Islamophobia Watch

Yusuf Smith summarises Myriam Francois Cerrah's interview with Virago Press founder Carmen Callil.

Indigo Jo Blogs, 30 December 2007

In January this year the small Quebec town of Herouxville hit the headlines when it published a code of conduct for migrants which among other things advised them that it was unacceptable to "kill women by stoning them in public, burning them alive, burning them with acid, circumcising them etc."

In the National Post Jonathan Kay defended the citizens of Herouxville against the charge that their bigoted and stereotyped views about migrants (and Muslims in particular) represented an attack on multiculturalism from the right. He claims that such views have been "liberated from the odour of racism" and are now commonplace in what passes for the left:

"... in the culture wars, feminists, gay activists and other progressives are no longer willing to risk their winnings by pledging multicultural solidarity with traditional Muslims, Hasidic Jews and other socially conservative immigrant groups ... muscular monoculturalism is no longer the purview of the right ... it's becoming a mainstream ideology, even a fashionable one, on the left."

Update:  See also Yusuf Smith's comments at Indigo Jo Blogs

"There are signs that a reform movement may emerge among this country's two million Muslims, aimed at developing an interpretation of Islam that is compatible with liberal democracy. At present the chief spokesmen for Islam are quick to assume the mantle of victimhood and inclined to condemn all criticism as Islamophobia, a pseudo-psychiatric term implying fear and irrational hostility. But a younger generation is emerging, confident that their faith is a guide to a good life but aware that mainstream Islam embodied in Sharia law needs reform.

"The inequality of women under the law will never be acceptable in the West. The freedom to criticise religious beliefs and to join and leave faith traditions as individual conscience dictates is simply not consistent with the Muslim habit of threatening apostates with death. The view that the Koran must be binding for all time is not compatible with our commitment to learning from each other through free inquiry and the clash of opinion. The year 2008 could see the beginnings of a liberal British Islam willing to embrace equality under the law, freedom of religion, and freedom of interpretation."

David Green in the Sunday Telegraph, 30 December 2007

Note the sleight of hand here. Green applauds the development of "an interpretation of Islam that is compatible with liberal democracy" (so you can't accuse him of being an anti-Muslim bigot, can you?) while simultaneously asserting that mainstream Islam in the UK – which he identifies with the oppression of women, death threats against apostates and a literalist intepretation of the Qur'an – is incompatible with liberal democracy.

"The Guardian of London is conducting video documentaries up in New Hampshire. And they did a segment on Rudy in which they got a very off-kilter quote about Muslims from a Rudy campaign official in the state. The Guardian identifies him as John Deady, the co-chair of state Veterans for Rudy. Deady – and the key here is that he is a Rudy campaign official – says that Rudy should be our President because he has what it takes to tackle one of our 'most difficult problems', which he identifies as the 'rise of the Muslims'. Deady adds that we need to 'chase them back to their caves' or otherwise 'get rid of them'."

TPM Election Central, 28 December 2007

See also the follow-up article in which Deady defends his comments and goes on to state: "We're not dealing with a rational mindset here. We're dealing with madmen." Asked if this is a reference to all Muslims, he replies: "I am talking about Muslims in general." Asked to elaborate on his call to "get rid" of Muslims, Deady explained: "When I say get rid of them, I wasn't necessarily [sic – emphasis added] referring to genocide."

Update:  Deady has now resigned, according to Fox News. See also Ali Eteraz on the GOP's Muslim problem.

"Today in Italy, the traditional fascist hatred of the Jew is increasingly substituted by a hatred of Muslims, all of them, children, women and men. Today Muslims in Italy are not so differently represented as their Semitic brothers were during the time of the Fascio and the Eia Eia alala."

Gabriele Marranci examines the rise of Islamophobia in Italy.

Islam, Muslims, and an Anthropologist, 25 December 2007

Geert Wilders, who compares the Koran to Mein Kampf, has been named the Netherlands' politician of the year in a poll run by public broadcaster NOS.

