Let’s remember that hardships and challenges are part of one’s life. As believers, Allah puts us through such trials in life to test our faith. Else, how can we expect to prove our faith and our steadfastness to the Straight Path? So, the message is simple. If we are tested with hardships, then let’s ensure […]
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Tuesday, 31 March 2020
Monday, 30 March 2020
Have trust and Tawakkul in Allah
Too often, we get overly consumed by the thoughts and worries of our daily life’s problems and challenges. We may not realize it but this drains us of our physical and mental energies and makes us less productive and keeps us in a state where we are constantly thinking, worrying, complaining, and so on. This, […]
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Divided Delhi under lockdown: 'If coronavirus doesn't kill me, hunger will'
India’s shutdown is catastrophic for Muslims driven from their homes by sectarian carnage and now without food or shelter
It wasn’t possible for Mohammed Idrish to watch Narendra Modi’s address to the nation last Tuesday exhorting 1.3 billion Indians to stay at home. His TV was looted along with everything else in his home in Delhi during the recent anti-Muslim riots in the Indian capital.
When Idrish, a carpenter, heard about Modi urging Indians to stay at home to stop coronavirus spreading, he shook his head again and again. “I don’t understand … I don’t understand. Doesn’t he know we have no home?”
Related: As the wealthy quaff wine in comfort, India’s poor are thrown to the wolves
Continue reading...from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2UtJSdv
Sunday, 29 March 2020
Threat from far right may be receding since Tory election victory
Ex-MI5 chief says Johnson’s win may have made some extremists feel their voices are being heard
The threat from the rise of far-right terrorism in Britain could be diminishing after Boris Johnson’s election victory because supporters of the ideology feel they are being listened to, according to a former head of MI5.
Lord Evans of Weardale said “alienated” voters normally vulnerable to exploitation by far-right groups such as the British National party (BNP), EDL and National Action might feel that their voices had been heard at the ballot box with the significant win for the Conservatives in December’s election.
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English, Muslim, Pakistani ... how I tell my kids about their identities
As she raises three boys, our writer is starting to face tough questions from them about where they fit in. Her answer? As a whole, not just halves…
My six-year-old son is learning about fractions. He sits next to me at the dining table, and draws a bat, then colours half of it green. “The word half is used when something is split into two equal parts,” he explains. I nod, go back to my laptop.
Then he looks up at me and says, “I’ve got two halves. I’m half-Muslim, half-English. Right?” He looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to confirm whether his calculation is correct and my heart sort of breaks a little, to hear him refer to himself as pieces of a whole.
I worry that if I push too much, they’ll grow up resenting both their religion and me
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Friday, 27 March 2020
From Xinjiang to Germany: how did Islamophobia become a global phenomenon? | Faisal Devji
The term itself was coined in the 1990s, an era defined by the end of the cold war and triumph of capitalist globalisation
The mass incarceration of Uighurs in China. Rohingya terrorised and driven out of Burma. Indians hacked to pieces and burnt alive in Delhi. Germans of Turkish origin shot dead by a far-right activist in Hanau. All recent events that tell us how disconnected populations have been brought together as global targets for anti-Muslim activism. Like the militant Muslims who inspire and enrage them, these activists invoke lengthy histories of conflict spanning the world, the narrative of one being used to justify that of the other in a paradoxical partnership.
In fact, anti-Muslim feeling was sporadic and lacked a global dimension until recently. Despite having been classified by colonial governments in religious terms, the immigrants who came to European countries after independence neither asserted their religious identities nor experienced discrimination based on it. In the United Kingdom, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh migrants from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh rarely defined themselves by religion in public life, and were seen by government as well as anti-immigrant movements in racial or national terms.
The Rushdie affair laid the groundwork for an anti-Muslim rather than an anti-Asian or anti-immigrant response in Europe
Related: Islamophobia and racism aren’t restricted to a few Tories and far-right thugs | Omar Khan
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Thursday, 26 March 2020
West Midlands emerges as a hotspot for coronavirus deaths
Latest daily figures show region reported more than a third of UK’s fatal infections
The West Midlands has seen another sharp rise in the number of coronavirus-related deaths after emerging as a hotspot for transmissions of the virus earlier this week.
Of the 115 new deaths reported across the UK in the latest update, 40 were recorded in the West Midlands. That took the total number of deaths across the Midlands to 112.
Related: Who is dying from coronavirus and in which NHS trusts?
