Muriel Gray writes: “… what of moderate Islam? British Muslims are represented by the unelected Sir Iqbal Sacranie, a man at the forefront of the book-burning mob who threatened Rushdie’s life, when Sacranie declared: ‘Death, I think, is too easy for him.’ For this part in incitement to murder, Sacranie was awarded not the stiff custodial sentence one might expect, but a knighthood.”
Sunday Herald, 5 February 2006
I particularly liked Gray’s reference to “the Western values so vigorously and courageously fought for over two bloody world wars”. So World War I was fought in defence of “western values”, was it? Although, on reflection, she does have a point here. “Western values” do indeed include a tendency to heap up vast piles of corpses as imperialist powers pursue their interests through military aggression without the slightest concern for the human consequences.
Elsewhere in the same paper, Torcuil Crichton writes: “Yesterday Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist organisation that believes in a Muslim Caliphate, demanded that European governments exert pressure on their media outlets to retract the offensive caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, apologise for the offence caused and guarantee no further repetition of such abuse. The demands reflect those of the gunmen in Gaza who threatened to bomb the EU presence in Palestinian Authority.” Which of course omits to mention the minor difference that Hizb didn’t threaten to bomb anyone.