For some reason, I found myself reading the proceeedings of the Islamic Human Rights Commission‘s Annual Islamophobia Awards. They’re annoying.
Islamophobia is a problem. There are people who are taken seriously in the UK and US who genuinely hate Muslims, say truly vile things about the religion and (far more importantly) its adherents, and need to be publically shamed. Unfortunately, few of the Islamophobia Award Winners are among them.
So BNP fuckwit Nick Griffin was a nominee for Islamophobic politician of the year, for saying Muslims were aggressive and corrupt and that they brought ethnic cleansing upon themselves. Fair enough. David Blunkett was a nominee for saying that 30% of British Asians didn’t speak English at home. Hmm. The two shared the award.
Then in the flagship ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ category, Bush’s “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror” was up against John Ashcroft “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you”. Now, the second of these appears somewhat Islamophobic. The first, err, is only relevant if you view Muslims as terrorists – a perception that I’d like to think these awards are against…
Perhaps the highlight of the awards was a speech from Sister Muddassar Arani, which needs to be read for one reason or another. Apparently the British police put guns to children’s heads to threaten their parents for being Muslims, and arrest Muslims for trying to get married.
If true, this allegations are very serious – not particularly for anything to do with Islam, but because they’re clear violations of all human rights laws and the relevant policemen ought to be thrown out of the force and into jail with great rapidity. But as far as evidence for their truth goes, err, well…
So well done, Islamic Human Rights Commission. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m reasonably sure it’s made up of self-promoting tossers who speak for the Muslim people about as much as Billy Graham speaks for Christians, then it would have actually managed to *damage* at least one British liberal’s perception of Muslims as “not being swivel-eyed moonbats”…
Update: the “some reason” is because Peter Briffa linked to it earlier. Sorry Peter…
FOr some reason???
Well I know why even if you don’t.
Natalie Solent linked to it and I read.
William Hague gets a nomination for supporting the existence of Israel. That’s Islamophobic?
G.W. Bush got nominated for pointing out what should have been obvious – that there is a difference between stark raving loonies who fly planes into World Trade Centres and the established democracy. Well, I suppose it was inevitable that he got the award…
Melanie Philips won the Media Islamophobe award. That puzzled me a bit – I’ve seen articles of hers in the Spectator that were actively critical of Israeli policy. Perhaps their definition of Islamophobic in this respect is ‘anybody who doesn’t offer uncritical support of crazy terrorist organisations like Hamas’?
Islamophobe award of the year? Hmmm, nice idea. Pity the people that had it weren’t so nice.