A Pundit with an Agenda

The Times used to be, long ago, a great newspaper when it was still the mouthpiece of the British establishment, or rather when the British establishment had a different face. Today, Times Online publishes the comment of one Sunny Hundal, headed Burning Satanic Verses lit the flame for better race relations, and yes, he means it exactly like that. To summarize: Frightening the living daylight out of Salman Rushdie and the stupid, white- and colonial guilt-ridden Brits in the same process was a good thing because it paved the way to the total submission we now see in Britain and what Hundal calls "remarkable civility". The entire comment is so incredibly full of politically correct leftist-liberal bullshit that it could as well be published at The Onion as a travesty and nobody would notice.

It has become such a frequent occasion that some profiteer from the fact that the Brits once, long ago, shouldered The White Man's Burden spits on that very tradition, that I have given up following it. However, Hundal didn't limit his bias to the country that gave him his passport and that irritated me:

Despite the rows and arguments, the British experience has been much better than that in Europe. France sticks to its official colour-blind approach but it has failed to make minorities feel that they have a stake in mainstream society. Germany has yet to shake off its history of associating nationality with bloodline and makes it difficult for even third or fourth-generation Turks to be full citizens. The Netherlands has careered from extremely liberal attitudes to much more xenophobic ones. Britain, in marked contrast, has conducted itself in remarkable civility.

Does this Times columnist really not know that France did not fail "to make minorities feel that they have a stake in mainstream society" but that the problem lies just with one of several minorities that prefers to burn cars instead of taking up its stake in mainstream society? That the Netherlands have not "careered from extremely liberal attitudes to much more xenophobic ones", but are trying to make up for their past mistakes, namely confronting a minority, that considers any liberal attitude as weakness, with such a despised and, at the same time, easily exploitable concept?

And Germany? Does it really have "yet to shake off its history of associating nationality with bloodline" that "makes it difficult for even third or fourth-generation Turks to be full citizens"? The cliché of the "racist" German is always gladly taken up, but that doesn't make it any more real. Germans are probably less racist than those European people with a colonial past -- or most third-worlders, for that. Germans are traditionally antisemites. That is a huge difference, which is hardly ever acknowledged. Germany, the only major European country without much of a stake in colonialism, is deeply provincial, always has been and after reunification even more so. Any cosmopolitanism is a totally alien concept to us, as is thinking in international terms. When the first Turks arrived in larger numbers in the early Seventies, nobody bothered to waste much thought on them because they were supposed to go back to their native country sooner or later anyway. They didn't, but at first it seemed as if Turks, coming from a secular country, didn't do so badly in the field of assimilation, no bearded men, no burqa-wearing women, they kept themselves to themselves, but their children, so it seemed, were going to do well.

And then, somewhere along the way and the Germans being tired of being branded forever as the world's premier racists, the suicidal family reunion schemes were started and instead of sending those who hadn't grown any roots in Germany, back, spouses from the deepest Anatolian sticks were imported while at the same time the alarming signs of a re-Islamisation of the Turkish minority were ignored. Again, at the same time, our little country took in Asians, Russians and other immigrants from non-Muslim countries without major problems, with the result that a Sikh in a British newspaper may ride now the old nag of German "racism" to death and nobody laughs.

Angry, I commented at the Times website:

This is an insult to your readers. How can one write a sensemaking, literate and informative comment covering such a complex topic having just 300 characters at one's disposal? But then, "You have no idea about what you are talking" only needs 40 odd characters and says it all.

I think I was wrong. Some hours and a bit of online search later, I have to concede that Sunny Hundal knows very well about what he is talking. He is a man with an agenda.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

Barbarism in Mecca

This should come as no surprise, of course, but it’s worth reminding ourselves now and again of just what chilling possibilities lie ahead if we continue to allow the creeping Islamisation of Western democracies.

A Saudi businessman has been sentenced to four months in prison and 200 lashes by barbarians in that country for hosting a mixed concert at his fun park in what the Muslim world calls a “holy city”, that of Mecca.

He was arrested after an argument with agents from the powerful religious police who ordered him to end the concert, the daily Okaz said, as handed on to us by Austalia’s Courier Mail.

“A court found the man guilty of hindering the work of the agents of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, known as Muttawa,” says the Courier Mail, “and involvement in ‘organising a concert where men and women mix’.”

