A Wave of Islamophobia.
If anyone doubted that Islamophobia existed in our country they should be in no doubt after reading and listening to the torrent of bigotry and prejudice pouring out of some of our national press and from our main media outlets over the last 48 hours.
Just a few examples.
The Daily Express launched its salvo with the headlines "Riots over Mosque on Queen's Doorstep." A story which also ran for 24 hours throughout the national and local television and radio news programmes.
The Evening Standard sunk to its usual depths with an almost farcical headline "Guide Dog is Banned by Muslim Driver." Almost farcical except when you know the Standard's racist track record over the years.
The Guardian, Times, and Telegraph plus the BBC and most radio news programmes ran with the story of Jack Straw requiring Muslim women to remove their veil when meeting him.
This followed hard on the heels of Cameron's comments on Muslim schools and Reid's statements about no "no go areas" at Labour Party conference.
We are clearly in the middle of one of those regular episodes, launched by the unsavoury alliance of media and politicians, of attacking the latest vulnerable minority.
The historical parallels with the persecution of the Catholic minority in this country three centuries ago and the jews even further back in our history are striking.
This week saw the commemoration of the "Battle of Cable Street," when socialists, trade unionists and people of good faith stood up to the emerging Nazi threat in this country and stood in solidarity with the Jewish community against the despicable attacks on it by Mosley's fascists.
It is now our time to stand up in solidarity with Muslim members of our community.
Whichever minority group comes under racist and bigoted attack in this way be it catholic, jew, muslim, hindu, sikh, black or ethnic minority, lesbian or gay, our role as fellow human beings is to stand with them.
That is what I am calling on every person in this country of good will to do today.
If we act now in standing together in defence of the Muslim community we can bring to a swift end this latest wave of prejudice.
If we do not act, my fear is that the islamophobia we have witnessed this week will gain the respectable cover it has been seeking and will grow unchecked.
Just a few examples.
The Daily Express launched its salvo with the headlines "Riots over Mosque on Queen's Doorstep." A story which also ran for 24 hours throughout the national and local television and radio news programmes.
The Evening Standard sunk to its usual depths with an almost farcical headline "Guide Dog is Banned by Muslim Driver." Almost farcical except when you know the Standard's racist track record over the years.
The Guardian, Times, and Telegraph plus the BBC and most radio news programmes ran with the story of Jack Straw requiring Muslim women to remove their veil when meeting him.
This followed hard on the heels of Cameron's comments on Muslim schools and Reid's statements about no "no go areas" at Labour Party conference.
We are clearly in the middle of one of those regular episodes, launched by the unsavoury alliance of media and politicians, of attacking the latest vulnerable minority.
The historical parallels with the persecution of the Catholic minority in this country three centuries ago and the jews even further back in our history are striking.
This week saw the commemoration of the "Battle of Cable Street," when socialists, trade unionists and people of good faith stood up to the emerging Nazi threat in this country and stood in solidarity with the Jewish community against the despicable attacks on it by Mosley's fascists.
It is now our time to stand up in solidarity with Muslim members of our community.
Whichever minority group comes under racist and bigoted attack in this way be it catholic, jew, muslim, hindu, sikh, black or ethnic minority, lesbian or gay, our role as fellow human beings is to stand with them.
That is what I am calling on every person in this country of good will to do today.
If we act now in standing together in defence of the Muslim community we can bring to a swift end this latest wave of prejudice.
If we do not act, my fear is that the islamophobia we have witnessed this week will gain the respectable cover it has been seeking and will grow unchecked.
posted by John at 9:06 PM
28 Comments:
George Galloway has a radio show on this subject tonight on TalkSport from 8 - 10.
John, please phone in and express these sentiments to George. We all need to stand together and see off the racists.
John,
Which aspect of "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them" do you not understand?
John, I long ago gave up on the Labour Party, but I'm impressed that you are standing up to be counted on this. I wish you well with your leadership campaign.
Good on you mate. Jack Straw intentionally has given ammunition to those parties and individuals who already want to destroy the fragile communities. Communities who are working hard to restore peace and sense of understanding with the different religions and cultures that exist.
Jack Straw has made life more dangerous for those women who willingly accept to wear the veil. Lets not forget that these women are not women from are born in Muslims families but also English converted women too (which the media deliberately avoid reporting on). Since Jack Straw started this debate he has given all the racist people a green light to attack women wearing the veil.
I am completely baffled at this volte-face by the leadership of the party. Is it designed to create unrest in the country? or perhaps to warm us up for a new draconian attack on our rights? On reading Mr Straw's bio I see that he is another lawyer turned politican. Of course a lawyer is trained to argue both sides of an argument regardless of the truth!
