The sometimes prudish, sometimes lascivious folk over at the Daily Mail routinely react in horror to some people getting naked, getting all huffy and conservative, then react rather more excitedly, getting all celebratory and dribbling, often in the space of a few pages pages, or sentences. There’s no apparent mechanism for choosing between the two responses other than the toss of a coin, but they always manage to feature the pictures, either way.

Anyway, they were remarkably quick to spot actress Sila Sahin posing nude in the latest German issue of Playboy magazine, and essentially recycle the interview as a news story. The big media spin on the story is that she is a well-known German-Turkish soap actress, hence she becomes apparently “the first Turkish woman” to appear nude in Playboy. And therefore presumed a Muslim. A naked, Muslim woman.

Dum dum dummmm.

Posing provocatively on the cover of German Playboy magazine with one breast exposed, Sila Sahin seems to be sending a clear and deliberate message to her conservative Turkish family.

‘I did it because I wanted to be free at last,’ she said. ‘These photographs are a liberation from the restrictions of my childhood.’

Her family have, unsurprisingly, reacted with horror, and her mother has cut off all contact with the actress.

‘My mother is still angry. It will be even more difficult with my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles,’ she said on the website devoted to her television soap.

She has, however, managed to talk to her actor father, who expressed concern over the pressure she will inevitably face from those not only within the Turkish community in Germany, but from the wider Muslim community as a whole.

… ‘My upbringing was conservative,’ she told Playboy. ‘I was always told, you must not go out, you must not make yourself look so attractive, you mustn’t have male friends.

‘I have always abided by what men say. As a result I developed an extreme desire for freedom. I feel like Che Guevara. I have to do everything I want, otherwise I feel like I may as well be dead.’

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1378455/Sila-Sahin-poses-Playboy-Muslim-model-upsets-family-nude-cover.html

The lengthy photo feature (shown here) did the media rounds in Germany. Obviously there’s a “boo” from some of her family and various Muslim sources,(Sahin says she’s “not sure” about her own religious beliefs). There’s another “boo” from those worried that if avoiding doing “what men say” is your main aim, then stripping off for the male gaze may not be the best way to go about it. But there’s also a “boo” from commentators worried that the shoot is such a “cheap cliché” based on exoticism, all too conveniently playing on Europe’s current angst about race, immigration and integration.

“When you look at the pictures you can see how cheap these people at the magazine think about Turkish, Muslim, Islamic, Oriental people,” said Hatic Akyün, who writes a column for the Berlin daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel and was born in Turkey but grew up in Germany. “It’s such a cheap cliché they’re using.”

Akyün said she and her Turkish friends were all exasperated to see that a Playboy cover was putting the issue of integration back into the headlines. She accused Playboy, Sahin and her handlers of stirring up controversy for publicity’s sake.

“That’s how it works in Germany. The integration debate works just like that,” she said. “They know exactly which buttons they need to push to get the media to jump all over it.”

Gökce Yurdakul, an expert on race, gender and Islam and a professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University, was equally disappointed with the way the German media have approached the topic. For too long women have been seen as representations of their nations, she said.

“She’s not a daughter of Turkish immigrants; she shouldn’t be represented this way in the newspapers,” she said. “This is an individual woman who is acting on her own behalf, not as a daughter, not as a part of a community.”

Yurdakul said Sahin is just tapping into what Germans expect to read about Turkish and Muslim women, that German society can liberate them.

Link: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15021188,00.html

The Gather : Celebs channel is a bit more forgiving.

Good for her. This message is one that most people can certainly embrace, and hopefully, her family will get over their dismay at her decision to pose nude. Who would have thought that Sila Sahin’s nude pictures could end up helping advance the cause of world peace?

Who indeed.

Link: http://celebs.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979263193

Hey kids, it’s the Easter break! Long weekend! Wanna go ride the rides at Alton Towers?

Yaaaay! Thanks dad.

Not only that, kids, it’s “EXTREME EASTER” at the park. And one of these lucky vicars, pictured during their auditions in my Daily Mail, will be leaading the EXTREME EASTER service. It’s EXTREME!

Vicars' EXTREME EASTER at Alton Towers - "is designed to address the problem of falling church numbers in the UK by offering visitors a chance to worship at the popular attractions."

Oh… Thanks dad. Actually, isn’t Doctor Who on?

* * *

Andrew “dodgy dossier” Gilligan does a bit more digging, this time bringing to the surface an old document from the occasionally described as moderate Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) stating that wearing the burqa is “not up for debate” (this quote appears in the byline but not in Gilligan’s article).

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that not covering the face is a “shortcoming” and suggested that any Muslims who advocate being uncovered could be guilty of rejecting Islam.

In a statement published on its website the MCB, warns: “We advise all Muslims to exercise extreme caution on this issue, since denying any part of Islam may lead to disbelief.

“Not practising something enjoined by Allah and his Messenger… is a shortcoming. Denying it is much more serious.”

The statement quotes from the Koran: “It is not for a believer, man or woman, that they should have any option in their decision when Allah and his Messenger have decreed a matter.”

* * *

In an audacious move, Cristina Odone pulls a blinder in a bid to make it into our new “God delusions” round-up. First she  delivers surely the earliest THEY’RE BANNING CHRISTMAS comment of the year (a new record?). Then she dons the cloak of victimhood and whines unhappily… about how atheists will never be happy! With no sense of irony at all.

