Religion as a fig leaf for racism

Posted on July 23, 2004 by Eddie Truman

“The Islamophobia embraced by the BNP as a surrogate for its formally disavowed racism is by no means confined to the wasted landscapes of former working-class communities. It is deeply rooted and widespread, as was revealed by the success of Ukip (just listen to Robert Kilroy-Silk assert that “Muslims everywhere behave with equal savagery”).

“Indeed, Islamophobia is the only form of prejudice to which the middle class can readily admit: a religion which is perceived as advocating repression of women and hatred of gays renders acceptable forms of prejudice that would be unthinkable if directed against any other social group.”

Jeremy Seabrook writing in the Guardian, 23 July 2004

British press unite in hysteria over jilbab

Posted on June 29, 2004 by Bob Pitt

“Well it seems that the ‘fundamentalist threat’ to British state education has been averted yet again. Last week’s ruling against Shabina Begum’s fight to wear the jilbab to school has brought shrieks of joy from all the usual suspects – liberal pundits and right-wing columnists alike …”

Fareena Alam in the Times Educational Supplement, 25 June 2004.

Reproduced in Q News.

Winners of Islamophobia Awards 2004 announced

Posted on June 26, 2004 by Bob Pitt

Islamic Human Rights Commission chairman Massoud Shadjareh said today: “It is with great sadness that we reveal this year’s winners. Sadly the competition was extremely tough and we see no signs of this abating in the year to come.”

IHRC press release, 26 June 2004

Unfortunately for Daniel Pipes, although shortlisted for the Most Islamophobic Media Personality award he lost out to Polly Toynbee.

Why should we defend the veil? Catherine Bennett want to know

Posted on January 22, 2004 by Bob Pitt

“However modestly sized the hijab, many of us would recognise it – like a nun’s wimple – as a clear nuisance and hindrance, and more importantly, as a prominent signifier of female subservience, enforced at the behest of men – not the Quran.”

Catherine Bennett in the Guardian, 22 January 2004

Evan Harris on the French hijab ban

Posted on January 18, 2004 by Bob Pitt

In Britain, Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris, the honourable secretary of the National Secular Society, sees the ban on scarves, yarmulkes, crucifixes and turbans as “in keeping with centuries of secularism as far as state institutions are concerned in France”.

He’s angered by the continual claim that it is all women who are to be forbidden from wearing the hijab. It is, he reiterates, a ban where “girls – not women – in school – not out of school – will be asked not to wear the hijab. That is already the convention and this [law] is just codifying the proposal and the same will apply to Jews with skullcaps in school and Christians with large and visible crosses. There is a tradition that education in France is secular and that there shouldn’t be overt symbols of religion.”

He adds: “The commission in France that looked into this found that in many cases girls were being forced to wear [the hijab], to cover their hair, by the men in their community, and I think that France recognises that in school, at least, girls should be free from that sort of cultural persuasion.”

“In the UK, the position is very clear. Some children want to express themselves culturally by wearing some items of fashion that we don’t allow in schools – it is the same with facial jewellery. In fact, I suspect many more children feel more strongly about fashion and identifying themselves with a fashion than they do with religion. So it is not an unheard-of step for schools to say, ‘We draw the line at this sort of thing.’

“I think it’s a reasonable thing to do and certainly not something that we in this country are in a position to criticise, when we sanction discrimination against children by saying, ‘You can’t come to this school because you are of the wrong religion or of no religion.’ That’s what happens with faith schools in our country.”

Sunday Herald, 18 January 2004

Old hatred, new style

Posted on July 27, 2001 by Eddie Truman

“English exams are a red herring. But more worryingly, Cryer’s comments are an illustration of how nakedly some liberals are prepared to exploit mainstream anti-Islamic sentiments, especially at a time when they are converging with those of the far right as it tries to convince the country that it does indeed have a ‘Muslim problem’.

“Not that the far right needs any encouragement. Its rediscovered swagger partly owes itself to a new strategy that is soft on race and hard on Islam. If you missed hearing BNP leader Nick Griffin saying so on BBC’s Newsnight, take a moment to visit the National Front website.

“It was only a matter of time before the far right tapped into the western world’s latent, if largely unfounded, fear of Islam. Its problem with Islam stretches back at least 1,000 years to the time of Pope Urban’s first crusade, finding expression in art, literature, popular culture and, most perniciously today, in the mass media.”

Faisal Bodi in the Guardian, 27 July 2001

Beware the intolerant certainties of European liberals: Islamophobia in Britain

Posted on October 25, 1997 by Bob Pitt

Beware the intolerant certainties of European liberals

By Trevor Phillips

The Independent, 25 October 1997

The problem with European liberals (small “l”) is their intolerance. They will oppose, to the death, any kind of bigotry but their own. Their capacity to know what is best for others is unlimited, riding roughshod over the fact that people may not choose the same values as most Western Europeans. The famous Voltairean assertion of the right to free speech appears to be limited to precisely that – a defence of a man or woman’s right to say what he or she likes, as long as he or she does nothing about it; at that point, tolerance runs out. Such is the liberals’ certainty that their own version of the world is right that they entertain no doubts at all about condemning others’ traditions, even where adherence to those traditions is the free choice of nearly a billion people worldwide.

This week the civilised, “rationalist” version of liberalism swung into action against Islam. Some people, including Polly Toynbee in these pages, clothed it in an assault on all religious practice, but the issue here is the growth of Islam, and the critique is moving rapidly from being a defence of human rights to a disrespect for others’ beliefs that verges on the racist.

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In defence of Islamophobia: religion and the state

Posted on October 23, 1997 by Eddie Truman

In defence of Islamophobia: religion and the state

By Polly Toynbee

The Independent, 23 October 1997

I am an Islamophobe. I judge Islam not by its words – the teachings of the Koran as interpreted by those Thought-for-the-Day moderate Islamic theologians. I judge Islam by the religion’s deeds in the societies where it dominates. Does that make me a racist?

For I am also a Christophobe. If Christianity were not such a spent force in this country, if it were powerful and dominant as it once was, it would still be every bit as damaging as Islam is in those theocratic states in its thrall. Christianity remains a lethal weapon in Northern Ireland.

If I lived in Israel, I’d feel the same way about Judaism. Everywhere in the world where religion dominates over the state, that is a bad place to live. Religiophobia is highly rational.