Islamophobia Watch

Jacob Wheeler interviews Asmaa Abdol-Hamid.

In These Times, 28 March 2008

The anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders on Thursday released on the Internet his highly charged and much-anticipated anti-Koran film, which matches graphic images of terrorist attacks and death threats against Jews by Muslim extremists with verses of the Muslim holy book.

The 15-minute film – titled "Fitna", Arabic for civil strife – features news images of beheadings, violence against women in the Islamic world, anti-Semitic tirades by imams and the aftermath of terrorist attacks in New York and Madrid, including the charred remains of some victims. Those film clips of violence are alternated with images of verses of the Koran, which Mr. Wilders claims inspires such acts.

Mr. Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament and the leader of an anti-Islam political party, said his intention with the film was to warn the West about a religion he viewed as dangerous and intolerant and to stop what he called the Islamization of the Netherlands and other Western societies.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands renounced Mr. Wilders's film and his vision with a statement he read at a news conference after the film was released. "The film equates Islam with violence: we reject that interpretation," he said at the news conference in The Hague. "We believe it serves no purpose other than to offend."

Mr. Wilders told reporters after his film's release that "Islam and the Koran are dangers to the preservation of freedom in the Netherlands in the long term, and I have to warn people of that."

New York Times, 28 March 2008

See also CNN, 28 March 2008

For Ali Eteraz's response, see "Geert Wilders Fitna Farce".

Cultures clashed on Easter Sunday when Muslims marched in the streets to celebrate the birth of their prophet Muhammad. Leaving Memorial Park at 1pm, men, women and children marched through the town lead by Imam, Mazar Hussain Gilani, from Walthamstow, London. Shouting "Allah is great" and "Long live the Prophet" while waving Islamic flags, worshippers from across the country joined Surrey's first Mawlid procession.

But in Brighton Road, the 450-strong crowd were confronted by Union flags and banners held by two opposing packs of protesters. Holding placards reading "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "Our Lord's Day", four members of the right-wing British People's Party stood watching the parade pass. And member of church pressure group Christian Voice bellowed Bible verses from a megaphone besides two of his members as the chorusing crowds went by.

Irfan Akhtar, 32, from East Walthamstow, London, was handing out leaflets to spectators during the march and said: "This is a historic day for Surrey. We just want to show our beliefs. We're not looking to upset or intimidate people. Islam is a peaceful religion."

But the marchers were accused by the protesters of being provocative by choosing Easter Sunday for the event. BPP members Pete Williamson, 41, from Brighton, said: "Why have they chosen today of all days to hold this march? We heard that they [the Muslim population] wanted to hold a demonstration and we're here just to make people aware of what we stand for."

Christian Voice leader Stephen Green, 56, said: "Jesus is our living saviour and for them to be marching on this holy day of the Christian year is disrespectful to say the least. I think it's intimidating."

But march organiser Mohammed Khalid, head of the Redhill Islamic Centre, said the procession wasn't a deliberate attempt to upset people. He said: "It was a peaceful procession to mark the birthday of Muhammad and it's happening [in towns and cities] all over the UK today." He added: "I wish a happy Easter to all my Christian fellows."

The procession finished at Redhill Islamic Centre in Earlswood Road, Earlswood, at 2pm where the worshippers met for prayer.

Surrey Chronicle, 27 March 2008

See also BPP news report, 23 March 2008

"Panicked by the rise of radical Islamism and the newly assertive religious identity of migrant communities in a secular Europe, the anti-religious evangelists are increasingly using atheism as a banner for the defence of the global liberal capitalist order and the wars fought since 2001 to assert its dominance. At the same time, they are unable to recognise the ethnic dimension of their Islamophobia, let alone the deeper reasons why people continue to search for spiritual meaning in a grossly destructive economic environment where social alternatives have been pronounced dead and narcissistic consumption is king....

"Just as the French republican tradition of liberation came to be used as a stick to beat Muslims in a completely different social context from which it emerged, so the militant secularists who fetishise metaphysics and cosmology as a reason to declare the religious beyond the liberal pale are now ending up as apologists for western supremacism and violence. Like nationalism, religion can play a reactionary or a progressive role, and the struggle is now within it, not against it. For the future, it can be an ally of radical change."

Seumas Milne in the Guardian, 27 March 2008

Five Chinese Crackers analyses the response by the right-wing press to the NUT's faith education proposals.

Five Chinese Crackers, 25 March 2008 

Via Indigo Jo Blogs 

Nicola said: "They have destroyed my life – I cry every night because I am so worried about our kids' safety. "I would happily move out of my flat and into a shed in the middle of nowhere if it meant we could be safe. We have suffered so much abuse over the last two years – they have even thrown bacon at me because they know Muslims don't eat pork. I'm not Muslim but I know it was a dig at my partner. It's absolutely awful."

She said yobs chased her partner up the street with an iron bar, and later threw a beer can at them. The 32-year-old claims the gang of teenagers, believed to be aged from about 13 to 17, have repeatedly hurled racist abuse at them and warned them to leave the estate. Nicola, who last year gave birth to her second child, Arshad, claims she has also been forced to scrap three cars over the last 18 months after they were vandalised by the yobs.

