Maybe the North star moved
Close on the heels of the astonished Indy reporters, we get a piece on Hizb ut-Tahrir in Germany.
An internationalist Islamist organisation is submitting an application to the European court tomorrow in an effort to overturn a ban on its activities in Germany. Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, believes that the five-year-old ban is unlawful…Germany has accused the party of breaching the “concept of international understanding” enshrined in the country’s constitution, a charge more usually levelled against parties of the far right.
More usually…meaning that Hizb is not a party of the far right. The Guardian thinks that Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a party of the far right!!! Even though it has Hizb’s own self-description immediately after that staggering remark.
The party denies it is antisemitic and, says it is against violence and that its aim is to unite Muslim countries into a single state ruled by Islamic law.
The Guardian thinks that Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a party of the far right – so what does it think Hizb is then? A party of the center? A party of the left? Does the Guardian really seriously think that a party which wants to see Muslims and unfortunates who live in majority Muslim countries ruled by Islamic law is a party of the center or the left? Does it? Does it? Really? Seriously? No jokes?
I would really love to know. I would love to understand the thinking of people – from Rowan Williams to Ian Cobain – who think Islamic law is not far right. I would love to know what it is about sharia that Williams Cobain thinks is not right-wing. Meanwhile I shall remain yours sincerely, Baffled.
The Guardian has long been out of touch with reality. It still lives in the early 1980s, believing only white people can be far-right. Just as many of its readers are out of touch with reality and seem to share the fascination with, and attraction to, Islamists that Foucault once had.
Aha!
We may have yet *another* machinations-of-the-media story going on here…
Remember the case of Dilpazier Aslam, who worked as a trainee journo for the Grauniad while openly being a member of H u-T?
He was eventually sacked in 2005 after a particularly nauseating “comment is free” piece, but I seem to recall the Graun really dragging its heels over declaring the facts regarding H u-T…
Then there’s lovely old Faisal Bodi (“Faisal Bodi is a leading commentator on Muslim affairs. He started out as a journalist for Britain’s first Muslim weekly before going freelance and writing for national broadsheet titles. In 2003 he joined al-Jazeera as a news editor and features regularly as a columnist for the Guardian.” according to the Graun’s website. As for me, I prefer the descriptions Sunny from Pickled Politics gives him…)
, who back in 2002 wrote in the Graun demanding that the government do something on the behalf of 4 british muslims who had been detained in Egypt..
the four happening to be members of, yep, you’ve guessed it, H u-T!
(I know, he’s written lots of nonsense since then, too, but that seemed most on-topic appropriate)
Since the Graun has such an unfortunate history of supporting them, direct linkage of H u-T with the biggest hate group of all by general Guardianista standards, “The Far Right” might simply dredge up too much embarrassment for them to handle…?
Either that, or perhaps Faisal Bodi is in possession of some particularly incriminating photographs…
:-)
Ah yes, ol’ Dilpazier – I do remember him. And I was thinking of ol’ Faisal Bodi just yesterday – his sweet comment that nobody loves a turncoat.
Poor poor Guardian – stuck in the early 80s with Foucault & friends. Yuk.
Ophelia wrote:
>The Guardian thinks…< I was going to question whether it is valid to attribute views to “The Guardian” on the basis of the view of one of their journalists, but first I checked out his credentials: “Ian Cobain is a senior reporter for the Guardian.” So question withdrawn!
I wish they’d make up their minds about this sort of thing, assuming they have minds at all.
One day they want us to ban “Islamophobia”. The next they want us to allow Hizb ut-Tahrir to do its thing.
So which is it, may we ban anything other than what they want prohibited ?
Ok, rant over, I’ll take a deep breath.
I am not happy that Germany bans organisations for what they believe. Germany is attempting to get the whole of the EU to do likewise, so it is now an issue for people like me. When it was brought up at an EU meeting, no one was impolite enough to mention the war. They should have. Beware of Germans bearing prohibitions. They have “form” in this regard, as the English would say.
Paul, you should read better: they are not banned from belonging to the organisation (as even the Guardian acknowledges), not even from being an organisation, they are banned from proselytizing. It is not freedom of expression or conscience that it’s at stake here.
I’d rather pass over your reference to the Germans and the war. It’s hard to swallow for some Brits I’ve met (curiously not so for other Europeans who suffered more directly Nazi oppression), but the war was a long while ago, and I think most of us agree that the Germans have sufficiently made up for it already.
And, was it not precisely that, what we would have liked the Germans to do with the Nazis in the thirties? Or do you think this kind of fascists is better than the German one?
Which gets us right back to Silverglate’s “The world did not suffer because too many people read Mein Kampf” – which is a sort of paradigm of a dubious claim.
Belief is one thing and persuasion is another. Which is not to say that Germany is right to want to ban Hizb – it’s just to say that the issue not a slam dunk.
Enrique;
The German restrictions on Hizb, as clarified by you, are still too much. The distinctions you make are of little significance.
As regards the more general point, I disagree totally. Up to very recently Germans were so apologetic they were reticent about calling for others to do as they do. With the passing of the war generations they are becoming less reticent in this regard. While I welcome this, the corollary is that it is Germany that should become more like other countries by being less neurotic about neo-Nazism , not that other countries should become more like Germany.
I would be interested to hear why Hizb-ut-Tahrir is thought to be “far-right”. Does this mean anything other than Right=Boo and Left=Hooray?
Yes, it does. Hizb, as I quoted, wants “to unite Muslim countries into a single state ruled by Islamic law.” Islamic law is extremely conservative. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a “Muslim country”; all countries have minorities; a single state ruled by sharia would force non-Muslims to obey extremely conservative laws derived from a religion that they don’t even profess to believe in. I consider theocracy to be inherently far-right. Correct me if I’m wrong!
Hizb is definitely far right. The fact that anyone would even doubt it just goes to show how much the waters have been muddied by conservatives who think they’re leftists like Seamus Milne.
Far-right, far-left, it’s all the same.
Remember Bertold Brecht’s comment on Hitler’s Brownshirts: “Brown on the outside, Red on the inside”.
Oh, it’s all the same is it? Riiiight.
Bertolt the Marxist said that? Really?
OB, Sharia has a tendency to be flung around like the word jihad. Exclusively Sharia law would be highly conservative – then again, which laws aren’t?
The journo’s position isn’t so baffling. In simplistic journo speak, far-right = racist. So the reactionary forces of Sharia are something different.
Which laws aren’t? Ones that mandate equal treatment, for example. Ones that replace, say, laws that allow a woman to be convicted of ‘adultery’ because she is pregnant while a man can simply deny guilt and be acquitted. Ones that ban ‘honour’ killing.
If it’s true that in simplistic journo speak, far-right = racist, then journo speak is just wrong, and confusing.
To those who doubt that Sharia law as interpreted by Islamists is very conservative (in a way that’s meaningful, and does not apply to every law) or far-right (not limited to racism), what exactly do Sharia and Islamism lack that would qualify them as ultra-right-wing?