Archive for the ‘Feminism’ Category
A conversation to be had about race in the Newcastle sex abuse scandal – and we should be brave enough to have it
Newcastle sex ring victims suffered ‘profoundly racist crime’, says former CPS chief Independent.
Lord Macdonald warns of ‘major problem in particular communities’ of men viewing young white girls as ‘trash’.
BBC
Rotherham MP Sarah Champion was speaking after 17 men were convicted of forcing girls in Newcastle to have sex.
Mostly British-born, they are from Iraqi, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Iranian and Turkish communities.
Ms Champion said asking if there were “cultural issues” was simply “child protection”.
Northumbria Police said society “can’t be afraid to have this discussion”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms Champion, Labour’s shadow women and equalities minister, said gang-related child sexual exploitation involves “predominately Pakistani men” who were involved in such cases “time and time and time again”.
Julie Bindel has stood out for an exceptional article on the issues raised.
We do not need to ask why so many men of Asian origin abuse children. This is a racist question. Rather, we need to ask why some white liberals appear to bend over backwards to find a way to claim these men are set up
The Newcastle case, in which 17 men and one women were convicted for rape, sexual assault, sadistic abuse and general heartless violation of girls and woman, has now become another argument about race. While on the one hand the racists and fascists twist the truth about child sexual abuse to give kudos to their arguments against asylum seekers and black and minority ethnic British citizens, much of the liberal left wring their hands and worry about being labelled “racist”.
It would appear that this matters more to some that preventing the rape of children and young women.
We do not need to ask why so many men of Asian origin abuse children. This is a racist question. Rather, we need to ask why some white liberals appear to bend over backwards to find a way to claim these men are set up, or unjustly treated, and why police and other state agencies have been known to turn the other cheek.
In 2007, my name was added to an ever-growing list on Islamophobia Watch the same day that my investigation on grooming gangs in Northern English towns was published in a national newspaper. I was accused of demonising the entire British Asian community by specifying the fact that these particular criminal gangs originated from Pakistan. My reason for mentioning ethnicity at all was to raise the unavoidable fact that some child protection agencies, and a number of senior police officers have made it plain that they were taking a hands-off approach in such cases lest they were labelled racist.
I was clear in the piece – I did not think that the police particularly cared about having the slur of “Islamaphobe” thrown at them from lefties, but rather they didn’t want to be responsible for policing a “race riot” as one senior police officer in West Yorkshire said would be the result of raising the ethnicity of the perpetrators.
During my investigations, I found there to be a stubborn defensiveness from a number of quarters, including some charities, when I asked about the relevance of the ethnic origin of the perpetrators, despite the fact that I carefully explained that I wished to tackle this thorny issue from the perspective of an anti-racist, and not a member of the BNP. Furthermore, I said how disgusted I was that racist pressure groups had colonised these crimes for their own dangerous agenda, and had been allowed to do so because the issue had been given a wide berth by the left. Some of the individuals that gave me the cold shoulder back in the early 2000s were named in the Jay report of 2013 as having failed the victims of child sexual abuse, partly because of their “nervousness” and unwillingness to engage with issues regarding the ethnicity of the perpetrators.
Although I was congratulated on journalistic endeavours in exposing these crimes by a number of friends and colleagues of Asian descent – such as the journalist and anti-racist campaigner Yasmin Alibhai-Brown – many white left-leaning liberals clearly believed I should not have even mentioned ethnicity or religious identity of the perpetrators lest it might “incite racism”
Read the rest of the article here.
So far there has been little other serious public debate on the issues involved with one major exception, yesterday’s Newsnight..
The Express gives a distorted report on this.
BBC Newsnight guest claims Newcastle grooming gang should not be considered ‘Muslim’
MEMBERS of grooming gangs should not be considered Muslim due to the un-Islamic nature of their vile actions, a high profile member of the community has claimed.
An impassioned Newsnight debate on the role of the Islamic community after the heinous incidents, one-panel member protested at blame being levelled at British Muslims.
It follows a court hearing earlier this week which saw 17 men and one woman convicted of rape, sexual assault, human trafficking and inciting prostitution as the city of Newcastle was added to the growing list of UK towns blighted by the evil grooming gangs.
Muhbeen Hussain, founder of the group British Muslim Youth, claimed the sex gang incident was not a Muslim problem in an emotional speech which brought on criticism from controversial columnist Katie Hopkins.
Speaking on Newsnight Mr Hussain said: “Islam is a religion of all cultures.
The Newsnight debate (here) began by underlining that there was a problem, the number of similar cases could not escape attention, however marginal and unrepresentative they were of the wider community.
It was impressive to see how the debate that followed, between young Muslims of very different views, raised a whole series of issues, including religion.
