Islamophobia Watch

"By focusing almost exclusively on violent extremism, the government has got it wrong. It has failed to appreciate how the general culture of extreme Islamist dissent can, and often does, give rise to terrorism itself. Islamist groups thrive on preaching a separatist message of Islamic supremacy, which concerns itself with reversing the temporal decline of Islam and challenging the ascendancy of the west by reviving a puritanical caliphate....

"Although groups like Hizb insist that their activities are merely intellectual, the movement is no paper tiger. It is an active revolutionary organisation with tentacles spread across the world. And its culpability in inspiring terrorists cannot be denied. Hizb has consistently raised the temperature of Islamist anger across Britain by issuing inflammatory leaflets aimed to agitate and provoke."

Shiraz Maher in the New Statesman, 13 July 2007

There appears to be an ever-expanding market for former members of HT who are willing to endorse a right-wing agenda about the supposed threat from non-violent Islamism and encourage the state repression of their former associates.

For an alternative view, see Rolled Up Trousers, 12 July 2007

Over at Comment is Free yesterday, Madeleine Bunting posted a reasoned response to Martin Bright and David T of Harry's Place over their attacks on an earlier piece she had published on CiF. She wrote:

"I simply cannot see the point of a witch-hunt against anyone who has ever read Qutb or Mawdudi. This is McCarthyism of the worst kind. We might as well hound out of British politics anyone who has read Lenin. The kind of scenario David T paints of an entryist Islamism trying to establish a 'perfect Islamic state' is a fantasyland and I can't understand why a serious journalist such as Martin Bright endorses it."

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THE HAGUE – A Dutch right-wing anti-Islam politician on Thursday submitted new proposals for a law banning burqas after an earlier attempt stranded.

In letter to parliament Geert Wilders, who heads the Freedom Party which has nine of the 150 seats in the lower house, wrote that "the burqa and the niqab is a symbol of the oppression of women" and is "in defiance of the democratic constitutional state".

Wilders wants to ban specifically burqas and niqabs in public places including stations, stadiums, shops, restaurants, museums, hospitals, cars driving on the public roads and public transport. He proposes a maximum sentence of 12 days in jail or a fine of 3,350 euros (4,619 dollars).

Middle East Online, 12 July 2007

Well, at least this makes a change from the usual "Left-Islamofascist alliance" nonsense. Tom Gallagher has identified an equally dangerous political bloc in Scotland between the SNP and "unapologetic advocates of hardline Islamism" like Osama Saeed. According to Gallagher, this raises the nightmare prospect of an independent Scotland becoming "a northern version of Ken Livingstone's left-leaning multicultural metropolis in London".

Open Democracy, 11 July 2007

Critics of Salman Rushdie's knighthood as diverse as Ayman al-Zawahiri, Muhammad Ijaz ul-Haq, Lord Ahmed and the Muslim Council of Britain are happily lumped together by Jo Glanville in her defence of Rushdie at Comment is Free. All are guilty of "driving a wedge between east and west, between Muslim and non-Muslim". Glanville concludes: "This level of intimidation against writers and intellectuals who wish to explore, criticise or pass comment on Islam is anathema to free speech."

And how exactly has the Muslim Council of Britain "intimidated" Salman Rushdie, pray tell? This is the MCB's reasoned response to the announcement of Rushdie's knighthood. Indeed, as Salma Yaqoob has pointed out, the reaction of British Muslims has in general been extremely restrained, as exemplified by the fact that "the Muslim Council of Britain did not rally a protest, but sent out a message of calm (which duly received very little interest in the mainstream media)".

Meanwhile, over at the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, Sean Matgamna joins in the attack on the MCB over the Rushdie case. He quotes the entirely reasonable statement by MCB secretary-general Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari:

"Salman Rushdie earned notoriety amongst Muslims for the highly insulting and blasphemous manner in which he portrayed early Islamic figures. The granting of a knighthood to him can only do harm to the image of our country in the eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world. Many will interpret the knighthood as a final contemptuous parting gift from Tony Blair to the Muslim world."

This, Matgamna asserts, is merely "a soft-voiced version of the demand that non-Muslims comply with the rules and judgements of the most bigoted Muslims".

He concludes with an ultimatum to those on the Left arguing against rewarding a provocateur like Rushdie who has made such a negative contribution to community relations: "break with your Islamic clerical-fascist allies, or again be the mouthpiece and outrider in Britain for extreme political and religious reaction".

