Rolled-up Trousers

This post is a continuation from here

Then we come to Brian Monteith's article in the Edinburgh Evening News. He probably knows even less on the subject than Tom Gallagher.

Indeed he doesn't even know the difference between an arranged and a forced marriage:

...but does [Salmond] make plain his opposition to the continuing fatwa on Rushdie, the growth in so-called honour killings and continuation of arranged marriages that disgust most Scottish people?

Having such limited cultural awareness doesn't stop him wading into the issue though.

English policies cause schism

This post is a continuation from here

By the time Gallagher reaches his Herald article, he is now up to his third piece in quick succession. He can no longer rely on broad statements with no substantial analysis, and has to go into a bit of detail. It's no surprise then that things really come of the rails for him now.

He says about Muslims:

It is a community in which young people, especially, are pulled in different directions. Besides the appeal of secularism, moderates attached to the Sufi tradition are locked in competition with Islamists who promote a purist form of belief influenced by austere Arabian norms.

The recent attacks on me

At the Scotland United Against Terror rally I was heckled by someone in the crowd. Nothing new in that, happens quite a bit, par for the course.

Caught a glimpse of the bloke near the front, just looked like the normal vagrant, possibly drunk, but definitely looking a complete state. He disappeared shortly after - possibly he'd been taken away by the police. He'd actually been pulled up by one of the other attendees to whom he retorted he was an academic and therefore was under the impression that he was above everyone else and allowed to act like a berk. Then he was pulled up by another academic who was on hand.

I've just been told that the vagrant in question was actually Tom Gallagher. He had approached one of the organisers beforehand and asked if I was going to be speaking. He was also upset that no one from the Sufi Muslim Council was on the platform.

Muslim Scouts

As a former Scout myself, it was really heartwarming to see the scenes from England on the 100th birthday of the organisation.

The Daily Mail today reports though on how Scouts celebrating the centenary weren't treated to burgers and bangers because of religious beliefs:

...as 300 Scouts travelled back to the site where their movement was born, meat was whipped off the menu in favour of vegetarian cuisine because it might offend the different faiths of youngsters from 162 countries if it wasn't Halal or Kosher.

This led to the now customary frothing in the comments:

How do these other religions get on with swearing allegiance to god and the Queen then, all PC going far too far and should be done away with. If people can't accept what we do, then why should we accept what they do?

- Nigel, Somerset

This is dreadful! This country is going to the dogs. Lord Baden Powell will be turning in his grave.

- Isabel, Buckinghamshire

This is absolutely ridiculous! I do believe that the PC stupidity in the UK is absolutely barking mad. It defies belief and words.

- Charles, Durham,NC

It is a little known fact that there are more Muslim Scouts in the world today than from any other faith group.

Jihad: The Musical

Quite a bit of free publicity has been drummed up for the apparently controversial Jihad: The Musical at this year's Edinburgh Festival. See an example of the material here.

I've fielded quite a few calls about it. The first thing that has to be said is that Muslims haven't even heard of it and have a lot of other more important things to be worrying about. So please let's not have any "Muslims angry" headlines.

In principle, there is nothing wrong with mocking terrorists, as long as sensitivity is shown towards it's victims. As far as Muslims are concerned, I can't see what we should be worried about as long as the show doesn't start mixing the religion of Islam with terrorism. In this regard however, the title of the show doesn't inspire confidence.

"Jihad" is to struggle for good, and when used in the militaristic sense is the same as the Western concept of a just war. What the terrorists do is not jihad, and to give the terrorists this cloak of respectability is foolish. Many demands are made often of the Muslim community to distance ourselves from terrorism, but when people from outside link us back in like this, it does not help.

More disappointing comments from the Vatican

The Pope's private secretary has given warning of the Islamisation of Europe and stressed the need for the continent's Christian roots not to be ignored, in comments released yesterday.

"Attempts to Islamise the West cannot be denied," Monsignor Georg Gaenswein was quoted as saying in an advance copy of the weekly Sueddeutsche Magazin to be published today.

"The danger for the identity of Europe that is connected with it should not be ignored out of a wrongly understood respectfulness," the magazine quoted him as saying.