Those taking part were not shy of pointing out that sex abuse cases had come up in other quarters, though perhaps citing the Catholic Church would have been more relevant than the name of name of Jimmy Savile.
As some participants underlined, the way in which the prosecuted acted had a lot to do with a kind of night-time abuse of the vulnerable.
One mentioned that the culture of dividing women between respectable veiled Muslim women, and Western dressed white women, was a serious problem.
This is related to religion: the laying down of “modest” dress codes is not just ‘cultural’ by sanctioned by many readings of the Qur’an. The converse, is that “immodest” women are worth less.
In many states modest dress is laid down by law, “in Iran, women are required to wear loose-fitting clothing and a headscarf in public”, “Saudi Arabia is different from many Islamic societies in the extent of the covering that it considers Islamically correct hijab (everything except the hands and eyes) and the fact that covering is enforced by Mutaween or religious police.”
Islamic religious police exist in a number of countries.
You can’t help feeling that, like in The Handmaid’s Tale, extreme public conformity to bigoted religious norms co-exists with an underworld of sexual abuse.
Declaration of the International Conference on Freedom of Conscience and Expression in the 21st Century.
International Conference on Freedom of Conscience and Expression in the 21st Century
This is important and we extend our solidarity to those standing up for freedom of thought against religious bigotry.
The International Conference on Freedom of Conscience and Expression, the largest gathering of ex-Muslims in history, was held during 22-24 July 2017 in London.
Over 70 notable speakers from 30 countries or the Diaspora gathered in what was dubbed “The Glastonbury of Freethinkers” and “a Conference of Heroes” to honour dissenters and defend apostasy, blasphemy, and secularism.
The sold-out conference highlighted the voices of those on the frontlines of resistance – many of them persecuted and exiled – and included the first London film screening of Deeyah Khan’s film, Islam’s Non Believers, a public art protest of 99 balloons representing those killed or imprisoned for blasphemy and apostasy, a body-painting action, and crucial discussions and debates on Islamophobia and its use by Islamists to impose de facto blasphemy laws, the relation between Islam and Islamism as well as communalism’s threat to universal rights, art as resistance and Laicite as a human rights. The conference hashtag, #IWant2BFree, trended on Twitter during the two days.
At the conference, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) honoured ten individuals to mark its tenth anniversary, namely Bangladeshi freethinker Bonya Ahmed, Saudi freethinkers Ensaf Haidar and Raif Badawi, Moroccan atheist Zineb El Rhazoui, Philosopher AC Grayling, Centre for Secular Space’s Gita Sahgal and Yasmin Rehman, Algerian Sociologist Marieme Helie Lucas, Jordanian Atheists’ Founder Mohammad AlKhadra, Egyptian Atheist Founder of The Black Ducks Ismail Mohamed and Author and Scientist Richard Dawkins.
The conference issued resolutions against the no-platforming of Richard Dawkins by KPFA radio station, in defence of Ismail Mohamed who was prevented from leaving Egypt to speak at the conference by the Egyptian government, and on CEMB’s presence in Pride in London as well as a Declaration of Freethinkers (see below).
The event was live-streamed, which can be seen here. Professional video footage will be made available soon as well photos and more details of the event.
Report from Sedaa, London conference sees ‘largest gathering of ex-Muslims in history’.
Sedaa founder Iram Ramzan, who was co-hosting the event, said: “The conference reminded us all that there are people in the UK and around the world who are ostracised or persecuted simply for deciding to think for themselves.
“It was also noted that one does not necessarily have to be an atheist in order to be a champion of secularism. In fact, a lot of religious people at the event recognised that secularism allows them to worship in the way they want to, just as it would protect non-religious people. A secular state would remain neutral in religious affairs.”
No apologies. Maryam Namazie
This is my letter to you.
Not you, the Islamist, who wants me silent or dead whilst dreaming of your vile caliphate, nor you, the racist, who wants my Muslim and migrant family out whilst dreaming of your contemptible white, Christian Europe. To me, you are two sides of the same coin.
This is my letter to you who I should consider a friend, an ally, but who refuses to make a stand with me. You: the progressive, the anti-racist, the supposed defender of human rights.
How come your defence of freedom of conscience and expression never includes my right to reject and criticise Islam?
You exclude, bar, ban, blame and shame me – or at the very least – remain silent, simply because of who I am: an ex-Muslim, an atheist, a critic of Islam.
Of course, you have a right to your silence.
You are not responsible for my persecution. Only those who threaten, kill and harm freethinkers in countries and communities under Islamist control are directly responsible; justice, after all, can never be about placing collective blame.
But I do accuse.
I accuse you of blaming me and never the perpetrators.
They always seem to have some ‘legitimate’ grievance or ‘hurt’ sensibility that justifies their incitement to violence or mass murder.
