Islamophobia… or cold, hard truth?
Gina Khan, who has spoken out on oppression in Muslim communities
TODAY marks the third anniversary of the 7/7 atrocity which killed 52 innocent London commuters and mutilated many more.
That was Britain’s 9/11, the first attack on their own country by British-born suicide bombers in the name of Allah.
Tonight, Channel 4’s excellent Dispatches — by some distance television’s best documentary makers — marks the day with a special programme.
* Some good news: Teacher suspended for ‘punishing boys who refused to kneel and pray to Allah’
It was Dispatches who gave us the remarkable insight into rabble-rousing imams in Undercover Mosque.
Using hidden cameras, they recorded clerics preaching hatred for non-Muslims and hailing the Taliban, which is killing British soldiers.
Enemy within … hate preacher in Dispatches exposé
The chilling footage should have been used to prosecute the imams under anti-terror laws. Shamefully, it was pounced on by demented West Midlands police as evidence of C4 “distortion”.
Tonight’s programme is different. It is presented by my friend Peter Oborne, who earned his TV spurs with a fine Dispatches programme from inside Zimbabwe.
This time, he is making the argument that the British media is anti-Muslim.
* Not so good news: Muslim leader calls for Sharia law in UK
He cites invented incidents which portray Muslims in a bad light and incite attacks fuelled by religious or race hatred.
I was interviewed for the programme after condemning Islamist extremists for hijacking the Koran and using it to recruit gullible young Muslims.
“Where’s the evidence?” Peter barked.
I cited the Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque.
Hmmm. Well, what about my criticism of Muslim immigrants for their self-imposed isolation and reluctance to integrate? Wasn’t the same true for some Orthodox Jewish communities?
Maybe, I replied. But Jews — who are themselves increasingly the target for hate attacks — are not trying to bomb Britain.
In the past, I have also questioned the “provocative” trend by British-born Muslims to start wearing tribal costume and the hijab.
Branded
And I touched on the appalling fact that many women are treated as chattels.
All this, Peter Oborne concluded, amounted to “Islamophobia”.
Is he right? Does severe criticism of a creed or its teachings justify the accusation of hate?
Or is that just a way of shutting down the debate, just as critics of the EU are branded Europhobes?
Isn’t this precisely the trumped-up charge West Midlands police tried to plant on Channel 4?
And, if so, what about those Muslims who make identical comments?
In the wake of 9/11, the Muslim head of Al Arabiya TV, Abdul Rahman al Rashed, said: “Not all Muslims are terrorists but, with deep regret, we must admit that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”
Is he an Islamophobe?
Try watching Syrian-born Dr Wafa Sultan on YouTube as she challenges a furious cleric to name a single Jew or Buddhist suicide bomber.
“Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by killing people, burning churches and bombing embassies,” she storms.
Is she Islamophobic? Or simply spelling out the facts?
Dr Sultan also condemned the way Muslim hardliners “treat women like beasts”.
Muslim men are entitled to beat their wives and take more than one wife. Women are automatically suspect, banned in some communities from showing their faces or limbs because they are sexually tempting — to men. Visit an Arab country, or watch TV shows about them, and you will see plenty of men and boys.
Women appear rarely and, when they do, are covered head to toe. The rest are under virtual house arrest, living behind closed doors in ignorance and isolation.
We cannot interfere in the way other countries order their societies.
But such barbaric treatment of women has been imported and thrives here.
Forced marriages are common. Honour killings and beatings are far from rare. Women are refused education or a chance to learn English.
Police, backed by a government which spends millions on “diversity”, turn a blind eye rather than upset community leaders — all male.
Who do they think they are helping?
The accusation that the media — with a few badly researched or unchecked stories — is fomenting race hatred is in itself a trivialisation.
I receive emails from women Muslims crying out for help. One, Gina Khan, has written eloquently in The Sun about oppression of women in a male-dominated society through arranged marriages, polygamy and the veil. Is she Islamophobic too?
Or is she a lonely voice on behalf of millions of women who are being ignored and gagged by a politically correct establishment which is too timid to face the truth?
Do you agree with Trevor? Have your say…
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Anyone who doubts the rants of Islamophobes should visit this site http://www.apostatesofislam.com/ and read what ex Muslims have to say about Islam.
It is no criticism to have a phobia about that which seeks to destroy you and your way of life and anyone who doubts that that is Islam’s aim has not read the hadith and the Koran which in Islam is a political and ethical INSTRUCTION MANUAL not a religious book at all. Islam is not a religion and even more so not a ‘religion of peace’ at best it is a 7th Century Arab supremicist cult. The misguided Muslims are not the so called fanatics they are the so called moderates as they are not following the ‘instructions’ of the Koran and hadith. Either that or they are practicing another Islamic instruction of deceit or ‘taqqiya’ as Muslims are permitted in fact instructed to lie when they are weak in order to wait until they are strong enough to impose themselves and make the kaffirs Dhimmies.
“Islamophobia” is just another form of PC Cultist witch hunt as they scurry to keep power, but with every one of the Mohammedan terrorist acts and every time the public reads about another “honor killing” or forced “marriage” they power slips more.
So they are down to the point of plugging their ears and screaming the chant “Islamophobia, Islamophobia”. It’s to bad for them it does two things, it exposes all their other project to examination and alienates any of the people who would have giving them the benefit of the doubt for what they are saying and doing.
Islamcritics should never let themselves by silenced by (cowardly) Islamofiles like Peter Oborne.
Regretfully, people fail the logic-test when it comes to criticizing Islam, especially those with left-wing sympathies. Their mind shuts down to any arguments and valid opinions uttered by their political opponents.
If ‘Islamophobia’ is the only thing someone can shout, it surely disqualifies him or her as being interested in the truth about Islamic violence, oppression and racism (anti-semitism).
Personally friends and family-members have called me racist etc for my views on Islam. When motivating my remarks, most regretted their qualifications and apologized.
If strangers immediately start their pc-oriented remarks, once we get into a fiery debate, I at first try to argue with them. Usually in vain, as only few want to hear about the politicial suicide our leaders put our western civilazation in with ther dangerous multiculti-concepts..