(I hope you're not a lawyer John :-)
Hi John have you heard about the BNP members that were found with unprecedented amounts of chemical explosives, a rocket launcher and a nuclear biological suit last week? "The 22 chemical components recovered by police are the largest haul ever found at a private house in the UK" and yet no headlines in any of our wonderful newspapers and no wall-to-wall coverage on our glorious 'impartial' media!! Please raise this issue at all meetings you attend - people HAVE to know about this low-down and dirty media agenda - they also of course need to know that there are fascists in the UK who are so full of hatred that they are ready to do some pretty major damage. I am disgusted in particular with the BBC who are supposed to be reporting in the public's interest - if a Muslim looks at someone the wrong way we'll have the most reactionary and racist headlines for weeks on end and yet when two fascists are ready to use chemical explosives there is not a peep! There really is no escaping the fact that the mainstream media's agenda has hit rock bottom.
Jack Straw said ..he would PREFER women not wear the face covering when speaking with him in his office...
how do you extrapolate "Jack Straw requiring Muslim women to remove their veil when meeting him."
If this is an indication of your intelligence,find another job...maybe retail sales
It's taken a while, but it's nice to see some Ministers (Hain and Prescott) now following John's lead and publicly disagreeing with Straw. So many MPs seem to be afraid of the Blairites, afraid that if they diverge from the designated right-wing line they will be sacrificing their careers, not realising that by always following the leader their careers have become meaningless.
John, it's great that there are still voices like your out there - calling for a return to sanity. The parallels between the Islamophobia of today and Europe's past anti-Semitism are indeed uncanny, and we know what the latter resulted in...
More left-wing rubbish supporting medievalist Muslims. You can support racial minorities perfectly well without caving in to their backward superstitious beliefs and their demands that we all pander to their daft ideas. Multiculturalism is a disaster perpetrated by lefties who unwittingly fuel bigotry against ethnic minorities. And no, it's not racist to criticise Islam, you socialist numpties. It's only racist if you criticise on the basis of their race, colour or nationality. Talk about doing the BNP's work for them! I despair!
The best world will be one rid of the appeasers like John McDonnell, a "man" scurrying about with his tail tucked between his legs, whimpering about the Muslims he hasn't the guts to acknowledge as an enemy. "Men" like him are responsible for making England a Muslim spittoon. May Jihad meet McDonnell up close and personal. I'm sure his Muslim buddies supply Western traitors with virgins too.
As someone who objects to the veil on feminist grounds I have some sympathy with those who are also uncomfortable with it. I don't buy this argument that women chose to wear it. On a very superficial, maybe, but I believe entirely that issues surrounding the view - especially those arguments about so-called modesty - are inidcative of patriarchy, dominance and oppression.
However, I don't think for a second that this is why Jack Straw made his comments. He was playing a game - a very irresponsible one. And he ought to be ashamed of himself for doing so - the encouragement he has given to islamophobes and racists is outrageous.
It seems the BNP supporters have found this blog :-(
I have my concerns and reservations over this issue. As other European countries tightened up on the so-called war against terror and started to control how people dress, it is to be assumed that the timing of Jack’s comment is designed to rouse the country to accept an identical law. It is a totalitarian law which must be stopped. Whatever next?
However, I do have worries that the muslim girls are being somewhat socially influenced in stating that they choose to wear this uniform, which, to me, remains a form of suppression. The hijab can be seen as a way of removing the individuality of a woman, and the niqab seems to remove their voice. These are voices that need to be heard.
Many islamic women today go so far as to wear the hijab, but may now be encouraged to wear the niqab as it is now seen as a political statement. The current islamophobia will strengthen this view.
Their suffrage could be wiped out in a very short period.
I think what we are witnessing is the sight of the Blairites attempting to exit the political scene with a bang - a very desperate, ugly bang. All their lies have been exposed, everyone is calling for Blair to just GO, the majority oppose the war in Iraq and the presence of UK troops in Afghanistan - it has all been one big disaster. Jack Straw was completely lambasted on Question Time the other week - the audience were spitting fire at him about his weasel words over Iraq and now he is exacting his revenge by lashing out at Muslim women (what a hard man, eh?). The lot of them have been exposed as corrupt, spineless lackeys of American imperialism and this new wave of stirring up yet more hatred towards Muslims is basically their last ditch attempt to rally the racist scum-bags (see some of the above posts for examples) - they know that the left is now a very big group in the UK and that it is the left, together with the Muslim community that have not let them get away with the deceptions over Iraq. It is the left and the Muslim community (not that the two groups are mutually exclusive of course) that have kept up the pressure on the issue of Blair's warmongering - and now the sad Blairites together with the gutter-press are trying to ensure that the reactionary right grow too, in an attempt to drown out the voices of the progressives. That's why we had the shameless promotion of the BNP in the run up to the elections, that's why we have had disgusting bigotted comments from Blair, Reid and Straw, that's why we have had wall-to-wall racist rhetoric and hysterical anti-Muslim stories in the gutter-press. And no doubt that's why we have not been told about the two BNP members who have been caught in possession of the largest amounts of chemical explosives ever to be found in a UK household. The far-right have always been useful to the powers-that-be, and never more so than today. The left-wing forces in the UK are growing by the day - and Blair & his cronies are very, very scared.