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The Sultan's Trail was good practice for lockdown | Adrian Chiles
My experience on the Sultan’s trail found that two Christians, two Muslims, a Jew and two atheists could live peaceably together, although the mountain scenery seems a lifetime away now
Back in early autumn I went on a pilgrimage from Belgrade to Istanbul with six others to film a television programme that airs on Friday. At the best of times, the mountains of Bulgaria would feel a lifetime away, but now it all feels so much further.
I took part because I enjoy talking about faith, and love walking. Our route was part of the Sultan’s Trail, a long-distance footpath from Vienna to Istanbul. It marks the 16th-century marches taken by Suleiman the Magnificent and his Ottoman armies as they conquered Belgrade and most of Hungary before the Viennese held out against them. The trail is styled the “path of peace”, along which all cultures and religions can come together.
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Sunday, 22 March 2020
The Brighton jihadists: bullied brothers who went into battle
What drove a gang of football-loving British teenagers to fight in Syria? In his powerful new book, No Return, award-winning journalist Mark Townsend pieces together their tragic story
Much has been written about Britons who fought in Syria, but little truly explains who these characters were, what made them tick. Or what actually happened when they disappeared into the byzantine politics of its brutal war. No Return tracks five teenage friends from Brighton who stepped into its chaos. All were killed except one. The survivor, Amer Deghayes, is the longest-serving Briton in Syria since the fighting began and offers a unique account of a ceaseless, shifting conflict.
Equally crucial are those he left behind. I learned that more than 30 Brightonians – the largest identified group of potential jihadists in western Europe – had discussed plans to join him. All were between 13 and 18 years of age, some were girls, most were white, working-class Islamic converts from the forgotten estates of east Brighton.
Each day, more refugees arrived, all with fresher, more brutish accounts of Assad’s men
What made me angry was that nothing was done about it. My son was just another dead jihadi. They let them go to die
This is an edited extract from No Return: The True Story of How Martyrs Are Made by Mark Townsend (Guardian Faber, £12.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15
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Friday, 20 March 2020
(No subject)
assalamu alaykum my messages are not going
I have been writing for 1 hour but the hopeless case
from Alim.org Recent Comments Feed https://ift.tt/2QvH796
I write the message, I am not
I write the message, I am not going
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Wednesday, 18 March 2020
Muslim students less likely to be awarded top class degrees
Only 18% of Muslims were awarded the top classification, a lower proportion than in any other religious group
Students from Muslim families are less likely to be awarded top class degrees than students from other religions or beliefs, according to research examining UK higher education attainment for people of different faith backgrounds.
The research, based on official statistics gathered from more than two million students attending British universities, found that just 65% of students identifying as Muslim gained firsts and upper second class degrees as undergraduates, compared with more than 76% of all other students.
Related: A third of UK Muslims report abuse or crime while studying
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Tuesday, 17 March 2020
Church of England suspends all services over coronavirus
Methodists follow suit, with mosques advised to stop congregational activity
The Church of England has suspended all services until further notice, saying it must become “a different sort of church in these coming months”.
However, weddings and funerals may still go ahead, a spokesperson said. The Methodist church also suspended services from Tuesday.
Related: 'We can’t afford to shut': PM's Covid-19 advice leaves pubs and shops in limbo
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From Disney to deadly: how the Abedi brothers were radicalised
Friends and family told of watching ‘Goofy’ and ‘Dumbo’ change in the leadup to the Manchester bombing
Hashem Abedi was likened to the cartoon character Goofy – clumsy, a little stupid and someone who got things wrong, “just like a normal dozy” young person. His speciality was making “very big spliffs”.
It was a similar story for his older brother, Salman. His nickname was Dumbo, after another Disney character.
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Iranian police disperse crowds from shrines after Covid-19 closures
Religious authorities around the world limit contact and close places of worship
Iranian police have dispersed crowds who forced their way into two popular shrines soon after they were closed because of the threat from the coronavirus outbreak.
Shia Muslims entered the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad and the Fatima Masumeh shrine in Qom on Monday night, protesting at the closures announced earlier in the day on Iranian state television.
Continue reading...from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2U0pyAt
Monday, 16 March 2020
Delhi's Muslims despair of justice after police implicated in Hindu riots
Allegations mount that police in Indian capital incited and aided recent Hindu pogrom and failed to help Muslim victims
On one side of the marketplace, it was carnage. As the Hindu mob descended, Muslim-owned stalls selling car parts were slowly reduced to debris and ashes. But just 100 metres away stood two police stations.
As the mob attacks came once, then twice and then a third time in this north-east Delhi neighbourhood, desperate stallholders repeatedly ran to Gokalpuri and Dayalpur police stations crying out for help. But each time they found the gates locked from the inside. For three days, no help came.
