Category Archives: Multiculturalism

Head scarf ban for Antwerp city counter clerks raises protests

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A head scarf ban for municipal counter clerks in the northern port city of Antwerp has raised protest from Muslims and women activists, officials said Tuesday.

The city council decided late Monday that civil servants dealing directly with the public should not wear visible religious symbols like a Muslim head scarf or a Christian cross. Some 150 mostly Muslim women protested the decision late Monday and the organizers said they were considering further action.

Antwerp has been a stronghold of the far-right Flemish Interest party, but it was defeated in local elections last October by the socialists, who had run a campaign stressing the multicultural makeup of Belgium’s second-largest city.

Opponents of the ban were disappointed that the coalition of socialists, liberals and Christian democrats who run the city council had outlawed head scarves for frontdesk staff. “It was a surprise, especially after a campaign like that,” said Sophie De Graeve of the women’s rights group VOK.

Associated Press, 16 January 2007

Birmingham mosque leader critical of hate speech

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The leader of a Muslim society whose Birmingham Mosque supplied a platform for a preacher of hate said the address damaged good work there.

Sparkbrook mosque, run by UK Islamic Mission, hosted a meeting led by controversial Muslim militant, Dr Ijaz Mian, in June. In a TV investigation preachers were seen praising the Taliban, and saying of a British Muslim soldier who died in Afghanistan: “The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.” Dr Mian was one of dozens of speakers and groups to hire out rooms at the UKIM complex on Anderton Road in Sparkbrook, which boasts a mosque and community centre.

Wolverhampton-based Mohammed Akhtar, Secretary General of UKIM, said UKIM was a moderate group which had never espoused extremist views, although it did disagree with Government policy. It has run an Islamic centre for more than 20 years and regularly stages inter-faith dialogues.

“We do disagree with a lot of policies by Government and the decision-making bodies but there are ways to address them, and we try to work alongside them through dialogue and peaceful protest,” said Mr Akhtar. “Something like this comes and destroys all the good work our group does. Islam teaches us to live in a non-Islamic environment as good neighbours. Multi-culturalism is part of Islam.”

Birmingham Post, 12 January 2007

Murder suspect may have fled in pantomime horse outfit

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pantomime horseDetectives said on Wednesday that a man wanted for questioning over the murder of a female police officer could have fled the country disguised as a Muslim woman wearing a full veil.

Mustaf Jama, 26, is thought by police to have escaped to his native Somalia at the end of last year after passing through security checks at Heathrow Airport wearing a niqab and using his sister’s passport, according to newspaper reports.

Muslim groups accused the media of Islamophobia by raising the controversial subject of the veil without any real evidence.

Asked whether Mustaf Jama had used a full Muslim veil to evade checks, a spokesman for West Yorkshire police said: “It’s a possibility. He could have been wearing a pantomime horse outfit as well. But until we get him, we won’t know for sure.”

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Mad Mel on multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

madmel“One of the lethal confusions generated by the multicultural paralysis is the reluctance to acknowledge ideological weapons being deployed against the free world which masquerade as religious piety”, Melanie Phillips tells us.

And yes, she does mean the veil. She refers us to an interview with Chahdortt Djavann which “explains how the veil is an Islamist symbol which plays a role analogous to the use of the swastika by Nazism”.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 18 December 2006

‘Speaking on our own terms’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslim women are fast becoming the battleground on which the future of Islam and Muslims in the UK and beyond is being fought. At his much-anticipated speech on the future of multiculturalism last Friday, Tony Blair recommended that the Equal Opportunities Commission open an official investigation into the kind of access women are given in Britain’s mosques. This of course was said in the same breath as he reiterated his support for Jack Straw’s now stale remarks on the face veil and announced sanctimoniously that face veils ought to be removed in jobs where to face-to-face communication is required.”

Q-News editor Fareena Alam at Comment is Free, 13 December 2006

Are you thinking what Blair’s thinking? No!

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims and anti-racist campaigners united to condemn a speech by Tony Blair, which bashed immigrants. Critics said the Prime Minister had indulged in an “Enoch moment” by ordering immigrants to integrate or leave Britain.

Blair reserved his strongest attacks for Muslims; however leading Islamic academics hit back on the same day (last Friday 9th December) at a conference at London’s City Hall. The 200 delegates at the event “Islamophobic Hysteria: How Should Muslims Respond?” heard speakers express dismay at Blair’s speech.

