| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Jihad Watch | Robert Spencer | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog |  |
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More news from the New Britain, from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
As students bought lunch and coffee at London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) campus, the Islamic call to prayer, "Allahu Akbar," blasted repeatedly through several speakers situated around the student union."If you want to work for Islam, you must give your heart, if you want to get to heaven, do what the prophet said, peace be upon him," bellowed a melody.
SOAS, scene to a growing number of anti-Semitic incidents in recent months, has issued a threat to one of its Jewish students to cease his protests against anti-Semitism at the university. Gavin Gross, an American, has been leading a campaign against the deterioration of conditions for Jewish students at SOAS, which is part of the University of London.
He recently received a letter from the school's director, Colin Bundy, threatening him with "an investigation under the disciplinary code."
Gross received the letter shortly after the Board of Deputies, the elected leadership of the British Jewish community, sent a dossier based on evidence Gross submitted documenting attacks on Jewish students at SOAS and threatening to take legal action if steps were not taken to address the problem.
The letter to Gross said his "conduct appears to contravene SOAS's disciplinary code of practice, warranting investigations as potential misconduct under the code."
In recent months, SOAS has witnessed an escalation of anti-Jewish activity, in both severity and frequency. At the beginning of this year, the Islamic Society screened a video which compared Judaism with Satanism. A recent article in the SOAS student union magazine, The Spirit, advocated suicide terrorism against Israeli civilians, and was entitled: "when only violence will do."
Posted by Robert at May 21, 2005 7:06 AM
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Incitement! This Jewish pig f$&*!r should be put in his place, right Shukri?
Lovely article! I especially like the part where the school administration is going to "investigate" to silence the Jewish decent of the Muslims.
Where's Shukri when you need him?
Guess I'll just hang out and wait to see if he shows up.
Posted by: BillR![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 21, 2005 7:27 AM
This is the Guardian article from last week. http://education.guardian.co.uk/racism/story/0,10795,1481647,00.html
The good news is that this student, a mature post graduate, is not alone. The Board of Deputies of British Jews have been in contact with the Minister for Education and the Home Office and have presented a dossier. Further three members of the National Union of Students have resigned from an executive committee citing the union's failure to tackle anti-semitism including that at Soas.
"A spokeswoman for Soas student union also declined to comment on the dossier, which she said was "confidential" while under investigation.
However, she added: "An overwhelmingly large number of students, including a number of Jewish students, have expressed their distress and frustration over what they believe to be false accusations and the manner in which these accusations have been made.
The bad news, of course, is that this is happening at all.
BTW ia747 is a student at a university in London. He doesn't say which one, and since 1992 the polytechnics became universities there are at least 8 in Greater London. Not including the separate colleges that make up the University of London, of which the School of African and Oriental Studies is merely one.
Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at May 21, 2005 9:05 AM
He also revealed that he has received reports from other students that Mr Gross had been "rude" and "aggressive".
As an American expat, I will never accede to the British obsession with politeness. The most egregious offenses can be perpetrated, yet it is always the assertive response that receives opprobrium.
As a Jew and an alumnus of SOAS, these developments sicken me and I have written to Bundy telling him so.
Posted by: Charles Martel at May 21, 2005 4:51 PM
Let me get this straight, because I cannot believe what I have just read.
Am I just imagining this, or is this actually written in the article above? Am I about to wake up from a dream or is this true and have I just read it?
As students bought lunch and coffee at London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) campus, the Islamic call to prayer, "Allahu Akbar," blasted repeatedly through several speakers situated around the student union.
The Islamic call to pray is being broadcast within the precinct of a University of London College? Inside a secular space, in a University in London, a place of learning, enquiry, a secular space conducive to the discourse of civilisation and knowledge, in which students of all nationalities and religions study together, where Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists study, inside this British University, the Islamic Call to prayer is piped through loudspeakers inside the Student Union, which should be a neutral secular space in which students can be at ease free from any religious injunction or ideology? Islam has become effectively the official religion of this University and is imposed in the public space of this University by broadcasting the call to prayer?
