Welcome to Ireland, Tír na cead míle fáilte (land of a thousand welcomes). Sure to be sure, begorrah, lets have a guinness, etc. Ireland has managed to propagate an image of a care-free, idyllic land where the stress of the modern world is absent. The nation sees twice as many tourists to its 40 shades of green shores than its population a year, which I’m sure is some sort of record.

However, this image is a piece of crap. Firstly, the nation is extremely racist. Zhao Liutao, a chinese student, was killed, the cause of death was head injuries which caused brain damage. Mary O’Rourke, the former education minister and current leader of the Seanad said her staff worked “like blacks” during her nomination for the seanad, and then refused to apologise (”political correctness gone wrong” to even ask her to) she meant it in a complimentary sense.

Secondly, the suicide rate in Ireland has quadroupled since 1990, while the cost of living keeps on creeping up and the effects of “rip-off Ireland” take hold.

Thirdly, we pollute.  We pollute and then we pretend we don’t.

That being said, I did not expect the following…

 

 

 

From the Sunday times:

What did we do to deserve your hatred?

Ireland’s 26,000 Muslims know all about the war on terror — they now live in constant fear of abuse, says Brian Carroll

Their head scarves frame faces that are unmistakably Irish and their Dublin accents seem out of place among the strictures of their religious dress.

They are unlikely targets of racial abuse, but Patricia Fitzpatrick, 43, and Lesley Carter, 35, have been spat upon, called Pakis, Osama Bin Laden and even “Jewish bastards” on the streets of their native city.

As converts to Islam they have joined Ireland’s estimated 26,000-strong Muslim population (Err, census says “19,147 Muslims“, but, thats an aside), which has become the focus of controversy since the discovery of planned terrorist attacks in Britain two weeks ago.

Last week two Algerian-born Irish citizens — a man and a woman — were arrested under anti-terrorist legislation in Wales. Although both were released without charge, the media coverage did nothing to improve intercommunity harmony in Ireland.

“I always felt people would leave me alone because I’m Irish. But now when they look at the newspaper and see the story about Irish Muslims arrested in Wales, I wonder what people think of me today?” Fitzpatrick says.

She accepts that there may be a tiny element of extremism in Ireland. But it’s among Muslims who have moved here, not those born here. “There are terrorists in every society,” she said. “Were all the Irish people in the IRA? Don’t judge us all.”

Her Muslim name is Saffiyyah and she was raised in York Street, Dublin, in a working-class family of 13. Carter grew up in Ballybrack.

They refused to be interviewed individually because neither can be left alone with a man. So one sits quietly while the other talks.

Carter clasps her hands together and stares at her feet while Fitzpatrick explains that at the age of 23 she married a Libyan national, Khairi, eight days after meeting him and now has six children aged from four to 18.

Fitzpatrick had converted to Islam two years earlier. “Something was missing for me. I started searching for answers. They had just finished building the mosque on the South Circular Road and I saw the moon shape and said to a friend: ‘Let’s go in and find out what it’s all about.’

“I hid it from my family. I couldn’t tell my brothers I wanted to be a Muslim. I used to go in the summer with an umbrella over my head. But they spotted me.”

Her family thought she had joined a cult, presuming Muhammad was the cult leader. One brother threatened to burn down the mosque.

“I got a hard time from my family for years. They’d say things like ‘Where’s your camel?’ I was their funny half hour, especially when they got drink in them,” she said.

Theresa, Fitzpatrick’s mother, cried throughout her daughter’s wedding ceremony. “I didn’t know what to make of it,” she admits, “but by degrees we got to know Khairi. He’s a lovely man and a good husband.”

The Fitzpatricks moved to Libya for 10 years, returning in the late 1990s to live in Kilmainham. “I noticed a big difference when I came back — a lot more racism. I was walking down Sandymount the other day with my mother and I got spat on. Then yesterday, around the corner from where I live, I was called a terrorist.”

A man recently called her a “Jewish bastard”, betraying his ignorance and his racism. “If you had seen the hatred in his eyes,” Fitzpatrick says. “I’m afraid for my children, afraid to let them out of my sight. My son got spat on going to the shops.”

 Shortly after the 7/7 attacks in London, she was buying a school bag in a shop. The shop assistants laughed and said they knew what the bag was going to be used for.

Shortly after the 7/7 attacks in London, she was buying a school bag in a shop. The shop assistants laughed and said they knew what the bag was going to be used for. “It’s only hitting Ireland now about Irish Muslims and terrorism. Now you are afraid of nightfall: are you going to get a brick through your window?” Carter has kept her hands clasped and eyes downcast throughout.

“I’m a Bracker,” she finally says in her soft Dublin accent, a reference to her native suburb. When she was 20 she went to England on a two-week holiday, met an Egyptian Muslim, married him a week later and lived in Essex for seven years. Her parents only found out about it afterwards.