Related: Death toll from Delhi's worst riots in decades rises to 38
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Saturday, 14 March 2020
The impact of coronavirus on Islam – video
The coronavirus pandemic has pushed countries around the world to take stringent measures to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus and protect citizens. A muezzin in Kuwait was heard saying 'al-salatu fi buyutikum' or 'pray in your homes' instead of the usual “hayya alas-salah' or 'come to prayer'. Saudi Arabia has banned pilgrimages to the Grand Mosque in Mecca and touching the Ka’bah, the shrine toward which all Muslims face in prayer
Continue reading...from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2U37Zyt
Religious festivals cancelled or scaled back due to coronavirus
All major world religions are limiting large gatherings and physical contact to halt transmission of Covid-19
Events to mark important religious festivals could be cancelled or curtailed in the coming weeks because of the coronavirus crisis.
Next month, most of the world’s major religions have festivals involving large gatherings of people. Easter is on 12 April (a week later for Eastern Orthodox churches); Passover begins on 8 April; Rama Navami, an important Hindu festival, is on 2 April; while the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi is a few days later. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins around 23 April.
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Friday, 13 March 2020
‘Our safety is a concern’: fears endure among Muslims after Christchurch attacks
Despite attempts to address online hate speech in New Zealand and global praise at the response, an estimated 60-70 far-right groups still exist
“They are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not,” said Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s leader, in the hours after a terrorist attack in March last year that killed 51 people and injured dozens more at two mosques in the country’s worst peacetime massacre. “They have no place in New Zealand. There is no place in New Zealand for such acts of extreme and unprecedented violence.”
The mass shooting in Christchurch, a remote, peaceful corner of the world, reverberated around the globe – shocking in its brutality, violence and the white-supremacist hatred that inspired it. Afterwards, it was overtaken by the remarkable compassion and unity of New Zealand’s response.
Related: Christchurch memorial: standing ovation for Ardern at New Zealand service
Related: One year after the Christchurch attack, we are determined to be happy | Maysoon Salama
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Thursday, 12 March 2020
One year after Christchurch we seek solace in community and being unapologetically Muslim | Sara Mansour
In many ways, life has not changed for many of my Muslim friends and me because the world has not changed. However, hope exists
A body on the floor of a place of worship is still a body
The fall, and the thump, and the snap
There is nothing beautiful about the way the blood sprays the sacred walls
The way it hangs itself a tapestry of death and despair
…
And we dig deep
We try to find the beauty in tragedy
Iman Etri, Bankstown Poetry Slam, March 2019
The scars of the Christchurch massacre linger. Time has carpeted the pain. Slowly but surely, the shock recedes until all we feel is the echo of the tragedy. One year on after Haji Daoud Nabi walked out of the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch and uttered the words “Welcome, brother” only to be met with bullets in response.
Related: Brutalised but defiant: Christchurch massacre survivors one year on
Related: New Zealand gun reform stalled as Christchurch anniversary approaches
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Wednesday, 11 March 2020
Dua for Protection from Serious Diseases and for Healing
Here are some Du’as from Hadith to ask protection from serious diseases and to ask for healing.
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Islamophobia, Trevor Phillips, and free speech | Letters
Words have power – you need to choose them carefully, writes Colin Montgomery. Plus letters from David Robjant, Jonathan Longstaff, and Pete Wearden
from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/39GHoO8
If Trevor Phillips is guilty of anything, it’s sophistry (Labour Islamophobia row: Warsi accuses Phillips of ‘flawed’ view of race and racism, 10 March). He claims he’s only acknowledging difference in his statements on Muslims, reported statements such as “Muslims are not like us” and are “becoming a nation within a nation”. But the content of said comments clearly betrays the attitude of someone using difference to discriminate unfavourably against one particular group, based on assumptions and generalisations.
To hide behind the idea of free speech compounds the error. It’s no surprise to see he’s comfortable doing interviews with Toby Young to promote the so-called Free Speech Union. Young is another public figure who seeks to defend his right to say anything free from consequence, as a matter of personal liberty. Surely Mr Phillips would agree that words have power – you need to choose them carefully. To misunderstand that is to misunderstand the true nature of freedom.
Colin Montgomery
Edinburgh
from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/39GHoO8
Tuesday, 10 March 2020
Islamophobia and racism aren’t restricted to a few Tories and far-right thugs | Omar Khan
As long as we think individuals are to blame, we ignore the bigotry and racial stereotyping entrenched in British society
from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Q2sSs9
Racism isn’t much understood in Britain in 2020. Exhibit A is Trevor Phillips suggesting that because “Muslims are not a race”, there is no such thing as anti-Muslim racism.