I, on the other hand, am always at fault:
‘If only I had not offended’ Your religion offends me but I am still able to stand with you and defend your right to religion.
‘If only I had not provoked’ Islamists kill, maim, silence and I am the one provoking them by saying what I think? Is that you speaking or them?
‘If only I had respected Islam’ You don’t respect my atheism; why must I respect your religion? In any case, one is not required to respect beliefs but the right to belief.
‘If only I had kept my opinion about Islam to myself’… You do not keep your opinions to yourself. Every day, from every corner I hear how ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ and that ‘Islamists are not practising real Islam’. Religion is shoved down my throat until I suffocate; yet I must keep my opinions to myself? Do I not also have the right to speak and think as I choose? Until Islamists stop threatening me, I will shout my atheism from every rooftop.
‘I am aiding racism because I criticise Islam’ Are you promoting terrorism because you defend Islam? I do not blame you for terrorism; stop blaming me for racism – which, by the way, affects me too.
Dear ‘friend’,
Is it really so hard to grasp that freedom of conscience is not just for the believer? That it includes the right not to believe, the right to reject Islam – publicly or otherwise. That freedom of expression is not just for those who defend and promote Islam. It is also my and our freedom to criticise Islam, mock it, and even see it as the regressive ideology of the Islamist movement.
And to do so publicly without fear.
Frankly, when I hear the Quran recited, it feels like a kick to my stomach. It reminds me of executions in Iran and the totalitarian nightmare from which I have fled and sought refuge.
Nonetheless, I can still make a distinction between beliefs and human beings. I can still defend the right to religion; I can still stand with you against fascists of all stripes.
Why can you not defend my right to reject religion?
Why can you not stand with me?
Can you not see that freedom of religion is meaningless without freedom from religion? These are corresponding freedoms. They cannot exist fully without the other.
Maybe you can afford your silence. After all, religion and its defenders have always been privileged and freethinkers have always been persecuted throughout the ages. But I and we cannot.
Because we have no choice.
Because we have a right to think and live freely – even if it offends you.
Because if we don’t speak for ourselves, who will speak for us? You certainly won’t.
Because we must speak for ourselves, our loved ones, for those who cannot speak, for those who are beaten into submission in homes in London, imprisoned in Riyadh or are facing the gallows in Tehran and Karachi.
For Raif Badawi, for Sina Dehghan, Sahar Ilyasi, Ayaz Nizami, Ahmad Al-Shamri, Taimoor Raza, Avijit Roy…
Because we are the tsunami that is coming…
Yes, I don’t blame you for my persecution, but I do often wonder how much of a role your victim blaming and silence play – even if unwittingly – in normalising the open season on Islam’s atheists and freethinkers.
I wonder. If you were not so tolerant of the culture of offence and so intolerant of my criticism, would the world not be a different place?
I accuse.
#IWant2BFree
“Religion has ever filled the mind of man with darkness, and kept him in ignorance of his real duties and true interests. It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of Religion, that we shall discover Truth, Reason, and Morality. Religion diverts us from the causes of evils, and from the remedies which nature prescribes; far from curing, it only aggravates, multiplies, and perpetuates them.” ― Paul Henri Thiry d’Holbach
Southall Black Sisters Stand with the Council of ex-Muslims of Britain.
Southall Black Sisters: One of the Most Respected Campaign Groups in Britain.
Pink News: Ex-Muslim group hit back after Pride ‘Allah is gay’ sign row: ‘They are trying to silence us’
The Council of Ex-Muslims of Great Britain (CEMB) has hit back after the controversy concerning their placards at the Pride in London paradeearlier this month.
Members of the secularist group held signs reading “Allah is gay” and “F**k Islamic Homophobia”, prompting an official complaint from the East London Mosque claiming that the group “was inciting hatred against Muslims”.
Prior to the march, the CEMB rejected claims of Islamophobia, their co-founder Maryam Namazie saying: “We need to stand up to racism and bigotry and at the same time we should be able to criticise religion and the religious right… people should be allowed to criticise without threat or intimidation.”
Following last week’s complaint from the East London Mosque, Namazie took issue with the suggestion that the signs and protest were in any way “anti-Muslim” – the group also published a full press release outlining its response in full.
“Why are signs critical of Islam (a belief) and Islamism (a far-right political movement) ‘anti-Muslim’?” she told Pink News.
“Muslims are people, with as many different opinions as anyone else. They are not a homogeneous group but individuals.
“Some will agree with us, others won’t. In fact, several Muslims visiting from Bangladesh joined us.
“The incredible support we received from minorities in the crowd cheering us on is a reflection of that. Not everyone was offended. And offence can never be a reason to censor and silence dissent.”