The two issues are linked, of course. You see, atheists won’t be happy until Christmas is banned and Cristina Odone has been driven into “the catacombs”.

Well, at least she’s half right.

* * *

Finally, in a beautiful conflation of multiple kinds of stupid, on the day that Cristina Odone also loudly protests the alleged claim by Discworld author Terry Pratchett that those against assisted dying are on the “far right”, Melanie “Mad Mel” Philips blames assisted dying on “the Left (and the BBC)”.

The general commentators’ consensus on the French face veil ban seems to be, we don’t like veils, but we don’t like bans either and there’s better ways to educate people than that. Allison Pearson in The Telegraph takes a harder line. She quotes at length a UK website offering advice to women from a man named Muhammad (an “agony uncle” for local Muslims) such as that women should not sing. Pearson proceeds to argue that in the face of this oppressive paternalism the UK should adopt a similar ban.

The burka and the niqab should be banned in Britain. They are a barrier to integration, a statement of hostility to the host country. Poor women who have been brainwashed into hiding their faces are victims, not martyrs. The burka is a not a sign of religion, but of subservience. When Atatürk outlawed the veil in Turkey in 1934 the result was a soaring rate of literacy among women and equality between the sexes was ushered in.

How dare Muhammad the Agony Uncle and his kind, all enjoying the benefits of a modern democracy, presume to give such advice as: “A female is encouraged to remain within the confines of her home as much as possible. She should not come out of the home without need and necessity.” Not in our country, mate.

The Islamist agony uncles and their imams should go somewhere where their musings on women will be more appreciated. Get on the A1, travel due south, gentlemen, and keep going for, oooh, about 1,000 years.

I have a final question for Muhammad’s problem page. What kind of a God would give a girl a voice, then keep her in a cage and never let her sing?

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/allison-pearson/8449101/We-too-should-ban-the-burka.html

Sarfraz Manzoor, who wrote last year about his own family’s objections to his marriage to a “white non-Muslim” woman and the aftermath, this week provides a rather less personal write-up of a scheme run in Luton, exposing no less a cutting example of racial divide.

In the scheme, religiously and ethnically segregated children from different schools were brought together… for one afternoon. Half the children came from a Catholic school and were petty much entirely white, the other half from predominantly Muslim families and were all Asian, bar one black pupil. The second school is a community school, not a Muslim ‘faith’ school, but of course when pupils sharing some characteristics pool in one school in an area then there are always going to be corresponding effects on the remaining community schools, regardless of their admissions policies or “ethos”.

Manzoor accepts that “the very fact that Luton felt it needed this project suggests that the town has a real, and not only perceived, challenge on its hands”. But the overall tone is irony-free. Manzoor seems pleased with the “pioneering initiative” and talks about how the children quickly overcome fear and suspicion across a racial and religious divide by playing simple games (the article’s title is “Catholic and Muslim pupils find they have a lot in common”).  That the massive town-wide segregation of children by ethnicity and religion mandates something like the “Schools Linking Network initiative” in the first place seems to go entirely under the radar. There’s no explicit criticism of the fact that the school system itself is pulling the town’s children into perceptibly tribal camps from the outset.

Luton has become media shorthand for the failures of multiculturalism, having been both home to the Muslim extremists who jeered at British soldiers returning from Iraq and the birthplace for the extreme right English Defence League, which recently marched through the town. St Joseph’s, a faith school that is 49% white British, and William Austin, which is only 2.4% white British, are one of 10 pairs of contrasting schools that have been linked up.

… Hassan from William Austin admits he was a bit nervous at the start of the day because he has “never really met any Christians”. He is surprised to learn the children from St Joseph’s are more similar to him than he imagined. “I thought they’d be totally different – like a different kind of person, but actually they like the same football teams and the same food.”

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/12/school-twinning-catholic-muslim

The overall impression from the article itself is hopeful, in that the children are able to overcome divides that many adults wilfully allow to fester for generation after generation, but the impression from the wider context is tragic, in that these ten pairs of “contrasting” schools are ingraining such notions of alien people in the first place. How much harder will it be to bridge the gap between the same children again when they are teenagers, or later as suspicious adults, after years of their minds being narrowed by the social filters built into their very education?

If you’re going to cut something, why not abolish religious admissions criteria altogether, then you wouldn’t have to pay for sticking plaster “Linking” initiatives down the line after years of social disharmony.

An advertising campaign to tackle Islamophobia has been unveiled on buses across the UK.

Vehicles in several cities will carry the message “Muslims for loyalty, peace and freedom” in an attempt to challenge negative stereotypes of the faith.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, the group behind the campaign, said it hoped it would educate people about Islam and remove misconceptions.

But some Muslim groups have criticised the campaign as “unrealistic”.

… ”Through this campaign we are trying to clarify the true teachings of Islam, to speak out against injustices, suicide bombings and terrorism,” said Rafiq Hayat, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association’s national president.

… Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, which monitors Islamophobia, said it had a great deal of evidence showing it was increasing.

He said he was doubtful whether the campaign would change negative perceptions.

”There is nothing wrong with doing something like this, but the reality is that you can’t just make people think differently,” he said.

”No-one on the street is going to look at the message on the buses and say ‘oh is that right, from now on I’m not going to stereotype Muslims’. This is very unrealistic.”

Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12956746

A conference this Saturday, Women’s Rights, Sharia Law and Secularism, will mark International Women’s Day with discussion of the adverse impact of religious laws on the status of women.

The conference will have sessions on Religion’s Impact on Women’s Rights (A discussion on whether religion is compatible with women’s rights, the limits of religious freedom and the intrusion of culture, religion and tradition on women’s status); Religion and Secularism (A discussion on whether religion and secularism are interdependent, complimentary or contradictory); and Religion and the Law (A discussion on religion’s intrusion in the law and on the importance of secularism).  A C Grayling will deliver the keynote address. There will also be a showing of Ghazi Rabihavi’s play ‘Stoning’ – ‘A very strong and powerful piece of work, beautifully constructed’ as described by Harold Pinter.

More information and booking

Meanwhile, Rahila Gupta writes on threats both practical and theoretical to secularism, why it matters to women, and how the state’s renewed enthusiasm for ‘faith’ communities and religious leaders must be checked by a secularist feminism.

To some extent public policy is influenced by the public debate.  Secularism, as a concept, appears to be in danger from both the left and the right. The growing popularity of the term, secular fundamentalism,  an oxymoron if ever there was one, is part of the continuing attempt to discredit it.  Although secularism was traditionally the preserve of the left, some on the left have abandoned this territory,  in the face of rising anti-Muslim racism and the state’s War on Terror, and developed an anti-racist politics that gives succour to religious extremism rather than challenging it. The marches against the war in Iraq, for example, that were organised by the Stop the War coalition in which the major partners were the Socialist Workers’ Party and the Muslim Association of Britain, often used slogans like ‘We are all Muslims’. Rallies started with prayers from the podium! This is not the way we tackle ‘islamaphobia’, certainly not by squeezing our public secular spaces.

…

With the resurgence of religion, secularism is bound to be contested territory. The women who come to SBS [Southall Black Sisters] to rebuild their lives testify to the importance of secular spaces. One woman said,  ‘I would like my views represented by women, not by community and reigious leaders…If religious leaders bring their laws where can we run to? There will be more suicides, depression, castaways, conversions. It would be the biggest disaster.’ Among feminists, it tends to be only some minority women scrambling for the soul of secularism. It is time for all feminists to muck in.

Full article: http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/rahila-gupta/feminism-and-soul-of-secularism

Monday’s Dispatches programme on Channel 4 is, for some reason, still not available to view online on the usual Dispatches page at the time of writing. The documentary featured scenes filmed undercover appearing to depict teachers and other adults (sometimes visiting) in Islamic independent schools  hitting children and delivering hateful messages about non-Muslims, encouraging the children to shun non-Muslims and even Muslims deemed not Muslim enough.

The BHA responded by pointing out that the problems in the schools reflect wider concerns and stand to be replicated in new ‘free schools’. New education campaigns officer, Jenny Pennington, commented, ’It is very worrying that a school that has been given a clean bill of health in this area from inspectors can teach young children abhorrent, intolerant views about people of other religions and non-religious beliefs. The evidence presented by the documentary is especially concerning at a time when the Government is moving to give state funded schools much greater autonomy over their curriculum whilst actually proposing to reduce the scope of Ofsted inspections.’

The usual anonymous idiots have threatened to fire-bomb the building (as if the bricks and mortar are to blame, and as if that’s going to solve anything). One of the schools will complain to Ofcom claiming that the footage was selectively chosen and/or out of context. A man shown physically striking children at the school has already been arrested.

Police have arrested a man concerning alleged assaults on children at a mosque after viewing a Channel 4 documentary screened on Monday.

Dispatches, Lessons in Hate and Violence, secretly filmed a man apparently hitting and kicking children during Qu’ran lessons at a school in the Markazi Jamia mosque at Keighley, West Yorkshire.

An Islamic school in Birmingham in the same documentary, where a preacher was filmed making offensive remarks about non-Muslims, said it would close early for half-term, amid fears pupils could be the target of far-right groups.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/14/mosque-schools-arrest-channel-4

A former journalist recounts her experience as a teacher in the Egyptian capital.

In my first week as a teacher, I was given a list of my pupils. Each had a letter in the column beside his or her name, either a C or an M. Nada and Daniel and Sara were Cs. Other students – I believe the rest of them – were Ms.

I didn’t pay much attention to this, except perhaps to the novelty of it. Perhaps I assumed that these letters were meant to increase teacher sensitivity around the holidays. I certainly didn’t see it as a fundamental division in a country growing more and more divided along criss-crossing fault lines of suburban and urban, Muslim and Christian, private- and government-school educated.

A decade has passed, and my eldest son is now in school with a letter appended to his name. A bomb has gone off at an Alexandria church. People have been shot; one man was allegedly beaten to death during interrogation; others were imprisoned for protesting against the situation. The letter next to a child’s name, C or M, has taken on a different dimension.

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jan/24/egypt-christian-muslim-religious-sectarianism

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi’s speech yesterday to the University of Leicester (prepared text available on her website) has provoked rather a lot of comment. It’s subject is anti-religious sentiment, in particular anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Near the top she conversationally mentions the bi-monthly publication from the Rationalist Association

The New Humanist Magazine ran a poll of their readers which ranked me the fifth most dangerous enemy of reason last year.

