Author Archives: Faisal

Guardian censures Quilliam Foundation for doing its job!

By Faisal | Published: August 6, 2010

Brian Whittaker on CiF writes:

Islamist ideology certainly needs to be challenged. The question is whether its nonviolent form should included in an anti-terrorism strategy.

But does the Guardian actually challenge Islamist ideology at all? In the last two days two articles have appeared in both its print and electronic channels which suggest that far from challenging Islamist ideology, it has dropped all pretence of providing any critical evaluation of  the exponents of Islamism.

Both articles involve a briefing document by the Quilliam Foundations sent to Charles Farr, director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, with recommendations on counter-terrorism policy. The report was for Farr’s eyes only but has been leaked.

Quilliam’s document contained a list of organisations, all of whom have aligned themselves with Islamist ideologies and with known links to publicly identified extremist groups.

Following the leak, there were the usual responses from Muslims sympathetic in one way or another to these groups:

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Posted in Islamism, The Regressive Left | 6 Comments

The Guardian’s Miserable Hat Trick

By Faisal | Published: August 5, 2010

The Guardian is on a roll this week.

We’ve already seen two articles by its readers editor, Haroon Siddique who, firstly, came up with this miserable tosh urging Muslims to boycot Israeli dates this Ramadan but which was little more than an advocacy piece on the pro-Hamas Islamist group, Friends of al-Aqsa . This was then followed by an outrageous piece of dishonest reporting and outright fabrication packed into this article about a poll conducted by the Islamist group iEra.

You might have though that from here things could only get better. Wrong.

Earlier this week came this piece of absurd reductionism by Priyamvada Gopal – a fashionable, post-modern, post-colonial, feminist response to this image of the Taliban’s violence against women in Afghanistan published by Time.

Gopal’s article is quite easily the most despicable piece of relativist horseshit I have read on the Guardian. It contains deplorable, crudely argued passages like:

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Posted in Afghan war, The Regressive Left | 3 Comments

NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s Defence of Ground Zero Islamic Centre

By Faisal | Published: August 4, 2010

New York’s Mayor Bloomberg gets it right. The freedom to worship is a fundamental principle of secularism, the separation of church/mosque/synagogue/temple from state, and to infringe that principle is to capitulate to the extremists and the terrorists.

From the Huff Po:

Speaking on Governor’s Island, misty-eyed New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised a decision to allow an Islamic center to be built near Ground Zero.

Bloomberg choked up during his delivery, which highlighted the spirit of religious tolerance and freedoms once sought by New York’s earliest settlers.

“We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That’s life and it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11,” he said.

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Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Secularism | 1 Comment

Those who benefit from Islamophobia

By Faisal | Published: August 4, 2010

Yesterday the Guardian reported on a poll on public perceptions on Muslims, carried out for the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iEra). The report revealed high levels of bigotry and hostility to Muslims in Britain, as well as antagonism towards Islam as a belief.

George Readings, of the Quilliam Foundation, made some essential observations about the findings made in the report. Firstly he argued that anti Muslim bigotry in Britain has been fuelled by extremists from both the far right as well as the far-left, but also in addition, from the Muslim (Islamist) far-right. He has also identified a root cause of anti Muslim bigotry – perpetrated by the British press, when it makes almost no distinction between ordinary Muslims and extremist Muslims, their political groups and their beliefs.

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Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Islamism | 18 Comments

Bangladesh Restores Secular Constitution

By Faisal | Published: August 4, 2010

The Bangladesh Supreme Court has restored the Constitution to the spirit of the original secular version of 1972, prior to its “tampering” by a series of military dictatorships.

The Supreme Court of Bangladesh has reinstated the measure banning Islamic parties. In a document of 184 pages presented July 26 last, the Court has demolished the Fifth Amendment of the 1979Constitution, including provisions that allowed the rise of Islamic parties in parliament during military regimes (1975 – 1979, 1982 – 1990). The measure, introduced for the first time in January, has been blocked for six months because of an appeal process demanded by Islamic leaders.

Using the Supreme Court ruling as its initiative, the Bangladesh government has banned religious political parties:

Shafiq Ahmed, Minister of Justice, said the measure will be a blow to the extremist parties that can no longer use religion to political ends.

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Posted in Secularism | 15 Comments

Hey Music Hater

By Faisal | Published: August 4, 2010

Bad news for Iran’s music lovers:

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said today that music is “not compatible” with the values of the Islamic republic, and should not be practised or taught in the country.