Am I dreaming this or did I just read it?
If I did just read it then for once in my life I am speechless and lost for words. I cannot believe that this has happened, that there can be such a state of affairs.
I will have to come back to address this, if it is true. Right now, I just dont have the words to describe the outrageous arrogance and sinister obscenity of this.
Posted by: Zico at May 21, 2005 5:38 PM
A colleague and I used to work in an office of our department near the London School of Economics. One Friday one of his section, a Moslem, returned early from the lunchtime prayers at the LSE quite shaken. He said that he goes to pray expecting to worship God, not listen to hate. Apparently he never went again. I dread to think what goes on at the LSE now. I used their canteen on occasion but never felt comfortable.
While I saw a hopeful sign in the resignations from the NUS over this, it does mean that there is now even less internal opposition.
Charles, I remember our conversation about the anti-semitism in your professional body. Is this Colin Bundy part of that problem?
Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at May 21, 2005 5:56 PM
Am I dreaming this or did I just read it?
Posted by: Zico at May 21, 2005 05:38 PM
Zico, you're not dreaming it; you're having a nightmare. We all are.
at May 21, 2005 6:51 PM
Charles and Granny:
If you come a cross more about this incredible story of what is going on at this campus and others, it would be of great interest. Do you know of any british websites that are following this kind of stuff on British campuses?
Posted by: Mackie at May 21, 2005 8:12 PM
Granny Weatherwax
The boycott of Israeli universities by the Association of University Teachers is the most recent outrage. That has been led by Sue Blackwell, a lecturer at Birmingham. To be fair, I don't know what Bundy's personal politics are although he got his PhD from Oxford and was an academic for many years in South Africa (you can draw your own inferences). As evidenced by the above story however, his response to the rabid anti-Semitism unfolding at SOAS has been at best, woefully inadequate and at worst, complicit.
Mackie
Probably the best web site aggregating stories on the situation in the UK is Melanie Phillips.
Posted by: Charles Martel at May 21, 2005 9:37 PM
Granny Weatherwax, re the Muslim at the London SOAS who complained about hearing hate when he went to pray, we've had Muslims in the USA kvetching about crazies taking over for years. Daniel Pipes is one of the few who reported their concerns.
As I've said before, my take on reforming Islam is to let them know that my kind of Christian church welcomes inquirers. But, the bothered student you mention and numerous others are among the reasons why I cannot be enthusiastic about mass deportations or paying back hatred in kind.
at May 22, 2005 1:53 AM
Kepha
We have a few Moslem converts, and descendants of converts, at the church I will attending later this morning.
I didn't know the Moslem I mentioned above personally, he worked with a friend who spoke well of him. The prayer room he visited was in another college of the University of London, about 5 miles away, the London School of Economics which had a very wild reputation even when I was a student in the 70s. As an office worker in the vicinity he wanted to attend for the prayers which were ostensibly open to all comers. And came away chastened.
Charles
I will keep following this one, and take your advice about Melanie Phillips, I don't visit her site often enough.
at May 22, 2005 4:11 AM
Granny Weatherwax
I studied for a post-graduate degree at a former polytechnic University in London, which I completed recently, at the same campus where I had done my undergraduate studies quite a few years earlier. The atmosphere in certain buildings of the campus was rancid and unrecognisable from when I had previously been there. Al-Muhajiroun were openly placing posters up with titles such as ‘Ramadan – The Time for Jihad?’, and there was a large group of Muslim students who would intimidate and sneer at Sikh and Hindu students. This would include making bigoted comments (referring to Hindus contemptuously as polytheists, laughing at Sikh students long hair); and general intimidating acts like defacing and removing posters that were placed on walls to advertise Divali celebrations. They also made a point of attending and disrupting a meeting of the Sikh Student Society. The sheer hatred that came off these men was incredible. What was amazing was how they had hijacked the facilities of a University, an institution of learning and tolerance, that should promote plurality and enquiry, intellectual scepticism and doubt, the creation of knowledge, how they had turned sections of it into an arena for a fascistic cause. They would use the computers to spend time in internet chat rooms promoting their ideology, use student body funds to promote extremist causes, spread hatred and intimidation.