Carter’s mother, Terry, said finding out her daughter had married a man she barely knew was every parent’s nightmare. “But once we got to know him and knew he was going to look after our daughter and our grandchildren, things changed. We accepted it.”

Though married 14 years, Carter only converted to Islam four years ago. She used to sit outside the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland in Clonskeagh when her husband went in to pray. One day she joined him. “I used to laugh at people who said they had a calling from God, but now I feel I’ve had one to become a Muslim.”

When she began to wear a hijab, she was harassed, called a Paki and told to go back to wherever she came from. Ignorant youths called the mother of four Osama Bin Laden.

The recent thwarted suicide bombings and the arrests in London have heightened tensions, she admits.

“We’re not like what the media are portraying us as. I don’t think any person should be branded as a nationality or religion. It’s sad Muslims can be branded like this.

“I have an 11-year-old son and we are planning to go to Florida and he’s scared, asking: ‘Mammy, what if they take you at the airport, because you wear the scarf?’” Fitzpatrick, whose husband is a shopkeeper in Dublin city centre, agrees. “You can’t paint us all as extremists and terrorists. People have the right to fight for their country, but lunatics that blow people up don’t stand for me.

“Now it’s across the papers about Irish Muslims being arrested. Now it’s like all Irish Muslims are terrorists. My kids are in the scouts and the football team, they go swimming, play in the park and do the things other kids do.”

But whatever lies in store, she does not regret the journey she has taken. “No matter what happens in my life now, I would never go back,” she says. “I have found peace.”

 

 

 

Doesn’t it make you want to stand up and sing Amhrán na bhFiann loud and proud?

Kenan Malik, the guy Muslim-haters love (after all, he has a Muslim sounding name), says that Islamophobia is there to “to stifle criticism of Islam“, he claims that it is a “myth“, and claims there is no hate at all directed at Muslims! This view is echoed by such folks as Roger Kimball (who also gleefully reports upon the death of socialism) among other conseratives. Curiously, even the BNP don’t deny there is such a thing as Islamophobia, though, they claim that it is “justified fears of Islamification and of Muslim terrorism in the UK”.

So, in light of that, I’m curious as to how Malik and his conseratives bed-mates would describe the following…

India on Friday lodged a strong protest with the Netherlands at the way it handled Indian passengers from a Bombay-bound flight that returned to Amsterdam shortly after takeoff, a foreign ministry spokesman said.
Dutch authorities detained 12 Indian passengers for more than a day and later released them after finding no evidence of a terrorist threat aboard the Northwest Airlines flight on Wednesday.
…“My brother is a businessmen traveling with colleagues and friends,” said Sanober Chotani, whose brother, Shaqeel, was among those held. “Indians talk more loudly than Westerners. So if you are happy, excited and Muslim, and don’t converse in English, you are a terrorist?”
Lubna Kulsawala said her brother-in-law, Ayub Kulsawala, 32, often flew abroad to sell garments. “He flies frequently for trade fairs and business. But he is Muslim, so he was arrested. Why should he be detained with no calls allowed to family?” she said.

Full story here

The Mail on Sunday screamed “Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed” on August 20th. Two british asian chucked from a plane.  Whats curious here is the account given by the victims in the mirror days later.

Firstly, they were marched off at Gun-point, was that really needed? The men had cleared the security checks already, why add the weapons.

Whats more curious is that some of the passengers started crying! “Then we heard a child crying. I looked around and there was a girl of about 12 looking at me, pointing and crying… Her parents were putting their arms around her protectively and staring at us”. The men were asian, dressed in western dress, had been drinking beer, eating at McDonalds and had long(ish) hair. What is so terrifying about that? Perhaps its their audacity at speaking “a foreign language” (thats is, not english… while in spain), but, it seems, that brown skin is now enough to drive children to tears, and the elderly to suspicions.. “The pair, studying for degrees at Manchester’s Umist institution, believe the scare was sparked by an elderly lady sitting nearby… Khurram said: ‘We were chatting away in Urdu and she kept looking at us. At first I didn’t really take any notice. I just thought perhaps she’d never seen an Asian person before.’”

And more;

Off-duty Amar Ashraf, 28, was settling in his seat as a stand-by passenger on the Continental Airlines’ flight to Newark when a stewardess said he had to get off.The aircraft had already pulled away from its stand at Manchester Airport and was getting ready to taxi to the runway when he was led away and his bags were taken from the hold.Mr Ashraf said: “I felt very demoralised when I had to get off.“I must have met the profile on the day. I have an Arabic name, I am a Muslim, I’m from Britain and I know how to fly.”

Full story here.

And more;

A Winnipeg doctor is demanding an official apology and compensation from United Airlines after being kicked off a flight in the U.S. this week, an incident he has characterized as “institutionalized discrimination.”   Dr. Ahmed Farooq, a Muslim, was escorted off an airplane in Denver on Tuesday. According to Farooq, reciting his evening prayers was interpreted by one passenger as an activity that was suspicious.

