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Ed Webb

British Muslims reduced to 'second class' citizens: report - 0 views

  • British Muslims have been reduced to ‘second-class’ citizens in the United Kingdom, according to a report published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) on Sunday. 
  • Recently extended powers have given successive UK governments the power to remove citizenship from those who have access to another nationality. They “almost exclusively” target Muslims with South Asian heritage
  • “The message sent by the legislation on deprivation of citizenship since 2002 and its implementation largely against British Muslims of South Asian heritage is that, despite their passports, these people are not and can never be ‘true’ citizens, in the same way that ‘natives’ are,”
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  • the report also said that the reasons for losing one's citizenship have become more ‘nebulous and undefined’, thereby increasing the likelihood of the arbitrary action
  • No citizenship had been revoked in the thirty years prior to Abu Hamza, a Muslim preacher who was stripped of his nationality in 2003. Since then, the citizenship of at least 217 people has been removed
Ed Webb

A Disorienting Sense of Déjà-Vu? Islamophobia and Secularism in French Public... - 0 views

  • in February, Higher Education Minister Frédérique Vidal publicly called for an investigation into “Islamo-leftism” or Islamo-gauchisme in French universities. Vidal described “Islamo-leftism” as responsible for eroding academic freedoms and scholarly rigor on French university campuses where postcolonial, critical race, and intersectionality research is carried out
  • the political personality of Emmanuel Macron and the brand of liberal authoritarianism which he has been developing
  • It is likely that the RN will once again make it to the second round of the presidential elections in a political landscape that has seen the implosion of left-wing parties in the midst of their inability to offer a credible and alternative narrative about religious and cultural pluralism to the one being developed by the right and extreme right.
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  • Vidal’s attack on academic researchers who, as part of an international community of scholars, work within postcolonial, decolonial, and intersectional studies needs also to be put into context as just the latest iteration of a deep suspicion of North American (and particularly, U.S.) intellectual and political cultures. This suspicion goes back to the 1990s, when certain French academics, politicians, and media firmly rejected “Anglo-Saxon” multiculturalism or communautarisme in favor of the oxymoronic “French universalism” (for how can a nationally inflected universalism ever be universal?). 
  • The “French Muslims Abroad” project at the University of Lille is precisely looking at a growing diaspora of highly educated French Muslims who are choosing to leave France, a trend which could in part be due broader patterns of stigmatization affecting professional opportunities
  • the anti-religious pluralism and anti-Islam stance that we see unfolding in France risks turning laïcité into a civil religion itself
  • perhaps what is needed is an alternative approach to the concept of secularism which deconstructs the idea that it is a stable, equality-bearing framework on the one hand and that religious minorities are the “problem” on the other
Ed Webb

Lars Hedegaard, Anti-Islamic Provocateur, Receives Support From Danish Muslims - NYTime... - 0 views

  • That Danish Muslims would rally to defend Mr. Hedegaard, a man they detest, suggests a significant shift in attitudes, or at least in strategies, by a people at the center of a European debate over whether immigrants from mostly poor Muslim lands can adjust to the values of their new and, thanks to a long economic crisis, increasingly wary and often inhospitable homes.
  • “There are stupid people everywhere,” Dr. Mojadeddi said. “Mr. Hedegaard is an extremist, and there are definitely extremist Muslims.”
  • Stop the Islamization of Europe organized a rally Saturday in central Copenhagen. Its leader, Anders Gravers, a xenophobic butcher from the north, fulminated against Muslims and the spread of halal meats, but only 20 people turned up to show support. There were many more police officers, on hand to prevent clashes with a larger counterdemonstration nearby.
Ed Webb

Halting anti-Muslim violence - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • The lack of equal access to health care in the United States, especially mental health care, could very well be part of the explanation for the increase in hate attacks. But there is all-too-clear evidence that people who "look Muslim" are under deliberate attack in the US. Hate speech and racial/ethnic profiling must be understood as contributing factors in explaining the persistence of violent hate attacks. 
  • Official FBI statistics on hate crimes published last month found that the number of hate attacks on Muslims remained high after a spike in 2010 that correlated with nationally prominent fear-mongering over the construction of a mosque in Manhattan. Many of the recent attacks have taken place shortly after well-publicised anti-Muslim hate speeches, sometimes coming directly from public officials.
  • more work is urgently needed to shore up civil rights protection in the US. It's difficult to even know the extent of hate crimes targeting Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian Americans, in large part due to inconsistent and outdated practices by the FBI. The law governing the FBI's collection of hate crimes data has not been updated since 1990. 
Ed Webb