She added that ex-Muslims, including LGBT ex-Muslims, should have the right to speak beyond the confines of Islam and away from the control of “regressive” so-called leaders, including the East London Mosque.
“The East London mosque’s accusation that we are inciting hatred against Muslims for criticising their incitement to violence against apostates and LGBT would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic and if so many didn’t buy into it,” she said.
“The East London mosque has a history of inciting hate and violence against apostates and LGBT. It has clear links to the Islamist movement which executes apostates and gay men.
“Moreover, it has no ‘track record for challenging homophobia’. If so, where is its support for Muslim and ex-Muslim LGBT or LGBT persecuted outside of Britain in countries under Sharia?”
Namazie argued that the Mosque has refused dialogue with the LGBT community.
She noted that Peter Tatchell claimed to have asked to meet with the Mosque 11 times since 2015 but been knocked back each time.
Read more here.
It’s not often these days when we agree with ‘arry’s Place.
But on this one they are more than right to point out that if the kind of racist, violent misogynistic, anti-gay, anti-humanist views expressed at the East London Mosque were broadcast by anybody else, notably Christian fundamentalists, they’d be the target of a massive left-wing campaign.
The East London Mosque – Surrealist Politics
Here’s Maajid Nawaz’s take on the CEMB protest:
Maajid accepts that “these posters are provocative” but argues that this “is not Islamaphobia.”
He said “I wouldn’t want to hold up those banners, you may not want to hold up those banners, but it’s their right to hold up those banners. It’s like complaining about The Book of Mormon or The Life of Brian.”
The LBC host said that the East London Mosque were using the Islamaphobia as a “shield to prevent people from critiquing the religion of Islam itself.”
He went on to say the only signs that could be considered Islamophobic were those that encourgaed hatred and violence towards Islamic people and none of the signs reached that criteria. He said that a poster saying “‘Allah is gay’ that isn’t telling anyone to go and target a Muslim.”
Yes, that’s pretty much where I stand.
The East London Mosque’s record is far, far more “provocative”. And we’re helping to pay for it all – the mosque has raked in public sector grants totalling £3.2 mn over the last decade. This includes grants for “community cohesion” (£325,000 in total). No, really.
The mosque’s surreal “track record” stance will be backed by the malignant and the deluded, of course. They are sadly numerous in East London.
For those with eyes to see, though, yet more scales should fall now.
Protest at Court of Appeal: Gender Segregation is Gender Apartheid!
Protest at Court of Appeal hearing on 11 and 12 July 2017 at 9.30am.
Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2A 2LL.
Pack out the public gallery in the court so that the judiciary is under no illusion as to what is at stake.
GENDER SEGREGATION IS GENDER APARTHEID
Southall Black Sisters Intervention in Court of Appeal case on Gender Segregation
SBS is intervening on a legal case in the Court of Appeal on 11th – 12th July against gender segregation and has organised a protest outside the court.
Gender segregation in education
School X – a co-educational, Muslim voluntary aided school in the UK – segregates its pupils based on their gender. From the age of 9 to 16, boys and girls from Muslim parents are segregated for everything – during lessons and all breaks, activities and school trips.
On 13 and 14 June 2016, the school was inspected by the regulatory body, Ofsted, which raised concerns about a number of leadership failings including those involving gender segregation, the absence of effective safeguarding procedures, and an unchallenged culture of gender stereotyping and homophobia. Offensive books promoting rape, violence against women and misogyny were discovered in the school library. Some girls also complained anonymously that gender segregation did not prepare them for social interaction and integration into the wider society. As a result of what it found during the inspection, Ofsted judged the school to be inadequate and placed it in special measures.
‘Separate but equal’
The school took legal action to stop Ofsted from publishing its report. They argued that, amongst other things, the report was biased and that gender segregation does not amount to sex discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
On 8 November 2016, following a High Court hearing, the presiding judge, Mr Justice Jay, found that there was no sex discrimination because of his reading of the law and the lack of evidence before him. He found that gender segregation did not amount to sex discrimination since both boys and girls were ‘separated equally’. He noted that although women hold minority power in society generally, there was no evidence before him that girls suffered specifically as a result of the segregation in this school. Mr Justice Jay noted the differences between segregation on the grounds of race in the USA and South Africa in previous decades and gender segregation in the UK today, concluding that he had not heard evidence that gender segregation made girls feel disadvantaged or inferior.
Ofsted appealed against the ruling of the High Court which will be heard at the Court of Appeal on 11 and 12 July 2017.