"He also defended a speech that the Pope gave last year that linked Islam and violence, saying it had been an attempt by the pontiff to "act against a certain naivety".

Daily Telegraph

Cartoons censored, but no one's angry

Lenin's Tomb contains a very good post about the double standards regarding freedom of expression. A magazine featuring a cartoon has just been banned and forcibly taken off the shelves in Spain because a group was offended by it. Group in question being the royal family.

Europe has not been vexed by this blatant act of censorship. You can read some excellent points about this here (though the cartoon is a little full on, please be warned).

I would add that for me this says a lot about power. If Muslims are upset about something, they can only take to the streets. There were no "royal family angry" headlines, press releases or burning effigies of magazine editors needed here. Quietly, phone calls were made, and it was resolved to the satisfaction of the prince and princess.

Lying Muslims with international loyalties

The Scotland on Sunday was virtually the only Sunday not to have any coverage of our rally against terrorism a couple of weeks ago. The Sunday Herald carried three pages of it, while the Sunday Mail, Mail on Sunday, and the Sunday Post all covered it. The Sunday Telegraph put it on their front page.

Now you could say that this was a sin of omission on the part of the SoS. Today's nonsense article today suggests that it may be a bit deeper than that. They've definitely ignored one of things things I said in the lead up to the rally:

We have a simple equation facing us. We have the terrorists on one side, and the rest of Scotland on the other – whether they be Muslim, Christian, people of other faiths or none. We mustn’t start accusing people of being terrorists when they plainly aren’t.”

You know you're an Islamophobe when...

I've been sent a link to an article by a Tom Gallagher at Open Democracy about the attack on Glasgow Airport and the Scottish Muslim and Nationalist reaction to it.

A universal sense of shock was followed by vigorous official efforts to build bridges to the country's approximately 60,000 Muslims. A week later, on 7 July, the cream of Scotland's establishment gathered in George Square in Glasgow's heart to offer them protection and reassurance. The institutions represented included the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP), the police, the Church of Scotland, the trade unions, and the vocal anti-war movement ...

Muslims at the 1,500-strong rally mixed freely with the representatives of political and lobbying groups who made up the bulk of the crowd. The central spot was reserved for Osama Saeed, an articulate young Muslim activist (and former SNP candidate) whose intensity and fluency have made him a sought-after guide to the mood and concerns of Scotland's Muslims since the airport attack.

Gallagher goes on to say that anything I've said however, could be subject to taqiyya. This is a word I first came across at Harry's Place a couple of years ago when I was engaged with someone in the comments section, only to be accused of this. I had to go and look the word up.

So Muslims are now in a lose-lose situation. Say the wrong thing (or something that can be uncharitably construed) and get pilloried. Say the right thing and get accused of lying.

Muslim booted off plane for asking to pray

A young Muslim was booted off a plane at a North airport after asking cabin crew if he could pray before his flight, we can reveal.

The incident happened when the country was on high alert last weekend after an alleged terrorist attack at Glasgow airport.

A source told us that the man - who has not been named - boarded a Thomsonfly flight at Newcastle International Airport bound for a holiday in Malaga, Spain, with friends.

He asked staff if he could go in the galley area - which can be curtained off from passengers - and offer prayers before the flight took off.

However - according to our source - the flight attendant asked the plane's captain who promptly ordered the man off the aircraft.

Sunday Sun

Misplaced revenge

This was the aftermath of an attack on an Asian shop in the Riddrie area of Glasgow yesterday. Someone reverse-rammed a car into the premises and set it on fire. It seems like a copycat revenge attack after what happened at Glasgow Airport.

More pictures here. I only got there after they'd removed the car. Disappointingly, there has been hardly any media coverage of this. I heard from the PA that this has happened, but the way that it was being spoken about was that it was a relatively minor incident. When I got there, they were demolishing the building.

Background on the Misbah story

The Guardian have revisited the Misbah story from last year, providing a full history on the relationship between Sajad Rana and Louise Campbell.

