Dhimmi Watch: Telegraph: "Tories call on Blair to bar Muslim 'extremist'"

July 8, 2004

Telegraph: "Tories call on Blair to bar Muslim 'extremist'"

More on Qaradawi in London, from the Telegraph (thanks to jonascot). Note the sneer quotes around "extremist" in the Telegraph headline. Evidently they aren't sure he is all that extreme, but look in the story itself:

On the day that David Blunkett proposed tougher laws against Islamists - and far-Right evangelical Christians - who preached hatred of other religions, the Home Office said it was not right to keep Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Qatar-based imam, out of the country on the grounds of his views alone.
However, Tory and Labour MPs said Mr Blunkett should reconsider his position and exclude the cleric. ...

It is interesting to contrast Blunkett's bland dhimmitude -- his unwarranted confidence that radical Muslims present a version of Islam that can be readily demonstrated to be false -- with the paranoia and hyperbole of Massoud Shadjareh:

"Religious extremists who argue for support for acts of terrorism in the name of Islam present an even greater threat to British Muslim communities than they do to others," he added.
"The false perceptions of Islam that they promote fuel misunderstanding and xenophobia, potentially undermining cohesion and alienating British Muslims from mainstream society."

But Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "In the light of the well-recognised institutional Islamophobic society that we have at the moment, this legislation could very well be used against Muslim communities, rather than protecting them."...

And as for Qaradawi, those statements he made that the Telegraph isn't sure are extreme are buried near the end of the story. But note: they aren't old news. He repeated them in an interview broadcast yesterday:

In an interview for BBC's Newsnight, broadcast last night, Dr al-Qaradawi said Islam justified suicide bombings.
"This is not suicide. It is martyrdom in the name of God," he said.

He also described the suicide attacks that have killed women and children in Israel as a "martyrdom operation (that) is an indication of the justice of Allah Almighty." ...

Earlier this week, Louise Ellman, a Labour MP, said she had written to Mr Blunkett describing it as "an outrage" to allow the cleric into this country.

She said he had encouraged women and children suicide bombers, sought the destruction of Israel, believed husbands could beat "disobedient" wives and was a major shareholder in a bank alleged to be part of al-Qa'eda's fund-raising network.

Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, said the cleric had advocated the execution of homosexuals and should be banned from the country. "He should be treated as a political pariah," Mr Tatchell said.

Posted by Robert at July 8, 2004 6:29 AM
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So David Blunkett wants to target "far-rght Evangelical Christians", too? I'd beg any of our British participants to offer commentary, and find out what Blunkett has in mind. I can see getting tough on some of the Protestant gunmen of Northern Ireland; but everything else I've seen of British Evangelicalism suggests to me that it is (a) responsible, (b) supportive of a democratic public order, and (c) as British as fish and chips.

British Evangelicalism, whether of the established CofE and CofS varieties or dissenter is an important piece of the Western democratic and liberal tradition. A generation before Locke (himself schooled as a Puritan), Samuel Rutherford's _Lex Rex_ (1644) spoke of the political supremacy of Law. The 18th century Evangelicals did much work among the poor of the country. William Wilberforce, another Evangelical and leading light of the Clapham Sect, pushed for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, and inspired abolitionists on the American side of the Atlantic, too. In the 19th century, the "Dissenter conscience" did much for reform in the Anglophone world.

I hope Mr. Blunkett isn't falling for a painfully stupid and knee-jerk Euro-style "even-handedness" that spits on much that put the great into Great Britain.

Posted by: Kepha1

at July 8, 2004 8:11 AM

What amazes me about the Qaradawi affair is Ken Livingston's involvement. "Red Ken" is gay, but he still warmly welcomes this bigot who calls for his murder...

Posted by: Tziona

at July 8, 2004 9:09 AM

Tziona:

I am also amazed at how the gays do not seem to have woken up to this threat. The gays, the feminists, the human rights activists, all seem to be supporting Muslims who, if in power, would crush them into dust. I think that these people are willfully blind. Many are people who have been raised in a Christian tradition who think that all religions have the same peaceful and loving message transmitted by Jesus Christ. They cannot imagine a religion that is not similarly constituted.

If someone tells them that that Muhammad was a general, a political leader, a man who tacitly condoned assassinations and mass murder, they refuse to believe it. They refuse to even think about it. They do not want their rose-colored view of the world upset.

I do not understand people like that - people who "see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil". They are the doubly blind.

"Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

Matthew 15:14

People who have been raised in a Christian tradition cannot comprehend what Islam is all about until they read it for themselves. I was just re-reading the words of Christ in Luke and you cannot help but be moved by his call that we should love one another and give to one another selflessly without hope of gain. Christ's message is so inspirational.

"And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same." Luke 6:32-33.

In Islam there is just no equivalent of this beautiful self-abnegating philosopy. When you give Zakat, it is solely for the use of other Muslims and for the purpose of advancing the Muslim faith through either Da'wa or Jihad. The idea that a Muslim should help somebody outside their faith is completely alien to their religion.

Posted by: Mentat

at July 8, 2004 12:12 PM

Actually, the gays have woken up to the threat. I'm afraid it's a church dominated by liberal theology that hasn't woken up.

As for far right evangelical Christians, I think Mr. Blunkett has been fed stories of gun-totin' American evangelists. It's a standard ploy over here to point to your worst excesses and present them as the norm. Unfair, but that's how it is.

One thing I find extremely disturbing is the equation of evangelical Christianity with the far right. Even if David Blunkett was speculating on the possibility of far right evangelical Christians, it is still worrying. The only member of a far right party I know personally left it when he became an evangelical Christian, as that level of hatred is incompatible with Christian teaching.

Furthermore, Mr Blunkett seems to have forgotten that the Evangelical Revival of the 18th. Century, which includes Methodism, led directly to the social reformation of the 19th. Century and the Labour Party. Kepha1 is not wrong in what he says, but seriously understates the scale of Evangelically inspired social reform. The term Christian Socialism may seem like a contradiction to most Americans, but before Marx and, indeed, for a long time afterwards it was an accepted and respected part of British politics. Many a Labour politician started out as a Methodist Local Preacher, I know one personally, and many Trades union branches were known as chapels. Socialism was Christian until it was hijacked by Marx.

In the light of the above, do Mr. Blunkett's misleading remarks count as hate speech?

Hoist by his own petard?

Posted by: Ian

at July 8, 2004 8:09 PM

Ian:

I understated my case simply because I'm in a place where I don't have access to a good theological and historical library. The things you said are one of the reasons why I described Evangelicalism as "British as fish and chips". How about pork pie as well?

By the way, I think of myself as a man of the right--traditionally pious; pro-life; pro-educational choice; pro-property (especially if I own it); and even pro-gun ownership (although I'm not a gun owner. I've lived in places with stringent gun ownership controls, but the criminals nonetheless seem to muster an impressive array of firepower).

However, Blunkett does not seem to appreciate that our armed and racist radical right, even when it appropriates Christian terminology, is often seen as heretical by the bulk of Evangelicals (chiefly on the ground of its denial of non-whites' humanity). My fear is that a lot of our civilization's liberal leadership, by its ignorant and "even-handed" condemnation of Christian traditionalism along with Islamic radicalism, is further disarming us against the jihad.

Posted by: Kepha1

at July 8, 2004 11:01 PM