Outrage! and GALHA cherrypick quotations from Islam Online to “refute” the Mayor’s dossier.
See here.
Update: For a response to the “Mayor’s dossier on al-Qaradawi distorts the truth” document, see here.
Category Archives: Secular
So what is secularism?
“Andrew Coates’ article ‘In Defence of Militant Secularism’ (What Next? No.29) calls for a reply. In attempting to produce one, I shall try to avoid the polemical style which Coates has adopted. Thus he puts the word ‘Islamophobia’ in inverted commas, as though no such phenomenon existed.”
Ian Birchall in What Next? No.30
The Lib Dems and the Muslim Council of Britain
Lord Lester writes to the New Statesman (7 February 2005):
“Nick Cohen purports to describe a meeting in my chambers. The meeting, held at the request of the Muslim Council of Great Britain [sic], was to discuss the government’s proposed offence of incitement to religious hatred. The views attributed to me are not what I said.”
For Cohen’s article see here.
But it seems that the only other Lib Dem present at the meeting was leading National Secular Society member Evan Harris (see the MCB’s letter to Charles Kennedy). So who could have provided Cohen with his distorted account of the proceedings? You, as they say, do the maths.
MCB letter to Charles Kennedy
The Muslim Council of Britain writes to Charles Kennedy raising concerns about his party’s attitude to the proposed law banning religious hatred, and complains that details of an MCB meeting with the Lib Dems were leaked to Nick Cohen for his article in the New Statesman (see here).
Now who was responsible for that leak, we wonder. Couldn’t possibly have been leading National Secular Society member Evan Harris, could it? Of course not, and we would never suggest otherwise.
The MCB also complains that Cohen’s account of the meeting was “shamelessly dishonest” and that he failed to contact the MCB to hear their side of the story. Investigative journalism at its best, eh?
See here.
‘If only we were more like the French’ complains Guardian writer
“The French intolerance is one that will not accept a non-society of discrete, uncomprehending ethnic or religious communities. Instead, they want to create a cross-cultural fraternité. It is this intolerance that we need more of in Britain today.”
Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian, 31 January 2005
‘Labour’s contemptible election trade-off’
Another rant by Nick Cohen, who accuses the government of being “prepared to sacrifice Britain’s liberties and run the risk of religious riots for the sake of grabbing the votes of fundamentalists” – by which he evidently means the Muslim Council of Britain. What an obnoxious man he is.
‘Fundamental union’
When it comes to defining family values, conservative Christians and Muslims are united against liberal secularists, writes Brian Whitaker.
In defence of militant secularism
“A strange alliance has arisen: from conservative members of the Muslim Association of Britain, the SWP, to London’s Mayor, all are in an uproar about ‘Islamophobia’. Ken Livingstone has taken it upon himself to criticise the French move to ban wearing ostentatious religious symbols in schools. He has also given lessons on religious freedom by defending a cleric, al-Qaradawi, who supports female genital mutilation. This bloc draws support from the mainstream of the Anglican Church and Prince Charles to, with rare exceptions, the bien-pensant pages of the Guardian.”
Andrew Coates in What Next? No.29
Tariq Ramadan has his place in the European Social Forum
Seumas Milne takes on the militant secularists
“For the left not to have stood with Muslims would have been a real betrayal. But for showing solidarity and working with Muslim organisations – whether in the anti-war movement or in campaigns against Islamophobia – leftwing groups and politicians such as the London mayor, Ken Livingstone, are now routinely damned by liberal secularists (many of whom have been keen supporters of the war in Iraq) for ‘betraying the enlightenment’ and making common cause with ‘Islamofascists’, homophobes and misogynists.”
Seumas Milne in Guardian, 16 December 2004