THE BRITISH INQUISITION/RACE WAR POLITICS
7 January 2005
Mike O’Brian has been boasting of the government’s pro-Muslim and race war policies, in an attempt to woo the Muslim vote in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. He pointed out in an article in Muslim Weekly that a ban on religious discrimination came 2 weeks after a demand for it from the Muslim Council of Britain. He also highlighted that Tony Blair has read the Koran (reportedly keeping it by his bedside table).
Mike O’Brian even has the gall to play the victim by claiming to sympathise with Muslims because of his Irish Catholic background and the anti-terrorism measures which came in the wake of IRA terrorism.
But the most risible attack is reserved for Michael Howard, who is castigated for being less likely to support Turkish accession into the EU, being a Jew: ‘Ask yourself what will Michael Howard do for British Muslims? Will his foreign policy aim to help Palestine? Will he promote legislation to protect you from religious hatred and discrimination? Will he give you the choice of sending your children to a faith school? Will he stand up for the right of Muslim women to wear the hijab? Will he really fight for Turkey, a Muslim country, to join the EU? These are not academic questions. Remember the last thing we want is to vote in anger and repent at leisure as Michael Howard, with a big smile on his face, walks through the door of Number 10'.
Mike O’Brian then goes on to point out that Labour scrapped the Primary Purpose Rule which he claimed discriminated against Muslim immigration. Also that Labour had insisted in giving Muslims a prominent role in the Remembrance Day ceremonies and that Labour had also given recognition and funding to Muslim schools.
Mike O’Brian also makes an attack on Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP and, like Michael Howard, Jewish. Evan Harris hit back: ‘I am appalled by the way the Labour Minister went out of his way to name me specifically when misrepresenting the LibDem position on incitement to religious hatred - is it because I am the only Jewish LibDem MP? Mr O’Brian’s attack is the kind of unpleasant religious divisiveness and personalisation of religion, which the government is going to feed in its new law. Labour is fighting dirty because it knows that it has lost credibility with many ethnic minority voters’.
This furore coincides with the criticism by Kenan Malik, a Muslim writer and film-maker, that so-called Islamaphobia was largely a ‘myth’, and that Muslim leaders were ‘exaggerating’ the alleged harassment they were encountering. He cited an EU report which stated that there had only been a dozen serious physical attacks on Muslims in the UK in the 4 months after the 9/11. He also said that allegations of Islamaphobia ‘creates a climate of censorship in which any criticism of Islam can be dismissed as Islamaphobia’.
This storm in a teacup merely highlights, once again, that the purpose of the race war agenda is to ferment hatred and antagonism between different communities and to portray the English as being the enemy. The purpose of any British government is to protect British interests, not to pander to demands from any ethnic minority. If it is against British interests for Turkey to be allowed to join the EU, for whatever reason, then the government should oppose Turkey’s accession.
Mike O’Brian has been boasting of the government’s pro-Muslim and race war policies, in an attempt to woo the Muslim vote in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. He pointed out in an article in Muslim Weekly that a ban on religious discrimination came 2 weeks after a demand for it from the Muslim Council of Britain. He also highlighted that Tony Blair has read the Koran (reportedly keeping it by his bedside table).
Mike O’Brian even has the gall to play the victim by claiming to sympathise with Muslims because of his Irish Catholic background and the anti-terrorism measures which came in the wake of IRA terrorism.
But the most risible attack is reserved for Michael Howard, who is castigated for being less likely to support Turkish accession into the EU, being a Jew: ‘Ask yourself what will Michael Howard do for British Muslims? Will his foreign policy aim to help Palestine? Will he promote legislation to protect you from religious hatred and discrimination? Will he give you the choice of sending your children to a faith school? Will he stand up for the right of Muslim women to wear the hijab? Will he really fight for Turkey, a Muslim country, to join the EU? These are not academic questions. Remember the last thing we want is to vote in anger and repent at leisure as Michael Howard, with a big smile on his face, walks through the door of Number 10'.
Mike O’Brian then goes on to point out that Labour scrapped the Primary Purpose Rule which he claimed discriminated against Muslim immigration. Also that Labour had insisted in giving Muslims a prominent role in the Remembrance Day ceremonies and that Labour had also given recognition and funding to Muslim schools.
Mike O’Brian also makes an attack on Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP and, like Michael Howard, Jewish. Evan Harris hit back: ‘I am appalled by the way the Labour Minister went out of his way to name me specifically when misrepresenting the LibDem position on incitement to religious hatred - is it because I am the only Jewish LibDem MP? Mr O’Brian’s attack is the kind of unpleasant religious divisiveness and personalisation of religion, which the government is going to feed in its new law. Labour is fighting dirty because it knows that it has lost credibility with many ethnic minority voters’.
This furore coincides with the criticism by Kenan Malik, a Muslim writer and film-maker, that so-called Islamaphobia was largely a ‘myth’, and that Muslim leaders were ‘exaggerating’ the alleged harassment they were encountering. He cited an EU report which stated that there had only been a dozen serious physical attacks on Muslims in the UK in the 4 months after the 9/11. He also said that allegations of Islamaphobia ‘creates a climate of censorship in which any criticism of Islam can be dismissed as Islamaphobia’.
This storm in a teacup merely highlights, once again, that the purpose of the race war agenda is to ferment hatred and antagonism between different communities and to portray the English as being the enemy. The purpose of any British government is to protect British interests, not to pander to demands from any ethnic minority. If it is against British interests for Turkey to be allowed to join the EU, for whatever reason, then the government should oppose Turkey’s accession.
posted by erc @ 4:53 pm
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