“Livingstone’s welcome of this bigot and description of him as a ‘representative’ of Islam fuels racism, strengthens reaction in both Muslim and non-Muslim communities and betrays all workers, women, LGBT and progressive people from a Muslim background and in mainly-Muslim societies.”
The Alliance for Workers Liberty on Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
The rise of Islamophobia post-9/11, and the need for a united response to the Bush government’s “war on terror”, have increased the importance of the labour movement engaging in dialogue with Muslim communities and co-operating on those issues where there is common ground.
There are, unfortunately, various pseudo-leftists who reject such dialogue and co-operation. The gay rights organisations Outrage!, whose most prominent figure is Peter Tatchell, are a particularly virulent example of this trend. They of course deny accusations of Islamophobia and try to cover themselves by arguing that they are in favour of dialogue and co-operation with progressive, liberal Muslim groups. But they define these terms so as to exclude the overwhelming majority of Muslims in this country, and indeed internationally.
“Yesterday Theo van Gogh, a journalist and a filmmaker, was brutally murdered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was murdered because he cared and dared to expose the inherent misogynism in and the brutal nature of Islam. An act, which sadly, nowadays calls for great courage …”
Azar Majedi of the Worker Communist Party of Iran solidarises with the anti-Muslim racist Theo van Gogh.
Organisation for Women’s Liberation-Iran statement, 3 November 2004
Angry cries from several far-left and Jewish student groups demanded Tariq Ramadan’s removal from the European Social Forum (ESF), which was held two weeks ago in London.
In an emergency motion put forth by the National Union of Students (NUS), the renowned European Islamic scholar was deemed a threat to student interests because of his support of Shari’ah (Islamic Law), which the resolution states “denies basic human rights for women and homosexuals.”
The move enraged Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), the umbrella federation group of student Islamic societies in Britain, who said it was passed without any sound proof or consultation with a Muslim organisation. “They provided no evidence whatsoever,” said Jamal El-Shayyal, an executive member of FOSIS.
“If any of these people were to read one chapter of Ramadan’s [book] To Be a European Muslim they would see that any of the accusations levelled against him are not only false but ludicrous. Particularly seeing as he has recently been promoted by the Foreign Office as a model for integration and positive participation in Western societies.”
“If you’re going to call Ramadan an extremist then who’s next?” he added.
The 5 October 2004 meeting of the National Union of Students executive adopted a resolution calling for Tariq Ramadan’s invitation to speak at the European Social Forum to be withdrawn. It’s worth noting that Alan Clarke of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, who moved the motion, justified his call for a ban by citing the fact that Professor Ramadan’s US visa had been withdrawn. This was of course due to an intervention by the Department of Homeland Security – an organisation created by George W. Bush as part of the “war on terror”. Sometimes you think the AWL can’t possibly sink any lower – only for them to prove you utterly wrong.
The new school term in France is the first under the new law which bans Muslim girls from wearing a Muslim headscarf to school. The vast majority of the young women involved (in general between fourteen and eighteen years old) have agreed under duress to remove the headscarf in school. The hundred or so who have refused have been separated from their fellow-pupils and kept in a separate room (often with separate break-times, no right to use the library and no attention from teachers, despite the legal obligation to provide teaching). Over the next three weeks they will be called to disciplinary committees and expelled from schools. They will join an unspecified number who have been too intimidated to turn up at school since the passage of the law.
John Mullen (LCR Montreuil) on Socialist Unity Network website
“The Finsbury Park mosque, the Muslim Association of Britain, Al Qaradawi and Islam itself are part and parcel of a reactionary movement that has wreaked havoc in the Middle East and North Africa and aims to do so here as well.”
Maryam Namazie of the Worker Communist Party of Iran in WPI Briefing No.149
“The battle-cry of women’s liberation was hijacked this month by Muslim fundamentalists to disguise an agenda that denies choice to women. A conference on the hijab, held at City Hall in London on 12 July and hosted by London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, took place under the title: ‘A woman’s right to choose’.”
Peter Tatchell in the New Statesman, 19 July 2004
“Since September 11 2001, Islamophobia – fear and hatred of Muslims – has been on the rampage across the Western world. In the UK, racist tabloid newspapers daily churn out frenzied reports of Muslim clerics declaring jihad against the West. The scaremongering of newspapers like the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express has succeeded in inciting widescale violence and abuse directed against the entire Muslim population.”
Eddie Truman in Scottish Socialist Voice.
“I abhor the views of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi … but I’m not happy with what the London Telegraph did to him this morning. It attributed to Qaradawi an accusatory view of rape victims: ‘To be absolved from guilt, the raped woman must have shown some sort of good conduct.’ These words actually belong to someone else, a consultant to the website Islamonline. Even if Qaradawi is ostensible head of the committee that oversees this website, a Muslim jurist can only be deemed responsible for his own fatwas…. Today’s Telegraph article establishes nothing.”
Even anti-Qaradawi commentator Martin Kramer baulks at false accusations against Dr al-Qaradawi in the Daily Telegraph. See ‘Qaradawi non-quote’, 11 July 2004, in Kramer’s Sandbox blog.
Kramer was responding to an article in the Telegraph, 11 July 2004
But the false accusation originated in an OutRage! press release, 10 July 2004