Rolled-up Trousers

Cameron: Muslims must be taught English, believers in shariah are like the BNP

David Cameron's managed to undo his good work in the space of 24 hours:

Likening Muslim extremism to the ideologies of the BNP, he stated: "We must mobilise the instruments of public policy to draw people away from supporting such ideologies. The BNP pretend to be respectable; but their creed is pure hate. And those who seek a sharia state, or special treatment and a separate law for British Muslims are, in many ways, the mirror image of the BNP. They also want to divide people into us and them. And they too seek out grievances to exploit."

I've already blogged at length today so for commentary please refer to some of my previous comments on shariah here and here.

The press release goes onto the issue of language:

Warning that multiculturalism has been manipulated to favour a divisive idea - the right to difference - Mr Cameron stressed the need to bring people close together, and pressed for Muslims to be taught English. He said: "We've got to make sure that people learn English, and we've got to make sure that kids are taught British history properly at school. I believe that the Government should redirect some of the money it currently spends on translation into additional English classes. This would help people integrate into society and broaden their opportunities."

How many Muslims can't speak English? Apart from the elderly, In reality they do so -  with the appropriate regional accents. I can't understand why he's seriously raising this as a problem.

You can be religious and British

The newspapers have been full of alarm today at the findings of a report by the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. The press release can be read here and the full report here

Headed by Munira Mirza, Living Apart Together: British Muslims and the paradox of multiculturalism found there was a growing religiosity amongst the Muslim community. Evidence of this is that:

1. 86% thought Islam was the most important thing in their life
2. 62% of them thought they had as much in common with Muslims as non-Muslims
3. many would like to send their children to Islamic schools
4. a number would like to live in a shariah state
5. a majority would like women to choose to wear a hijab

Islamists at the centre of government?

Today's Independent on the latest with cash for peerages:

The cabinet minister could not have been more adamant: "If Tony Blair is in the witness box it will be a disaster. Someone will call him as a witness if this goes to trial."

Crossing his fingers, he added: "It would be disastrous. Hopefully it won't happen. Inshallah!"

Wonder who this could be!

Cameron's Crusade

There was much to merit in David Cameron's Observer article looking forward to the announcements this week from his party's policy review on national security.

He decouples the issues of integration and terrorism (despite the fact its his policy commission on national security which will be making recommendations on community cohesion), and says he won't shy away from looking at the role of foreign policy on domestic affairs. He reminded us that it was not long ago that Britain questioned the loyalty of its Jewish and Irish citizens. I also liked this:

There is no easy short cut. Having tried to impose democracy in Iraq at the point of a gun, we must surely realise that we will never impose cohesion at home with the ping of a press release.

He condemns the "clunking" initiatives from the government recently such as asking Muslim parents to spy on their children.

A separate article in the Observer quotes him wanting to campaign for the rights of women, who he says are being held back not by Islam, but by culture. In this regard, I agree, but am not sure what he can do about it (Indigo Jo has some thoughts on this). I also do believe the problem is lessening as years go on.

Cameron caps this all off by saying he's going wage a "crusade for fairness". Just as with George Bush in 2001, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and say that he was silly rather deliberately provocative with his choice of words. I can't though understand the Western obsession with it. If you want to get something done, the crusades are hardly the model of best practice. Many, many people had their blood spilt, and ultimately they did not achieve what they set out to do. There was certainly nothing "fair" about it. The word should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

UPDATE: Cameron has compared Muslims who believe in shariah to the BNP.

Police need to stop their leaks

The Mail on Sunday first ran the story about the new Muslim WPC who 'refused' to shake hands with the head of the Met, Ian Blair.

Despite her superiors being informed well in advance of the issue, you would think given the media coverage that she was standing in a row of people having their hands shaken and when her turn with Sir Ian came she whipped her hand back, put her thumb on her nose and wiggled her fingers about while blowing a raspberry (see this kid with Steven Gerrard).

The Mail helpfully quoted someone at Scotland Yard saying that she could face the sack if she didn't perform her duties. That would presumably apply to anyone.

However, there is no question about her ability or willingness to do the job. This was a front page story despite the Mail burying this point in the middle of the article:

HMD censors events

The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign have announced that the trustees of Holocaust Memorial Day have pulled off mention of their events from the HMD website.

The SPSC are showing the play Perdition this week in events they have organised to mark the occasion. The work highlights the role that Zionists in Hungary had in collaborating with the Nazis. HMD claims this is "anti-Semitic".

The SPSC had advocated that everyone should engage positively with HMD. Here's their announcement:

Palestinians facing genocide

John Pilger:

A genocide is engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders. "Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run and no space to hide," wrote the former senior UN relief official Jan Egeland and Jan Eliasson, then foreign minister of Sweden, in Le Figaro. They described a people "living in a cage", cut off by land, sea and air, with no reliable power and little water, and tortured by hunger and disease and incessant attacks by Israeli troops and planes. (...)