Many Muslim students ignored them and saw them as an embarrassment, but the meetings they held were always overflowing, and there was no real opposition to them.
This is the unseen and unspoken reality of life for many people in Britain today that rarely, if ever, gets written about in newspapers or is reported on by the BBC. I remember one of these fascistic goons yelling with delight when he read a report of a suicide bomber killing people whilst we were in the internet room, and tehy would joke about crachig planes into Tel Aviv.
I have heard things said about Jews from Muslims that would make Nazis blush. Any questioning of this leads to screams of Islamophobia, as often as not from the moderates who say that they are embarrassed by them. Even a simple question such as ‘why is there so much intolerance and extremism in some sections of young British Pakistanis?’ is enough to have you anointed as a bigot. So, even in good faith, you cannot ask why some young Muslims behave in an intimidating and bigoted manner that reminds you of how the skinheads used to beat up Asians and black people in the 1970’s. So how can we debate and solve these issues if there is no honesty about the situation?
But you can see and read the delight in the eyes and words of those Muslim ‘activists’ who find helping hands in their cause from the likes of Livingstone and other left wing academics. They are in heat and aroused at the chance to kick Jews. It is a frenzy. All I can say is these people are the personification of the term ‘Useful Idiots’. They are saps in the truest sense, dupes, fools, blinded by their hysteria and lack of perspective, and in their alliance with this generation of Jew hating Muslim activist they have stained themselves.
I wonder if Channel 4 will ever make a documentary about this phenomenon to be broadcast at prime time like they did in that hour long propaganda piece on the anti-semites from MPACUK? Dont wait on it.
Posted by: Zico at May 22, 2005 6:04 AM
If this is the state of things in university of London then i hate to think of what might be happening in Bradford....
Posted by: scourge_of_landos at May 22, 2005 6:55 AM
Zico
I attempted but failed the professional qualifying exams that I needed after my degree and so got a job, which I have done with a career break ever since. Technically I am a graduate of London University but as an external student I actually studied at a technical college outside London. Yesterday (while wondering how many universities there are in London now since 1992 and which one is favoured with the presence of ia747)I was looking at the masters courses of one of the "Modern" Universities in my subject. It was all Islamic studies this, International (post 9/11) that, half the teaching staff with Islamic names so that I know I would have no chance of acceptance, even if I wanted to study after 30 years. The qualification criteria was a good Honours degree in the subject,which I have, (although I was once told that the "good" was a matter of opinion, but he was a snob) or a degree in Islamic Studies or Middle East studies or some other humanities or a social science.
As I don't actually have the time or the inclination at this stage of my life to do a masters degree it isn't really a problem, and I may find my old college or many others more suitable, but it left me feeling rather sidelined.
at May 22, 2005 8:19 AM
Hmm...
Has anybdy heard of British version of CAIR i.e Awaaz? They claim to be dismantaling RSS/HSS funding structure in Britain but i can testify that few of Muslim guys from Camberley (it is a town just south of London) who r known Awaaz supporters participated in Anti Israel Demonstration in London.. It's high time other Brits, especially white come foreard to expose that whacky Islamic apologist oraganistaion...
at May 22, 2005 9:37 AM
Check their website:
http://www.awaazsaw.org/
Regarding tsunami fundraising they say:
"To ensure that their well-intended donations do not fall into the wrong hands, Awaaz urges donors to channel their contributions through organizations with established secular, humanitarian and non-violent credentials" as if they do not want any donations to go to Indian NGO's
at May 22, 2005 9:40 AM
Mahometans to Jews: "Don't scream or struggle while we're killing you. It's insulting to our religion and our prophet."
Posted by: Cato the Elder at May 23, 2005 12:17 PM
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