Phillips has been suspended from the Labour party for alleged Islamophobia, but his line of thinking is common. Many have tried over the decades to explain why it isn’t right, and not just when it comes to Islamophobia. Of course Muslims are not a “race”, but they have been racialised. This means people who are Muslim are treated by particular societies as having essential characteristics that mark them as wholly different.
Related: Trevor Phillips doesn’t understand Islamophobia | Sayeeda Warsi
Related: Under Boris Johnson, Islamophobia will reach a sinister new level | Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan
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Monday, 9 March 2020
Myanmar army sues Reuters over report on deaths of Rohingya women
Police say local MP and news service face lawsuit over report that army’s artillery fire killed two Rohingya women
Myanmar’s police said the army had filed a lawsuit against Reuters news agency and a local lawmaker for criminal defamation, weeks after the military objected to a news story published about the death of two Rohingya Muslim women as a result of shelling in Rakhine state.
After publication, the army said its artillery fire had not killed the women or caused other civilian injuries and blamed insurgents of the Arakan Army (AA), who are fighting for greater autonomy in Rakhine state. The AA denied responsibility and blamed the army. Reporters are banned from the area where the incident happened.
Related: Drinks giant Kirin reviews Myanmar army ties over genocide funding accusations
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Trevor Phillips doesn’t understand Islamophobia | Sayeeda Warsi
The former equalities commission chief should not be surprised that his claims about Muslims have come under scrutiny
News of Trevor Phillips’ suspension from the Labour party over allegations of Islamophobia has once again highlighted how the debate on racism is far removed from the lives of those on the receiving end.
Outrage on behalf of those accused of racism seems to have overtaken the moral outrage we should all feel at those engaged in it. Today it feels as if we’ve forgotten the lessons we fought and won on how racism operates, and how it hinders and harms our fellow citizens.
Related: Trevor Phillips dismayed at Labour suspension over Muslim comments
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Brexit: No 10 says EU chief wrong to claim UK has not decided what sort of trade deal wants - live news
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
And on the subject of the trade talks with the EU, Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister who is overseeing the “future partnership” stage of Brexit, has issued a parliamentary written statement about the first round of the talks that ended on Thursday last week. Here is an excerpt.
Discussions in some areas identified a degree of common understanding of the ground that future talks could cover. In other areas, notably fisheries, governance and dispute settlement, and the so-called “level playing field”, there were, as expected, significant differences.
The next negotiating round will take place on 18-20 March in London. The UK expects to table a number of legal texts, including a draft FTA, beforehand.
During a press conference this morning Urusla von der Leyen, the European commission president, said the UK had to make up its mind about what it wanted from the talks on the post-Brexit trade relationship with the EU. She said:
We are aware that there are differences in the approach towards what scope should the future agreement have and what are - if I may say so - the rules of the game everybody has to abide to.
So it will be important that the United Kingdom makes up its mind; the closer they want to have access to the single market, the more they have to play by the rules that are the rules of the single market.
I think the UK has made up its mind very decisively, and has been very clear about what it wants from its future relationship with the EU. The UK’s position is the one which secured a significant majority for the prime minister in the December general election.
We’re getting an urgent question on coronavirus at 3.30pm.
One UQ at 3:30pm:
1. @JonAshworth to ask @MattHancock to make a statement on Coronavirus.
There is a summary of all the main coronavirus lines from the No 10 lobby briefing here.
But the Mirror’s Dan Bloom sums it all up in a single tweet here.
No10 briefing lasted 45 min - lots of detail but summary is it’s clear there is NO new UK govt advice and/or action enacted at this point. That could obv change. But as of 1pm public sphere remains open and older people not advised to do anything special (other than hand washing)
Q: Is the government committed to retaining free school meals for the under 7s?
The spokesman says he is not aware of any suggestion that it isn’t. When it is put to him that this has been seen as a budget option, he says he has not seen that, and won’t comment on budget matters.
Q: Do you think the EU is listening to what the UK wants from the Brexit talks? Ursula von der Leyen said this morning the UK needed to make up its mind what it wants?
The spokesman says the UK has been very clear about what it wants.
Q: Does the government support the bid by Tory MPs to impose a deadline by which Huawei’s involvement in 5G should end?
The spokesman says, although the government has set a 35% cap on Huawei’s involvement, it wants to reduce this, so that the UK isn’t reliant on Huawei.
Q: Why did the PM say last year he had a plan for social care when it was clear from the letter sent out on Friday that there is no plan?