Jack Straw isn't a racist, nor is anyone in New Labour. Not in any sense. The real racists are "Respect" and Galloway. Their anti-Semitism is sickening, and coupled with Galloway's love for Saddam - a man who's killed more Muslims than anyone else in history - they're no friends of Islam either.
"Jack Straw isn't a racist, nor is anyone in New Labour. Not in any sense. The real racists are "Respect" and Galloway. Their anti-Semitism is sickening, and coupled with Galloway's love for Saddam - a man who's killed more Muslims than anyone else in history - they're no friends of Islam either."
Respect and Galloway are the 'real racists' eh? What a joke. Please explain what 'anti-Semitism' you are referring to? Respect has lots of Jewish supporters and members. As for Saddam killing more Muslims than anyone else in history, I think you will find that the West have that title. A million Iraqis were killed under US/UK sanctions alone - and there have been hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed since the invasion of 2003. The Lebanon was bombed by Israel with the full backing of the US and the UK who were the only two countries to refuse to call for an immediate ceasefire. Palestinians are killed every single day by Israel while the EU turns a blind eye and the US arms them. The US (and no doubt their poodles in the UK) are now threatening to attack Iran, either militarily or economically which will lead to countless more Muslim deaths. And just how does Galloway 'love' Saddam? Are you trying to get John's blog in trouble with your silly little lies? You must be one of the last dinosaur's in this country who has the wool pulled over their eyes about New Labour! What a completely sad post but then I suspect you have some sort of political/personal motivation for making such ignorant remarks.
Thank you John for your measured and responsible views - a big difference with Jack Straw.
The political battle lines have been drawn up between the racists and Muslims in this country and around the world, and we need to know which side we are on.
Silly little lies, New Labour dinosaur??? What planet are you on?
So, the US/UK sanctions were responsible for killing a million Iraqis? You are wrong, totally wrong, and as for your statement that Galloway doesn't love Saddam, well I'll presume - laughable though it is - that you haven't heard his grovelling, gut-wrenching serenading of Saddam. Remember the old "Sir, I salute your courage, strength and indefatigability" speech?
Let me define indefatigable for you - assiduos, conscientious, diligent, persevering, ..., hardly his harshest critic, was he?
You're also wrong about Iran and Palestine, but I really don't have the time to go into this right now, considering this reply probably won't see the light of day.
As for you describing me as ignorant, nothing could be more ignorant, nothing could be further from the truth than to suggest, as you and Galloway do, that the Iraqi, Afghan and Iranian people, never mind the Kosovars and Sierra Leonians, would rather live under brutal military regimes than in free, liberal democracies.
You're either with us or against us ...
Islamophobia is an evil yes but John seems to be criticising any reporting of news involving Muslims here. For example,
"The Daily Express launched its salvo with the headlines "Riots over Mosque on Queen's Doorstep." A story which also ran for 24 hours throughout the national and local television and radio news programmes."
This is quite a big news story and would obviously be reported by national and local media outlets, just as the Paris riots received worlwide television coverage. Furthermore:
"The Guardian, Times, and Telegraph plus the BBC and most radio news programmes ran with the story of Jack Straw requiring Muslim women to remove their veil when meeting him."
Do you honestly believe the media should not report the former Foreign Secretary and current Leader of the House of Commons making statements of this kind?
Reporting news that reflects Muslims in good or bad ways is not Islamophobia it is simply reporting the news.
"You're either with us or against us ..."
well that's easy Sham, I'm with the rest of the world and against you and your poisonous ideology based on warmongering and fearmongering. Must be lonely for you all alone in Blair's fan club!
According to his profile, Shamik's Zodiac year is "sheep". How appropriate.
I am sickened by those who have posted comments dripping with the last respectable racism - i.e. Islamophobia. Indeed, it is the anti-Semitism of our age. Muslims are now the target of choice for the far-Right. As anti-Semitism once clothed itself in the rhetoric of anti-capitalism, today Islamophobia clothes itself in the rhetoric of secularism.