Ooh. How utterly obscene!

It continues:

The ultra-conservative kingdom applies a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, which imposes segregation between the sexes.

It is also the only country where women are not allowed to drive, and they have to cover themselves from head to toe while in public.

On a lighter note, there is some compensation for that last point. At least they can ride a bicycle (or “burcycle” and the clue is in this portmanteau name) which allows them to cover up and be on wheels at the same time – courtesy of a sort of mobile shed.

I wrote an article for G&LH recently that covered that – and more besides.

Saying no to sharia

The One Law for All campaign against sharia law in Britain is to be launched at the House of Lords on International Human Rights Day, 10 December.

According to the campaign organiser, Maryam Namazie, “Even in civil matters, sharia law is discriminatory, unfair and unjust, particularly against women and children. Moreover, its voluntary nature is a sham: many women will be pressured into going to these courts and abiding by their decisions.

“These courts are a quick and cheap route to injustice and do nothing to promote minority rights and social cohesion. Public interest, particularly with regard to women and children, requires an end to Sharia and all other faith-based courts and tribunals.”

“The campaign has already received widespread support,” she says, “including from A C Grayling, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bahram Soroush, Baroness Caroline Cox, Caspar Melville, Deeyah, Fariborz Pooya, Gina Khan, Houzan Mahmoud, Homa Arjomand, Ibn Warraq, Joan Smith, Johann Hari, Keith Porteous Wood, Mina Ahadi, Naser Khader, Nick Cohen, Richard Dawkins, Shakeb Isaar, Sonja Eggerickx, Stephen Law, Tarek Fatah; Tauriq Moosa, Taslima Nasrin and others.

“It has also received the support of organisations such as Children First Now; Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran; European Humanist Federation; International Committee against Stoning; International Humanist and Ethical Union; Iranian Secular Society; Lawyers Secular Society; the National Secular Society; and the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.”

The campaign calls on the UK government to recognise that sharia law is arbitrary and discriminatory and for an end to sharia courts and all religious tribunals on the basis that they work against equality and human rights, not for them.

See the full story and contact info on my regular blog here

Betrayal!

The Sunday Times:

The Centre for Social Cohesion has produced a publication which details the cases of almost 30 Europeans born to Muslim parents who are risking their lives to speak out against aspects of their faith and culture. The most important rarely receive more than passing attention. But they deserve our focus. For the risks that they – and many other reformers – are taking will in the end be for us all.

But our government here in the UK is far too keen to bend over backwards to appease those who whine and bleat, not realising that by so doing they’re inviting Islamisation of the UK to creep further and further into the host culture. Once it reaches a critical point, it will be too late, and gays and women can kiss goodbye to whatever freedoms they have.

We’ve seen how sharia courts are operating in Britain, with the government’s blessing. Some hope for justice for women there.

And, yes, it is time we gave credit to the brave ones who stand up as ex-Muslims or as those who speak out against aspects of their benighted “faith”.

The Sunday Times piece – written by Douglas Murray – is praising of those who stand up:

The individuals profiled range from cabinet ministers to journalists, writers, academics, artists and even pop singers. Most are in trouble for having criticised elements of what they see in Europe’s Muslim communities, particularly the treatment of women. Nyamko Sabuni, the Swedish minister for integration and gender equality, has been the subject of death threats since speaking out against female genital mutilation and proposing that all Swedish schools should have mandatory gynaecological examinations to discourage the practice.

In Denmark, Manu Sareen, a city councillor and social worker who helped victims of “honour violence”, was forced to give up his job after being approached on the way to his office by two men who told him that if he helped more of their women he would be killed.

Governments across Europe, including our own [UK], make regular pronouncements about helping moderate Muslim voices to emerge above the din of radicals and radical-affiliated groups who have such a knack of grabbing the headlines. But the truth is that many of the individuals detailed in Victims of Intimidation either never had, or took a long time to get, the support they deserved.

As an example of someone who wants to doff the shackles of a conservative (I would say Dark Ages) belief system, at least as far as women’s right to self-expression is concerned, Murray cites Deepika Thathhaal (or Deeyah), a Norwegian-born pop singer based in London, who was attacked on stage at a concert in Oslo and “has had her life repeatedly threatened. She has been criticised for her dress, dancing, music and her music video ‘What Will It Be?’ which highlights the victims of ‘honour killings’ ”.