"... despite friendly and long-lasting relations with many Muslims, my first reaction on seeing Muslims in the street is mistrust.... The fundamental problem is this: There is an asymmetry between the good that many moderate Muslims can do for Britain and the harm that a few fanatics can do to it.... And the plain fact of the matter is that British society could get by perfectly well without the contribution even of moderate Muslims.... their cheap labor that we imported in the 1960s in a vain effort to bolster the dying textile industry, which could not find local labor, is now redundant. In other words, one of the achievements of the bombers and would-be bombers is to make discrimination against most Muslims who wish to enter Britain a perfectly rational policy."

Theodore Dalrymple in the Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2007

So who's responsible for comparing Hizb ut-Tahrir to the Nazis and issuing the hysterical warning that we must consider HT "a subversive fifth column in our midst, awaiting instructions from a coming caliph before they turn to mass suicide bombings"? Mad Melanie Phillips, perhaps? Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch? Nah, it's Ed Husain, author of The Islamist, writing at Comment is Free. But what can you expect from a man who refers approvingly to Channel 4's The War on Britain's Jews? as "Richard Littlejohn's excellent television documentary"?

You might ask why Husain, a man who became an Islamist for a few brief years as a confused teenager during the early 1990s, hasn't been active in any Islamist organisation since leaving HT around 1995, and spent most of this century living abroad, should suddenly be adopted as the media's favourite self-styled expert on Islamism in Britain. Well, of course, it's because he tells them what they want to hear. Echoing the arguments of Martin Bright and John Ware, Husain enthusiastically contributes to the prevailing Islamophobic discourse. And he seems to be building a successful career out of it.

Blimey. Martin Bright graciously concedes that there may yet be hope for the Muslim Council of Britain.

True, as you might anticipate, Bright attacks Madeleine Bunting's article in yesterday's Guardian for capitulating to Islamofascism – "treating international Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami as if they are the primitive products of third world victims of colonialism rather than sophisticated totalitarian movements", as he puts it. Bright also declares himself "delighted" at the thought that his anti-MCB propaganda may have resulted in the government cold shouldering the most representative Muslim organisation in Britain and transferring its support to an utterly fraudulent outfit like the Sufi Muslim Council (yes, well done there, Martin).

But, credit where it's due, Bright does believe that, as far as the MCB is concerned, "the process of reform is beginning". Which does represent a rather more liberal stance than the one adopted by the rabid anti-Islamist bigot Dave T over at Harry's Place. Admittedly, that isn't difficult.

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At Comment is Free Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, defends Jack Straw's offensive and insensitive statements on the niqab:

"Straw defended women's right to wear less intrusive headscarves; yet he also argued that something is seriously wrong when, in conversation with another person, one cannot engage in face-to-face interaction. Straw was saying that to wear the nijab is a decision to close yourself off from everyone around you....

"As he pointed out, wearing the nijab is not commanded by the Koran and represents a cultural choice, not a religious duty. So long as other ways are available for Muslim women to cover their heads, agreeing not to wear the nijab is a way of signifying one's membership in a liberal society at minimal cost to one's religious commitments."

So, problem sorted then. Though some of us might note the quite stunning arrogance of Christians like Wolfe lecturing adherents of another faith on the nature of their religious duties.

Interviewed in yesterday's Daily Mail, the Tories' new shadow minister for community cohesion, Sayeeda Warsi, answered this sort of arrogance rather well: "... when Jack Straw stood up and said, 'You should not wear the face veil' I thought, oh my gosh, we now have white men standing up and telling us what to do. And I really thought that men should just butt out of women's wardrobes."

"Mr Brown thinks we upset decent Muslims by referring to bombers as 'Islamic fanatics' even if they shout 'Allah is great' as they blow us to pieces.... Some sensible Muslims are more prepared to call a spade a spade than our own mealy-mouthed politicians. It was Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, of Al-Arabiya TV, who first told the embarrassing truth after 9/11. 'It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists', he said. 'But it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.'

"He was right then and he's right now. When did a Jew or Sikh last put on a belt of explosives and blow himself and others to smithereens? Or a Hindu protester put a bomb in a mosque?

"If Gordon's 'New Speak' encourages Britain's three million Muslims to play their part in ending terrorism, I'm all for it. But rebranding won't alter the fact that Muslim extremists are the only ones trying to blow up Britain today. They are infiltrating our police, spy agencies, universities and government offices with the express purpose of imposing their own view on our world. Sadly, the courageous Muslims who are ready to risk their own lives by saying so can be counted on the fingers of one hand."

Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun, 9 July 2007

"Muslim extremists are the only ones trying to blow up Britain today"? Well, apart from far-right racists like Robert Cottage of course. And how many op eds has Kavanagh produced on that? Answer: none. Indeed, how much coverage has the Cottage case received in the Sun? Three short reports back in February, and that was it.

And in answer to Kavanagh's question as to when a Hindu protestor last put a bomb in a mosque, this would appear to be a likely candidate.