Emergency! Everybody to get from street

Great news! The LSE Students’ Union has another statement out. It’s another pip. It’s about an urgent EGM on Thursday – which I take to be an Emergency General Meeting (but perhaps it’s Electric, or Elegant, or Educational, or Elevated*). Emergency, emergency! Why I bet we can guess what that is…

In light of recent events there will be two anti-discrimination motions being discussed and debated at an EGM this week, these are: No to racism – no to Islamophobia! and Stop Anti-Semitism Now.

Guessed right. [Read more…]

Spot the agenda

The letter to the Guardian cited a survey.

“Muslims deserve a better press than they have been given in the past decade.” And according to a recent ComRes poll, one in three people in Britain today believe that the media is responsible for “whipping up a climate of fear of Islam in the UK”.

The letter calls it a ComRes poll, but that’s just a brand name. What it really is is an Ahmadiyya Muslim Association survey, and to be exact, it’s an Ahmadiyya Muslim Association UK Islamophobia Survey. It’s not an impartial bit of research, it’s an agenda-driven poll.

The poll was commissioned by one of the UK’s oldest Muslim groups, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, in order to inform its plans to counter the tide of prejudice against Islam and highlight strategies to promote better community relations. [Read more…]

Say more good things about Islam please

Another busy day for the shutters up.

A bunch of Islamist bullies managed to get Salman Rushdie’s video talk to the Jaipur Literary Festival blocked.

A bunch of Islamist bullies and some allies wrote a stupid letter to the Guardian demanding more friendly coverage of Islam in the media.

Let’s take a look at that letter. (Martin Bright has been arguing with Sunny Hundal, who signed the letter, at Twitter for an hour or two. Sunny ended up saying he signs letters he doesn’t agree with, leaving Martin and also Padraig Reidy gobsmacked.)

That letter is a dog’s breakfast. [Read more…]

It has come to our attention that you are wicked

The LSE Students’ Union has put out a statement on its quarrel with the LSE Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society. It’s a horrible little document.

On Monday 16th January it was brought to our attention via an official complaint by two students that the LSESU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society posted cartoons, published by the UCLU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society, depicting the Prophet Mohammed and Jesus “sitting in a pub having a pint” on their society Facebook page. Upon hearing this, the sabbaticals officers of the LSESU ensured all evidence was collected and an emergency meeting with a member of the Students’ Union staff was called to discuss how to deal with the issue. During this time, we received over 40 separate official complaints from the student body, in addition to further information regarding more posts on the society Facebook page. [Read more…]

Seeing what you want to see

Karen Armstrong tells us all, not for the first time, how swell Islam is.

First, she tells us the problem. It’s that “western people” think Islam is “a violent and intolerant faith” but this is all wrong. Couldn’t be more wrong. Very very wrong. It’s the hajj what does it, you see. Religion is like ice skating, you learn it by doing it, so the hajj teaches people to do all the good things.

The ancient rituals of the hajj, which Arabs performed for centuries before Islam, have helped pilgrims to form habits of heart and mind that – pace the western stereotype – are non-violent and inclusive. [Read more…]

Too much conflation of being offended and being intimidated

The LSE Student Union Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society has told the LSE Student Union to take a flying jump. I should think so too.

There are no reasonable grounds for the LSESU’s instruction because we are in no way violating their policies or byelaws. The cartoons on our Facebook page criticise religion in a satirical way and we totally reject any claim that their publications could constitute any sort of harassment or intimidation of Muslims or Christians. [Read more…]

And there are more other critics of the word “Islamophobia”

There’s Kenan Malik. I trust there won’t be too much sensitive frowning over the possibility that Kenan Malik is being obtuse about bigotry toward Muslims or immigrants or other races.

Ten years ago no one had heard of Islamophobia. Now everyone from Muslim leaders to anti-racist activists to government ministers want to convince us that Britain is in the grip of an irrational hatred of Islam – a hatred that, they claim, leads to institutionalised harassment, physical attacks, social discrimination and political alienation… [Read more…]

No Jaipur Literature Festival for you

Yesterday Praveen Swami reported that

Local intelligence officials in Rajasthan invented information that hit men were preparing to assassinate eminent author Salman Rushdie in a successful plot to deter him from attending the Jaipur Literature Festival, highly placed police sources have told The Hindu.

I didn’t post about it yesterday only because it was a little thin (and it’s absolutely extraordinary), so I decided to wait.

Now Salman Rushdie has said on Facebook and Twitter:

I have investigated this myself and am now convinced that the story is true. I was lied to by the Rajasthan authorities, and don’t know when I have felt so angry.

Staggering. So much for secular India.

It’s only a ruddy parking ticket

Remember the Monty Python court room bit?

Behold Michael Sean Winters yesterday in the National Catholic Reporter, doing a very similar bit.

President Barack Obama lost my vote yesterday when he declined to expand the exceedingly narrow conscience exemptions proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again. [Read more…]