She neglects to mention that this is probably because she branded secularism “intolerant and illiberal”, tried to remove protections for non-religious views in equalities legislation, and despite many extensions of religious privilege by the previous government said that the Coalition would “do God” even more. She also takes a pot-shot at BHA President Polly Toynbee for having stated “I am an Islamophobe.” That is all that’s quoted and it’s quite clear why. When read in context Toynbee’s supposed admission is pretty bad evidence for a recent downward trend in Muslim/non-Muslim relations: it was written fourteen years ago, and the article is about defending the right to be critical of religion – Toynbee calls herself “Christophobe” in this context too – and about judging religion as a whole including the actions of its adherents, rather than just the words in religious books.

Warsi set the scene saying:

In my last speech I made the evidential case for faith in our country. I showed that contrary to popular belief, faith in this country is certainly not fading away; I explained that faith inspires many people to do good things which help build a bigger society; And I announced that the aim of this government is to help not hinder faith communities in the good things that they do.

Today, I want to make a related argument. I want to make the case against the rising tide of anti-religious bigotry.

Though the press has responded mainly to her already infamous central claim that “Islamophobia has now passed the dinner-table-test”, much of the speech is on anti-religious views in general, and when it comes to that “now” which makes everything seem so pressing, her examples quickly dry up.

Warsi claims that she’s not censuring fair criticism, only highlighting that there is too much irrational bigotedness against religious people and especially Muslims. There are few really current examples, which might be seen as a flaw in a speech made so soon after a very obvious example of bigotedness flowing in the other direction, from religion, outward. Warsi digs back to 2004 and the appointment of Ruth Kelly as Education secretary, in which Kelly’s firm Catholic conviction was widely discussed (but then, Kelly was proudly connected with Opus Dei, so it wasn’t exactly a passing reference to private belief that provoked the commentators). Warsi’s limited examples quickly retreat into history…

Sikhism suddenly seems to be all about a play in Birmingham.

“Suddenly”… Behzti was shut down following protests in 2004.

And Evangelical Christianity is seen as anti-Abortion activists rather than campaigners like William Wilberforce.

William Wilberforce died in 1833.

Her recommendations in the end boil down to a plea to talk more about “British Muslims” than “moderate Muslims” because the latter leads too quickly to thoughts about extremists, and finally:

What we need now is for more faith leaders, and more faith communities, to stand up and speak out in defence of faith.

The prepared text of the lecture: http://www.sayeedawarsi.com/2011/01/university-of-leicester-sir-sigmund-sternberg-lecture/

So, concerns about possibly damaging free speech aside, is the background level of genuine prejudice against Muslims increasing? HumanistLife has reported on Islamophobia and hatreds “real and imagined” quite recently.

Peter Oborne for the Telegraph is in no doubt, praising Warsi’s speech as a potentially career-damaging but necessary intervention against a background of real growing prejudice:

What she said yesterday has desperately needed saying by a mainstream politician for a very long time. I know this because, over the past few years, I have visited many Muslim communities and spoken to scores of Muslim leaders. With very few exceptions (such as Anjem Choudary, the fanatic who tried to organise a protest march by British Muslims through Wootton Bassett) they are decent people. Many have come from countries which persecute their citizens and trash human rights. So they are even more keenly aware of what it means to be a British citizen.

But – and this is why what Baroness Warsi has to say is so important – British Muslims get spat at, abused, insulted and physically attacked. Vandalism and mosque burnings are common, and often unrecorded. The far?Right in Britain has changed its nature. In the 1980s, organisations such as the National Front and the BNP concentrated their hatred and odium on blacks and Jews. Today, racist organisations such as the English Defence League focus on Muslim immigrants.

The Spittoon blog (anti-blasphemy, pro-free speech) also sympathises against real prejudice, but questions the political motivations.

Warsi is right to speak out against the kind of casual anti-Muslim bigotry which has become increasingly noticeable in the day to day language of Britain. There is now a climate here where the kind of language in which phraseology invoking ”fucking Muslims” is commonplace. And this is to say nothing of the heightened levels of Muslim baiting which passes for journalism on the pages of the Daily Express and the Daily Mail. Both of these organs has acted as barometer and weather vane for gauging society’s prejudice du jour. We know from them that English exceptionalism is fickle when it comes to fear and loathing of minorities and has passed over the seasons from Jews to blacks to Asians and now, currently, to Muslims.

But Warsi’s points suffer from ambiguity and a failure to discern between overt prejudice and the necessity of isolating extremist and racist elements within the fold of Islam. This suggests a barely disguised political agenda of her own, and most worryingly, a tendency to lean in favour of the goals of organised political Islamists. The kind which organise the GPU – an event she was banned from attending by Cameron himself. Is Warsi’s speech motivated by a need to extract payback from Tory Head Office for reigning her in on the question of political Islam?

Link: http://www.spittoon.org/archives/8744

Likewise Ed West for the Telegraph is keen to recognise very real prejudice, but is similarly concerned about lumping all criticism together as “Islamophobia”.

In a sense she is right, and it is noticeable how people are far more open in their hostility; I suspect many people who hate immigration of all shapes and sizes now focus largely on Muslims because it’s the one sort of criticism that’s even mildly acceptable… I would certainly challenge anyone to put themselves in the shoes of a British Muslim and look at the tabloid newspaper stands everyday, and not feel a bit hated.