That is a reference to this letter.
Today I’ve written to colleagues in all parties to initiate talks on social care. We will seek a cross-party consensus - and deliver much needed reform pic.twitter.com/COmON799xs
Q: This morning Oliver Dowden suggested cabin crew staff were getting training to spot symptoms. But the union that represents them denied this?
The spokesman says he thinks staff have been given advice on this.
Q: Will people brought back from the Grand Princess have to go into isolation?
The spokesman says the passengers themselves will be told first.
Q: Didn’t the CMO tell elderly people on Thursday to stay away from public places?
The spokesman says he does not have the CMO’s words to hand, but whatever he said would have been sensible, the spokesman says.
Q: Are elderly people being told they do not need to stay at home?
The spokesman says the government will be led by the evidence. If there is any further advice, it will be issued.
Q: How will the government identify people must vulnerable to the disease? And what about elderly people who may not be online?
The spokesman says the government is aware of this. He says advice will be issued in due course. This issue is being “actively worked on”, he says.
The spokesman says the government has been very transparent so far in terms of publishing information. That will continue, he says.
Q: What did you mean when you said earlier that the virus will spread in a significant way?
The spokesman says the number of cases is increasing. We have had the first fatalities in the UK, and it is clear that it is spreading in country.
Q: Is there a meeting planned between the government and Premier League broadcasters?
The spokesman says DCMS held a meeting with a range of sporting bodies this morning.
The spokesman says the environment department will be speaking to supermarket companies about what measures can be taken to ensure supplies to shops.
Q: Is the PM worried about the stock market crash?
The spokesman says the Bank of England has said it will take all steps necessary to protect the economy. He says the underlying fundamentals of the economy are strong.
Q: Would the PM urge people to stop panic buying?
The spokesman refers to what the PM said yesterday. He says the UK has a “resilient supply change”. The government will work to ensure that remains the case.
Q: What do you say to people who will be looking at what is happening in the UK and concluding the government is slow to act?
The spokesman says the government has been working on the basis of the best medical and scientific advice. It will continue to do that, he says.
Q: Will the local elections be delayed?
The spokesman says this is a matter for the Electoral Commission to advise on, but he says he is not aware of any plans for this.
The spokesman says the Foreign Office is working intensively with the US authorities on what can be done to bring home the 142 Britons on the Grand Princess cruise ship.
Q: Why did it take the Foreign Office so long to update its travel advice after the Italian quarantine decision?
The spokesman says the Foreign Office went through its normal decision making progress.
Q: Is the government considering stopping flights to the UK from the quarantined areas in Italy?
The spokesman says anyone returning to the UK from the quarantined areas of Italy should self-isolate, regardless of whether they are showing symptoms. And anyone returning to the UK from other parts of Italy should self-isolate if they develop symptoms.
Q: When is the government likely to announce further measures?
The spokesman says he does not want to pre-empt what happens. But he expects a SAGE meeting tomorrow, and a further Cobra meeting on Wednesday.
Q: Will you be giving out advice aimed at specific age groups?
The spokesman says, when the government does issue advice, it will come from the experts.
The prime minister’s spokesman is here.
He says the PM has been chairing Cobra. The chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser were there. A range of measures to contain and delay the spread of coronavirus were discussed.
I’m at 9 Downing Street for the regular morning lobby briefing, which is due to start at 12.30pm. The prime minister’s spokesman will be briefing on normal government business, but also on this morning’s meeting of the Cobra emergency committee, chaired by Boris Johnson, to discuss coronavirus.
The embargo on the briefing is normally lifted soon after it starts.
One of the main aims of Boris Johnson’s government is to “level up” Britain and the budget on Wednesday may by the first big chance for the government to show what it actually means (or it would have been, if circumstances had not evolved to mean that it will largely become a coronavirus rescue plan instead).
But what does “levelling up” actually mean, and how will anyone be able to tell in 2024 whether it has been accomplished successfully. In his interview with Andrew Marr (pdf) yesterday Rishi Sunak, the new chancellor, was unable to give a very good answer. He said that levelling up was about “spreading opportunity” (something to which almost every government in the democratic age has been committed). When Marr pressed him on this again, and asked how he would measure “levelling up”, Sunak replied:
You’ll be able to, of course, measure it in the stats of income growth and everything else. You’ll be able to measure it in whether we’re making our investments in infrastructure as we’ve said ... But, as I say, it’s about a feeling that people have that where they happen to be born, where they happen to grow up is not going to be the determinant of how well they do in life. It’s because, wherever they are, we’ve provided them with the opportunities. Whether it’s through education, whether it’s through skills, whether it’s through a better bus connection that gets them to a better job, we’re doing all of that, and that’s meant that their life is better off.