BLINK news report, 12 December 2006

See also Simon Woolley, “The real sleepwalkers”, Comment is Free, 12 December 2007

Jon Gaunt joins in hysteria over ‘Muslim only’ swimming sessions

Posted on by Bob Pitt

It is rumoured that the fascist BNP have already selected Richard Barnbrook as their candidate for the 2008 London mayoral election. If by some freak of fate Barnbrook were to fall under a bus, they could always adopt Jon Gaunt as a replacement. His latest article in The Sun, using the reports of “Muslim only” swimming sessions in Croydon (see Indigo Jo Blogs) to mount yet another demented attack on multiculturalism, ticks all the right boxes for the fascists.

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Blair stirs up Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“On his return from Washington, Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a speech to a selected audience at his Downing Street residence. The subject of his remarks was not the criticisms made by the Iraq Study Group of US – and by implication British – foreign policy failures in Iraq. Instead he sought to deflect any examination of his criminal war policy by launching yet another provocative attack on Muslims….

“In a blatant infringement of religious and cultural liberties, Blair made clear his support for restrictions on the Muslim veil and implied his backing for the sacking of Aishah Azmi, a Muslim teaching assistant, for refusing to remove her veil in the classroom. ‘It really is a matter of plain common sense that when it is an essential part of someone’s work to communicate directly with people, being able to see their face is important’, he said.

“As to ‘equality’ for all citizens, this was further belied by Blair’s announcement that the Equal Opportunities Commission is to look at restrictions on women in place in some mosques. But he made no suggestion that some Anglican and Evangelical churches be subject to similar inquiries for their opposition to the ordination of women priests and their campaign against homosexual rights legislation, let alone the Catholic Church.”

World Socialist Web Site, 12 December 2006

Blair speech provokes ‘debate’ on the Sun’s website

Posted on by Bob Pitt

On 7 December the Sun reported Blair’s now notorious speech on integration, multiculturalism and Muslims under the headline “PM: Immigrants must conform”. A discussion on the Sun‘s website provides an appalling but enlightening insight into the sort of bigotry that Blair’s speech has encouraged and legitimised.

Typical comments read:

“What the hell happened? The same man who has let immigration and PC Loonies spiral out of control is now saying people need to respect the Brit way of life?”

“WHAT IS THIS FOOL UP TO? It’s too late now. You let them all in. It’s all talk as usual. The damage has been done, and his multicultural experiment has failed.”

“Be tolerant or not become part of British society? Most foreigners don’t want to be part of our society anyway, you prat. They just come here and form their own societies anyway, they don’t give a toss about British society.”

“Britain is a Christian culture; those of other cultures who do not want to accept this should not attempt to immigrate here or if here now should leave and return to where they can exercise their culture as they wish.”

“President Blair should have been saying this 10 years ago… we are now almost a muslim state!!!”

“Blair’s rambling speech was a feeble and pathetic u turn on the multi culti experiment that has gone from bad to worse…. So different then from the previous speeches on the benefits and ‘enrichment’ of immigration we have endured for the past nine years. Blair will not go into the history books as one of the world’s leading statesmen as his ego craves, but will instead be remembered as Britain’s worst political leader and the man who sold out his own people by turning the UK into an Island outpost for criminals and the dregs of humanity from every poor third world country on the globe.”

“… fact is that you cannot be a good muslim if you do not support jihad. It is mentioned several times in the Koran. An this superior attitude and many other offensive ideologies are the basis of the hadith. Which in my opinion is the muslim ‘mien kampf’ a Nazi style book…it Tells Muslims to not mix with unclean peoples like Christians or Jews and to kill them were they will not subdjigate to Islam or conform to shariah.”

“Read up on the muslim sites and see how radical they are!! especially, as they want to make the UK a state of Islam.”

“… there is no such thing as a moderate muslim, if you don’t follow islam you are the enemy and must be destroyed. islam is a modern plage that needs to be stopped.”

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US right-winger provides advice on multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under the heading “Britain confronts militant Islam”, a writer for the US right-wing/neocon NRO offers his take on current debates in the UK over multiculturalism. Regarding the veil he observes:

“If this wretched garment, in at least its more stringent forms, has more to do with misogyny than piety, so the hostility it provokes owes less to outraged feminism than to the mounting unease felt by many Europeans at the presence of the increasingly assertive and increasingly extremist Islam rising within their midst…. there is something about the very appearance of the veil (and I am here referring to the burka and the only marginally less appalling nikab, a get-up that generously allows a clear view of the wearer’s eyes) that is alien, dehumanizing, and, in the context of Europe’s current troubles, thoroughly ominous. Little more than walking shrouds, these women seem like the harbingers both of future theocracy and the slaughter that comes in its wake.”

As for the suggestion that racial hatred legislation should be adequately reinforced in order to defend Muslims: “That’s madness. That’s cowardice. That’s appeasement.”

National Review Online, 11 December 2006