Publicly French, Privately Muslim: The Aim of Modern Laïcité - 0 views

  • since the 1990s and accelerating into the mid-2000s, the interpretation of laïcité has shifted to a stricter and more illiberal interpretation that has been used by both left-wing neo-republicans and right-wing conservatives to justify policies targeting Muslim visibility. These groups collectively adopted a combative attitude toward Muslims by telling them to erase public expressions of faith and relegate them to the private sphere in the name of assimilation and national identity. This modern interpretation of laïcité stigmatizes some French citizens because of their religion—it is no longer the neutrality of the state that is centered but the neutrality of some of its citizens
  • French identity and particularly its Christian and/or Judeo-Christian heritage has gradually become a rallying cry for the right and the far-right, who use it to make the case that Muslims do not belong in France
  • successive governments have attempted to design a “French Islam” that could mollify its critics, and have implemented regulation in pursuit of this
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  • Because of the shift from a human rights-compatible laïcité in which all individuals are equal regardless of their religion to a regime in which laïcité became the weapon of choice to defend a particular cultural and political identity, laïcité as we have come to see it today is fundamentally incompatible with international human rights
  • First-generation immigrants were discreet about their religious expression and kept to themselves, while the new generation is more comfortable in manifesting their French-Muslim identity publicly. The public square is the place where people should feel free to express both differences and similarities, exchange points of view, and appreciate each other’s unique contributions. A truly laïque state should be guaranteed based on its neutrality and not on the neutrality—and invisibility—of its citizens.
Ed Webb

Islamophobia on the red carpet | SocialistWorker.org - 0 views

  • two films and a television series that attempt to wrap Islamophobic stereotypes in a slick, sophisticated package for a liberal audience
  • The Islamists who ultimately came to dominate Iran were on the right wing of the revolution--but such distinctions are totally beyond Argo, which treats almost every Iranian as a fanatic screaming in un-translated Farsi
  • While the Muslim masses outside the embassy are depicted in mostly wide shots as an undifferentiated, unintelligible crowd, the moment we go inside the embassy and meet American characters, we get close-ups, humanity, individualized characters and dialogue we can understand.
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  • The token "Good Muslim," a young female servant in the home of the Canadian ambassador where the American characters take shelter, is given a name and translated dialogue. When Americans speak Farsi, their words are almost always translated. The political chants and banners that might help us understand the demands of the protesting crowds almost never are.
  • anytime you begin to think Homeland might be more nuanced than you first thought, it goes off the deep end--like the way Brody's wife reacts when she finds out he converted to Islam, or the ridiculous episode in which Beirut's posh Hamra Street, home to Starbucks and H&M, is depicted as a nest of sinister Hezbollah operatives (and, unsurprisingly, a random Arab mob)
  • Zero Dark Thirty aims to assure anyone who has qualms about the use of torture in the "war terror" that it's all worth it. Everyone Maya tortures in the film's brutal first half-hour is, without a doubt, a certified terrorist and not an innocent person caught up in the U.S.'s rendition and detention nightmare.
  • What is clear is that Argo, Zero Dark Thirty and Homeland have all been critically praised and embraced by audiences that would have scoffed at Jack Bauer's crude antics in 24. Islamophobic stereotypes certainly existed before 9/11, but during the past 12 years of the "war on terror," they have become so commonplace that film and television viewers now often absorb them without even noticing.
Ed Webb

Are The Tsarnaevs White? - The Daily Beast - 0 views

  • in public conversation in America today, “Islam” is a racial term. Being Muslim doesn’t just mean not being Christian or Jewish. It means not being white.
  • in the struggle to be classified as white, Middle Eastern Christians had an advantage: Jesus. In the 1915 case Dow v. United States, a Syrian Christian successfully argued that he was white because Jesus, the original Middle Eastern Christian, was too. In 1925, in United States v. Cartozian, the Court designated Armenians as white because, “[a]lthough the Armenian province is within the confines of the Turkish Empire, being in Asia Minor, the people thereof have always held themselves aloof from Turks, the Kurds, and allied peoples, principally, it might be said, on account of their [Christian] religion.” In the 1942 case In Re Ahmed Hassan, a Michigan Court said a petitioner from Yemen was not white because, “Apart from the dark skin of the Arabs, it is well known that they are a part of the Mohammedan world and that a wide gulf separates their culture from that of the predominately Christian peoples of Europe.”
  • Often, the politicians and pundits most eager to profile Muslims are the same folks who in the 1980s and 1990s defended the “racial profiling” of blacks. And listening to them, you sometimes get the sense that they think the process would work the same way: just look to see who the Muslims are. In 2011, for instance, Long Island Congressman Peter King suggested that when deciding who police should target as potential terror suspects, a “person’s religious background or ethnicity can be a factor.” But if the problem is Muslims—a billion person religion with adherents from Malaysia to Mauritania—what does “ethnicity” have to do with it?
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  • the reason it’s so hard for people to accept that the Tsarnaevs are white is because, since America’s founding, being white has meant, both culturally and legally, being “one of us.” And since 9/11, in particular, being Muslim has meant the opposite.
Ed Webb

Not Qualified: Exposing the Deception Behind America's Top 25 Pseudo Experts on Islam -... - 1 views

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    Very interesting attempt to undermine what MPAC terms the 'Islamophobia industry'. Some of those listed, such as Daniel Pipes, have backed efforts to discredit academics who are critical of Israel or otherwise seen as 'pro-Muslim'. How productive is this kind of intervention, in either case?
Ed Webb