Currently, investment spending per head is higher in London than anywhere else in the country: £1,456 per head in London, versus an average of £891 in the rest of the UK, and just £621 per head in the East Midlands.. Transport, which will be of particular importance for productivity growth, is a key driver of differences in spending across the country: at £653 per head, transport investment is 2.5 times higher in London than the average £260 per head in the rest of the UK.
Rewriting the rules that govern which projects receive funding to place greater weight on regional equity could be one way of rebalancing government investment away from London and the South East, and towards other parts of the country. ‘Levelling up’ in this respect could come with a hefty price tag: raising transport investment per head across the UK to the current London level would mean spending an extra £19bn per year.
For an alternative view, this is what the Labour MP Khalid Mahmood says about Trevor Phillips’s suspension from the party in a foreword to the Policy Exchange report published this morning. (See 10.01am and 11.10am.) Mahmood says:
It was with no small measure of astonishment that I learnt that my own party, the Labour party, had initiated proceedings against Trevor Phillips on grounds of ‘racism’ and ‘Islamophobia’. The charges are so outlandish as to bring disrepute on all involved in making them; and I fear they further add to the sense that we, as a party, have badly lost our way.
Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.
And these are from Sayeeda Warsi, the former Conservative party chair, who is a longstanding campaigner against Islamophobia in her own party and elsewhere. She does not mention Trevor Phillips by name, but it is fairly obvious that her comments are aimed at him.
Monday morning class for racists - it’s 2020 people ♀️
- If you take a negative characteristic of an individual and impose on a whole community that’s racism
- personal anecdotes are not justifications for racism - it’s still racism
Explaining #racismfordummies
- the “racialisation” of a group is how we stereotype and demonise groups/communities not whether they all share the same skin colour
- exceptionalising a group in either policy or law is racism
Explaining #racismfordummies
- if you find yourself in step with far right narratives the probability is you are racist
- if you are a darling of the sections of the press and think tank world that has form for bigotry - update your #antiracism training
Explaining #racismfordummies
These are from Miqdaad Versi, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, on the Trevor Phillips’ suspension.
On @BBCr4today at 8:30am, I discussed Trevor Phillips' ongoing unfounded claims about Muslims that not only align with far-right Islamophobes but are used by far-right Islamophobes to justify their divisive hatefulness and targeting of Muslims. pic.twitter.com/B63p8ZHQuf
In particular, note how Phillips' claim of an estimated 100,000 British Muslims admit having sympathy with suicide bombers fighting injustice, is just flawed.
Using that methodology, would mean, 600,000 non-Muslim Brits would have the same sympathyhttps://t.co/JzJIxQo21i
That Phillips treated Muslims differently from others (the very basis of claims of discrimination), is highlighted by Conservative commentator Peter Obornehttps://t.co/Lw5pIn7BSw
It is this very divisive notion that he propagates that "Muslims are not like us" which is hugely problematic.
See Kenan Malik's response here:https://t.co/DAHw6rrz23 pic.twitter.com/NIwyai4ptE
What Phillips consistently does is create a special category for Muslims - that we are uniquely bad (as set out above), but also as shown in this report below.
e.g. we are "resistant to the traditional process of integration"https://t.co/dIc5luX6cf pic.twitter.com/eedL5CEOJw
When railing against Muslim communities, he talks about "ghettoes" and how Muslims don't integrate.
The facts suggest:
(A) Muslims aren't unique in integration challenges
(B) Muslims are becoming less concentrated in certain areashttps://t.co/6BQtZRKEx8https://t.co/bTWhedq9cE pic.twitter.com/Ybr0JihcE5
His core message echoes that of far-right Islamophobes (e.g. Tommy Robinson) on Muslims being:
1. Apart from rest of society
2. Dangerous e.g. can't foster Christian girl
3. Uniquely unwilling to integrate
4. Unwilling to report terrorism / sympathy with terrorists
It's dangerous pic.twitter.com/VxVj8hGJXr
I am not going to comment on the timing of the suspension, nor on the priority given to him over others.
But those who try and make out Trevor Phillips has *nothing* to answer for, are being either disingenuous, or don't care about what he says concerning Muslims.