But, sadly, a level of bigotry has become socially acceptable in many parts of society. Why? Well, there are two strands to the issue, and both of them are called “Islamophobia”. … It is a weasel word, because it lumps together two entirely different things. On the one hand, there is an unacceptable hatred of Muslims, which is largely racial (where Muslim is basically a new way of saying “P***”). And, on the other, there is fear of and hostility to the religion.

“Islamophobia” stigmatises a perfectly legitimate feeling of hostility to a religion which, let’s be honest, doesn’t always sit well with liberalism.

Link: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100072712/baroness-warsi-the-best-way-to-counter-islamophobia-is-to-stop-talking-about-it/

For Andrew Brown in the Guardian, It’s not just “Islamophobia” that might blur two kinds of feeling, but “extreme”, as well.

The real problem is that “extreme” is a term that denotes two separate kinds of distance from the rest of us. In its political sense it is entirely straightforward: “extremism” is a measure of your readiness to use violence, or of your lack of commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts. But in the religious or social sense, “extremism” means something much more like “weirdness”; just not being like us. This can also involve harmless eccentricity, as in “Richard Dawkins is an extreme atheist” but in a religious concept it can go very far indeed from what the rest of the world regards as sanity without involving violence.

A contemplative nun, who spends almost her entire life in silent and solitary prayer, might be regarded as an extreme Christian.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jan/20/lady-warsi-extremism

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain is less sympathetic, calling Warsi’s speech “an attempt to stigmatise critical scrutiny of Islam and stifle genuine debate”:

All religions should be scrutinised and do not deserve special treatment over any other beliefs, ideas or philosophies. Of course the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain strongly condemns all forms of racism, bigotry and violence, however we utterly reject any attempt to conflate these issues with valid criticism and debate about Islam and Islamism.

Link: http://ex-muslim.org.uk/indexPressreleases.html

Ghaffar Hussain from Quillam meanwhile says there is real cause for concern and the press is partly to blame:

[I]n the press, most media stories that involve Muslims and Islam tend to be negative – although the same could probably also be said of Christianity and Christians. The difference however is that most Brits are much more comfortable with Christianity than they are with Islam. For instance, while ordinary British people can understand that radical Christians (such as the pastor Terry Jones who was yesterday banned from the UK) are a fringe minority, Islam remains a largely unknown quantity, the exotic “other”. This means that ordinary British people reading overblown press reports, for instance about the antics of Anjem Choudary, may not know that such individuals are fringe self-publicists who are barred from every mosque in Britain.

Once again though the consensus is that not all criticism is wrong.

However, that is not to say that Warsi is entirely right. The stirring-up of hatred and prejudice against all Muslims needs to be clearly distinguished from criticism of aspects of contemporary Muslim practice. Her reluctance to divide Muslims into “moderates” and “extremists” also seems counter-productive. Extremists exist in every religion and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so.

The Daily Express flatters Warsi’s general abilities but says that when it comes to Islam she has “lost her bearings” and the speech will do more harm than good:

If Muslims prove receptive to her message they will ease back on attempts to confront abhorrent practices within their own communities and instead become even more entrenched in a grievance culture that blames every difficulty on alleged oppression by “Islamophobes”.

In fact there are many serious problems within Muslim communities in Britain, as sensible groups such as the Quilliam Foundation have recognised. From its support for terrorism to its attempts to deny female emancipation and free speech, militant Islam is making life difficult both for moderate Muslims and for wider society.

Link: http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/224353/Lady-Warsi-s-speech-will-do-more-harm-than-good

The ever-diplomatic Richard Littlejohn lurches from point to point, claiming that no one is in fact speaking about Muslims at all, nor saying anything wrong. Then going on to say that maybe they should allo go home to Saudi Arabia. So, when Warsi claims that the common response to a woman in a burka is “That woman is either oppressed or is making a political statement”, Littlejohn’s reply is:

Are you sure?

Fair point. Maybe Warsi is just projecting. Maybe that’s not what people are thinking at all.

So Littlejohn in the very next sentence speaks on behalf of the country to tell her exactly what most of us are thinking, which Richard Littlejohn definitely knows.

Most of us just think anyone who wears a burka in Britain is barking mad and wonder why someone who so utterly rejects our society and our liberal values would want to live here. Surely they would be much happier in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

Surely!

Maybe Richard Littlejohn would be much happier in a zoo.

I’m fortunate to live in a part of the world where people of all races and religious persuasions rub along well.

Well isn’t that reasonable! Richard Littlejohn likes the idea that everyone can get along together. Until his next sentence.

The same can’t be said of some neighbourhoods in towns and ­cities, especially in the North of England, where the indigenous population has been supplanted by a hostile Muslim monoculture.

It is an incontrovertible fact that a sizeable number of Muslims ­pursue a separatist agenda and simply refuse to integrate into ­British society. Or that many mosques and madrassas in this country play host to extremist preachers of hate who aim to brainwash impressionable youngsters into joining the global jihad.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1349114/Islamophobia-What-kind-dinner-parties-Baroness-Warsi.html

And finally… in a shocking twist the BBC News magazine beats even Richard Littlejohn to the comedy “And finally…” slot at the end of the round-up, with a deft avoidance of controversy as it asks the all-important question, What is a dinner-table test?

