Anyone reading the Sun newspaper a few days ago would have thought that the end of the world had arrived since the ‘Muslim’ Head of Religion and Ethics, Aaqil Ahmed, had simply made a comment. So, what was that comment that the ‘Muslim’ Head of Religion and Ethics had made – (apologies for stressing the ‘Muslim’ element, though you see it is precisely what the Sun article casually threw into their piece on him.)

“the corporation’s (religious) output should be measured against the “religious make-up” of Britain.”

Sounds logical. Well quite, but not according to the Sun piece that decided to snipe from the sidelines as to the professionalism and judgement of Aaqil Ahmed. Not to be outdone in the, ‘we have an opinion and we will fit what we believe are facts to the story we want to spin stakes’, the Sun decided to open its frontal attack with fears of the Adhan or the Call to Prayer being commissioned by someone who was Muslim. Not exactly what Aaqil Ahmed had said, but what better way to generate some fear than to suggest to Middle England that they will be shaken out of their slumber because of those muezzins and mullahs, all blasting out some Arabic sounding calls to prayer.

This was followed by the ‘how dare he’ framing of the Commissioner as the person,

“who previously compared Mary and Joseph to illegal migrants.”

Just in case, you missed it, the (Muslim) Commissioner who simply mentioned that programming should reflect the audience, was now insulting Mary and Joseph, as though they were those pesky, dark looking and ‘foreign’ illegal migrants.

Which then led onto the Sun’s strategy of suggesting that Aaqil had a secret bias for Islam, as thought he could not set aside his judgement at work from his faith. The salvo’s on his judgement were summed up in the following statements,

“Mr Ahmed — whose appointment in 2009 was criticised by the Archbishop of Canterbury of the time Rowan Williams,”

“While working for Channel 4, Mr Ahmed upset Roman Catholic priests by commissioning documentaries that appeared to contain a pro-Islam bias.”

“One series, called Christianity: A History, was criticised by Church figures for trivialising the religion.”

Judging by the comments made by the Sun, you would think that the mild-mannered and introspective Aaqil Ahmed was a raging Islamist with undertones to attack Christianity and secretly create the conditions for a favourable treatment of Islam. Well, doesn’t that sound like promotion of anti-Muslim tropes, we think so.

Lost to the Sun

What has been lost in the Sun piece has been the variety of programmes about other faiths that have been commissioned by Mr Ahmed during his tenure, including programmes that have challenged rigid doctrinal thinking in faiths, including Islam. Hardly the image that the Sun portrays, which in reality is of a professional man who is willing to challenge issues within faith, including his own. Nor does the Sun want to consider the challenging work that he has commissioned in order to highlight how some people are treated just because they are fleeing from wars and turmoil and who are refugees.

The issue here is whether the Sun would run such a story against any other Commissioner from another faith? All of this just because Mr Ahmed suggested that programming should reflect the variety of audiences in the UK. So, next time any Commissioner makes a suggestion that is vaguely in line with this comment, we are assuming that their past will be dredged up, suggestions of bias made and their faith brought into the equation.

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Prime Minister Cameron Calls Trump, ‘Stupid, Divisive and Wrong’

Presumptive U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he hopes to be able to work with British Prime Minister David Cameron in spite of Cameron calling the Republican candidate ‘stupid, divisive and wrong’ on his stance on Muslims.

“It looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship. Who knows! I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like he’s not willing to address the problem either,” Trump said in an interview with Piers Morgan, recorded on Friday (May 13) and due to be aired in full on ITV on Monday (May 16).

Earlier this month, Cameron said he would not apologize to Trump after he became the Republican party’s presumptive presidential candidate for calling his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States stupid and wrong.

Cameron made the comment about Trump after the reality TV star and real estate developer vowed last December to ban all Muslims from entering the United States if he succeeded in his bid to become the next U.S. president.