As Deeyah has said herself: “What’s been a hard and sad thing for me to realise is how not one single person from the religious establishment within the community has shown any support.” Earlier this year she launched a project called Sisterhood to support female Muslim rappers and singers. Daud Abdullah, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (who both the government and the Conservative Party continue to deal with) responded to this modern woman’s right to self-expression by saying: “The moral framework of Islam has already been laid down and women should not push beyond its boundaries for the sake of commercial gain.”

Islam has a job recognising that women might wish to push beyond the boundaries for any gain, it seems, including basic equalities.

But when did British Prime Minister Gordon Brown or any of his Cabinet stand up and unequivocally denounce this sort of attitude, and say they will not deal on a formal basis with an organisation that holds these views? If it were a nonreligious organisation it would be denounced by equalities ministers and PC do-gooding organisations throughout the country.

If it’s religious – and especially if it’s Islam – it must be tiptoed around on eggshells.

Why it's OK for Muslim men to beat the shit out their wives

It’s OK to beat hell out of the missus if you’re a Muslim. That, anyway, seems to be the perception among Muslims, if a headline in the UK’s Daily Telegraph is to be believed when it says, Muslim men “think they have God-given right to beat wives”, claims female Muslim medic.

But this is happening here in the UK, not only in some benighted Muslim theocracy whose religious observance ensures it remains in the seventh century. The paper says domestic violence is more common in Muslim households because the male members of this “religion of peace” think wives are OK to use as a punchbag.

At least your average non-Muslim wife beater can blame it on the booze (not that that is an excuse – not for any type of violence), but your Muslim man can’t. All he can say is that it’s part of his cultural tradition, informed by his religion.

The Telegraph tells it from the point of view of Fatima Husain, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology, who “has told how she sees Muslim women coming for treatment with strangle marks around their necks and bruises on their pregnant bumps”.

The paper goes on, “She also claimed that problems develop because many followers of Islam are fearful of discussing sex, contraception and infertility.”

You can read the rest of this disturbing story here at my regular blog.

And this problem can only get worse if we allow domestic matters to be settled in sharia “courts”, as the second extract in this previous Pink Triangle blog post testifies.

No doubt our politicians will just throw more money at Muslim “community leaders” and trust them to come up with some “initiative”, instead of tackling it head-on and simply doling out the appropriate punishment for men who are violent, whether to their wives or anyone else.

The PC brigade would no doubt say that this is something that has to be tackled with a softly-softly approach, for the sake of the (failed) multiculturalism experiment, that it’s something that has to be tolerated for now, until we can spend millions on the “education” of these morons.

British atheist says sharia courts are OK

There’s an atheist in Scotland who thinks sharia courts are OK. Good for women, too. Not only that, but he or she speaks for the organisation, Atheist Scotland.

A letter from I Stewart, convener of Atheist Scotland, appears in the Scotsman (second letter on the page).

“Like the Kirk [Church],” the letter writer says, referring to a previous letter from someone else, “we support the introduction of sharia courts in Scotland for members of the Muslim community.” Stewart continues:

In cases of domestic violence or abuse of women, we feel that sharia courts would give Muslim women the opportunity to resolve their disputes without recourse to the criminal law.

By using sharia courts, Muslim women and their partners would not have to appear in open court and risk the public humiliation of a criminal conviction for domestic violence.

A guilty finding in a sharia court for domestic violence would not result in a criminal conviction and therefore would not appear in a Disclosure Scotland police criminal records search, thus avoiding the potentially devastating effects on the job opportunities of the male partner, particularly in sensitive areas.

Why should a male partner be spared public humiliation if he’s a Muslim but not a non-Muslim male partner who would have to appear before magistrates or in the Crown or Sheriff Court? How does it make it a good thing for women if a sharia court is going to rule, as it most likely will, in favour of the man, because women are treated as second or third class by traditional Islam?

Here’s a good reason why sharia courts are a bad idea.

Why can't we take the piss?

Why the hell can’t we take the piss out of Muslims? We take the piss out of Christians and Jews. We take the piss out of Jedi Knights and Scientology. Why do we have to treat Muslims with kid gloves?

After all, they can be hilarious. Just draw a cartoon of their marauding prophet, and the world is set alight. Sometimes literally, in parts.

Threaten to publish a book, and publishers shy away from it, having taken advice from “scholars”.