You should be ashamed of yourselves.
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Galloway was protesting outside the iraqi embassy back in the day when new labour's prayer-buddies like rumsfeld were embracing saddam and selling him weapons.
Smug liberals who think it's acceptable to have 'debates' on multiculturalism and free speech, but nothing to do with them when their harsh criticism of muslims results in vicious assaults on our streets need to wake up and realise that a 'debate' on multiculturalism and free speech is exactly what the bnp has been calling for for years. Tough talking populism works 'the same in every country' as goering said but new labour ministers should know better.
"As anti-Semitism once clothed itself in the rhetoric of anti-capitalism, today Islamophobia clothes itself in the rhetoric of secularism."
Phil, that sums it up perfectly. If I use that quote in arguments I will be sure to attribute it to you. ;-)
I always believed that to single a person, or a group on the basis of race, colour, nationallity or creed constituted racism.
However it seems a bit rich to insult islam as being medievel in there belirf when many religions and belief patterns are older, and some others are based on dubious "facts".
Minority groups will always be singled out if the population fails to speak up.
Return to Nazi germany where opther minority groups were single out, nothing was said and the fascists moved on to a different group, first the mentally ill, gypsies, jews, anti-socials, trade-unionists, communists, the list continues.
As to the bnp (brutish nasty people) finding the site, I didn't think many of them could read and write , never mind use a computer.
Come on speak up for minorities or the radicals within these groups may be seen as the one true voice of islam, jews, blacks, asians , working classes.
as for "no go" areas the elderly people at my Great Uncle's funeral in High Wycombe five years ago told me that there were certain areas of Wycombe that were now "no go" areas where the "darkies" were.....I'd previously visited and lived in the parts of the town concerned and not found any trouble of course, I hadn't realised I was actually in the so called no go areas! (one of which contained the Labour party campaign office...) But it's sad that these gentle old people were telling me that they were afraid to stray into certain parts of town, hence segregation continues; it is quite stark in Wycombe because of the way people are housed under the Conservative council. Views like that of the frightened old people have to be understood in context, in parts of the South East it's still possible to have had hardly any contact with people from other races, and many people particularly these old people who can't get around much may never have met someone of a different race in a situation where they could make friends easily, their contact may have been limited to shops etc and they tend to feel nostalgic for the way things were when they grew up particularly in the semi-rural areas as they haven't seen quite so much change and they feel vulnerable to crime etc. as they are elderly though of course crime can happen anywhere and be perpretrated by anyone it dosen't depend on the colour of your skin but they had listened to these "no go area" runours and believed them. My home town in Sussex contains people who've only lived locally and when I grew up there were only a handful of non-white families in the entire town. This dosen't mean it's full of rascists, of course it isn't. I just mean it's harder for people who've never lived in a multicultural street or shared a university hostel with people from around the world or done a gap year or learnt about all the world religions at school to understand the world as it is today. If the Blairites want all immigrants to learn English they should send the rest of the population in for cultural lessons! At the Immigration dept where I worked we were told not to worry if someone's elderly mother etc didn't speak any English but was coming to join them and look after their home/children or had no-one to look after them as they were old and so were coming to join their family it was accepted that it was less important for them to as they wouldn't be working etc here (though of course they had every right to learn English) but common sense told us not to smell an immigration fraud rat just because an elderly grandma hadn't learnt much English yet. It was also accepted ten years ago when I worked there under the Conservatives - (Anne Widecombe was the Immigration Minister!) that people may well have to use forged documents to get to a safe country to claim asylum if there was no other way for them to get here, particularly if they came on a long and dangerous overland route... now they are penalising people for having false documents and sending them back to countries that they know cannot possibly be safe to return people to, even Iraq and Zimbabwe which further inflames the misguided view that many people hold that asylum seekers shouldn't be here as they can be sent back - my answer to this is that if we are to remain a civivlised country we can't send people back to these lawless places and to certain danger and death or we will cease to be a democratic country.I did find it bad that a (also rather elderly)receptionist in Wycombe hospital was recently heard openly expounding the sort of views I've described above for all and sundry to hear re: "darkies" for all to hear while loudly gossiping with a colleague although I think it was more showing off than anything else though in this case it might merit a word to her manager if I can find out where to contact said manager in the maze of trust managers. A flatmate who was a primary school teacher once told me that small children are not rascist but they learn to be. My five year old recently noticed that some in his class are darker or lighter than others and even at parent coffee mornings since Jack Straw's statement multicultural issues are currently being discussed which just shows how media centric everything is now - it's a sign that the issue has penetrated through to everyone as parents are busy people, I don't mean of course that they don't have opinions like everyone else but that they can be too short of time to discuss anything at all sometimes while being constantly interrrupted by small children! so if a subject is discussed outside their immediate world of school etc. it's probably an important one or they would save their breath and have a nice cup of tea instead! Straw must have known perfectly well the can of worms/pandora's box he was opening by even mentioning the veil issue especially in the current climate of Islamophobia and as well as being a women's issue it's traditional - my veiled friend (who only wore a hijabm not a full face covering) was told to be covered by her mother-in-law rather than her husband if her brother in law was present in the mother-in-law's house, so it's not always the Muslim man who is continuing the tradition/relious imoerative or at least not solely him.