“Well, number one I’m not stupid, Okay. I can tell you that, right now – just the opposite. Number two, in terms of divisive: I don’t think I’m a divisive person. I’m a unifier, unlike our president now, I’m a unifier,” he added.

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Community Organisations Tackling Hate Incidents and Hate Crimes Come Together in France

Three French anti-racism associations said on Sunday they would file legal complaints against social networks Facebook, Twitter and Google’s Youtube for failing to remove “hateful” content posted on their platforms.

French law requires websites to take down racist, homophobic or anti-semitic material and tell authorities about it.

But French Jewish students union UEJF and anti-racism and anti-homophobia campaigners SOS Racisme and SOS Homophobie said the three firms had removed only a fraction of 586 examples of hateful content the anti-racism groups had counted on their platforms between the end of March and May 10.

Twitter removed only four percent, Youtube seven percent and Facebook 34 percent, according to the associations.

“In light of Youtube, Twitter and Facebook’s profits and how little taxes they pay, their refusal to invest in the fight against hate is unacceptable,” UEJF president Sacha Reingewirtz said in a statement.

Germany got Facebook, Google and Twitter to agree in December to delete hate speech from their websites within 24 hours.

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Woman of Tatar Muslim Background Triumphs at Eurovision

As the nation was glued to their television screens, a small but important fact missed many by. This fact, was that the Ukrainian lead singer known as Dzjamala, is in fact a Muslim female – Susanna Jamaladinova.

Dzjamala performed the song “1944” during the Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm and was born in Kirghiz (Kyrgyzstan) to a Crimean Tatar father and an Armenian mother. Both Dzjamala and her father are Muslims and with her mother being Christian and her family are in fact a microcosm of the mix of faiths and the co-existence of Christian and Muslim histories in our continent.

During Stalin’s era many Tatars were treated with particular disdain and many lost their lives as they were transported from areas like the Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania to gulags around the Soviet Union. This relocation meant that Dzjamala was born in Kyrgyzstan , though when Ukraine gained independence, she returned back to her ancestral home.

Dzjamala’s win comes on the back of a year which has seen London elect a Mayor who is a Muslim and with the ‘Great British Bake Off’ being won by Nadiya in 2015. We say that those promoting anti-Muslim hatred and bigotry, that they are in the minority and they do not speak for our country or the majority of voices within them.

We also have to make clear that there are some groups purporting to advocate for British Muslims who promote a corrosive victim narrative suggesting that Muslims have no future in Europe and that they are perpetual victims. Your narrative is also defunct and downright dangerous. Muslims have a future in Europe and will continue to do so and in fact Dzjamala’s story reflects this very fact.

There may well be difficult times in the future around the place of Muslims in Europe, though this will never take away from the fact that Europe needs Muslims as much as Muslims need Europe. This relationship which has lasted over a thousand years will continue and shows that those who sell perpetual victim-hood sell a busted flush.

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Individual Pleads Guilty to Islamophobic Assault on Muslim Woman Wearing the Hijab

A North Carolina man admitted on Friday that he ripped off a Muslim woman’s head scarf during a flight to New Mexico last December after saying, “Take it off! This is America!”

Gill Payne, 37, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in New Mexico to one count of using force to intentionally obstruct the woman from freely exercising her religious beliefs, prosecutors said.

“No matter one’s faith, all Americans are entitled to peacefully exercise their religious beliefs free from discrimination and violence,” said Vanita Gupta, head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

An attorney for Payne did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Payne admitted that on a flight last December, he approached the aisle where the Muslim woman was seated shortly before landing in Albuquerque, and stopped next to her seat, Prosecutors said.

Payne then told the woman, a stranger identified in court documents as K.A., to take off her hijab, saying something to the effect of “Take it off! This is America!” prosecutors said.

Payne then grabbed the back of the hijab and “pulled it all the way off,” leaving her head exposed.

“As a result, K.A. felt violated and quickly pulled the hijab back up and covered her head again,” prosecutors said in a statement.