One aspect that hasn't been discussed is the role of the Northern Constabulary. It's well known that the media fell hook, line and sinker for the 'evil bearded Muslim man took his daughter to Pakistan for a forced marriage' line. What hasn't been aired is that the police in the Western Isles arranged a press conference for Louise Campbell, clearly giving the impression that Misbah had been abducted, but with her of course only pleading for her to come home rather than for her father to return her. The police would have known the true story, as no doubt they would have cleared her statement in advance. They also should have known this from the notes that Misbah left, and from the phone call she made on arrival in Pakistan. Questions have not been asked of them.

You have to feel for Louise Campbell. Clearly she's been through the wringer in these last few years, with more than her fair share of personal problems. The Guardian article concludes with the news that Kenny Campbell recently split up with her, and took their baby with him. No press conferences or stories of forced betrothal this time.

SFA must speak out on hijab ban

FIFA's ridiculous ban on hijab has now arrived in Scotland.

The most disappointing aspect of the latest episode in this saga is the silence of the SFA. One of their functions is to encourage the grassroots of the game, and at the very least it would be nice to see them sticking up for the locals and making representations to FIFA about the silliness of the hasty decision they recently made. Law 4 patently does not exclude the wearing of the headscarf.

Muslim women abuse soldier at troops hospital

So screams the Mail on Sunday. The story doesn't profess to knowing the faith of any of the women in question who had an exchange with said soldier. Soldier in question himself said it was a "minor incident".

Funny how women in "Asian dress" are described as Muslim automatically, as if no one else would complain about the Iraq war. Would imagine they were not wearing burqas. When they don't have the bravery to have a debate or argument with soldiers in uniform, Muslim women are portrayed as repressed individuals unable to stand up for themselves.

There's no rhyme of reason to the Muslim description being whipped out. Well there is: whenever there's an opportunity to demonise. You'd never hear about British troops abusing 'Muslims' in Iraq. Now that's abuse.

Veils on the buses

Lothian buses made an unprompted announcement last week that drivers would have to check the identity of anyone with a bus pass wearing a veil.

A more pointless directive there can scarcely be. There are hardly swathes of ladies wearing the veil in Edinburgh, much less using the buses. I can't imagine in the current climate of hostility that there are many people donning a niqab simply to dodge a bus fare.

Is it cos I is Muslim?

Radio 4 produce a programme reporting on the phenomenon of Muslims leaving their place of birth in the UK and moving to places like Dubai because of increasing Islamophobia. A Guardian/ICM poll found two-thirds of Muslims thinking like this in 2005:

"Here, I look more Arab so I am viewed in a positive way, the tables are turned if you like. And it does affect you psychologically. I feel more comfortable here, which is sad really because Britain is my home. I was born there, my family are there and part of me does feel sad to leave. It's not an easy thing."

I recently visited Dubai for the first time in a while and will hopefully blog on this in more depth soon. Meanwhile, more with Indigo Jo.

Perverting religion

What if the Virginia Tech killer had said this:

You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience. You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die for the pleasure of Allah, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenceless people.

He did say something like this, except with "I die like Jesus Christ" instead of for the pleasure of Allah. Cho Seung-hui also railed against materialism and hedonism - not unlike Al-Qaeda bombers. He glorified those who inspired him to do it - the Columbine killers Klebold and Harris, who in turn were motivated by Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh and the killings of the Christian sect at Waco.

Given the fuss over a reference from Moby Dick on Cho's arm which right-wingers claimed linked him to Islam (and that 'Korean' is one letter from being 'Koran'), imagine the field day these guys would be having if that link were as strong as the Christianity ones.

More from Lenin and Anas Altikriti.

Brain under a hijab shocker!

The lady who committed the grave crime of going swimming while wearing the hijab has finally been able to put her side of the story in the Guardian.

As was patently obvious at the time, the guy at the centre of the Daily Mail and Sun story is a bigot, and the David Lloyd fitness club in Oxford were cowardly at best. Some choice quotes from Manal Omar:

£10,000 reward

Quite rightly, last week's news of the attack on a Muslim Algerian woman and her baby in Glasgow has repulsed everyone.

She was walking in Yoker when a gang of four started throwing stones, kicking, and shouting abuse at her. One then sexually assaulted her. He then attempted to also indecently assault her one year old baby. The woman managed to rescue her child, fleeing the scene. Police later recovered her pram and headscarf.