Sheffield Star, 26 March 2008

"It's a measure of America's multicultural journey over the past half-century that we've gone from 'God and Man at Yale' to Allah and Woman at Harvard. In a contretemps scarcely imaginable in William F. Buckley's day, Harvard has closed one of its gyms to men for six hours a week so that Muslim women can exercise comfortably. 'Sharia at Harvard,' warned blogger Andrew Sullivan. A Harvard Crimson columnist blasted 'Harvard's misguided accommodationist policy.'

"Meanwhile, a separate controversy has flared over broadcasting the Muslim call to prayer from the steps of Harvard's main library during Islamic Awareness Week. Three graduate students, writing in the Crimson, argued that the prayer sowed 'seeds of division and disrespect' by declaring that 'there is no lord except God' and that 'Mohammad is the Messenger of God'. Harvard, they wrote, 'should not grant license to any religious group, minority or otherwise, to use a loudspeaker to declare false the profoundly important and personal beliefs of others.' ...

"My reaction is more along the lines of: 'Get a grip.' It's reasonable to set aside a few off-peak hours at one of Harvard's many gyms. It's not offensive to have the call to prayer echoing across Harvard Yard, any more than it is to ring church bells or erect a giant menorah there.

"I share the apprehensions stirred up by the more radical followers of Islam, with their drive to restore the caliphate and subjugate women. But I come to this issue as a member of another minority religion, Judaism, whose adherents often seek flexibility from the majority culture in order to practice their faith. As with Islam, my religion's more observant believers endorse practices – segregating the sexes at prayer, excluding women from engaging in certain rituals – that I find disturbing, bordering on offensive. I have relatives who would shrink from shaking my hand. Still, I would defend to the death their right not to touch me."

Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post, 26 March 2008

Cf. Debbie Schlussel's comments

A Muslim scholar involved in high-level dialogue with the Vatican has denounced the Pope's baptism on Saturday of a prominent Italian Muslim convert. Aref Ali Nayed, the head of Jordan's Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, called the baptism of journalist Magdi Allam a deliberate and provocative act. The Vatican has not yet commented, but its official newspaper said the gesture aimed to promote religious freedom.

In a stinging rebuke of Saturday's televised ceremony, Mr Nayed denounced what he called "the Vatican's deliberate and provocative act of baptising Allam on such a special occasion and in such a spectacular way". Mr Nayed said Pope Benedict XVI's actions came "at a most unfortunate time when sincere Muslims and Catholics are working very hard to mend ruptures between the two communities".

The Jordanian scholar has been at the forefront of an initiative gathering more than 130 Muslim scholars who recently wrote to the Pope and other Christian leaders calling for greater dialogue and good will between Muslims and Christians.

BBC News, 26 March 2008

"Nothing demonstrates the dangerously misplaced sympathies of Canada's intellectual elite so much as the case of Avi Lewis. A former host with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Jewish Lewis is Canada's answer to Keith Olbermann. But what has everyone in Canada talking is not his past career but his new job: Lewis has joined Al-Jazeera, the Middle East broadcaster that serves as a leading purveyor of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.

"That the ambitious 40-year-old presenter has departed the state-funded CBC for an international network with exponentially bigger budgets and audiences isn't a huge surprise. But Lewis's career move underscores that the Canadian Left is all too willing to forge an unholy alliance with the official tribune of radical Islam."

Kathy Shaidle at Front Page Magazine, 26 March 2008

In a school in south London, women in headscarves are learning English, childcare skills and citizenship, to smooth their integration into British life. The courses are encouraged under a new government policy to "empower" Muslim women, ultimately to combat the threat from Islamist violence, a threat made brutally clear when four homegrown suicide bombers killed 52 people in London in 2005.

The policy's backers say the main goal is for Britain's estimated 800,000 Muslim women to become more influential in their communities, which might stem the threat from disaffected young Muslim men. "Muslim women have a unique role to play in tackling the spread of violent extremism," Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said as she unveiled the plan, backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

In a document published in January, Blears highlighted figures showing almost two-thirds of Muslim women in Britain are "economically inactive" – as opposed to about a quarter of all women. Her plan would see tens of millions of pounds spent through local communities to raise their involvement. But despite visible backing for the scheme from Brown, some Muslim community leaders are alienated by the way it has been presented.

"Why is it that anything that has to do with Muslims, has to do with terrorism?" said Reefat Drabu, Chair of the Social and Family Affairs Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain. While in favour of female empowerment, she said linking it with reducing the threat of terrorism was ludicrous. "If they want to combat terrorism, they really need to get out of their denial and realise that they need to look at the policies, as far as foreign policies, policies at home, domestic policies to win the hearts and minds of people," she said.

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee said Blears' initiative was missing the larger point – discrimination. "What Blears seems to fail to recognise is that women are unequivocally recognised by Islam as the moral authority in their homes," the organisation commented on its Web site. "They do not need condescending advice on how they can better fulfil their roles in this sphere."

Reuters, 26 March 2008