Category Archives: Left Wing

Religious hatred bill: ‘censorship by stealth’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Condemning the religious hatred bill, Mike McNair claims that “the chilling effect of the new act will be considerable. Behzti and Jerry Springer, the Opera would not be staged; Monty Python’s Life of Brian might be filmed in the US, since the first amendment is robust, but would not be shown by British cinemas, and a great deal of the television series would not be broadcast; Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses might well be de facto banned by English law”.

Weekly Worker, 29 September 2005

This is not only hysterical nonsense, it’s also unbelievably ignorant. The staging of Behzti was already covered by the provisions in the 1986 Public Order Act dealing with incitement to racial hatred, as Sikhs are held (on the basis of case law) to be members of a mono-ethnic faith. The extension of those provisions to cover religious hatred, as is proposed in the present bill, would make zero difference to whether or not Behzti could be prosecuted for inciting hatred. The effect of the bill is simply to extend to other faiths (notably Muslims) the defence already available to Sikhs and Jews under existing law.

In another article in the same issue Jack Conrad approvingly quotes Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews: “… there is a profound difference between hatred based on race, sex or age – all of which are thrust upon us; we have no choice – and on religion, which is not thrust upon us. Religion is a matter of choice.”

This argument was demolished by Sadiq Khan MP in the same House of Commons debate: “The idea that one cannot choose one’s race but can choose one’s religion so that the former but not the latter should get protection is absurd. Some people talk about religion as a lifestyle choice, but what is being suggested – that Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims should convert to Christianity or become atheists?”

‘A brave voice’ – Daily Mail applauds Trevor Phillips

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The language is stark, the message almost apocalyptic. Is Britain really ‘sleepwalking to segregation’, with ‘the walls going up round many of our communities’ and growing barriers to integration in cities where most of the population is non-white?

Not for the first time, the black chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, is venturing into territory where few white politicians would dare to tread.

Didn’t the London bombings in July expose the dangers of a ghetto mentality encouraged by multiculturalism? Isn’t something very wrong when young British-born men are so alienated from the mainstream that they can plan mass murder against their fellow citizens?

If segregation is turning Britain into a ‘breeding ground’ for terrorists, as Mr Phillips argues, it is time to think again.

Should we encourage more Muslim faith schools, if they don’t cater for other religions too, as CofE and Catholic schools do? Can’t we at last find the courage to challenge the woefully misbegotten liberal obsession with multiculturalism?

Trevor Phillips has raised some serious issues. Don’t they demand honest debate?

Leader in the Daily Mail, 23 September 2005

‘Ontario: a shari’a-free zone’ (US Right backs WPI)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arjomand Front Page“Iranian exile Homa Arjomand scores a key victory for Western civilization,”  Front Page Magazine proclaims. Alyssa A. Lappen (for further articles by this author, see here and here) offers a gushing endorsement of the Islamophobic activities of a central committee member of the Worker Communist Party of Iran:

“When Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced on Sunday September 11 that Ontario would outlaw all forms of religious arbitration, including Islamic law or Shari’a, Western civilization won a great victory. For that success, Canada and the US owe their thanks to Iranian exile Homa Arjomand, director of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court (ICASC).”

Front Page Magazine, 20 September 2005

Homa Arjomand takes her place alongside Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and Jamie Glazov – which is exactly where she belongs.

Debate stirs hatred, Canadian Muslims say

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Homa ArjomandThe debate around sharia tribunals in Ontario has led to a phobia about Islam and increased the public’s misunderstanding and hatred of Muslims, according to a coalition of Muslim groups.

The recent polemic around faith-based arbitration has perpetuated negative stereotypes of Islam as oppressive to women, Katherine Bullock, with the Islamic Society of North America, told reporters yesterday. “The debate around faith-based arbitration for Muslims has raised the notion that Muslim values are somehow outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, and Jewish and Christian family law are fine but Muslim family law is somehow oppressive to women,” Ms. Bullock said at a news conference in the ISNA mosque in Mississauga. “Taliban-style Islam in Canada has been invoked as a way to suggest Ontario shouldn’t embrace faith-based arbitration.”

Globe and Mail, 15 September 2005

Sharia is gone but fear and hostility remain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Homa Arjomand (2)The response to the proposal for Islamic arbitration tribunals in Ontario was another example of “a creeping irrationality in our own public discourse, public opinion and public policy when dealing with Muslims”, Haroon Siddiqui argues:

“Faith-based arbitration for Muslims was not going to be sharia, even if one proponent said so. The term suited the critics just fine. They raised the red herring and the platitudes flowed: Multiculturalism was eroding common values. The line separating church and state was being erased. Theocracy was being grafted onto Canada. As amusing as some of this has been at one level, at another it has been Islamophobic and deeply divisive….”

Toronto Star, 15 September 2005

The Telegraph and Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ken with QaradawiAnother rant against Qaradawi – this time by Leo McKinstry.

“Hardline Egyptian cleric … Yusuf Qaradawi’s outlook is suffused with dogmatism, revenge and oppression … Yusuf Qaradawi’s bloodthirsty views … a group of Iraqi, Jordanian and Tunisian writers last year described him as one of the ‘sheikhs of death’ … Qaradawi has openly stated that the punishment for homosexuality should be death”.

The usual sort of rubbish, familiar from the productions of MEMRI and Outrage.

Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2005

Yet, less than two months ago, the same paper published the following characterisation of Qaradawi, by Hugh Miles:

“Although much of what the sheikh says may be hard to stomach by western standards, by regional standards he is a moderate. He condemned the London bombings, just as he quickly condemned the September 11 attacks. He has consistently said that Muslims need to think for themselves, which means they need be free of government control. This is not a message that goes down well with Arab governments.

