wilders called the signatories “silly and naive fools.”

Earthtimes, 2 January 2008

See also Dutch News, Expatica and Radio Netherlands.

Barclaycard chief quits over Muslims remark

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A leading bank executive has been forced to quit after making an insulting remark about Muslims. Marc Howells, who was one of Barclaycard’s leading figures, left his £200,000-a-year job after making the quip during a staff meeting as he discussed quarterly figures. Colleagues were stunned when he said: “The results were like Muslims – some were good, some were Shi’ite.” Offended members of staff complained to senior bosses about the “wholly inappropriate” comment.

Daily Telegraph, 1 January 2008

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