The case for intervention
Southall Black Sisters and Inspire are intervening in the case because of its great public importance – especially for minority women and girls. Although, gender segregation and its implications are not specific to School X, but apply equally to a number of other faith schools, the point of our intervention is two-fold:
First, to show how the growing practice of gender segregation in education is not a benign development: Like racial segregation in the USA and South Africa, gender segregation within BME communities in the UK, has a social, and political history that can be traced back to the Rushdie Affair when religious fundamentalists sensed an opportunity to seize education as a battleground and a site on which to expand their influence. Since then, we have seen emboldened fundamentalists in South Asian communities attempting to impose gender segregation in schools and universities. Mr Justice Jay did not look into the wider social and political context in which gender segregation is practiced in minority communities. Had he done so, he would have seen its broad-ranging and long-lasting effect on all areas of women’s lives: that gender segregation is a political choice and that the struggle against it mirrors the struggle against racial segregation.
Second, we want to ensure that gender equality is placed at the heart of Ofsted inspections in all schools, irrespective of their status and composition. We recognise that gender segregation can sometimes be educationally beneficial. But in the hands of ultra-conservatives and fundamentalists, it has an entirely different intent and consequence which is to mount a wholesale assault on women’s rights: socially, culturally and politically.
A violation of human rights
UN human rights experts have noted that ‘fundamentalists everywhere target education in different ways: In some places, they kill teachers or carry out acid attacks on students. Elsewhere they attempt to impose gender segregation in schools or to exclude women and girls altogether. In other places, they seek to change the content of education, removing sex education from the curriculum or censoring scientific theories with which they do not agree’
School X’s approach is consistent with Muslim fundamentalist ideologies that strive to create a fundamentalist vision of education in the UK: one that discourages mixed-gender activities as ‘Un-Islamic’ and ultimately legitimises patriarchal power structures. Their aim is to reinforce the different spaces – private and public – that men and women must occupy, and their respective stereotyped roles, which accord them differential and unequal status. This approach constitutes direct discrimination under the UK’s Equality Act 2010. It also violates International human rights laws, standards and principles on equality and non-discrimination such as CEDAW and Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals, to which the UK has signed up. Women’s rights must take priority over intolerant beliefs that are used to justify sex discrimination.
Gender segregation is gender apartheid
This is a significant and potentially precedent-setting case about sex discrimination and equality. Ultra-conservative and fundamentalist gender norms are seeping into the everyday life of minority communities. Education has become a gendered ideological terrain upon which the potential of women and girls together with their hopes, aspirations and dreams are extinguished. Gender segregation in school X is part of a wider political project that is ideologically linked to the creation of a regime of ‘gendered modesty’: one that promotes an infantilised and dehumanized notion of womanhood and, ultimately, amounts to sexual apartheid.
What you can do
We are mobilising for the Court of Appeal hearing on 11 and 12 July 2017 from 9.30am onwards.
We urge you to join us by:
- protesting outside the court on both days – Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2A 2LL;
- packing out the public gallery in the court so that the judiciary is under no illusion as to what is at stake.
- publicising our campaign widely and encouraging others to join us.
More information.
http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/…/gender-segregation…
See the High Court judgment here: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/…/uploa…/2016/11/x-v-ofsted.pdf and here: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/…/11/x-v-oftsed-press-summary.…
Southall Black Sisters is also part of the One Law for All campaign which also includes the Kurdish Culture Project, Centre for Secular Space and others working to challenge the rise of religious fundamentalism and extremism and it specific impact on the rights of black and minority women in the UK. We are currently running a campaign against the accommodation of Sharia laws in the law or as part of alternative dispute resolution systems in relation to family matters. See here: http://onelawforall.org.uk/over-300-abused-women-issue-sta…/
Information about previous challenges to gender segregation in universities can be found here: http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/…/campaign-gender-ap… and here: https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/pragna-patel/’shariafication-by-stealth’-in-uk and here: http://www.wewillinspire.com/tag/segregatio
Simone Veil, a Courageous Fighter for Women’s Freedom, passes.
Simone Veil, the revered French politician who survived the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz and defied institutional sexism to push through a law legalising abortion in France, has died on June 30th 2017. She was 89.
A widely respected figure across the political divide, Veil was the first female leader of the European Parliament and the recipient of France’s highest distinctions, including a seat among the “Immortals” of the Académie française, the prestigious state-sponsored body overseeing the French language and usage. She was renowned for her endeavours to advance women’s rights and the gracious but steely resolve with which she overcame male resistance throughout a remarkable life scarred by personal tragedy.
As one of the more than 76,000 Jews deported from France during World War II, Veil appears on the Wall of Names at the Shoah Memorial in Paris, under her maiden name Simone Jacob. So do her father André, her mother Yvonne, her sister Madeleine and her brother Jean. Of the five, only Madeleine and Simone survived the ordeal, though Madeleine would die in a car crash just seven years after the war.
