ISLAMOPHOBIA: Anti Muslim Racism
Entries from November 1, 2005 - December 1, 2005
Fallaci rails against Muslim immigration
Oriana Fallaci told a Manhattan audience on Monday that she hates Islam and fears that Muslim immigration poses a greater danger to the West than Islamic terrorism. The Italian journalist and author, who came out of retirement after September 11, 2001, to sound the tocsin on what she viewed was a clash of civilizations, said in a lengthy speech that she doesn't believe in the existence of moderate Islam. "There is no such thing as good Islam," she said. She compared the Koran, the Islamic holy book, to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and said she opposed the notion of dialogue between followers of Islam and other religions.
New York Sun, 30 November 2005
Even Daniel Pipes thought Fallaci's speech was a teensy bit over the top. Not so Robert Spencer, who wholeheartedly endorsed this racist diatribe: "Fallaci's a voice of rare courage.... When she is gone, we may hope – for all our sakes – that many others will be ready to step into the breach and speak the truth as she did, whatever the cost, as she did. As Oriana Fallaci so memorably demonstrated in her address on receiving the Annie Taylor Award, nothing less than our civilization itself is at stake."
Front Page Magazine, 30 November 2005
It's worth recalling that not so long ago Nick Cohen published a defence of this revolting bigot in the Observer. See here
Bob Pitt
in Right Wing, Secular, USA, UK, Daniel Pipes, Italy, Oriana Fallaci
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Islamophobia Watch endorses statement by Mark Steyn
Mark Steyn offers his views on the plan to build a new mosque as part of the Olympics redevelopment in London. "I may be a notorious Islamophobic hatemonger...", he writes. For the first and possibly the last time, we have found a statement by Steyn that we can agree with.
Sun exposes yet another attempt to appease Muslim fanatics
Another "Baa Baa Black Sheep ban" story: "Meddling cricket chiefs could ban the anthem Jerusalem from England's home Test series against Pakistan next year in case it offends Muslims. The English and Wales Cricket Board are worried about the words building the holy city 'in England's green and pleasant land'."
Anti-Muslim racist receives award
Italian racist Oriana Fallaci has received an award for her "lifelong struggle against totalitarian ideologies". At a dinner in New York, ex-leftist David Horowitz gave a speech paying tribute to Fallaci's contribution to "the war against Islamofascism" and acclaiming her as "a warrior in the cause of human freedom". Yes, that's the same Oriana Fallaci who complained that Muslims in the West had "multiplied like rats", turning Europe into "an Islamic province, an Islamic colony", and who declared that "to believe that a good Islam and a bad Islam exist goes against all reason".
'Muslim food – last straw for angry parents'
"Outraged parents in the West Midlands have called it the 'last straw', an insult to Christians and evidence that our country has 'sold out' to an alien religion. Several hundred pupils of the George Salter High School in West Bromwich were recently given a letter to take home to parents advising pupils and parents alike that Halal products would be on offer in the school canteen."
Guantánamo: the inside story
Open Democracy's editor talks to Clive Stafford Smith and Alvaro Gil-Robles about illegal detention, torture and the frightening possibility that Europe is home to CIA "black sites" even worse than Guantánamo.
Martin Sullivan
in USA, Resisting Islamophobia, State Oppression
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Ian Paisley 'meek and mild' – shock revelation
"We shouldn't rewrite the classics to appease religious belief but changing texts is not always wrong." Stephanie Merritt on the (apparently false) story that the Bristol Old Vic production of Marlowe's "Tamburlaine the Great" changed the text in order to avoid offending Muslims.
'Giant mosque planned by extremists for London Olympics site'
The Sunday Times report that the Muslim proselytising organisation Tablighi Jamaat is hoping to raise finance for the construction of a new mosque as part of the Olympics redevelopment in London doesn't find favour with the extreme Right. One website quotes that reliable source the Middle East Quarterly (founder: Daniel Pipes) to the effect that Tablighi Jamaat provides the ideological inspiration for Al-Qaida. "No wonder they want to erect a giant mosque and Islamic complex at the Olympic Games 2012. And the multiculturalist appeasers in Newham council, assisted by the appeasing fools in Blair's government, will probably be jumping for joy to prove that Britain is tolerant of Islam by encouraging the construction of this proposed temple of terrorist ideology."
Western Resistance, 26 November 2005
See also Daniel Pipes' weblog, 27 November 2005 and BNP news article, 28 November 2005
Bob Pitt
in Right Wing, USA, Daniel Pipes, Multiculturalism
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French NGOs blast writer for racism against rioters
A number of French NGOs launched on Friday, November 25, into a diatribe against intellectual Alain Finkielkraut for calling rioters a bunch of "rebels" with Muslim identity. "Finkielkraut will be sued for inciting hatred," vowed the chairman of Movement against Racism and for Friendship between People (MRAP), Mouloud Aounit. "There will be no dialogue with racists," he said in a statement, adding that Finkielkraut and his ilk should know their limits.
Islam Online, 26 November 2005
Although it was quite clear from Finkielkraut's Ha'aretz interview that he held racist views, it's worth noting that his comments on the French riots were significantly milder than the Islamophobic rants we hear from Melanie Phillips.
Me – Islamophobic? Tatchell responds to critics
"We have only once staged a protest against a muslim leader", Peter Tatchell states. "That was against the rightwing, misogynist, anti-semitic and homophobic cleric, Dr Yusuf Qaradawi." So that's alright, then. Tatchell and his friends in Outrage mount a hysterical, lying campaign against one of the world's leading Muslim scholars, but it doesn't means they're Islamophobes.