A sentencing hearing for Payne has not yet been set, prosecutors said.

The guilty plea comes in the wake of a number of anti-Muslim incidents in the United States.

Earlier this week, a Muslim advocacy group said a California student was embarrassed and distressed after her name was incorrectly listed as Isis, the abbreviated name of the Islamic militant group.

In late April, a New Jersey school board member resigned after drawing fire over anti-Muslim Facebook posts, including one saying, “America needs to get rid of people like you.”

In the wake of deadly attacks by Islamist militants in Paris and California last year, Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican White House nominee, called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

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A recent story published by MailOnline and The Sun reposted an argument between TfL passengers from December 14, 2014.

The respective headlines gave weight to the ‘You white sl*g!’ and ‘Don’t call me a white b***h!’ comments. We are then informed that ‘Two white women and two women wearing hijabs fired insults at each other while a horrified onlooker filmed the whole thing’. And ‘Shocking moment ‘racist’ Muslim women face off with white women in vicious confrontation on a London train’.

Both journalists make efforts to transcribe the argument, its insults and abuses. Yet the MailOnline copy makes little effort to highlight the abusive comments directed at the Muslim women. It acknowledges that they experience a ‘torrent of racist and Islamophobic abuse’; but does little to provide readers with statements until the end of the article.

Missing from the MailOnline copy are these statements:

“I don’t care if that’s your family or not or one of yous (sic), I don’t give a s**t she’s sitting there with her headscarf on being racist.”

“She’s sitting there with a headscarf on like I’m going to be threatened.”

“You’re a Muslim p***k, with that s**t round your head.”

To the Sun’s credit, the journalist did acknowledge that the argument was not quite so one-sided. But the accusation of racism remains directed solely at the Muslim women, abusive statements directed at the Muslim women are not afforded the same scrutiny, even when the MailOnline article acknowledges that the Muslim women experienced racist and Islamophobic abuse.

The MailOnline copy did acknowledge that the video surfaced in December 2014; but you’d need to read further down the article to learn this fact. The Sun, however, made the odd claim that  ‘an eyewitness filmed the altercation in March but the footage has only just surfaced online’. This may owe to the fact the article appeared a day after the MailOnline version appeared online.

In a heated and unpleasant argument where neither side comes across well, the context of what triggered the argument eludes both articles. That context does appear in the original video description.

YouTube user Jo Hip wrote that the argument had started ten minutes before they hit record. According to Jo Hip, “it all started when the white girl noticed the somalian girls steering at her and making comments under their breaths, after a while the white girl asked them, ‘Why do you keep on looking at me?. The Somalian girls responded by saying, ‘We’re free to look at whoever we want’”.

The description then adds:”After a while the white girl said ‘ I’ve dealt with many people like you and I won’t be intimidated’. When the Somalian girls heard the White girl say ‘People like you’, they assumed she was talking about their religion or race, they then said’ What do you mean people like us? Somalian? Muslim?? Well you’re nothing but a ‘White Slag’.”

Only after hearing the utterance of ‘white slag’ did the video record. The justification for filming was “to show the ignorance of people. Ignorance knows no colour or religion.”

This distorted framing of the article perhaps influenced some the comments from MailOnline readers. It reflected their own anxieties towards multiculturalism. Others recycled myths that the police would favour the Muslim women. It also captured their pessimism and fatalism. Soon it became clear that the comments focused less on the content and more on their own broader concerns and biases.

A bigger question, however, remains: why was a video uploaded in December 2014 reposted in 2016?

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Tommy Robinson Outdoes Himself in the Buffoonery Stakes

Not to be outdone in the ‘there are Moozlims‘ everywhere paranoia of far right extremists, Tommy ‘I have Changed’ Robinson, decided to put his toe in the sewer of anti-Muslim bigotry through his Twitter account. His involvement can only be described as an epic fail in the world of the Twitterati.