In some of the most extreme comments by a senior regime figure since the 1979 revolution, Khamenei said: “Although music is halal, promoting and teaching it is not compatible with the highest values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic.”

This makes it an opportune moment to cue up ‘Rock the Casbah’ by the Clash, which was about the Ayatollah Khomeini’s ban on music in 1979 soon after the Islamic Revolution.

But perhaps both these Islamist leaders should have reflected on the words of the 12th century sufi master Ali Al-Hujwiri, who wrote in Kashf Al-Mahjub (The Revelation of the Veiled – the first treatise on sufism in Persian) a passage which, translated, goes like this:

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Posted in Islamism, Sharia, Sufism | Leave a comment

The General and the Taliban

By Faisal | Published: July 26, 2010

Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, center, the former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, getting roughed up

What the Guardian’s WikiLeaks article is less voluble about is the extent of Pakistan’s complicity with the Taliban and the regional insurgency. What the leaked documents uncover is the existance of a rogue element, the ‘S Wing’ of Pakistan’s national intelligence services, the ISI , which has near-complete autonomy in Pakistan’s ungovernable tribal regions and the volatile border with India.

In the midst of these massive leaks emerges the name of General Hamid Gul who ran the ISI and who is profiled in this NYT report.

Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul ran the ISI from 1987 to 1989, a time when Pakistani spies and the C.I.A. joined forces to run guns and money to Afghan militias who were battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan. After the fighting stopped, he maintained his contacts with the former mujahedeen, who would eventually transform themselves into the Taliban.

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Posted in Islamism | Leave a comment

Afghan WikiLeaks: “Catastrophic Lack of Human Intelligence”

By Faisal | Published: July 26, 2010

Alex Thomson on Channel 4 News blog:

The point is that this is according to WikiLeaks from the horse’s mouth and if it is verified it is NATO validating the above conclusions from reporters like me who take (small but significant) advantage of the embed system of allowing reporters some limited access to the war.

Had we the Vietnam era of wide and free-ranging access across Afghanistan then much more of this picture of confusion and off-hand civilian killing would have come to more strongly than it now has.

What comes across most striking is the catastrophic lack of human intelligence which is the single biggest factor as to why this war can never, ever, be won. I know that I go on banging this point home but it really cannot be said forcefully enough.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Support Gheyret Niyaz

By Faisal | Published: July 25, 2010

Here’s a story of Islamophobia and brutal state-oppression of Muslims.

The intellectual, Gheyret Niyaz, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for endangering state security, a vague charge that is often used by officials to lock up people they deem political threats. The sentence was especially severe given that Mr. Niyaz was not accused of taking part in the ethnic rioting. Other Chinese intellectuals have recently been slapped with the same sentence: Last December, Liu Xiaobo, a main author of a pro-democracy manifesto called Charter 08, was also sentenced to 15 years.

Mr. Niyaz, 51, holds what are considered moderate political views — he has not, for example, advocated for Xinjiang independence, a position held by some Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people that is the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang. Many of them resent the policies of the Chinese government, which is dominated by ethnic Han, saying that those policies are diluting the Uighur culture and leading to their economic disenfranchisement.

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Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, The Far Left | 3 Comments

Pakistani Taliban vs Islamists

By Faisal | Published: July 24, 2010

Fascinating article by Arif Jamal in Jamestown Foundation on the implications of the attack, by a 14 year old suicide recruit of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM aka Pakistani Taliban), on the far-right Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islam, who the leader of the TNSM regard as “munafiqs” and traitors to their jihadist ideology. The article contains a history of factionalism within JI and a clear analysis of the ideological differences between Islamism and extremist Salafism in the Pakistani context which, if not contained, has dire international consequences.

****

Leader of Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), Maulana Sufi Mohammad

The local chapter of Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Islamist political party held a rally on April 19 in the historic Kissa Khwani Bazaar of Peshawar to protest the extremely low gas pressure and rolling blackouts that affect Peshawar residents up to 10 hours per day (for the shortages, see Daily Times [Lahore], January 18; Frontier Post [Peshawar], July 10). As leaders announced the end of the rally and protesters started to leave, a 14-year old suicide bomber ignited his suicide vest, killing 23 persons and injuring 50 others. The suicide bomber successfully targeted local JI leaders and police officers – among the dead were JI Peshawar vice-amir Haji Dost Mohammad and deputy superintendent of police Gulfat Hussain (The News [Islamabad], April 20).

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Posted in Islamism, Terrorism | 3 Comments

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