Fury over children being taught together and learning about one another

What the Mail and Express coverage of the NUT paper ‘In Good Faith’ (not available online yet) shows is how far the tabloids have come in being able to demonise particular ‘out groups’. A few years ago, they managed to turn the term ‘asylum seeker’ into an insult. They’ve now managed to do the same with ‘Muslim’ and ‘Imam’. An Imam is not now the man who leads Muslim prayer – the obvious choice for someone to teach children about Islam – an Imam is someone who tries to brainwash kids into becoming terrorists, someone who is best illustrated by a picture of Abu Hamza lit from the bottom, like a horror film monster.

Five Chinese Crackers

Jihad or alcohol?

Tellingly, in its report of the attack on the priest, the Sunday Telegraph had made no mention whatsoever of the alcohol-fuelled nature of the assault despite a clear statement from the canon’s wife making this plain. Of course, it just so happens that the Sunday Telegraph was also the paper which originally printed Michael Nazir-Ali’s “no-go areas” article.

Inayat Bunglawala

The Spell of Islamophobia

I am convinced that if I got up on stage and did nothing but list the names of Muslim leaders I know who have very publicly condemned terrorism (check out the Not in the Name of Islam campaign, signed by 700,000 people and only one small example of Muslims condemning terrorism), people would still ask me “Why don’t Muslim leaders condemn terrorism?”

Eboo Patel

See also Monte Asbury

The endless search for “fear of offending Muslims” copy

In their quest to present Muslims as monsters forever complaining about their lot, what absurd and immoral lengths might the gutter press stoop to? How about this made-up story in the Daily Arswipe, headline: “Pro-Empire Historians Fear Muslim Backlash”

Julaybib Ayoub

Islamophobia in Action: ABC Catches it Live!

The broadcast seems to point out that, while there are some good hearted Americans out there who did stand up for the rights of the Muslim customer, the majority of the public are still quite indoctrinated with Islamophobia. So much so that they are OK with a store refusing to serve a customer based on religion albeit illegal according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to ABC News, one customer said afterwards, “I really think that a person who owns his own business should be able to say who they sell to.”

Muslim Matters

Warming up old food

So, there’s not really that much of a problem here. Since we have no direct quotes from any of the Universities that says that female Muslim students had refused to scrub properly and been allowed to get away with it, it’s likely that what’s happened is something a whole lot less worrying than either paper is leading us to believe. My money is on some female Muslim students saying they’d rather not scrub in front of men if that could be avoided, but not refusing point blank to do so, with the possible exception of the ones in Birmingham who said they’d rather leave the course.

Five Chinese Crackers

A poll that disproves Western myths about Muslims

President George W. Bush may have cooled down his wild rhetoric about “Islamofascists,” but the Republican presidential contender John McCain and others have filled the vacuum with their constant references to Islamic extremism as being the threat of the century and the defining issue of our times. Mainstream cable television, local newspapers and public affairs radio make things even worse by referring to Islam and Muslims primarily in the context of violence, warfare, fanaticism, or anti-Americanism.

Rami G. Khouri

Protest against Daily Express’ attacks on Muslims

In recent years, the Daily Express newspaper has frequently published inflammatory articles on asylum seekers, migrants and Muslims. The newspaper regularly carries front page headlines such as ‘Christmas is banned; it offends Muslims’, ‘Now Muslims get their own laws in Britain’ and ‘Muslims tell us how to run our schools’.

IRR News

The fallacy of multiculturalism helping terrorism

As one who has encountered many Muslims both on the Internet and face to face over the past decade or so, I do not get the impression of a “firm self-image” among the hot-headed youths who have extremist sympathies, but rather from ordinary, decent religious Muslims with their heads screwed on. The aim of the paragraph is to give the impression of an implacable, determined “Islamist enemy” facing a society with its mental defences down, and that had Britain got tough on Muslims a lot earlier, the July 2005 bombings would never have happened. This is an oversimplified explanation which smacks of self-delusion.

Indigo Jo Blogs

The presumption of Melanie Phillips

Phillips shows extraordinary presumption in demanding the sacking or resignation of Dr Williams because of this. Phillips is not a Christian, Anglican or otherwise, and her opinions on what is appropriate for Dr Williams are irrelevant unless it directly affects her community, which this does not. The speech was about the status of another community; it is not as if he made an anti-Semitic remark, or referenced the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or called his flock out to beat up Jews or smash up synagogues. I cannot think of any reason why I would call for the sacking of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope, the Chief Rabbi or any other religion’s clergy, although I might call for his arrest if he was encouraging attacks on Muslims, or Jews for that matter.

Indigo Jo Blogs

At a glance: Sharia law in Britain

Criticism of Islam segues effortlessly with prejudice against black immigrants. “Niggers out” no longer wins many votes, but Muslim-bashing presses the same political buttons. For our rulers, Islam is a doubly-convenient scapegoat for resistance to the West’s “war on terror”. Any discussion of Islam today is therefore a discussion about war and about racism. By ignoring this basic fact the media join hands with the racists and the warmongers.

Media Workers Against the War

 

Breeding antagonism

Surf the discussion threads this weekend and you’ll read bumper levels of invective aimed at Muslims and Islam, fuelled by this kind of reporting. It’s not difficult to find examples of real hatred, of furiously resentful people. The level of antagonism seems so out of proportion – after all, Islam isn’t taking over the UK, it’s practised by a small percentage of the population who hold very little power. But Muslims are in the firing line because, like Jews and UK Catholics in past centuries, they are our current favourite “other”. Projecting our fear and aggression onto them has become easy because they are so often portrayed as different, in some cases barely human. The “inbreeding” controversy is just the latest example of this. We should see it for what it is – not a real story but a part of the wider demonisation of a minority group.

David Shariatmadari

Muslims under Attack

Yet he uses the issue of cousin marriages to justify bashing specifically Muslims (even more specifically Pakistanis), without acknowledging the greater public health concern is arranged marriages among Uncle-Niece couples that is still occasionally practiced among Hindus (even though illegal in India since 1955, it is not universally enforced). Indeed, Islam does not allow Uncle-Niece or Aunt-Nephew marriages, but these are permitted by the Jewish and Hindu religions, and have at various historical times been culturally encouraged (they are not legal under English law).

Socialist Unity

Osgoode researchers disturbed by “anti-Muslim” pattern in Macleans articles

When a group of Osgoode Hall researchers and students reviewed 20 Maclean’s articles, they found what they felt was a disturbing and sustained pattern of Islamaphobia. With titles such as “Wake up ostriches: Islam’s in an expansionary phase” and “Wake up Europe: It may already be too late,” the articles “promoted hatred and fear of Muslims,” concluded the study’s five authors.

J-Source.ca 

Another pogrom, chaps?

The reaction to Williams’ statement adequately expresses the three basic coordinates of contemporary Islamophobia, veering between burning resentment about Them getting ’special treatment’, fear and loathing of the ‘Muslim threat’, and finally a vague ‘humanitarianism’ in which whitey rescues Asian Babes from their non-white male captors. The first two being the usual racist discourse, and the latter being a staple of colonial ideology. Incidentally, these reactions are being blended in roughly the same measure in both the crude right-wing tabloids and in the broadsheets.
Lenin’s Tomb