Claim of Responsibility in Russia Attack - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The motive of the attacks appeared to be efforts by the two Muslim leaders to combat the spread of radical Islam in the region. Tatarstan has long prided itself on the generally peaceful coexistence of moderate Muslims and Christians. But the region, about 500 miles east of Moscow, has been struggling to cope with the rise of radical Islam, which is espoused by rebel fighters in the Caucasus.
  • Mr. Putin said he hoped the women would not be punished too harshly but suggested that the Orthodox Church had already shown more compassion under the circumstances than could be expected from other religions, including Islam. “If they had gone to the Caucasus — you don’t have to go far,” he said, “and desecrated some Muslim shrine — we would not even have had time to put them under our protection.”
Ed Webb

Guardian Reader's Editor evades key questions in column on Joshua Treviño deb... - 0 views

  • Of course a newspaper should offer a broad range of views and host vigorous debate among people who disagree. The point that neither Elliott nor Guardian editors have addressed is where to draw the line. We live at a moment when open hate speech – especially in the United States – primarily directed against Muslims, is becoming normalized as part of the ‘marketplace of ideas.’
  • If all things being equal, Treviño’s long history of bigotry had been directed against Jews instead of Muslims, Arabs and Palestine solidarity activists, would The Guardian have offered him a column in the first place? If it had been revealed that Treviño wrote speeches for candidates suggesting that “civilization” was at war with Jewish rather than Muslim “barbarism,” how many would defend Treviño or the initial decision to hire him?
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    Is Mr Abunimah correct that hate speech against Muslims is becoming normalized?
Ed Webb

GOP litmus test: Sharia opposition - POLITICO.com - 0 views

  • Invoking Sharia and casting it as a growing danger at odds with American principles has become a rallying cry for conservatives. It’s also quickly becoming an unlikely pet issue among 2012 presidential contenders: Potential candidates have almost unilaterally assailed the Islamic code, making it as much a staple of the campaign stump speech as economic reform, job creation and rising gas prices.
  • “Even immediately after Sept. 11, we didn’t see this kind of hatred mainstream in our society,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “There seems to be a coordinated effort to both marginalize American Muslims and demonize Islam.”
  • Bill sponsors interviewed by POLITICO could offer no examples of cases from their home states, instead pointing to a 2010 New Jersey case that used Sharia as a defense, though that decision was reversed by a higher court.
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  • Herman Cain was labeled a bigot by CAIR after he pledged not to appoint any Muslims to government posts if he is elected president
  • The exception has been Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who dismissed the idea that Sharia is threatening the United States. “That’s not coming here. What we have to do is defend our principles,” Paul told Fox News host Sean Hannity late last month. “You have radicals in all religions; if there is some way to incite them, their numbers will grow.”
  • we’re going to have American laws for American courts because we are America
  • Missouri state Reps. Paul Curtman and Don Wells both introduced bills aimed at stopping the use of Islamic law in the state’s courts, though neither could provide evidence that it’s actually happening. That measure passed the Missouri House over opposition from Democrats who said it could make it more difficult for the state’s businesses to enter into contracts with companies from other countries. Wells has likened Sharia to polio, saying it could have a diseaselike influence on secular judicial proceedings
  • model legislation, called American Laws for American Courts, put forward by Arizona-based attorney David Yerushalmi
  • Yerushalmi himself has ties to a stridently anti-Muslim group
Ed Webb

Bolton's New NSC Chief Of Staff Served As VP Of Gaffney's Anti-Muslim Hate Group - Talk... - 0 views

  • National Security Adviser John Bolton’s new pick to be the National Security Council chief of staff has served for the last five years as the Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs at the Frank Gaffney-founded Center for Security Policy, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that espouses anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. 
  • Gaffney and the group have for years promoted anti-Muslim beliefs, including accusing government officials of being aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • Fleitz is also a former CIA analyst and frequent guest on Fox News.
Ed Webb

How Mohamed Salah inspired me to become a Muslim | Mohamed Salah | The Guardian - 0 views

  • At this point I didn’t know any Muslims. My degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds changed everything.
  • “Mohamed Salah, a gift from Allah. Is the performance of Mohamed Salah igniting a conversation that combats Islamapobia within the media and political spheres?”
  • University gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of students from Saudi Arabia. I thought they were evil people who carried swords but they’re the nicest people I’ve met. The conceptions I had about Arab countries completely dissolved.
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  • At university I interviewed Egyptian students and when they found out my research was about “Mohamed Salah, a gift from Allah” – which is also another Liverpool song – they would talk to me for hours about how great he is and what he’s done for their country. One million Egyptians spoiled their ballots and voted for him to be president last year.
  • When Salah scores I think he’s scoring for the faith. When he won the Champions League I said to my friend that was a victory for Islam. After each of his goals Salah practises the sujood (prostration) and exposes a very Islamic symbol to the world. How many people watch the Premier League every week? Millions globally.
  • Salah showed me that you can be normal and a Muslim, if that’s the right phrase. You can be yourself. He’s a great player and is respected by the football community and his politics, his religion, don’t matter – and to me that’s what football can do.
  • What would I say to the Ben of old? I’d give him a smack, to be honest, and I’d say: ‘How dare you think like that about a people that are so diverse. You need to start talking to people. You need to start asking the questions.’ We live in a multicultural, multifaith, multinational society.
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