Failing to realise that he was targeting the wrong woman, he decided that Muslim lifestyle magazine Producer and Emel Founder, Sara Joseph, was in fact Saadia Khan, the wife of London Mayor, Sadiq Khan. Not to be outdone in the circulation of the graphic placing Sara and Saadia as being the same woman, (now with a Hijab), Tommy decided to put out the graphic in the hope that it would persuade people that the ‘Islamic take-over’ of London’s Town Hall has begun.

Hey, who cares, when one Muslim woman looks like another huh? Or maybe it was that in the rush to spread fear since ‘Moozlims’ have taken over the Mayoralty, they now had a secret plan to Islamize all of the of State institutions. This view that Muslims are secretly taking over is truly what far right sympathisers.

Robinson may truly believe this stuff, even though we think that he secretly knows that this not true. Alas, he has built his platform on anti-Muslim bigotry. So why really change?

In his blind hatred Tommy can’t tell the difference between Saadiya and me.
Malice knows no boundaries it seems. pic.twitter.com/jGBkdsND4U

— Sarah Joseph (@SarahIJoseph) May 8, 2016

The post ‘I Have Changed’ Robinson Sees Hijabs Abound After Sadiq Khan’s Win appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Conservative Member of Parliament Calls the Campaign Against Sadiq Khan – ‘The Rough and Tumble of Politics’.

Efforts by the Conservative party to link the new Mayor of London to Muslim extremism during campaigning for the capital’s election were just part of the “rough and tumble” of politics, a senior MP said on Saturday.

As politicians from all sides lined up to condemn his party’s tactics in the mayoral race won by Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants and the first Muslim to hold the job, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon refused to apologise.

“In the rough and tumble of elections, you get stuff said, questions asked,” Fallon told the BBC when asked if he regretted describing Khan as a “Labour lackey” who speaks alongside extremists.

“I think it is right that candidates for some of the most important offices in Britain do get scrutinised about their past associations.”

Conservatives including Prime Minister David Cameron and Fallon himself had sought to question whether London would be safe being run by the 45-year-old Khan, a Labour Party MP who grew up in public housing in the capital’s inner city.

Khan, whose parents worked as a bus driver and a seamstress, defeated Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, the son of a billionaire financier, by a record margin to secure the biggest individual mandate in British political history. His victory in Thursday’s election made headlines around the world.

Some commentators suggested the focus on Khan’s religion had backfired in a city noted for its diversity and which is one of the world’s top financial centres. Britain remains largely free of the identity politics seen in the United States.

During the race Goldsmith had joined forces with Cameron and other senior party members to question Khan’s past appearances alongside radical Muslim speakers at public events, accusing him of giving “oxygen” to extremists.

CONTROVERSY, CONGRATULATIONS

A former human rights lawyer, Khan said he had fought extremism all his life and regretted sharing a stage with speakers who held “abhorrent” views.

“This election was not without controversy and I am so proud that London has today chosen hope over fear and unity over division,” Khan said in a short speech after the results were announced early on Saturday. “I hope that we will never be offered such a stark choice again.”

Sayeeda Warsi, a former Conservative Party chairman, said the campaign had damaged the party’s reputation and credibility on issues of race and religion, while Labour politicians called on Fallon and Cameron to stop smearing their candidate.

As the left-wing mayors of New York and Paris saluted Khan, the Financial Times newspaper described the win as a “remarkable triumph over the racial and religious tensions that have bedevilled other European capitals”, saying it highlighted London’s tolerance.

Among the first to congratulate Khan was Goldsmith’s sister Jemima, a journalist and campaigner who described London as a city for all cultures, backgrounds and religions. She said the victory was a great example to young Muslims.

“Sad that Zac’s campaign did not reflect who I know him to be — an eco friendly, independent-minded politician with integrity,” she tweeted.

Sajid Javid, business secretary and a Conservative, said on Twitter: “From one son of a Pakistani bus driver to another, congratulations.”