Print a picture of a little doggy on a postcard that’s meant to help the police, and Muslims are up in arms.

Make a film about their “holy book” and they threaten consequences if it’s not taken off YouTube.

Try venturing into a “Muslim area” in Birmingham, UK, and you could just have a hilarious time being beaten up – or at least being told to get lost by a policeman wannabe who, in this case, happens to be Muslim.

There are Muslim comedians who take the piss out of all sorts of things – including Muslims. It’s called comedy. There’s this thing called irony. There’s satire. Only a bone-headed primitive religion would object.

Often, Muslims – the more enlightened ones, and there are many – don’t object. Often, it’s left to the indigenous politicians and civil servants and assorted do-gooders to prevent you from “going there”.

Well, there’s an interesting piece in the UK's Independent on Sunday about it, which is worth reading. In it, David Lister argues, “The irony is that in [making Muslims a comedy no-go area], they really are insulting Muslims, the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Britain who are perfectly capable of laughing at themselves, and would resent the patronising protection supposedly offered them by the comedy police.”

He was commenting on the fact that the comedian Harry Enfield had been told to leave alone a Muslim hoody character he had developed.

The production company Tiger Aspect, which makes Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse’s show Harry and Paul, confirmed that, “Obviously, it is a sensitive area. It [Enfield’s character] never made it further than the page. This was a decision taken collectively by key members of the production team.”

Back in April, I seem to remember, another comedian and writer, Ben Elton, was complaining of how Islam has become a no-go zone for comedians.

Quite simply, no religion should be exempt. The more they complain about it, the more the urine should be extracted, in huge quantities. If they shut up, they’ll take their share of piss-take with the rest – and not just religions, but politicians, celebs and just about anyone or anything in the public eye.

Good comedy helps us to see things in a different light. That makes it an art form. Anything that takes the piss for the sake of being cruel is not really comedy. Our laughter, if indeed it’s generated from such material, is not healthy laughter. It’s smutty laughter.

However, it shouldn’t be censored. In the marketplace of public performance, there is a mechanism. Crap comedy can be ridiculed by those whose job it is to do that: critics and other commentators.

Anyway, if thine eye offend thee, pluck at the off switch.

When will they ever learn?

As if we actually needed proof that Islam was slowly but surely creeping further and further into our way of life in the UK, we learn from today's Sunday Times (UK) that sharia courts now have official sanction, and that there are five of them operating in the country, including one I blogged about last week (see "How do you solve a problem like sharia?").

It's a frightening situation, and one I certainly wasn't aware of, and presumably most people were not, either, given that the paper has seen fit to publish the fact as a news story.

It says the British government has "quietly sanctioned" the powers of these "courts" so that "sharia judges [can] rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence".

Rulings issued by any of the five sharia courts are enforceable "with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court".

Now you might argue that there's nothing to worry about, since they're just arbitration assemblies, and sharia "courts" are able to set themselves up as such under the Arbitration Act of 1996, which Muslims have taken advantage of.

But what happens when one of these kangaroo "courts" decides to "try" a case involving homosexuals or women?

There are rumblings of disquiet in the UK about it, and rightly so. Read more at my regular blog.

Islamic Law In Britain?

The following is an article that appeared in The Week magazine:

Great Britain: Should we adopt Islamic law?

Is the Church of England surrendering to Islam? said Matthew d’Ancona in the London Daily Telegraph. In an already infamous speech last week, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said that the introduction of parts of Islamic sharia law in Britain “seems unavoidable,” since there are so many devout Muslims here who refuse to recognize British law. Bowing to that inevitability, he said, would “help to maintain social cohesion.” Williams, the leader of the Anglican Church, was professing to be tolerant of another religion, but in reality he was simply knuckling under to extremists. He actually mocked the idea that there should be “one law and only one law for everybody,” as if that were some quaint notion, not the very underpinning of Western thought. “Equality before the law is, in practice, the most meaningful form of equality that we have. Please, sir: Can we have the Enlightenment back?”

“There’s being tolerant and there’s being an ass,” said Anila Baig in the London Sun. We all know what sharia means: “stoning, amputations, lashings, and executions.” Britain left such abominations behind centuries ago. Are we to be dragged back to the Middle Ages to please our new “so-called citizens” from Pakistan and Bangladesh? “Why should those who already feel they are not part of society be pandered to? Why give them the green light to go their separate way?”