“Al-Qaradawi has written at least 50 books attempting to reconcile Islam with democracy and human rights and he is one of the most important proponents of women’s rights in contemporary Islam. All this is utterly at odds with the teachings of fundamentalist imams, who see democracy and women’s rights as alien concepts imported from the infidel West. He practises what he preaches: his three daughters are highly educated. Each one holds a doctoral degree in the natural sciences, drives and works.”

Daily Telegraph, 20 July 2005

So what explains the discrepancy? Well, maybe that Miles – author of an informative study of the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera – actually knows what he is talking about, whereas McKinstry is just an ignorant right-wing bigot.

Mind you, McKinstry has his admirers – Brett Lock of Outrage, for example, gives his wholehearted endorsement to this reactionary hack. See Lock & Load, 15 September 2005

Over a year ago year, US radical Yoshie Furuhashi pointed out that Outrage’s attitude towards Muslims was not so far removed from that of the late Dutch racist Pim Fortuyn, and she expressed anxiety that Tatchell and his co-thinkers might go the whole hog and embrace the racist Right. I think we can now say that this process has largely been completed.

‘Political correctness trumps justice and common sense’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Western societies’ fundamental philosophical and ideological structures and institutions including our democratic government, laws and rights and freedoms have derived from and are based on the bedrock of Judeo-Christian perceptions, principles, values, mores and ethics. Though evolving over the centuries, our Western societies have remained true to our Judeo-Christian heritage.

“It has been pointed out in countless news reports, sage and well researched and documented articles and books that there is much within the doctrines of Islam that is incompatible and antithetical to our Western societies. Add to that, the various Islamic edicts against non-Muslims and the often noted mandated obligation on all Muslims to aid in achieving Islam’s manifest destiny of world domination and Islam appears to many to be a very real threat to our Western way of life….

“In the case of lawful and religious based arbitration in Ontario, until now Christians and Jews have had that right. Both Judaism and Christianity as religions and as a Judeo-Christian ethic forming the foundation of our Western society, teach tolerance and respect of others and other religions. Jews and Christians practice what their religions preach in that regard.

“There has never been an issue of discrimination of Jewish or Christian women by Jewish or Christian men, nor even a hint of fear from women that such discrimination or could happen in the context of religious based arbitration or that they might be forced to participate in such process against their will.

“Much has been written of discrimination of Muslim women by Muslim men. The fact that many Muslim women joined the protest against McGuinty allowing Sharia to be a lawful basis for Muslim family dispute arbitration speaks volumes to the concern that discrimination against women in Muslim communities, even Western communities is very real and no safeguards McGuinty was contemplating in that regard would be protection enough for Muslim women.”

Israpundit, 13 September 2005

Of course, in reality, the participation of “Muslim women” in the protest spoke volumes about the deceitfulness of the Worker Communist Party of Iran.

Defeat of political Islam is cause for celebration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arjomand and media“The Ontario government’s decision to reject the introduction of Islamic arbitration courts in its jurisdiction is an important victory against the spread of political Islam in Canada and a severe blow to those who preach it.

“This victory could not have been celebrated without the tireless activism of Canadian Muslims such as Homa Arjomand, a woman who fled her native sharia-ruled Iran and knows first-hand the inequities of Islamic law.”

A right-wing Zionist applauds the efforts of the Worker Communist Party of Iran and condemns mainstream Jewish organisations in Ontario for their capitulation to political Islam.

Judeoscope, 12 September 2005

But where did everyone get the idea that comrade Arjomand, a leading figure in a far left sect characterised by its extreme, dogmatic secularism and fanatical Islamophobia, is a Muslim? Well, it could just be that they were encouraged in that illusion by exchanges like the following, from a TV interview:

Interviewer:  Ms Arjomand, if we could get your bona fides, are you a Muslim? And have you had personal experience of sharia law?

Homa Arjomand:  Yes, I have. I was born and raised in a Muslim family, and I lived in an Islamic state, Iran, and I experienced lots of horrible, horrible things … I fled Iran….

See the video clip here.

Of course, it was to the advantage of the WPI to pass themselves off as Muslims because it gave their opposition to the proposed arbitration courts much greater credibility than it would have had if they’d come clean about their actual politics. And in their role as “Muslims” they provided a useful cover for the right-wingers and racists with whom they promoted the same hysterical caricature of Islam.

Liberal Islamophobia panders to racism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Why is it that a significant section of liberal and left-leaning opinion has signed up with such relish to the ‘clash of civilisations’ argument? Its champions in the media may not phrase it as such, but you can hear the creak of the drawbridge being pulled up: they believe they are surrounded by enemies – Muslims and their dastardly non-Muslim apologists – and must defend to the last man the checklist of universal Enlightenment values that sustain their mission. Their most ferocious firepower is directed at former allies on the left whom they regard as yet to see the light.”

Madeleine Bunting takes on Nick Cohen et al in the Guardian, 12 September 2005

Over at Nick Cohen’s favourite blog, Marcus complains: “She fails to mention that the ‘thorn in the side of the muscular liberals’ as she approvingly describes al-Qaradawi incited the murder of a gay person because of his sexuality as recently as last month according to gay rights group Outrage. ‘The scholars of Islam, such as Malik, Ash-Shafi`i, Ahmad and Ishaaq said that (the person guilty of this crime) should be stoned.”

Harry’s Place, 12 September 2005

Meanwhile, the obscure “Aljazeera” magazine that was the source of this fairytale has removed the report from their website, GALHA have withdrawn their press release based on the “Aljazeera” story – but Outrage and Harry’s Place continue repeating the slander unencumbered by any concern for the facts.