Anyone in the UK should pick up a copy of the current edition of the Jewish news. They have an article on the Niqaab by our very own Goldfinch, which is well worth the read!

(Full text below)

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Lenin phrases it:

Victims of police shooting not evil paedophiles after all.

The man, shot by the Police when Two Hundred and Fifty of them raided his house to stop an “imminent” chemical attack.. which which involved a weapon that could disperse chemicals.. quickly.. a weapon which turned out not to exist, and the chemicals, and indeed entire “plot”, which transpired to be fictitious.

After the police realised they’d destroyed two innocent men’s homes and reputations they managed to find child Porn images on the phone and PC of one of the Men… only, the images weren’t sent by Text message, or by blue-tooth.. they were “embedded” into a phone (Which, coincidentally, means that the date the images were placed on the phone cannot be ascertained, and also, only someone working with the Phone Company, or the police, would have the technology to actually embed the images into the phone.)

I can’t really say I’m surprised at this, its what the British establishment are best at.. Mudslinging and character assassination.

BBC summary here.

Proving nothing, and for no apparent reason, Aoife Anderson, one of the Evening Heralds staffers, donned a hijab for a day.  This took up a full page in today’s Evening Herald, Dublins biggest selling daily paper (and only evening paper), half of said page was taken up with four photos, two of her with Hijab (Including one of the most awkward smiles I have ever seen – as she receives ‘helpful advice from Ali Selim’ {why didn’t she ask.. you know.. a Hijabi for helpful advice anyway?}) and then a further two of her without a hijab.  I’ve no idea what the point of this was, there are plenty of Hijabis articulate enough to write a significantly better article than this who could perfectly explain what its like to wear a Hijab, there are even plenty of “Hijab-on-friday” women who can write about the differences in behaviour towards them when wearing one and when not. Half a days wear proves absolutely nothing.  I’m going to repost this below as there is no Online version of the Herald.

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The Socialist Worker has reported that members of the National Union of Journalists have prevented a derogatory and offinsive piece on “What the Daily Star would look like under Muslim Law” from being published in Wednesday, 18th Octobers edition. The NUJ website says “The NUJ has strongly condemned moves by the Daily Star to publish a page in today’s issue of the paper which could be viewed as racially prejudiced and provocative and has congratulated the NUJ chapel there for acting swiftly to prevent it…. It included material that would have given great offence to the Muslim community. NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: This was an outrageous and hugely irresponsible idea which fortunately our chapel courageously resisted..The union’s code of conduct condemns this sort of gratuitous material which is likely to encourage discrimination and hatred in our society.”

The Socialists for their part have said that their sources indicate that the Star is trying to have it forced into tomorrow, Thursdays, edition. We shall see.

Below is the text of an Open Letter from the Stop the war coalition concerning Islamophobia and the so-called “War On Terror”, the letter is an indication of the coalitions solidarity with the Muslim peoples and its opposition to Racism and Islamophobia. Read it!

The coalition recommend that people print off the letter (PDF here), sign it, and send it back to them at “Stop the War Coaltion, 27 Britannia Street, London N10 2BS”.

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Just some opinions given in the Scottish Socialist Voice – They will be removed from the site next month, so I am posting them below.

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Two news stories of interest, the first from the BBC;

Muslim pupils are more liberal and tolerant than non-Muslim pupils, a Home Office-funded study has found.

The research, involving 400 15-year-olds, was carried out by Lancaster University in a two-year project after the 2001 Burnley riots.

It found that nearly a third of non-Muslim pupils thought one race was superior, compared to a tenth of teenagers in a mainly Muslim school.

He spoke to pupils from three schools in Burnley and Blackburn. One had mainly white pupils (School A), one mainly Asian students (School B) and the third a mixture (School C).

The survey found that 8% of pupils at school A and 12% in School C expressed an interest in finding out about other people’s religious beliefs, compared to 42% at the mainly Asian school.

At School A, 29% of the pupils questioned were in favour of different faith communities working together to create a better society, compared to 76% at School B.

Now, on to a story in the Guardian

Universities urged to spy on Muslims

Lecturers and university staff across Britain are to be asked to spy on “Asian-looking” and Muslim students they suspect of involvement in Islamic extremism and supporting terrorist violence, the Guardian has learned.

The document says potential extremists can be talent-spotted at campus meetings then channelled to events off campus.

The document gives five real-life examples of extremism in universities. The first talks of suspicious computer use by “Asian” students, which was reported by library staff. In language some may balk at, it talks of students of “Asian appearance” being suspected extremists.

Charming, really.

Considering this will be gone from the indo’s Site tomorrow, I’m just going to repeat it here. Its a letter from Steven Berkoff.

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The winner of the 2003 award for “the most Islamophobic British politician“, David Blunkett has released tapes of his time in Tony Blair’s cabinet. Blunkett, who has been repeatedly portrayed as a media-whore by the Private Eye (Every time you read a newspaper report about a ’source close to David Blunkett’ – Chances are its David himself after calling the paper to get himself into it!) was sacked.. err, resigned in disgrace twice from Blairs cabinet, once for breaking ministerial rules for the woman he was having an affair with, fast-tracking her visa, and then again after some dodgy share dealings. He has repeatedly said he has “the common touch” with the voters, but I don’t know how common these traits are..

Anyway, Blunkett has no time for such trivial matters as the Geneva Conventions. “I don’t think that there are targets in war you can rule out because you don’t have military personnel inside.” Nice.