The Policy Exchange report (pdf) includes the text of the letter sent to Trevor Phillips by Labour’s governance and legal unit explaining why he has been suspended for alleged Islamophobia. The letter is quite long and detailed, but it accuses Phillips of breaking four specific party rules, all relating to Islamophobia or prejudice against race and religion generally. To justify these allegations, the letter cites numerous alleged offensive passages, which come from five sources: a transcript of a Tory conference fringe event on Islamophobia, an article for Unherd, a Mail report of what Phillips said at Policy Exchange event, a report quoting what Phillips said in an article in the Sunday Times, and a report (pdf) Phillips wrote for the Civitas thinktank four years ago, called Race and Faith: The Deafening Silence.
Some of the alleged offensive remarks are very particular: a reference to Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech, which Phillips says is taken out of context, and a joke by Phillips about being nominated for “Islamophobe of the year” by an Iranian human rights body. But most of the complaints relate to two sorts of comment that Phillips has been making in recent years.
Muslim communities are not like others in Britain and the country should accept they will never integrate, the former head of the equalities watchdog has claimed. Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said it was disrespectful to assume that Muslim communities would change. He told a meeting at the Policy Exchange think tank in Westminster on Monday that Muslims ‘see the world differently from the rest of us’.
At a recent conference of Muslim scholars, I had the privilege of addressing a hundred or so people at a leading British university. Most of the audience were Muslims themselves. The event took place just a few days before Remembrance Sunday. I noted that just three people in the room displayed a poppy, myself, a (white) journalist and one Muslim attendee. Raising the point, I could see the incomprehension on the faces of those without poppies; they weren’t meaning to offend, but as a group, they couldn’t see why they should wear what – I imagine – they think of as a symbol of war. The same day, I visited an industrial site – where many immigrants, mostly African and Eastern Europeans, were working. Poppies were everywhere. The norms in these two places were wholly different. One group had clearly adapted to the mainstream; the other had not.
But the most sensitive cause of conflict in recent years has been the collision between majority norms and the behaviours of some Muslim groups. In particular, the exposure of systematic and longstanding abuse by men, mostly of Pakistani Muslim origin in the North of England.
Did the disputes committee know of, or consider the specific context of the allegations? For example, did the committee discuss the likelihood that a party member of over a quarter of a century’s standing, who is himself a person of colour, and whose family heritage includes almost a thousand years of adherence to Islam, would either deliberately or accidentally make any statements that are racist or Islamophobic?
Were the committee provided with any information as to the commissioning and publication of the Runnymede Trust’s 1997 report on Islamophobia; the Parekh Report of 2000 which called for incitement to racial hatred to be extended to protect Muslims; or the successful efforts by the Commission for Racial Equality to bring about the passage (by the last Labour government) of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, protecting Muslims inter alia from acts of incitement? I was chair of each organisation in the relevant periods and personally commissioned and launched the two reports referred to.
Policy Exchange, a rightwing thinktank, has this morning published a report (pdf) on the Labour party accusations against Trevor Phillips called The Trial: the strange case of Trevor Phillips. You can get the gist of it from the subtitle, which is “How the accusation of Islamophobia is used to stifle free speech”.
Phillips has said he is not allowed under Labour rules to disclose the exact nature of the charges against him, but miraculously Policy Exchange has managed to get hold a copy of the party’s letter to Phillips explaining why he has been suspended. It is published in the report as an appendix, along with Phillips’ response.
Here is Trevor Phillips’ interview with the Today programme where he was asked about comments he has made that triggered the Labour party’s decision to suspend him for alleged Islamophobia.
"It would be a bit odd if I suddenly decided that because I had been kicked out of the club I couldn't express my beliefs."
Trevor Phillips, ex-chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, denies that his comments about Muslims are racist. #r4Todayhttps://t.co/kQwpWG6kBk pic.twitter.com/HOkC4E7A2g
George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor who now edits the Evening Standard in London, told Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that if he were delivering the budget on Wednesday, he would focus on providing short-term help for businesses and individuals affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
If I was chancellor, and I’m sure Rishi [Sunak] is thinking like this, I don’t want some complicated scheme that is going to be working in six months’ time.
I need to use the tools that are available to me right now to help people who are unable to work because their business has shut or they are self-isolating or they have got the virus, and to help those small and medium-sized businesses that will have very limited cash reserves and therefore could go into bankruptcy.
If I was chancellor of the exchequer, I would make this a Budget for the coronavirus, I would do everything I could to vaccinate the economy against what is going to happen.
If we can’t vaccinate people against what is going to happen, I would provide the cash for businesses and individuals that don’t have it at the moment because of the impact of the virus, and try and provide that immunity to the economy going forward.