Khan’s victory makes him the first Muslim to head a major Western capital, presiding over such issues as policing, transport and housing for 8.6 million people. The mayor does not run the City of London financial district but can try to influence the government in lobbying for the capital.

The Labour party also maintained control of the London Assembly, making the capital one of the few bright spots for the opposition party, which endured a day of poor results in elections elsewhere in the country.

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Enquiry into the Direction of the Campaign Needs to be Undertaken by the Conservatives

It took Jeremy Corbyn some time to ensure that he set out an Inquiry into Antisemitism which will be headed up by Shami Chakraborty. The Inquiry is needed given the charges of antisemitism that should be looked into and given the fact that the Labour Party has a proud history of tackling racism. (For those who believe that antisemitism is not racism, let us put this bizarre argument to bed, it is racism and legally seen as such).

But there are questions to be asked of the campaign of Zac Goldsmith and let us not forget that towards the end of the campaign, the theme consistently put out was the link between extremism and Sadiq Khan. Some within the Conservative Party must have known that this would be read negatively within Muslim communities at a time when many Muslims are tired of their communities being framed solely through the lens of extremism. This was also expressly stated by Baroness Warsi in tweets that she put out.

These impacts would therefore have been known, but someone in the campaign made the decision to run on the extremism narrative and to push it through repetitively. Who was that individual or individuals is the question to be asked? How could this have been the main theme of Zac Goldsmith’s campaign is another question to be asked? Who authorised the campaign and who agreed to it? These are legitimate questions to be asked.

If we are to have a London united, then the public also need answers to these questions. In fact, over 1 million Londoners voted for Sadiq Khan. At the very least 1 million people would surely like an answer to these questions. We hope that the Conservative Party does show transparency and order an Inquiry into what went so disastrously wrong with the campaign that they had to resort to the lowest common denominator – innuendos about how the Labour candidate met someone over 10 years ago who was extreme and by default must have tendencies towards extremists. This is the narrative that was weaved and it was a toxic narrative. It is a narrative that has been soundly rejected by Londoners. However, now the questions must be asked about the Conservative campaign.

The post Labour Did the Right Thing on AntiSemitism, Now the Conservatives Must on Islamophobia appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Mayoral Campaign Was Run on the Basis of Smears, Innuendo & Negativity

The Conservative Mayoral campaign that has been run fixating on extremists and past associations with extremists may well have put off voters from listening to the public policies of Zac Goldsmith. Zac Goldsmith himself is a man who cares about issues affecting communities and is someone with a genuine desire to make a positive change for communities. Yet the campaign placed around him may well have also damaged his public reputation in the way that it constantly sniped at past events in the life of Sadiq Khan. It gave the impression of Goldsmith as being aggressive and playing to the lowest common denominator, of placing extremism with a Labour Muslim Mayoral candidate with no real tangible evidence.

Stories even went back to 2004, as a way of placing a question mark in the minds of voters, as though he was somehow secretly ‘one of them’. What ‘one of them’ meant was left to the reader, though it was a subtle attempt to suggest that people could not trust Sadiq Khan.

It looks like the people of London have rejected the attacks and the negative campaigning against Khan’s character. Also, let us be honest and say that whilst associations which politicians had should be questioned since they are in the public eye, the constant focus on who Khan met sometimes over a decade ago showed that the Tory campaign was solely based on pressing the button on extremism and Khan. They were playing to this core campaigning theme with little regard of the damage that it was doing to its image in Muslim communities. We believe that this will have short and medium term implications for the Conservatives as many Muslims remember and associate this campaign with them. This in itself is sad since this Conservative Government has ben strong on tackling anti-Muslim prejudice and ensuring that this is pushed through at a national and local level. This should also not be forgotten.

We hope that such a campaign is assigned to the past. It is clear that Londoners have rejected the negative campaign and in significant numbers. We also welcome the new Mayor of London and hope that he unites Londoners rather than dividing them.

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