Islamophobia Watch

Sharif Islam summarises Matti Bunzl's comparative analysis of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Europe, as presented in an article in the American Ethnologist. Bunzl makes the point that anti-Semitism is fading, even among the parties of the far right, and Islamophobia has emerged as the dominant project of exclusion.

Sharif Islam writes: "Under the leadership of Jörg Haider, the Freedom Party opposed Austria's membership in the EU on nationalist grounds. However, in 1995, after Austria's inclusion in the EU, the politics of the party changed. The party began to accept Jews as potential leaders. According to Bunzl, this change is common among Europe's far right-wing movements. He contrasts it with the dynamics of Islamophobia. He argues that Islamophobia is a genuine political issue, part of a wide-open debate on the future of Muslim presence in Europe. In contrast, there is no debate on the legitimacy of Jewish presence in Europe."

MRZine, 23 August 2006

Milena Buyum of the National Assembly Against Racism had a letter in the 5 May issue of Tribune condemning the presence of the British National Party and its front organisation Civil Liberty at the "March for Free Expression" in Trafalgar Square in March. She pointed out: "There is a clear danger that actions such as the Freedom of Speech rally give the extreme Right a cloak of legitimacy."

In reply, one Mazin Zeki has a letter in the current issue of Tribune (19 May) actually defending the participation of fascists in the demonstration: “Everyone was welcome to the rally regardless of their political or other allegiance. That is exactly how it should be. Free speech is the democratic space which allows the clear and open clash of differences to be resolved.... Free speech cannot be abandoned on the basis of demagogic ‘anti-racist’ demands from self-appointed groups ...".

Zeki continues: "I am submitting a motion in favour of free speech to the annual general meeting of Liberty on May 30 and welcome support from all true democrats including Tribune readers." Hopefully Liberty's members will treat Zeki's arguments with the contempt they deserve.

For a detailed analysis of the forces involved in the "March for Free Expression", see Martin Sullivan's article, "The Right, the Left and 'Free Expression'", in What Next? No.31

"Four years after the assassination of gay Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, his warning of the threat posed to the rights of European gays and women by intolerant, anti-assimilationist Muslim immigrants is increasingly vindicated by events.

"Muslims have migrated in large numbers to Europe, have more children than ethnic Europeans, are disproportionately involved in crime, and increasingly insist on being governed not by the prevailing civil laws but by Muslim Shari'ah law. Many Muslim clerics in Europe look to the day when Europe will become a Muslim caliphate. Scholar Bat Ye'or has dubbed that future Europe 'Eurabia'. Already, Muslim leaders in France, Britain, Denmark and Belgium have declared certain Muslim neighborhoods to be under Islamic jurisdiction....

"Submissive infidels are known as dhimmis, a role tacitly embraced by those Westerners who call any criticism of Muslims racist. Fortunately, some are refusing to surrender. On March 25 in Trafalgar Square, British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, a self-described 'left-wing Green', joined a crowd including humanists, libertarians and liberal Muslims in a rally to defend freedom of expression....

"Tatchell wrote,'Sections of the left moan that the rally is being supported [by] the right. Well, if these socialists object so strongly why don't they organize their own demo in support of free speech? The truth is that some of the left would rarely, if ever, rally to defend freedom of expression because they don't wholeheartedly believe in it. Mired in the immoral morass of cultural relativism, they no longer endorse Enlightenment values and universal human rights'."

Richard J. Rosendall in Washington DC's gay and lesbian magazine Metro Weekly, 20 April 2006

For an earlier article by Rosendall on Fortuyn, see here

Thanks to Richard. 

In an article in the current issue of Tribune, headed "Free speech is under attack – even from the Left", Peter Tatchell accuses National Assembly Against Racism chair Lee Jasper of smearing him in a letter to the magazine. Defending his decision to speak at the "March for Free Expression" rally in Trafalgar Square on 25 March, Tatchell claims, yet again, that "there was no visible BNP presence at the rally. No Union Jack flags. No leaflets or placards attacking Muslims or promoting fascist ideas".

Reading Tatchell's denials, you're reminded of the Vatican scholar in Brecht's play who, invited by Galileo to observe the movement of the planets through his telescope, shakes his head obstinately and refuses to look. And Tatchell pretends to be a defender of Enlightenment values!

See here for pictures of fascists with Union Jack flags at the Trafalgar Square rally. The literature they are holding is the pamphlet produced by the BNP's front organisation, Civil Liberty, which was openly distributed to the demonstrators by BNP activists without any interference by the stewards. Placards featuring reproductions of two of the most blatantly racist of the Danish cartoons – one of the Prophet with a bomb as a turban and another of the Prophet threateningly wielding a large knife with two terrified-looking veiled women cowering behind him – were enthusiastically displayed by the protestors. The latter cartoon was accompanied by the slogan "Religion – hands off women's life", implying that the oppression of women is intrinsic to Islam, which of course is precisely the message the caricature sought to convey. The placards had been brought to the demonstration not by fascists but by Tatchell's allies in the Worker Communist Party of Iran, whose platform speaker Maryam Namazie provocatively brandished these racist caricatures and urged the crowd to pass them around and do likewise. They were only too happy to oblige.