Hostility to Muslims has “passed the dinner table test”, a peer claims. So how did this item of furniture become the benchmark for what is and isn’t acceptable to say?

You start with the cutlery on the outside and work your way in. The port is passed from right to left and you never, ever, blow your nose on the napkin.

To the socially gauche, meal-time manners are already baffling enough. And now it appears that, all along, an unwritten code has governed the opinions we express while sitting down to eat…

This is a real article. It rambles on and on at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12240315

The European Union’s Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2010 states that in 2009 there were “294 failed, foiled, or successfully executed attacks” in six European countries. This was down almost one-third from the total in 2008 and down by almost one-half from the total in 2007.

… As for who’s responsible, forget Islamists. The overwhelming majority of the attacks — 237 of 294 — were carried out by separatist groups, such as the Basque ETA. A further 40 terrorists schemes were pinned on leftist and/or anarchist terrorists. Rightists were responsible for four attacks. Single-issue groups were behind two attacks, while responsibility for a further 10 was not clear.

Islamists? They were behind a grand total of one attack. Yes, one. Out of 294 attacks. In a population of half a billion people. To put that in perspective, the same number of attacks was committed by the Comite d’Action Viticole, a French group that wants to stop the importation of foreign wine.

Now, I don’t want to overdo the point. Europe has major problems with the integration of its Muslim populations and the threat of Islamist terrorism is real. It’s also important to note that the number of attacks does not indicate the full extent of the danger, since Islamists, unlike most terrorists, seek to commit indiscriminate slaughter.

But even with these caveats, the data clearly demonstrate that common perceptions about terrorism in Europe are wrong.

Full story: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/great+Islamist+menace/4084610/story.html

Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.

Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.

“This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”

In the days following the brutal attack on Saints Church in Alexandria, which left 21 dead on New Year’ eve, solidarity between Muslims and Copts has seen an unprecedented peak. Millions of Egyptians changed their Facebook profile pictures to the image of a cross within a crescent – the symbol of an “Egypt for All”. Around the city, banners went up calling for unity, and depicting mosques and churches, crosses and crescents, together as one.

Continues: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/3365.aspx

‘Record numbers embrace Muslim faith‘, claimed an Independent article in which Jerome Taylor and Sarah Morrison “investigated” (churnalised) figures produced by a religious think-tank, designed – says Matt Hill, guesting on the Liberal Conspiracy blog – to play to an audience eager to hear stories of the spread of Islam in the west. But in reality, he says:

…something else is going on. The recent British Social Attitudes survey showed, for the first time, a majority of people claiming to be non-religious.

But more striking is the generational change the survey reveals. While 76.3% of people say they were raised as Christians, only 43.7% of people now identify as such. The real story, when it comes to British religion, is the number of people converting to godlessness.

And while 2.3% of people were raised in the faith, 2.4% call themselves Muslims: hardly a story of British ‘Islamification’.

A closer look at the figures quoted by the Independent shows it hides a classic non-story. A religious think tank has calculated the number of annual conversions to Islam by polling London mosques – who have an obvious incentive to over-estimate – and extrapolating the figures nationwide.

Even the head of the New Muslims Project, a group set up to support converts, is quoted as calling the hardly earth-shattering guess of 5,200 converts per year ‘a little on the high side’.

That a few Britons choose to convert to Islam every year – most in order to marry into Muslim families before continuing to live much as before – is hardly news. More remarkable is the growing number of former Muslims who have bravely gone public with their embrace of secularism, despite facing ostracism and sometimes violence for the offence of ‘apostasy‘.

Full article: http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/01/05/are-we-seeing-the-islamification-of-britain-the-opposite-infact/

The British Humanist Association supported the launch of The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain in 2007, which supports those “non-believers, atheists, and ex-Muslims” who do not want to be pigeonholed as Muslim based on cultural or ethnic assumptions, and aims to break the taboo that comes with renouncing Islam.

A Muslim academy in Portsmouth has been the target of two hate crimes in the past fortnight, police have said.

In the first incident, a brick with a racist message on it was thrown into the Portsmouth Muslim Academy, on Old Commercial Road, on 13 November.

A beer bottle was then thrown through a window at the front of the building last Friday.

The city’s Jami Mosque was also targeted twice in two days on 12 and 13 November.

The mosque was first attacked a day after an Islamic group, Muslims Against Crusades, burned remembrance poppies in London during a two-minute silence to mark the anniversary of Armistice Day.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-11837234

Meanwhile, a new report to be published on Saturday claims there is an “exponential increase in Islamophobia”, linked back to 9/11 and 7/7.

In one incident, a Muslim woman wearing a niqab, or veil, and burka was punched and abused while returning home on a bus from a shopping centre while her petrified infant daughter looked on. Other women stopped wearing the veil or burka to reduce the risk of violence. Researchers also found Muslim men who had shaved off their beards and changed other aspects of their appearance to stop being identified by their faith.

The study found that Muslims and mosques in the suburbs face a higher level of threats than those in big cities.

According to Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate Crime, by the University of Exeter’s European Muslim Research Centre, the Muslim woman was punched and called a terrorist.

Such attacks often go unreported, and in this case the woman was too scared to inform the police, the report says.