The attack marks a new low. The police have described it as a racially motivated crime. The Scottish Executive last month released statistics showing a rise in racist assaults (looking at the figures, they happen to spike particularly around the time of the July bombings - it's clear that there is a new type of prejudice that is brought about by the global terrorism situation). Attacks have been increasing, not just in number, but as we can see, they are getting worse in their nature.

With this background, it's easy to see why a group of businessmen came forward with a £10,000 reward to catch the pervert who did this. The only thing that could be worse than the fact this has happened is if no one is caught and prosecuted for it. The message has to go out that this kind of thing will not be tolerated.

Muslim GPs: Chapter and Verse

What Patricia Hewitt said:

I have had Muslim women give me chapter and verse on very distressing breaches of confidentiality by Muslim GPs.

A Department of Health press release later rolled back with this clarification:

National Secular Society has descended into farce

The point that secularism is itself an ideology comparable in scope to any of the creeds it aims to keep out of the public sphere - but arguably the only one that is genuinely tyrannical - is reinforced by the existence of organisations like the National Secular Society.

It claims that it "wants to have a society in which all are free to practice their faith" but then calls Judaism a "nonsensical religious life" (see image on right and the actual BBC headline it is a link to).

It's pretty clear that the NSS have lost their way, and now come across as an extremely bitter bunch of people railing against the religious in manner in which they would heap opprobrium if it was the other way round.

Muslim schools are a "security problem" and should close

Apologies that I'm posting on this quite a bit after the event. I could not let this one go totally uncommented on however.

Sir Cyril Taylor, of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, and key government adviser on education has said:

In some parts of the country, for example, where children only speak Bangla at home and do not mix with other communities at school, it has become a real strategic security problem.

They would be much more likely to collaborate with the police and tell them [whether] people within their own community are doing things they shouldn't be doing if they were better integrated.

Where you have two schools, one that is predominantly white and the other that is majority Bangladeshi or Pakistani, the answer is to close them both and put them together in a new academy operating on a multifaith basis.

A number of issues with this analysis:

Mark Steyn's final solution

Mark Steyn apparently advocates wiping out Europe's Muslims while speaking to Christopher Hitchens:

Why did Bosnia collapse into the worst slaughter in Europe since World War Two? In the thirty years before the meltdown, Bosnian Serbs had declined from 43 percent to 31 percent of the population, while Bosnian Muslims had increased from 26 percent to 44 percent. In a democratic age, you can’t buck demography—except through civil war. The Serbs figured that out—as other Continentals will in the years ahead: if you can't outbreed the enemy, cull 'em. The problem that Europe faces is that Bosnia’s demographic profile is now the model for the entire continent.

See the Reality Based Community for more.

Steyn is an author, who has written for newspapers across the world, and used to write for the Daily Telegraph.

Bunch of foreigners tell us how to run our schools

I was psyching myself up for a demolishing of the Daily Express's latest Islamophobic tirade, but found that Five Chinese Crackers has already done it.

Given the abject lack of bloggers who ever put forward a decent view when it comes to Muslim affairs, the find (hat tip to Islamophobia Watch) is a welcome one.

The topic is the MCB's report which contains eminently sensible proposals that would help integrate Muslims better into the state school sector. With all the fussing over faith schools it is forgotten that 97.5% of Muslim kids do not actually attend Islamic schools. The guidance will only help teachers in dealing with issues that inevitably arise. As the report says:

However, other [schools] have not been responsive to legitimate and reasonable requests ... such as collective worship, communal changing, swimming, halal meat and sex education. Unfortunately, Muslim pupils are sometimes placed in situations where they feel pressured into acting contrary to their beliefs and conscience, and also experience Islamophobic sentiments and comments.

This is a sentiment that chimes with me. Despite this, the government has found fit to dismiss it, no doubt to the pleasure of the BNP who don't have to provide commentary when linking to Daily Express articles.

It seems from this episode that the right-wing want to have it both ways. They don't want Islamic schools, and they don't want recognition of Muslim beliefs and practices in other schools either. Contrived dramas like this from the Express again only reinforce the fact that significant elements of this country have moved on from condemning Al-Qaeda to a witch-hunt against the Islamic faith itself.