Mr Wilders' pithy and shocking soundbites – he warned of a "tsunami of Islamisation" – have dominated headlines, while his parliamentary outbursts have brought an adversarial style of politics to the muted consensus to which the Dutch are attuned.

Mr Wilders' proposed solutions are deeply radical: stop all Muslim immigration, ban the building of mosques and ask the 1m Muslims among the Dutch population of 16m to "go to their own countries" or give up their religion.

He remains a highly controversial outsider and many Dutch Muslims and non-Muslims alike would rather not discuss him. But his Party for Freedom, the PVV, won nine of 150 seats in parliament in the last election and it regularly polls above that level.

The NOS poll naming him politician of the year combined votes from the public and those of the parliamentary press corps.

Financial Times, 27 December 2007

"Muslim leaders have sparked outrage with plans to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over the roof-tops of one of Britain's most historic cities. Elders at Oxford Central Mosque want to blast it out three times a day. They have already discussed the controversial idea with council chiefs and are set to submit a formal application in the New Year.

"But the move has been met with fury by people living near the mosque in Oxford – known as the city of dreaming spires. They claim the two-minute call – to be broadcast over three large speakers – is noise pollution and offensive to other faiths."

The Sun – rather belatedly – joins in the Oxford mosque hysteria.

Taking issue with the Christmas message from Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor that Britain should be more welcoming to migrants, Leo McKinstry writes: "The consequences of multiculturalism and mass immigration can be seen at their most graphic in the creeping Islamification of Britain.... Throughout the country, church bells are being drowned out by the wailing from the mosque.... If the Cardinal wants a cause worth supporting, it is his own religion, not the import of yet more alien culture into Britain."

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"One of the most elusive tasks I have faced at conferences has been a definition of 'Muslim women' from which I could lay out the terms of their suffering and, in a true pompous academic fashion, advance some proposals for their liberation. The moment the term 'Muslim women' is deconstructed, my argument reaches an impasse. On the other hand, incorporating it into any diatribe against misogyny, oppression and persecution threatens to reduce my argument to one where Islam is the sole culprit. More importantly, the conflation between women and Islam inadvertently lumps together close to 1 billion women from around the globe, a homogenising equation which overlooks many other contextual variables that have shaped the plight of these women."

Salam Al-Mahadin at Comment is Free, 26 December 2007

OTTAWA – A pervasive bias exists in the way Islam is studied in the West, says a prominent Muslim thinker, who is calling for sweeping changes to the way Islamic studies are taught in universities.

Tariq Ramadan, a visiting professor at Oxford University and one of Europe's leading intellectuals on Islam, argues that despite a growing interest in the field, the scholarly pursuit of Islam is driven not by an interest in theology, but by fear and an obsession with the struggle against terrorism.

In the latest issue of the Canadian journal Academic Matters, Ramadan chastises universities for their "carefully orchestrated infatuation" with Islamic studies. He says the current academic focus on terrorism reduces the richness of Islamic theology into political ideology.

"The study of religious thought proper (of the theology, of its premises, its internal complexities and its development) has been relegated to a subsidiary position," he writes. "Universities in the West must seek the kind of knowledge of other civilizations and cultures – particularly that of Islam – that is driven neither by ideological agendas nor collective fears." What's "cruelly lacking," Ramadan argues, is an objective study of Islamic law, legal scholars and philosophers as well as a "historical and critical approach to Islamic history and thought."

He goes on to criticize western scholars for ignoring the body of "fresh, compelling, audacious critical thought" emerging from contemporary Muslim societies, which are often eclipsed by controversies surrounding sharia law or the role of women. "There is a deep-down, deliberate process of evolution under way in every Islamic society in the world," writes Ramadan. "Far from rushing to conclusions, far from populist, ideological speech, the academic world must take this process seriously, study it, and present its outlines and implications."

Ottawa Citizen, 22 December 2007