Full article: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article2822246.ece

And a new All Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia has been launched in the House of Commons.

At its inaugural Annual General Meeting, members elected Keighley and Ilkley Conservative MP Kris Hopkins to serve as its Chair with Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Simon Hughes and Labour peer Lord Janner of Braunstone as Vice-Chairs. The Group has so far attracted the interest of more than 20 MPs and peers from across both Houses of Parliament.

Mr Hopkins thanked attendees for being part of what he described as a “momentous occasion.” He said: “Whilst challenges will undoubtedly arise in the weeks and months ahead, my colleagues and I are hugely committed to the task in hand. I believe there is already a very strong resolve amongst members to better understand the complex issues involved, and to propose considered, evidence-based policies to tackle Islamophobia wherever it exists.”

Full release: http://iengage.org.uk/images/stories/appgpr241110.pdf

As it happens, The Spectator and columnist Melanie Phillips published an apology today to a prominent British Muslim withdrawing accusations of antisemitism.

Today’s apology, published on the Spectator website, follows an out of court settlement in which the magazine and Phillips agreed to pay Mohammad Sawalha “substantial” compensation and his legal costs… over a blog post by Phillips published in July 2008 in which she accused him of calling British Jews “evil/noxious”.

The apology stated: “On 2 July 2008 we published an article entitled ‘Just look what came crawling out’ which alleged that at a protest at the celebration in London of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, Mohammad Sawalha had referred to Jews in Britian as ‘evil/noxious’.

“We now accept that Mr Sawalha made no such antisemitic statement and that the article was based on a mistranslation elsewhere of an earlier report. We and Melanie Phillips apologise for the error.”

… Sawalha, a long-time campaigner for community cohesion in Britain, took the dispute to the high court after the Spectator initially refused to correct Phillips blog post, which alleged that he had referred to Jews in Britain as “evil/noxious” at a protest in London of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/nov/25/spectator-apology-muslim-antisemitism

But as Monday’s Panorama showed, there are Islamic “weekend schools” in Britain using anti-semitic and in various other ways nasty literature based on the Saudi Arabian curriculum today. David Goldberg outlines the chilling and sometimes gory detail of Saudi Arabia’s record on anti-Semitism, then says:

It is stating the obvious to affirm that such hate literature, indeed racist literature of any kind, cannot be tolerated in any multicultural, multiethnic society. What Saudi Arabia teaches at home is, regrettably, its own concern; but the kingdom needs to be told in no uncertain terms that peddling such poison in its schools and universities is abhorrent to civilised values, and exporting it for the use of schoolchildren in the UK is totally unacceptable.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Ofsted has no control over the curriculum content taught by faith schools, such as those highlighted in the Panorama programme. Yet another reason why I, along with my colleague Rabbi Jonathan Romain, am opposed to the vogue of this and the previous government for encouraging more faith schools. Without adequate supervision, far from promoting tolerance and respect for other faiths, these new schools will merely perpetuate in pupils a sense of their religion’s unique superiority and exclusivity.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/nov/24/saudi-arabia-antisemitic-textbooks

There is plenty of response to last night’s Panorama documentary on hateful and extremist views being “taught” in weekend “Islamic” schools in the UK.

Britain’s education department is to look at how it can check Islamic weekend schools after the BBC reported it had uncovered more than 40 of them teaching anti-Semitic views and extreme punishment for sodomy and theft.

The BBC said its “Panorama” programme, which will air on Monday evening, had found a network of weekend Islamic schools in Britain were teaching children how to chop off the hands of thieves, that Zionists are trying to take over the world and that sodomy is punishable by death.

Currently the government does not regulate weekend, part-time teaching centres.

The Department for Education said it could not allow anti-Semitic material in English schools and that the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), which inspects schools, was looking into how to monitor the part-time centres.

“Ofsted are doing some work in this area. They’ll be reporting to us shortly about how we can ensure that part-time provision is better registered and better inspected in the future,” the department said in a statement.

Continues: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6AL2JU20101122

A month ago the Daily Mail ran a story that began:

“A hard-working cafe owner has been ordered to tear down an extractor fan – because the smell of her frying bacon ‘offends’ Muslims.”

The same tale appeared in the Daily Telegraph, Cafe fan banned in case smell of bacon offends Muslimsand in the Metro, Beverley’s Snack Shack ‘offending Muslims with bacon smell’.

The stories, at first glance, struck me as being highly unlikely. Reading through the Mail and Telegraph versions, however, proved instructive, showing that the headlines and intros were wholly misleading.

There had been a complaint about the smells emerging from Beverley Akciecek’s Stockport cafe from a non-Muslim neighbour, Graham Webb-Lee, who claimed that his Muslim friends were refusing to visit him because, according to him, they couldn’t stand the smell of bacon.

There was not a shred of proof that Webb-Lee’s allegation had any basis in fact (because, as we shall see, no reporter checked with him). None of the stories quoted a Muslim person.

Indeed, the only individual of Muslim faith mentioned in the stories was Mrs Akciecek’s Turkish-born husband, who happens to cook the bacon.

It also became clear that Mrs A had been required to remove the fan by the council because she had never obtained planning permission for it.

There was a good analysis of the inadequacies of the Mail article by Tabloid Watch soon after publication.

Despite all this, the PCC has failed to raise any objection.