Many British Muslims shudder with horror at the thought, said Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the London Independent. Muslim women such as myself are thrilled that we don’t live in Saudi Arabia or Iran, and we are already alarmed at the Islamification of Britain. “Ten years ago, the only fully shrouded Muslim women around were from the Arab fiefdoms,” but nowadays “all of Europe has these girls and women rendering themselves invisible in public spaces.” Moreover, we have been struggling to get so-called honor killings acknowledged as the scourge that they are and punished accordingly. If British Muslims were allowed to take their grievances to separate sharia courts, it would be impossible for women to get justice.

Archbishop Williams’ words have been twisted and misconstrued, said Deborah Orr, also in the Independent. He specifically stipulated that any Islamic court ruling could not go against British law. He merely proposed allowing an Islamic council to adjudicate trivial cases involving, for example, uncontested divorces. Such a concession will let the imams feel that they have a say in British life. “Far from pandering to extremists, he is thinking about how to beat them at their own game.”

Ah, so Williams wants us to adopt only the mild, inoffensive bits of sharia? asked the Plymouth Western Morning News in an editorial. That won’t wash. Islamic law is supposedly the direct word of God, which does not submit to editing. You cannot, in other words, “dine à la carte on sharia.” To suggest “that there is some jolly Anglican version of it is dangerous nonsense.” Williams was once considered one of the smartest bishops ever to head the Anglican Church. “Unhappily, he may also prove to be one of the worst.”

Now the Barbarians Want Britain to Adopt Islamic Values in the Name of Integration!

Photo of Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari courtesy of The Telegraph
This is the limit! The chutzpah of it all! Now the Muslim immigrants want the indigenous British population to adopt some Islamic values to integrate with the Muslim community! Integration, he says, works both ways. Yes, Dr Bari, just as it does in Saudi Arabia, and in other barbaric Islamic cultures. This really is the giddy limit! This is the example par excellence of Muslim immigrants trying it on.

How much longer must the long-suffering British tolerate this damn nonsense?

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari now suggests that alcohol be banned in all public places, just like smoking! (What did I tell you would happen after that ridiculous smoking ban?) He also wants the British to adopt arranged marriages, and homosexuality must be outlawed again, of course. In a few words, they want to drive us all back to the Dark Ages.
This man thinks that Britain could benefit from a little more morality (Islamic morality, of course). Hm! Does this ridiculous man not think that the Islamic world could benefit from a little more Christian humanity?

When immigrants start trying to dictate the terms and conditions, it is high time that the indigenous population sat up and started thinking seriously about repatriation for this group of people who are so obviously impossible to integrate. For if something is not done about this problem soon, then I see only strife ahead. The streets of Britain really will, then, become “rivers of blood”! - ©Mark.

THE TELEGRAPH: The head of the Muslim Council of Britain does not mince his words on integration, report Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson

There is fear and loathing in Britain. This week, the head of MI5 claimed there were 2,000 people involved in terrorist activity and children as young as 15 were being "groomed" to be suicide bombers.

Gordon Brown announced plans to require immigrants to learn English and Downing Street said the Prime Minister wanted to double the number of days that terrorist suspects can be detained without trial. Then, just as the Metropolitan Police was being censured for shooting the Stockwell One, the Lyrical Terrorist became the first woman to be convicted of terrorist crimes.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, the leader of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), thinks the Government is stoking the tension. 

"There is a disproportionate amount of discussion surrounding us," he says. "The air is thick with suspicion and unease. It is not good for the Muslim community, it is not good for society."

The 53-year-old special needs teacher has a gentle manner and a quiet voice - he describes himself as a "community spokesman" rather than a "religious leader" - but he does not mince his words.

Britain must, he warns, beware of becoming like Nazi Germany.

"Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn't lead us to a time when people's minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, and poll after poll says that we are alienated, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable. We are seen as creating problems, not as bringing anything and that is not good for any society."

There is, in his view, no such thing as Islamic terrorism.

"Terrorists are terrorists, they may use religion but we shouldn't say Muslim terrorists, it stigmatises the whole community. We never called the IRA Catholic terrorists." Dr Bari thinks Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, made the extremists' job easier by giving a bleak picture of the threat on the eve of the Queen's Speech. Dr Bari: Government stoking Muslim tension (more) By Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson

Mark Alexander