From the Mirror;

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Everyones favourite and least liked, in that he is the only one, Mayor Of London has given his opinion on Jack’s intervention against a womans right to choose (what she wears). According to the Standard;”Ken Livingstone said he was “amazed at the insensitivity” of Mr Straw’s request to his Muslim constituents.

He said: ‘Bearing in mind this person has come to you to ask for something, the power imbalance in that relationship means it’s completely unacceptable behaviour on Jack Straw’s part. I’m amazed by his insensitivity. That a powerful man can say to a completely powerless woman, I think you should take your veil off, I think is completely and utterly wrong and insensitive.‘” Good Ol Red Ken.

 On the other hand, Salman Rushdie, the man who thought that the Publication of Far-Right anti-Islamic cartoons were an acceptable “expression” of “free speech”, seems to think that expressions of said freedom should not be extended to Muslim woman. “I’m completely on [Straw's] side”, says Rushdie (Straw of course, said he “would rather“ want the Niqab abolished). Rushdie continues “Straw was expressing an important opinion, which is that veils suck, which they do.” Its also worth noting that Rushdie supported, and continues to support, the war on Iraq, which has left circa 650,000 people dead. But these people were Muslims, following a religion that Rushdie has “no time for“.

‘Gorgeous‘ George Galloway (Whoever gave him that title should really see some optician), as expected, gives a differing opinion. Speaking in the Guardian he gives the following opinion;

“Sunday saw people gathering to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the great battle of Cable Street. On that day progressive people of all kinds rallied to protect the significant minority of immigrants in London’s east end against the strutting jackboots of a domestic fascism, one of whose very arguments was against the very ’separateness’ of the Jews who lived there. Their very garb, unusual diets, habits of living in close proximity to each other was a standing affront to the beef-eating Englishness of the Moselyites. ‘Leave the Jews alone’ was the response of the best of the British left. Let them eat dress and live as they want. It is a call that should be echoed about today’s whipping boys, the Muslims“

Lardy Middle Class Jon Gaunt, a man who has made a career out of patronising, talking down to and even pretending to be one of the working class, has decided, speaking in that Bastian of womens rights – The Sun – that;

“New Labour has turned tolerant Britain into a powder keg of racial and religious mistrust through their misguided and ill-thought-out policy of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is meant to celebrate difference but I don’t see much to celebrate in today’s Britain. What I actually see is clowns like Sir Ian Blair pussyfooting around the sensibilities of a minority while the rest of us have been silenced for fear of being called racist.

“Since the 7/7 bombings, this Government has bent over backwards to win support from the Muslim community…

“And what has been the result of all this eggshell-treading? An increased level of victimhood, demonstrations and outrage at the slightest criticism of the Muslim religion and culture. Well, enough is enough.

“Forget lifting veils, Labour should remove the kid gloves and treat Muslims the same as every other British citizen.”

Its nice that Gaunt wants Labour to “Treat Muslims the same as every other British citizen”, but not so nice that he does not want the BNP or others to do likewise. The BNP of course who platform on an Islam-Free UK policy, but hey, its a start.  Maybe when Blair sees Muslims as equals he won’t feel the need to kill so many hundreds of thousands of them.  Here’s hoping.

Another of those who write for the paper of the Page 3 stunna, Trevor Kavanagh, has decided that the reason women wear Islamic clothing is not, as you might have thought, because of their devotion to the religion they profess.  It is in fact to be “provocative“. Kavanagh explains;

“The burka and the full veil go unremarked in their countries of origin. But in Britain they sharply define one section of society and deliberately exclude the rest. And what were once masks imposed by men are increasingly adopted by some women as a silent gesture towards the host nation…. Meanwhile young men are being recruited across the country at secret meetings addressed by charismatic preachers of hate…. We are well down the road towards a divided nation where some predict Palestine-style conflict between one section and another.

“Too gloomy? A world statesman alarmed by Hezbollah’s sophisticated missile attacks on Israel from Lebanon thinks not. ‘In ten years, we may see rockets like these being fired from the suburbs of Paris’, he told me. And in London? In this context, the growing tendency to adopt the veil ceases to be a fuss about nothing. Islamic extremism thrives on grievances.

“For some women the veil is a genuine expression of faith. For most, it is a form of passive aggression. It is provocative. So, when someone stupidly – but predictably – reacts by ripping off a woman’s veil, a useful grievance is up and running. By the time anyone tries to restore order, that grievance is halfway round the Muslim world, with plenty more where it came from. And it feeds the case for those preaching jihad.”

Simon Jenkins seems to think that being British and Muslim are two inherently different things.  His thoughtful prose contains the question;

“When Straw asks his women constituents if they might remove their veils during interviews  he was reacting like any normal person to conversing with someone in a mask. To a westerner such conversation is rude. If Muslim women, and it is a tiny number, cannot understand this, it is reasonable to ask why they want to live in Britain” – The obvious answer.. that it’s their home.. seems to have eluded Simon.

“What to a Londoner is an exotic sight on the other side of the street, in the Midlands or northwest is a declaration of apartheid. It announces a group of newcomers who will integrate legally but not culturally, commercially but not socially…. Those who claim such hospitality owe some duty of respect to their hosts, or at the very least cannot complain if the hosts object.” Nice to see Simon echoing, almost word for word, the words of the Anti-semites behind the “great Limerick pogrom” where the Jews of Limerick were forced from Limerick after daring to speak to each other in Yiddish and daring to wear strange but well-tailored suits.

I’ll leave it, I think with John MCDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington who championed the Gate Gourmet workers.  He says “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….

“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.”