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/nov/19/dailymail-islam

The Times lifts the veil on questions (they say) you were probably too politically correct to ask. Veil wearer Zara Khan (27) answers anonymous questions.

1 How do children recognise their mothers in the veil? (This was the most-asked question)
By the eyes. And if it’s from the back, by their form. My nieces have seen me so many times in the veil, they just know.

2 Do you ever put it on over your pyjamas if you’re in a rush?
Lots of times. Once I was going up some stairs, and the person behind caught sight of them, and said, “Do I see pink flowers?” And I said, “Er, yes, my pyjamas, I overslept,” and they said, “You’re so lucky.”

3 Does it change the way you buy clothes?
No, I love to shop. I still go to Topshop and Selfridges. I dress up for women-only parties.

4 How did it feel the first time you wore it?
I thought I was going to die — it was so strange to have this material in front of your face. I felt the whole world was staring at me. It takes a lot of guts.

5 Why did you start wearing it?
I had a spiritual awakening when I was at university. I started wearing the headscarf. But the more I learnt about the religion, the more I wanted to practise. I wear it as it helps me to be a better person. It reminds me of my responsibilities as a Muslim. But I don’t think a garment in itself makes you good: I would never say that a woman in a veil is a better Muslim than one without.

Continues: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/article2813230.ece

In a BBC program to be shown tonight, Panorama will claim that more than 40 Saudi Students’ Schools and Clubs are currently teaching the Saudi national curriculum to about 5,000 pupils, featuring anti-Semitic and homophobic instruction, and Sharia-based diagrams on the punishment of criminals.

One text book shows how the hands and feet of thieves are chopped off.

The Saudi government said it had no official ties to the part-time schools and clubs and did not endorse them.

However, a building in west London where Panorama obtained one of the text books is owned by the Saudi government.

The director of education for the Saudi Students’ Schools and Clubs said the Saudi Cultural Bureau, which is part of the embassy, had authority over the network.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said there was no place for the Saudi teachings with regard to Jews or homosexuals in Britain: “To my mind it doesn’t seem to me that this is the sort of material that should be used in English schools.”

… One of the text books asks children to list the “reprehensible” qualities of Jewish people. A text for younger children asks what happens to someone who dies who is not a believer in Islam – the answer given in the text book is “hellfire”.

Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11799713

Panorma website with program details

[Three] Islamic schools have introduced uniform policies which force girls to wear the burka or a full headscarf and veil known as the niqab.

Moderate followers of Islam said yesterday that enforcement of the veil was a “dangerous precedent” and that children attending such schools were being “brainwashed”.

The Sunday Telegraph has established that three UK institutions have introduced a compulsory veil policy when girls are walking to or from school. They are:

• Madani Girls’ School in east London;

• Jamea Al Kauthar in Lancaster;

• Jameah Girls’ Academy in Leicester.

All three are independent, fee-paying, single-sex schools for girls aged 11 to 18. Critics warned that the spectacle of burka-clad pupils entering and leaving the schools at the start and end of the day could damage relations between Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

Continues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8038820/British-schools-where-girls-must-wear-the-Islamic-veil.html

The Dutch anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders has gone on trial in Amsterdam accused of inciting hatred against Muslims.

Mr Wilders, whose statements have included comparing the Koran with Hitler’s Mein Kampf, told the court freedom of expression was on trial.

If found guilty, he faces a maximum sentence of a year in jail.

Mr Wilders’ Freedom Party is the third biggest in the Netherlands after June’s elections, and is expected to play a key role in the next parliament.

Prosecutors have brought five charges of inciting hatred and discrimination, and the trial will scrutinise statements he made between 2006 and 2008.

In one such statement, in an opinion piece for the De Volkskrant newspaper, he wrote: “I’ve had enough of Islam in the Netherlands; let not one more Muslim immigrate.

“I’ve had enough of the Koran in the Netherlands: Forbid that fascist book.”

Continues: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11464025

Cheering for Osama is Quilliam’s new report on the content of jihadist websites, identifying three key concepts which prop up terror rhetoric, and how these principles should be tackled.

The saved [Wahabi] sect is basically the idea – found, too, in other religions – that “we” are right while everyone else is wrong and will go to hell. At best, this means that others, whether unbelievers or fellow Muslims, are misguided and in need of re-education but it can also be used as a pretext for violence against them.

The second concept is taghut, which roughly translates as idolatry. This is a familiar idea in mainstream Islam but, in the hands of Wahhabis and Salafi-jihadists, it is extended to include almost anything beyond what God is believed to have decreed: constitutions, democracy, “man-made” laws, etc. “For Salafi-Jihadists this can mean fighting physically against states which do not impose their preferred version of the sharia as state law or against individuals who support such states or facilitate their functioning,” Quilliam’s report says.

The third concept is al-wala’ wal bara’ – allegiance to Muslims and rejection of non-Muslims. This idea, “which aims to divide humanity physically, mentally and socially into Muslim and non-Muslims blocs, is central to Wahhabi thinking,” the report says. In practical terms, it can mean declaring other Muslims to be apostates if they cooperate with “non-Muslim” authorities such as the police and security forces: “Even where this does not directly lead to attacks, it can make Muslims more reluctant to join such organisations.”

Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/28/cyber-jihad-islamic-extremist-websites

Report: http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/index.php/component/content/article/700