When I was last in Gaza, Dr Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist, showed me the results of a remarkable survey. "The statistic I personally find unbearable," he said, "is that 99.4 per cent of the children we studied suffer trauma. Once you look at the rates of exposure to trauma you see why: 99.2 per cent of their homes were bombarded; 97.5 per cent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 per cent witnessed shootings; 95.8 per cent witnessed bombardment and funerals; almost a quarter saw family members injured or killed." Dahlan invited me to sit in on one of his clinics. There were 30 children, all of them traumatised. He gave each a pencil and paper and asked them to draw. They drew pictures of grotesque acts of terror and of women streaming tears.

Ilan Pappe:

On this stage, not so long ago, I claimed that Israel is conducting genocidal policies in the Gaza Strip. I hesitated a lot before using this very charged term and yet decided to adopt it. Indeed, the responses I received, including from some leading human rights activists, indicated a certain unease over the usage of such a term. I was inclined to rethink the term for a while, but came back to employing it today with even stronger conviction: it is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip.

Hat tip to the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign who are organising a series of Holocaust Memorial Day events.

Littlejohn talks sunnis and shias

This is just hilarious.

Off the back of the new US House Intelligence Committe chair Silvestre Reyes thinking that Al-Qaeda was a shia organisation, the Sunday Times showed up a load of British MPs who have an interest in the Muslim world by finding they didn't fair much better in knowing the difference between sunnis and shias either.

Helpfully, right-wing Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn who has not been shy to engage in rants against Muslims in the past to say the least, waded in [fourth entry down] to assist his readers:

... here is a simple cut-out-and-keep guide to the two dominant branches of Islam: Sunnis are the peace-loving, Saudi-backed wing who brought you Al Qaeda.

Shias are the peace-loving, Iranian-backed strain behind Hamas and Hezbollah. I hope that helps.

Never mind the branding of all Muslims into either being Al-Qaeda, Hamas or Hizbullah which Arab Media Watch rightly complain about. The astonishing point here is that anyone with an ounce of knowledge knows Hamas is not shia.

And this is the problem. Self-proclaimed experts, spouting off like nobody's business - making life and death decisions in the case of MPs - who in actual fact know absolutely nothing. Littlejohn meanwhile was not even put on the spot - he voluntarily took the time to compose this article and still got it wrong.

Alex Salmond has pledged to establish Scotland's first state Islamic school should he be First Minister come May.

The article also contains a remarkable turnaround in Conservative policy towards faith schools.

Saddam's suspended sentence

Let's be clear in the preliminary. Those that opposed the war were accused of supporting Saddam's desire to develop WMD. We are no friends of Saddam and shed no tears on hearing of his death.

What is a shame is that the CIA man who was killed by pro-Iranian Shia factions was not tried for more deaths than the 148 people of Dujail in 1982. After all, remember what Tony Blair said in his speech to the Labour Party conference in Glasgow on 15 February 2003 - that historic day when two million took to the streets in protest against the neocon war:

If there are 500,000 on the march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for. If there are one million, that is still less than the number of people who died in the wars he started.

As it was, he underestimated the numbers that actually turned up. And then he went on to ignore them and rival up to Saddam in the "number of people who died in the wars he started".

These are the days of Eid

Congratulations to all the hajjis this year, including my brother who is among them. My parents wanted to go too, but missed out due to a mixture of incompetence on the part of the group they were going with and the Saudi embassy issuing visas.

It's a familiar story. I'd love to see someone do a thorough analysis of the way that Hajj is organised, as clearly there is a lot left to be desired. There's the normal civil service bureaucracy, but then consider how bad the accountability and sense of impunity is in one run by a dictatorship. It's astounding that people can be denied performing their once in a liftime religious obligation without any rhyme or reason due to visas.

And that's just on this end. I've not been yet, but can well imagine organising a two-million-strong event is not easy. But in the decaying atmosphere that sums up the state of affairs in the Muslim world, there doesn't appear to be a "suggestions box" as to how things can be improved. As I wrote after the 300 deaths at Jamarat last year, in a healthy situation there would be a proper independent inquiry into what went wrong. People asked questions of and made recommendations to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and the righteous Caliphs. This tradition should be renewed.

I've also heard that Eids are a rather drab affair over there. Couldn't the Saudi authorities put on some entertainment? We know from the life of the Prophet that a good time was had on these days. If they wanted to remain literalist about it, at least get some kids to do songs with drums and some Ethiopians in to perform acts with spears and shields at the Prophet's Mosque. However, live open air concert at Arafat featuring Sami Yusuf and Native Deen anyone?

Eid mubarak to all.