Category Archives: Liberal

Liberals rally against religious hatred bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Free ExpressionIn excerpts from a forthcoming book entitled ‘Free Expression is No Offence’, Philip Pullman, Monica Ali, Philip Hensher and Salman Rushdie consider the threat to free speech contained in the government’s Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.

Frankly, it’s a lot of pretentious waffle, interspersed with ignorant remarks.

Guardian, 19 November 2005

“If you choose to stop being a Muslim, you are an apostate and, depending on where you live, liable to severe punishment, which might include the death penalty. So being a Muslim is partly a matter of choice and partly one of coercion.” (I must hurry and warn a Muslim friend of mine, who is considering converting to Christianity.)

“Hate-speech laws in Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands have not resulted in a decrease in insults directed towards Jews, Muslims, Turks, African immigrants or other minorities. In fact there has been growth in support for the extreme right in those countries.” (If this is an argument against introducing a religious hatred law, it’s equally an argument in favour of abolishing the existing racial hatred laws. Is that what is being proposed?)

“… a cynical vote-getting attempt to placate British Muslim spokesmen, in whose eyes just about any critique of Islam is offensive…. New Labour is playing with the fire of communal politics, and in consequence we may all be burned.” (Oh piss off, Salman.)

UK policy ‘key factor’ in extremism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British foreign policy is a “key contributory factor” in driving UK Muslims to extremism, official Home Office advisers have concluded.

Working groups set up in the wake of the July 7 atrocities said the Government should learn from the impact of its foreign policies, particularly in the Middle East. The working groups’ final report said “radical impulses” among the Muslim community were often triggered by “perceptions of injustices inherent in western foreign policy”.

The report, compiled by seven committees appointed by the Home Secretary, said: “British foreign policy – especially in the Middle East – cannot be left unconsidered as a factor in the motivations of criminal radical extremists. We believe it is a key contributory factor. The Government should learn from the impact of its foreign policies on its electors.”

The Scotsman, 10 November 2005

What a pity these groups didn’t bother to consult Nick Cohen, that well-known expert on Islam. He could have told them that all Islamists are members of “psychopathic movements that are in the end beyond rational explanation”. See here.

‘Qaradawi calls for gay men to be executed’ … again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ex-Marxist enthusiast for imperialist war Norman Geras has posted a message from journalist Andrew Anthony, who tries to justify his Guardian article from a couple of months back attacking Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Normblog, 3 November 2005

Note that Anthony makes no attempt to defend his article’s claim that Qaradawi says it is a duty for Muslims to become suicide bombers in Iraq – a story originating with MEMRI, who produced the “evidence” for it by splicing together various sections of a speech made by Qaradawi … at a conference called to oppose terrorism. Nor does Anthony try to back up his assertion that Dr Q has “argued that it is OK to kill Jewish foetuses because they would grow up to be Israeli soldiers”.

However, he does stand by the following statement from his Guardian article:

“In 2003, Al-Qaradawi dealt with the punishment for the sin of homosexuality on the website Islamonline. ‘Should it be the same as the punishment for fornication, or should both the active and passive participants be put to death?’ he asked with theological dispassion, before concluding: ‘While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements’.”

Andrew Anthony obviously thinks he’s on solid ground with this one. Qaradawi’s statement was an “official religious judgment”, apparently – an “official fatwa”.

Actually, the Islam Online piece that Anthony cites is an anonymously compiled selection of quotations from various Islamic sources on the subect of homosexuality. The quote from Qaradawi – in which he summarises the views of other scholars but does not give his own opinion – is taken from a book called “The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam” which was published … back in 1960!

As we’ve pointed out a number of times before, if Qaradawi does indeed hold that gay men should be put to death, then a statement to that effect can presumably be found among his voluminous writings and statements over the subsequent forty-five years. A journalist with Andrew Anthony’s evident talent for detailed and reliable research should have no problem finding one, surely?

Nick Cohen boosts Maryam Namazie

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Namazie“A week ago, at a reception in one of London’s dowdier hotels, Maryam Namazie received a cheque and a certificate stating that she was Secularist of the Year 2005. The audience from the National Secular Society cheered, but no one else noticed.”

Nick Cohen in the Observer, 16 October 2005

Oh, I don’t know. Islamophobia Watch picked up on it. Cohen observes that “Maryam Namazie’s obscurity remains baffling. She ought to be a liberal poster girl” (sic). Perhaps Namazie’s obscurity is not unconnected with the fact that she’s a member of the central and political committees of a barking far-left sect, the Worker Communist Party of Iran (WPI), whose hysterical Islamophobia, while it obviously appeals to a fellow bigot like Cohen, would repel any principled liberal.

As for the so-called “Sharia courts” in Canada to which Cohen’s article refers, details can be found in the Canada section of this site. What was in fact proposed was to allow Muslims the same right to faith-based civil arbitration that had been available to Catholics and Jews in Ontario since 1991. The WPI’s response to the proposal was:

“The struggle to establish Islamic tribunals in Canada, like similar efforts to enforce the hijab in public institutions and schools in France, is not merely a cultural effort to pursue cultural rights. Both the aims of and the forces behind these efforts are political. These attempts are part and parcel of one of the most reactionary global phenomena in recent history, i.e. the movement of political Islam.”

The Ontario proposal provoked a racist backlash throughout Canada against Muslims and their supposed barbaric religious practices, which it was claimed had no place in a civilised Western society. And it was another WPI central committee member, Homa Arjomand, who played a leading role in encouraging this upsurge of Islamophobia. For her trouble, she became the “poster girl” of the most hardline right-wingers, receiving plaudits from the likes of Front Page Magazine.

It can’t be long before Cohen and the WPI go the whole hog and join their friends in GALHA – with whom they have co-operated closely in the anti-Qaradawi campaign – in promoting an anti-Muslim agenda that is indistinguishable from the vile propaganda of the racist Right.

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.