Simone was the youngest of four siblings, born in the French Riviera resort of Nice on July 13, 1927, in a family of non-practising Jews. Her father, an award-winning architect, had insisted her mother abandon her studies in chemistry after they married. Like most other Jews in France, he reluctantly obeyed orders once the Nazi-allied Vichy regime came to power in June 1940, registering his family on the infamous “Jewish file” – which would later help French police and the German Gestapo round up France’s Jews and deport them.
As French nationals living in the Italian occupation zone, the Jacob family avoided the first round-ups, which targeted foreign Jews, mainly in the northern half of France that was occupied by German troops. But they suffered the sting of anti-Semitic laws, which forced André Jacob out of work and led to Simone adopting the name Jacquier to conceal her origins.
The situation worsened after September 1943, when the Nazi occupiers swept all the way down to the Riviera. Simone, then aged 16, had only just passed her baccalaureate when she was arrested by two members of the SS on March 30, 1944. The Gestapo soon rounded up the rest of the family with the exception of Simone’s sister Denise, who had joined the Resistance in Lyon. Denise would later be detained and deported to the Ravensbruck concentration camp, from where she returned after the war.
..
Still only 17, Simone returned to France devastated by the loss of her parents and sister, but determined to pursue the career her mother had been denied. She studied law at the University of Paris and the Institut d’études politiques, where she met Antoine Veil (1926-2013), a future company manager and auditor. The couple married in October 1946, and would go on to have three sons, Jean, Nicolas, and Pierre-François.
Simone Veil began work as a lawyer before successfully passing the national examination to become a magistrate in 1956. She then took on a senior position at the National Penitentiary Administration, part of the Ministry of Justice, thereby securing a first platform to pursue a lifelong endeavour of advancing women’s rights. She notably strove to improve women’s conditions in French jails and, during the Algerian War of Independence, obtained the transfer to France of Algerian female prisoners amid reports of widespread abuse and rape.
Switching to the ministry’s department of civil affairs in 1964, Veil continued to push for gender parity in matters of parental control and adoption rights. A decade later, her appointment as health minister in the centre-right administration of President Valéry Giscard D’Estaing paved the way for her biggest political test. She first battled to ease access to contraception, then took on a hostile parliament to argue in favour of a woman’s right to have a legal abortion.
“No woman resorts to an abortion with a light heart. One only has to listen to them: it is always a tragedy,” Veil said in a now-famous opening address on November 26, 1974, before a National Assembly almost entirely composed of men. She added: “We can no longer shut our eyes to the 300,000 abortions that each year mutilate the women of this country, trample on its laws and humiliate or traumatise those who undergo them.”
After her hour-long address, the minister endured a torrent of abuse from members of her own centre-right coalition. One lawmaker claimed her law would “each year kill twice as many people as the Hiroshima bomb”. A second berated the Holocaust survivor for “choosing genocide”. Another still spoke of embryos “thrown into crematorium ovens”.
“I had no idea how much hatred I would stir,” Veil told French journalist Annick Cojean in 2004, reflecting on the vitriolic debate decades earlier. “There was so much hypocrisy in that chamber full of men, some of whom would secretly look for places where their mistresses could have an abortion.”
The bill was eventually passed, thanks to support from the left-wing opposition, though Veil had to withstand the affront of swastikas painted on her car and home. Today, the “loi Veil” enjoys overwhelming support in France, where few mainstream politicians dare to challenge it.
…she was elected to the Académie française, becoming only the sixth woman to join the prestigious “Immortals”, who preside over the French language. Her ceremonial sword was engraved with the motto of the French Republic (“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”), that of the European Union (“United in diversity”), and the five digits tattooed on her forearm in the inferno of Auschwitz, which she never removed.
Le Monde: Mort de Simone Veil, icône de la lutte pour les droits des femmes
Libération: Simone Veil, une femme debout.
The extreme right hated Simone Veil, and still do,
This is a recent Blog piece.
Un site d’extrême droite se réjouit de l’état de santé de Simone Veil
The Communist Party leader saluted Simone Veil.
BBC Set to Balance Kerry-Anne Mendoza on QT with Robbie Travers Appearing next week.
Robbie Travers, Right-Wing Millennial to appear on QT to ‘balance’ left-wing firebrand Kerry-Anne?
Following the announcement that Kerry-Anne Mendoza is to appear on QT this week well established rumour has it that Robbie Travers will be on soon to offer ‘another view’ to the respected left-wing political commentator.
Oor Robbie….from the Official Travers’ Blog Site, “Things that Never Happened.”
Rapunzel hair and a dedicated social media following are just two of the many things that caught our eye about Robbie Travers.