Good morning. On Thursday last week Boris Johnson told ITV that “the most important message at this stage, as we start to see [coronavirus] spread, is ... as far as possible, it should be business as usual for the overwhelming majority of people in this country”. Journalists who make bold assertions are often taught to include some “cover” in the remarks, some qualification that protects them against the possibility of being 100% wrong, and for Johnson the three words “at this stage” proved very useful. On Thursday morning it may have been, for most people, business as usual. But no one would say that four days later. As ever, Jack Blanchard has a good summary of where we are in his London Playbook briefing.
The oil price crashed 30% when markets opened this morning … as Asian stock markets and US bond yields tumbled dramatically … after Italy sealed off 16m people from the outside world … and France banned all large gatherings of people … and Germany recommended doing the same … while the number of coronavirus cases in Britain leapt by more than 30% in one day … and a third Briton died after contracting the virus … and we now have Tesco rationing the sale of basic groceries … and it’s still only 7 am on Monday morning. Goodness knows what else this week will bring.
Related: Coronavirus live updates: stock markets plunge as infections pass 110,000
Related: FTSE 100 plunges 8.5% on fears of global recession triggered by coronavirus – business live
Related: Trevor Phillips dismayed at Labour suspension over Muslim comments
So what accounts for this extraordinary turn of events? Some will see it as payback by Corbynistas for public criticisms I made of the leadership’s failure to tackle antisemitism in the party. Another possibility is that it’s an attempt to scare the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which I used to lead and which is investigating Labour’s handling of antisemitism. Weaponising Islamophobia to attack political opponents may seem like clever tactics but trying to intimidate a legally independent organisation is pure political gangsterism. Perhaps someone in Labour HQ has been reading up on the Inquisition’s methods; in 1578, one official defined its purpose thus: “That others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit.”
I accept that I may not share all the views of Labour’s current leader or even of the majority of members. But I have never belonged to any other party and I have stuck by it through thick and thin. If this is how Labour treats its own family, how might it treat its real opponents if it ever gains power again? It would be a tragedy if, at the very moment we most need a robust and effective opposition, our nation had to endure the spectacle of a great party collapsing into a brutish, authoritarian cult.
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Saturday, 7 March 2020
too many spelling mistakes in
too many spelling mistakes in 45 (14 to 15)
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Friday, 6 March 2020
'How can I go back?' Delhi's fearful Muslims mourn riot dead
One week after the Indian capital’s worst religious violence in years, displaced Muslims describe losing everything
As Mohammad Arshad’s body was brought into the courtyard, his lifeless face covered in a white shroud, the wailing began. The 22-year-old house painter, who had been beloved by his six sisters and would always bring them fruit when he finished work, had died a brutal death two days earlier. He had been killed because he was Muslim.
Several of Arshad’s sisters reached out to touch his cold bruised cheeks. “Please wake up, brother,” they cried. “Wake up. Please open your eyes.”
Related: Inside Delhi: beaten, lynched and burnt alive
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The power of Khushu – Bringing Peace and Focus in our Prayers and Lives
“‘Khushu’ is one of the most important elements of our worship. It helps us quiet our minds to focus on the power of #Allah. It helps us to connect with Allah. It helps us to bring our fullest sincerity to Allah in our worship. It helps our hearts to open up in full expectations of […]
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Monday, 2 March 2020
Turkish president Atatürk demands purge of religion from politics - archive, 3 March 1924
3 March 1924: Great crowds had gathered outside the National Assembly, and the building itself was packed by the time he rose to make his speech
Related: Atatürk elected first president of Turkey - archive, 31 October 1923
Constantinople, Saturday
Mustapha Kemal’s speech in the National Assembly to-day, which has been foreshadowed in some quarters as likely to mark an epoch in Turkish history, referred in general terms to the necessity of purging religion from political ties, unifying the system of education, and rescuing the judicial organisation from the influences under which it has hitherto laboured. The speech was received with enthusiasm by Liberals but coldly by the minority of Clericals and Conservatives.
Related: Turkey’s democracy is dying – but this brutal crackdown can’t last | Ersin Şenel
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New Zealand police investigate threat against Al Noor mosque in Christchurch
Threat was made on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, days before the city marks one year since the massacre that left 51 people dead
Police in New Zealand are investigating a threat against Al Noor mosque less than one week before the first anniversary of the Christchurch massacre.
Police say they received a report from a member of the public early on Monday morning that a threat had been made against the mosque on encrypted messaging app Telegram, which is known as a platform used by far-right extremists. A photo had also circulated showing a masked man standing outside the mosque in central Christchurch, local media reported.
Related: Businesses that serve Muslim community in Christchurch closing in wake of massacre
Related: Anxious and in pain, survivors of Christchurch massacre call for new approach
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