All this makes me think that there should be a general purge on stereotypes and snobbery in this country when John McDonnell gets in, I'm stereotyped as a parent, let alone in any other group I might fit in to, as an eco-mum as John O' Farrell puts it in one of his novels I've been stereotyped as too fussy I expect but I've just seen on BBC Parliament that the EC has voted to label the chemicals in housheold products etc - chemicals, pesticides etc. are in pretty much everything if not organic and ban animal testing _both things I've been campaigning for for years! (I think its called the REACH judgement didn't hear the exact details but I knew this legisalation was in progress anyway some months ago but wasn't sure if it would pass! It's great as it shows change is possible and a new world order is possible, the vested interests of the chemical companies are not very pleased tonight and are doing the usual and moaning about the cost though they can make money putting in the safer alternatives to chemicals.
Another step in breaking down the corporate dictatorship supported by European Socislists and of course Greens. I saw the future on this and environmental issues fice years ago when I had my first baby we all know what we want (and don't want, such as wars) for the future as detailed on this website so we will just have to take the advice of Bill Clinton to the Labour conference and "Stay in teh future business"! Well only John can deliver it,t that's obvious!
see Private Eye page eleven re: Blairite's MP about the leadershipo cnadidate wristbands Newsnight had had made up at conference. John I saw on Newsnight that night wa the only one to accept one graciously, the pthers had a complete strop that hte journalists had dared top suggest a contest instead of a Brown coronation.
Bring on the debate between McDonnell and Brown.
Let's hope common sense prevails over stopping Islamophobia, segregation etc and as John says Islamaphobia is not given a vestige of respectability or we will all be truly lost. Ruth Kelly's plan to identify "hotspots" of Isalamic extremism which headlined The Mirror before her meeting with community leaders today sounded like a massive over-reaction to me and any person or group can turn to extremism, why are just Muslims being singled out,as I've said before any parent's child could do terrible things, why just Muslims? People who are too young to rememebmer or have read about/studied previous persecutions of various parts of society such as the Irish for example may fall for the Ministerial line and believe that things are differnt now after 9/11 amd feel it is justifed but this is clearly misguided. My Muslim friend did ask me if she should stop wearing her veil after 9/11 as she felt more vulnerable then in the street; I said she should stop if she wanted to to feel safer but I thought she should wear it if she she wanted to for her religious/cultural reasons if that's what she wanted and she did continue to wear it. I think I thought it would be giving in to predjudice for her to have to change because of the action of some extremists. I've not seen anyone with a full face covered in a situation where it is only the women and small children, we used to go to toddler groups etc and I've never seen anyone that covered up there, only in the street or at the airport. So I can't comment on the teaching assistant case currently in the news. When I checked passports at the airport I did have to check each woman individually even if a man arrived at the desk with their passports as well as his own as I had to establish each individual's nationality, identity, immigration history etc. before admitting them and if it was necessary for women to uncover for a moment so we could look at their face to check their identity if it was had to establish under their veil they could go to a female officer if they wanted and they would either quickly pull down the veil for an instant as face to face no-one else can see anyway or they could be taken to a private room if requested so it didn't cause a problemn, there were plenty of rooms we could use and it was rare that we had to anyway.
This whole veil 'issue' seems to have come up when the government is reeling over reports of the disasters it has contributed to in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Blair and other opportunists seem to think they can tap into the BNP vote - but instead they're creating support for the BNP and the Conservatives just as they have with their 'tough' immigration policies.
How many of the July 7th bombers were women wearing veils? Zero.
The only valid objection to them is on medical grounds (i.e preventing vitamin D absorption from sunlight via face and hands) -and that's still up to the people wearing them not anyone else - the rest is pandering to the people with skin heads and steel toe-capped boots whose views definitely make me want to remain separate from them.
No veils and no debate. Sorry if I offend other people. Live here, learn the language and integrate. Or live in a country more accomodating of your views and traditions.
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