Farooq said the allegation came from a passenger who appeared drunk and had previously threatened him during the trip.

Full story here.

And more;

A senior member of the Edinburgh Airport ground staff relayed the two incidents to The Sunday Post this week.
“I’ve only witnessed two sets of passengers kick up a fuss about Muslims on their flight but I’m sure it’s happening regularly. It’s sad, but people are inclined to take the law into their own hands if they think their lives may be at risk.”

Full story here.

And, the most famous instance;

The British singer Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, is due to be sent back to London after being refused entry to the United States.

Mr Islam was on a flight from London to Washington when officials realised his name was on a “watch list”. The plane was diverted to another US airport.

Muslim groups in Britain and the United States have criticised the decision, saying Mr Islam is a man of peace.

In our market driven economy, how long will it be before we see the arrival of Muslim-free airways, or no-Asians-air?

 

Hollywood has never liked Arabs. Conspiracy theorists suggest this is because, “Jews run Hollywood” and they are Pro-Israeli, or some such.  I disagree, Money runs hollywood, and Arabs, unlike the Chinese, Japanese, the Irish or any other such group, have no significant purchasing power. The cinema going public like identifiable bad-guys, and a different skin colour to the good guy always helps. Add to that an alien religion that people simply don’t want to get to know or understand and you have a recipe for any Arab being a stock cartoon bad guy.

Jack G. Shaheen has a book called “Reel bad arabs: How Hollywood vilifies a people,” where he details more than 900 American flicks and the negative portrayal of Arabs therein (read a review here).  Films like “True Lies” (where Art Malik plays the stereotypical Baddie) and “Rules of engagement” (where images of Arab Men, women and children holding AK-47s shooting at the good guys in the US Army are seen) are just two in a whole catalogue of Hollywood stereotyping the Arab people.  It extends beyond hollywood.  The TV series Lost, for example, is supposed to be notable for its intelligence and astute observations, yet, of its multi-cultural cast, guess which one is the professional torturer? Yeps, the worlds second most popular show’s Arab is a torturer, and, as chance appears to have it, one of Saddam Husseins Henchmen.  He, Sayid Jarrah, was allowed his emancipation though, by a Good Guy .. an American Soldier.

 Team America, World Police, famously mocked Hollywood for being wooly and liberal.  If this crass characterisation of an entire ethnic group is “liberal”, what exactly would it be if there was no such steroetypical portrayal?

Liberal Hollywood, further, backs Israel. 38 signatories including Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton William Hurt, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi have signed a letter stating:

“We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

“If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die. We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs”.

Apparently willfully ignorant of the facts that, firstly, Hamas and Hezbollah are both Democraticly elected sections of their respective societies governments. The siege of Gaza and the West Bank was in operation prior to Hamas’ existence, likewise, Israels intervention in the sovereign state of Lebanon caused there to be a Hezbollah, not the other way around. Ignorant of the fact that the assault of Lebanon was a plan by Israel, not by Hezbollah, and supported by the USA and UK. Ignorant of the fact that while the whole world, Hezbollah and Lebanon included, wanted a ceasefire, the ones in favour of the war and killing and death and destruction and ethnic cleansing were not the named terrorists, rather they were the USA, the UK and Israel. In fact, these nations actively worked in direct opposition to peace, and the ending of the killings.

Liberal Hollywood sounds curiously similar to that notorious wooly liberal, George W. Bush.  It is time for people to cop themselves on!

The world sudders as Israel kills kids in Qana, again. Israel, and their lackeys, claim that Hezbollah are to blame, as they use the population as Human shields. The problem here, of course, is that Israel lies, and people believe them. The Israeli propaganda machne released a video apparently showing Hezbollah firing from the area.  The problem arises, however, when the actual people there, the “eye-witnesses”, as I like to call them, reported that Hezbollah had long left, and they they could not return even if they wanted to, for the same reason the people could not leave. Israel had destroyed all roads to and from the town. Further to this, Israels video was old showed a completely seperate part of the town.

 But, why are people surprised? Israel has been killing Palestinians at will since 1967. Between Sepetember 2000 and June 2006 Israel killed 3,063 civilans, including 677 children, while leaving 24,768 Palestinians without a home. And then following the kidnapping of two Palestinians, Hamas replied in kind kidnapping an Israeli soldier. Then the Israeli pounding became even worse and half the elected government was kidnapped.

The Lebanese were promised that Israel “will turn Lebanon’s clock back 20 years“, a reference to the “civil war” when the US, Israel and France all backed the minority Maronites in its slaughter of the Muslim majority. Chabra and Chatila left Ariel Sharon with blood on his hands, but, as predicted, the Israelis came back to get some more.