A third year lawyer at Edinburgh University, the outspoken student has been coined the city’s biggest name on campus thanks largely to his unashamed political views. We’re not just talking politics chats around the pub table; Travers is a professional political commentator and consultant who founded his own think tank in 2014.
A combination of these things means Travers has nearly 10,000 followers on his Facebook page, where he regularly posts current affairs commentary (an example of which is embedded below).
Alongside his social media musings, he writes regularly for think tank the Gatestone Institute and sometimes the nationals (an article the LLB student wrote on the “dangerous fallacy” of university safe spaces featured in The Telegraph earlier this month). He is pals with Liz Kendall MP, and needs an administrative helper to sift through the emails he receives from journalists and clients.
Phew, that’s quite the bio. But, if that wasn’t BNOC-y enough for you, the Russell Group student has another claim to fame. In December, he posted on his Facebook page that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, had blocked him on Twitter.
Robbie, like Kerry-Anne, a master of the new social media, has also starred on the Victoria Derbyshire Show.
He has recently joined the Conservatives:
Tariq Ramadan’s ‘Debate’ ‘Within the Islamic Tradition’ on Female Circumcision.
Ramadan Faces, “campaign by far-right circles, fundamentalist secularists, inveterate Zionists, lying ex-Muslims…”
Tariq Ramadan (Arabic: طارق رمضان; born 26 August 1962) is a Swiss academic, philosopher and writer. He is the professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and also teaches at the Oxford Faculty of Theology. He is a visiting professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies (Qatar), the Université Mundiapolis (Morocco) and several other universities around world. He is also a senior research fellow at Doshisha University (Japan). He is the director of the Research Centre of Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE), based in Doha.[3] He is a member of the UK Foreign Office Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief.[4] He was elected by Time magazine in 2000 as one of the seven religious innovators of the 21st century and in 2004 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world[5] and by Foreign Policy magazine (2005, 2006, 2008-2010, 2012-2015) as one of the top 100 most influential thinkers in the world and Global Thinkers. (Wikipedia)
To get an idea of why this Blog has nothing but disdain for Ramadan his reaction to the massacres at Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher is a good place to start,
Speaking on the BBC’s Today Programme earlier this morning, Prof Ramadan condemned the attack on the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, saying that, “these are very difficult times and a very sad situation” and expressing his “deepest sympathy for the victims’ families.”
“We must start by condemning what happened and what was done in the name of Islam… what they did in fact was to betray our principles, our values and the overall message of Islam,” he stated.
…
Prof Ramadan also outlined the need for a more nuanced reaction to the atrocities, and for there to be a real attempt to understand the grievances that might lead such people to commit such extreme acts of violence.
The Oxford Don is perhaps best known for calling for a “moratorium” – not the abolition – of some Sharia law penalties as stoning people to death (An International call for Moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in the Islamic World. 2005)
A new controversy about Islamic Legality began last week (June the 14th).
It has not stopped growing.
… on Monday, influential Islamist thinker and activist Tariq Ramadan released a 10 minute video on Facebook expressing support for Elsayed staying on. Ramadan stated Muslim leaders who advocate for FGM should be understood as “brothers,” part of “our community” and Muslims who disagree should engage them with “internal discussion” and are instructed “not to expose them.” Here are some of the highlights from this video.
The author continued,
First Ramadan starts by framing opposition to FGM as a critique coming from “outside the community” and stating that he opposes the calls for firing Elsayed:
“I’m reacting to what I heard and some questions that I had about what happened in Washington with this controversy round a shaykh who was not yet fired – I hope he is not going to be, but he was asked to stop preaching and to stop being active within the community or within the mosque in Washington. And I think that some of the brothers and the sisters even wrote a letter after the controversy around female genital mutilation and excision asking for him to be fired from the mosque and reacting to a video that was posted about what he said in the gathering with Muslim students, men and women. Let me say three things about this because I think this [sic] are critical times and we have to be quite serious about the way we are reacting to controversies and the way we are reacting to some critiques that are coming from outside the community and we have to ask ourselves what we are doing.”
Next Ramadan makes his argument that because FGM is defended by some Muslim scholars it qualifies as “part of our tradition” and is therefore worthy of being “promoted”:
“My position as a Muslim scholar, my position: it’s wrong that we should not promote this because I think that first, it’s not in the Koran and second, it’s part of the Sunnah that we have, and it’s something that is done in African countries, among the Christians and the Muslims and it’s not religious. Having said that, I cannot deny the fact that some scholars at the highest levels of their institutional position are supporting the fact that this is possible that you can go for excision, not to go up to the mutilation and infibulation as it is known in African countries, but we have this in our tradition and it’s part of the internal discussion that we need to have. So to please people who are attacking Islam by saying ‘Oh no, no, no, this is not Islamic. It’s illegal,’ it’s not even faithful to our tradition. We need to have an internal discussion… So, once again, we have to be serious. Any one of the six months of any basic Islamic training, no one can say it’s not part of our tradition. It’s controversial, it’s discussed… you need to take a position, but you then cannot deny the fact that this is something which is part of our tradition.”
