Al Spittoon | Heresy is another word for freedom of thought

Amnesty USA: Bigging Up Begg Since 2008

By Faisal | Published: March 15, 2010

Amnesty International have tried to claim that it has never promoted the views of Moazzam Begg or Cageprisoners, only his experiences. But from an article on a speech delivered to Amnesty USA in Washington DC in 2008, it is clear that Moazzam Begg was expounding on both his experiences and his own personal views.

Here is a cached page of the event:

Moazzam Begg is spokesman for the Human Rights organization, Cageprisoners, with whom he has been working since his release from Guantanamo Bay in 2005. He regularly lectures around the world speaking about the effects of the ‘War on Terror’ and detention without trial. He is also author of, Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back. It is the first book to be published by a former Guantánamo Bay prisoner.

Posted in Islamism | Leave a comment

What Ails the British Left

By Faisal | Published: March 15, 2010

Ian McEwan took a real incident that happened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and used it as a plot device in the narrative of the protagonist in his new novel, Solar.

Nick Cohen recognises the incident in McEwan’s storyline and recollects the real events that took place at the ICA which involved comedian Chris Morris, author Martin Amis, Andrew Anthony on the panel and an ICA auditorium audience full of irate, sanctimonious, post-modernist, middle class liberals in a marvellous article on what ails the British left. Luckily, Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship was also in the audience that night.

Here is Reidy’s hilarious account of the events at the ICA from a CiF piece from 2007, ‘When liberals attack!’:

It was at this point that TV’s greatest satirist [Chris Morris], the shaggy-haired Swift of our age, took his turn to speak.

And what a wonderful turn it was.

Posted in Moral relativism | 1 Comment

Liberal Confusion

By Faisal | Published: March 12, 2010

Terry Eagleton is interviewed by the Culture Editor of the New Statesman. Asked about his very public spat with Martin Amis two years ago, Eagleton replies:

I’m interested in the way a whole stratum of the liberal literati (Rushdie, to some extent Ian McEwan, A C Grayling, obviously Amis and Hitchens) – the very people you’d have expected to be guardians of the liberal flame of tolerance and understanding – have, at the very first assault, rushed into these caricatured postures driven by panic. I’m very struck by how those who are making ugly, illiberal, supremacist noises about the superiority of the west are precisely the sort of literary and liberal characters from whom you’d expect more imagination, openness and sensitivity.

Norm defeathers and skins that turkey most elegantly:

No Banning for BNP Teachers

By Faisal | Published: March 12, 2010

The BBC reports:

Teachers in England should not be banned from membership of the British National Party or any group which may promote racism, a review has concluded.

The government commissioned the report last September after a leaked list identified 15 BNP members as teachers.

Review author Maurice Smith added his recommendation should be reviewed every year, which ministers have accepted.

Mr Smith, a former chief inspector of schools, said a ban on BNP members in schools would be “taking a very large sledgehammer to crack a minuscule nut”.

“I do not believe that barring teachers or other members of the wider school workforce from membership of legitimate organisations which may promote racism is necessary at present,” he said.

I cannot disagree with that.

However, predictably enough the usual assortment of fashionable muddle-headed leftists and faux-liberals are up in arms about the decision. Such as Pickled Politics, Islamophobia Watch, and a collection of Trots, for example.

Posted in Civil Rights | 31 Comments

A Tip From Moazzam Begg

By Guest | Published: March 12, 2010

This is a cross-post by habibi from Harry’s Place

****

On the Facebook page of Cageprisoners, you will find this from Moazzam Begg:

What’s he recommending? Why, himself, of course, telling tales again, on a Youtube channel for jihad. Other speakers featured on “westlondondawah” include the following charmers:

- al Qaeda preacher Anwar al Awlaki

- extremist, 9/11 troofer and fraudster Khalid Yasin

- Hamas supporter and absurd conspiracy theorist Haitham al Haddad

- Tameem al Adnani, deputy of jihadi hero Abdullah Azzam

- Hate preacher Murtaza Khan

The channel belongs to a website called fisabeelillah, a reference to “jihad fi sabeelillah”, jihad in the path of Allah. It offers tapes by Awlaki, Abu Hamza, Murtaza Khan, Uthman Lateef, and more.

How nice to see Mr Begg still contributing to the jihadi message.

Posted in Islamism | 1 Comment

The Competing Intolerances of India

By Faisal | Published: March 12, 2010

Salil Tripathi writes in the WSJ of the continuing attacks on freedom of expression by both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists in the “most populous democracy in the world”:

In a little-noticed case on Feb. 26, police in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh arrested Macha Laxmaiah, an author who writes using the pseudonym Krantikar (“revolutionary”), and his distributors, including Innaiah Narisetti, president of the Hyderabad-based nonprofit Center for Inquiry, for “hurting the sentiments of Muslims.” Their alleged crime? The distribution of “Crescent Over the World,” a book including contributions from Salman Rushdie, Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, and a cartoon from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Mr. Narisetti is out on bail now; Mr. Laxmaiah remains in custody.

Posted in Freedom of Expression | Leave a comment

Man Bites Dogs

By Faisal | Published: March 10, 2010

Mehdi Hasan hates animals, particularly dogs:

In fact, you may have guessed by now, and it might upset some of you to hear me say this, but I’m not, by any standards, an animal-lover. Unless the said animal is dead and on my plate. For me, animals, as they say, have two functions: to taste good and fit well.

But, in particular, I despise and loathe dogs (which, of course, have neither a culinary nor a sartorial function — unless you live in South Korea). They are disgusting, dirty animals that should never have become pets, let alone such popular pets (there are an estimated eight million dogs in the UK. I feel like vomiting as I type out this gruesome and dispiriting statistic.)

Posted in Esoterica | 21 Comments

From Secularism to Sectarianism

By Faisal | Published: March 10, 2010

One of the strange ironies of the Southasian immigration experience to Great Britain was how the near-universal levels of racism in the host community dissipated at the same time levels of religious identity politics and radicalisation became endemic. White racism started to fall back but at the same time secular politicisation receded in the immigrant Muslim community. We are now living in times when the kind of visceral racism we Southasians experienced in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s is at an all time low, but Muslim immigrant communities have organised themselves into political structures which are emanations of reactionary political groups from “back home”, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islam.

Posted in Immigration, Secularism, UK Politics | 6 Comments

IFE Cronies 4 Ken

By Effendi | Published: March 8, 2010

Last week’s Dispatches discussed irregularities in the voting patterns in London’s 2008 mayoral elections. This Daily Telegraph article goes into more detail in how this was an attempt to secure victory for then-incumbent Ken Livingstone:

In an election lost by Mr Livingstone, the Islamic Forum of Europe helped secure massive and unexpected swings towards him in its east London heartland.

In one ward, Spitalfields, his vote share rose from 29.6 per cent in 2004 – an election he won – to 68.4 per cent in 2008, a rise of nearly 39 percentage points.

In every other ward in Tower Hamlets and Newham with a sizeable Muslim population, his vote rose by between 23 and 36 percentage points. His vote in other Muslim and ethnic minority areas of London also rose, but by far smaller amounts.

Posted in Islamism, UK Politics | 12 Comments