Another non-story from the Daily Mail

A father and two year old daughter went swimming only to find that they couldn't get in because there was a private booking there. It seems that the council were to blame for having the wrong information on their website:

Mr Williams, 34, bitterly criticised Manchester City Council yesterday after it admitted that advertising for the session, on its website and on leaflets, had been misleading. 'I can understand why Muslim women need to have this kind of session, but the council should not be advertising it as parent and toddler,' he said.

The Daily Mail however blames Muslims:

The incident is the latest in a series of rows between local authorities and the public over swimming lessons for ethnic minority groups.

Except no one was actually rowing with the council over hiring the pool out to a third party.

Tory doormats

The Policy Exchange report into the Muslim community has come in for criticism since its publication. Prominently, Tariq Modood and (perhaps surprisingly and therefore significantly) Ziauddin Sardar wrote a letter to the Guardian.

The same newspaper then published a critique by Marie Breen Smyth and Jeroen Gunning who are respectively director and deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Contemporary Political Violence at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Meanwhile, the Times carried an article by Policy Exchange research director Dean Godson, about the "struggle for the soul of Islam". Justifying the Tory position of sidelining all of Britain's main Muslim organisations, his point was that complaints from Muslims had to stop. Singling out Birmingham Central Mosque's Dr Naseem as an example, he said:

Dr Naseem can denounce 7/7 until el Andalus becomes Muslim again, but the fact remains that he caters to the sense of oppression that fuels jihadi violence.

This was after he said that Dr Naseem wasn't representative, that no one listens to him and that Muslims had had enough (before extolling the virtues of the Sufi Muslim Council of course). But the main point here is that it's not good enough that Muslims condemn Al-Qaeda terrorism anymore. They should also stop talking about Iraq and the erosion in this country's civil liberites. Forget the fact that these aren't just Muslim issues, Muslims uniquely now aren't allowed to bring them up. What the Tories are looking for are not Muslims to work with - they're looking for doormats with "Uncle Tom" written on them.

Rod Liddle on the motoring bomber

Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle weighs into the debate on the angry motorist who is sending letter bombs to the country's driving institutions. Responding to Richard Littlejohn's remarkable plea for someone to examine the root causes of his grievance, Liddle says:

Well, the “root cause”, mate, is a profound psychological imbalance on the part of the bomber, not our road safety legislation.

So it's not the fault of Britain's motoring community then?

Littlejohn ponders root causes of terror

The case of the motoring terrorist and it's parallels with the treatment of Muslims has deliciously ensnared Richard Littlejohn. Here's him in his Daily Mail column today:

Obviously, 49,999,999 of us are mainly content just to seethe and grumble at the systematic, totalitarian destruction of our liberties.

Someone out there, though, has been driven to violence. I can't say I'm surprised, even though I abhor what he's doing.

...

What separates us from the letter bomber is our innate respect for the law and human life. But we can all empathise with what drives him over the edge.

...

Maybe the maniac who is sending out letter bombs was just like the rest of us until he snapped.

I hope they catch him soon. He's a dangerous man, who has already harmed enough innocent people. But will anyone in authority pause to consider the root cause of the grievances which drove him to this madness?

If anyone ever said anything like this about al-Qaeda, the accusations, not least from Littlejohn himself, would be of "justifying" and "excusing" them, along with the chorus that we can't appease and give into this kind of thing.

In the article he also says he'd be happy if someone sent a bomb to Ken Livingstone. Now imagine a Muslim said that about Tony Blair, what would the reaction from Littlejohn...... you get the idea.

Hat tip to Islamophobia Watch. More with Chick Yog who has had exclusive access to the video from the motor bomber, and Lenin's Tomb for more comedy.

What's Islamophobia?

When you're afraid of a piece of meat because it happened to have had God's name pronounced over it in Arabic.

Hirsi Ali compares Islam and Catholicism to Nazism

Metro: Do you see any positive sides to Islam?

Hirsi Ali: That’s like asking if I see positive sides to Nazism, communism, Catholicism.