Ian Donovan and Martin Sullivan reply to Peter Tatchell's justification of his participation in the "March for Free Expression".

Weekly Worker, 20 April 2006

Padraig Reidy of the New Humanist has a go at Denis Fernando, Socialist Action, Respect, the Muslim Association of Britain and Eamonn McCann – all in one short Tribune piece. Needless to say, they're all guilty of "selling out political ideals to religion". By which, of course, he means "Islam".

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"Brett Lock of Outrage is free and easy with accusations of lies, when tilting at the Socialist Action windmill. He would do well to observe that there is little point in lecturing others about your own sins. Notwithstanding his claim that the BNP 'boycotted' the rally over 'free speech', the BNP's own site, and its Civil Liberty front, are quite clear. They supported the rally and their members attended. One of the bourgeois liberals that Lock makes mention of, Johann Hari, is quite open about the fact that he marched with fascists."

Letter from Tony Greenstein in the Weekly Worker, 6 April 2006

See also the letter from Ian Donovan.

Meanwhile, having backed Tatchell's decision to share a platform with hard right-wingers and racists, Lock continues to defend Outrage's call for the Muslim Council of Britain to be denied a speaker at the Unite Against Fascism conference in February. There is, Lock explains, no real difference between the MCB and the fascists: "a BNP success in the local elections would be catastrophic, but frankly, given current indicators, the success of an MCB-aligned candidate could be equally disastrous for gay people".

Lock & Load, 6 April 2006

Johann Hari offers his assessment of last Saturday's protest. "Communists mingled awkwardly with fascists", he tells us approvingly, though unlike Tatchell he does at least have the honesty to admit that fascists participated in the demonstration. Hari complains that a member of the Worker Communist Party of Iran was arrested for provocatively brandishing "silly cartoons of the Mohammed that some fundamentalist Muslims have declared to be blasphemous". The cartoons in question were in fact the most explicitly racist of the series published by Jyllands-Posten: one of the Prophet with a bomb as a turban and another of a wild-eyed Prophet wielding a knife, with two terrified veiled women cowering behind him – the implication of course being that Muslims are terrorists and misogynists. We look forward to Hari defending the right of anti-semites to parade round Trafalgar Square with a caricature of a hook-nosed Jew counting money. After all, we have to defend freedom of expression at all costs, don't we?

Evening Standard, 31 March 2006

"Voltaire" – i.e. Peter Risdon of the "March for Free Expression" – has launched a new blog called Toonophobia. The definition it offers of the term is a parody of the 8-point Runnymede Trust definition of Islamophobia. Yes, positively Wildean in its wittiness, Peter.

Still, Peter has gained one new admirer, who writes: "Previously voltaire has stayed away from giving the impression that muslims are wrong in any way. Could this be the begginings of a tacit acceptance that people who follow a terrorist paedophile who openly raped the wives of his victims after beheading them, might not be the best bedfellows a country could ask for?"

BNP and Me, 30 March 2006

Letter in Socialist Worker, 1 April 2006:

The organisers of the protest for "freedom of expression" in Trafalgar Square last Saturday claimed to be standing up for free speech after the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in Denmark. But what they were really doing was standing up for their rights to insult and offend Muslims, and increase Islamophobia in Britain.

The organisers had originally asked people to bring placards containing the cartoons to Trafalgar Square. But the day before the protest they had had to backtrack on this. One of the organisers admitted that many Muslims, including secular ones, were extremely offended by the cartoons that depicted all Muslims as terrorists.

The call to protest over this issue had opened a Pandora's Box of racism and nationalism. The Civil Liberty website, run by Nazi BNP member Kevin Scott, had urged people to demonstrate on the day.

A strange mix of right wing libertarians and middle class liberals joined the rather small protest – which unlike the multi-racial anti-war protest that had filled Trafalgar Square the previous week, was mainly white.

I was particularly disappointed with gay campaigner Peter Tatchell who happily spoke alongside right wing nutcases from the Libertarian Alliance and the Freedom Association. Tatchell continually criticises the left, including Socialist Worker, for forming alliances with supposedly "reactionary" Muslims. He told the rally, "Free speech does not include the right to incite hatred and violence against other human beings." But that was exactly what the cartoons were published to do – to make people see Muslims as the enemy within.

Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance defended the rights of BNP leader Nick Griffin, Holocaust denier David Irving and disgraced racist lecturer Frank Ellis to "speak their mind". The crowd cheered him. Mark Wallace of the Freedom Association also spoke. This is a notorious right wing group that campaigns for the "freedom" to speak out against the "tide of immigration".

The real undercurrent of this rally was the racist idea that the main threat to all of our liberty is "reactionary Islam". While some speakers denounced the "war on terror" most of the focus was on Muslims. Everyone involved with this "unholy alliance" should be ashamed of themselves.

Katherine Branney, East London