Then Ramadan shifts to attacking opponents of FGM, decrying them as Islamophobes, attacking MEMRI by name, and criticizing Muslims for wanting “to be perceived as moderate, open-minded”:
“You need to ask yourself: who are these people who are using videos, putting them and creating controversy? If you are reacting only when Islamophobes – and the people, MEMRI, we know who they are, we know what they want to do, we know in which way they want to make Islam problems, not only in the United States of America but around the world through the translation, distorting and covering in ways that are very specific, they have a very specific objective, they have a very specific way of dealing with scholars, intellectuals, and Islam. These are Islamophobes, and you react to them by just exposing one of your leaders, a shaykh that has been serving the community for more than 30 years and you ask for him to be fired so quickly just to be on the safe side of the political discussion in the United States of America by saying ‘Oh, we have nothing to do with this’ while your tradition is there and it’s discussed within your tradition and whoever is attacking you at least you have to be cautious with the people who are using this and are putting you in a situation which is yes, problematic, but you have to stand for your rights to have opinions, and at least to have internal discussion and not to react so quickly to these issues… And the last thing that I wanted to say: we disagree. I don’t agree with the statement. I don’t with one brother, I don’t agree with one leader. Can’t we take the time to have an internal discussion? To say ‘Look we are not going to respond to the controversy, we are not going to fire the people just to be on the safe side and to be perceived as moderate, as open-minded.'”
Ramadan’s concluding comments are perhaps the most revealing [emphasis added]:
At least we take the time and we let the people know these are internal issues, these are discussions that we want to have among ourselves and it’s not for you to decide when we have to fire somebody or even what are our priorities, because at the end of the day the context is now deciding for us, and people around us are deciding for us what are our priorities, what are the main principle of Islam, and we are not able to come with dignity, with consistency, with confidence and say, ‘Ok, this is who we are, we don’t have all the same opinions, there are discussions, there are internal discussions, we will take our decision, we will have our Shura, our deliberation with it, and it is for us to decide, not for Islamophobes, not for racists, not for people who have political agendas that are now deciding for us… The way you have to be dignified as a Muslim is to rely on him [points upward] to be consistent with yourself and to respect your brothers, not to expose them, not to expose your sisters, even though you disagree, even though you don’t agree. And no double standards, no selective indignation, or selective rejection of some of our brothers because they are exposed outside. And as to our internal business, we talk about it but we let the people, we let the brothers say whatever they want to say.
This insistence on “no double standards” is loaded with irony, as double standards are inherent in Ramadan’s worldview. He advocates for one moral standard for his Muslim “brothers” and “sisters” to engage in “internal discussion” and for imams to “say whatever they want to say.” But for non-Muslims who oppose the barbaric (and illegal) practice of FGM – that makes one a racist and “Islamophobe.”
The international religious authority has tweeted,
Ramadan’s further reply:
I thought it was not needed as I repeated three times in the video that I do not support either excision or FGM. In any way and I have been involved around the world against both practises. I disagree as well with the comments made by Shaykh Shaker about hyper-sexuality. Yet, this was not my point and I made it clear in the video. To say this discussion has no ground within the Islamic tradition is wrong : it has been debated and still is. Even though I am against these practises as I think it is not the right Islamic interpretation, it cannot be denied that it was condoned by some Muslim scholars (even contemporary ones). So let us be clear about it and address the issue the way it should be, in a clear, wise and scholarly manner. My other point was about our reactive way to deal with issue when vicious islamophobic agencies, such as MEMRI, are attacking people and leaders within the Muslim community. This is the time where we should be wise and decide for ourselves how we have to deal with these issues and prioritise our struggles. Instead of exposing people, let us have an open internal debate even if it has to be heated, tough with no compromise. This is where I stand and I hope it is clear enough by now.
In a more forthright vein, in French the scholar talks of,
A new campaign by far-right circles, fundamentalist secularists, inveterate Zionists, lying ex-Muslims, and propagandists from all sides…claims that I am a defender of female genital mutilation! Not satisfied with altering my remarks and twisting their meaning, these imposters are waging a campaign in all directions, at Muslims, at Africans, and my self…I have campaigned for 30 years in Africa, and across the world against female circumcision, and all forms of mutilation. These claims are abject smears. But there is no greater deafness than the deafness of liars, racists and the dishonest.
One assumes that the erudite savant was referring to this report in French language media,
Ramadan’s response is, one might observe, in just the kind of tone which we need in the present climate.
