What do the West and the Islamic world really think of one another?
During a recent trip to Washington I happened to attend the presentation of a newly released report by the Pew Research Centre exploring the attitudes of Muslims and Westerners towards each other. While the report claimed to show a noticeable improvement since 2006 in the way in which Westerners view Muslims, troublingly the phenomenon does not appear to have been reciprocated on the other side. Indeed despite the winding down of the war in Iraq and sustained efforts by the Obama presidency to improve America’s PR overseas, attitudes towards Westerners in Muslim countries have on the whole continued to worsen.
The report simply titled ‘Muslim-Western Tensions Persist’ indicated that the populations on both sides of what some might call the civilizational divide, believed relations between the West and the Islamic world to be in a poor state. Westerners were shown to be suspicious of whether Muslim communities were willing to integrate into the Western societies they had come to, while Muslims often blamed the West for the problems in their own countries.
That said, the report is not without its positive findings. Since the Pew Research...More >>
As the French ban of the Burqa comes into force, on the other side of the channel we still inhabit a society where to even so much as raise this issue is to risk being pilloried as a bigot and a racist. This subject has been uncompromisingly taken off of the table by the liberal elites in our media and politics.
Threats of racism from the Left certainly shouldn’t scare anyone into silence. Rather, those of us who are concerned for the good health of the basic values and freedoms of our liberal democracy should feel compelled to see that this debate gets a fair hearing. Indeed, much of the media coverage of this matter has focused on concerns among the French police that they will be unable to enforce the ban in certain Parisian districts notorious for rioting against perceived anti-Muslim discrimination. Yet when there are places in European cities where the police fear to enforce the law shouldn’t that alone be enough of a wakeup call?
There is something slightly nauseating about those who consider themselves feminists attempting to frame the Burqa issue as a matter of women’s freedom to wear what they choose. Would...More >>
A policy of free speech at all costs, even if it means incitement to hate, terror and violence, is an irresponsibly dangerous thing. Yet at least one might be able to respect the commitment to the principle behind such a policy. No such respect then is due to the London School of Economics. Under the guise of operating a free speech policy, it has opened its doors to countless hate speakers only to slam them tightly shut in the face of speakers that might offend certain benefactors and key constituencies on its campus.
Earlier this week the LSE German Society was scheduled to hold its annual symposium, the panel was to debate on the subject of multiculturalism and the integration of Germany’s immigrant communities. Included among the panellists was Dr Thilo Sarrazin, author of the controversial book ‘Germany Abolishes Itself’, or as The Independent described him, the ‘anti-Semitic Banker’. True, Sarrazin is a former executive of the German Central Bank. But the rest is utterly fallacious.
Curious how The Independent seems to rarely trouble...More >>
In the past the accusation has certainly been made that the centre-left media has a tendency to always sing from the same song sheet, that they simply don’t represent the plurality of opinions and free comment that they claim to be so commendably in favor of. For the most part I’ve tended to agree that the evidence laid out for all to see on the pages of the editorials of the major left leaning newspapers would support this claim. Yet every so often an opinion piece will appear that breaks the mold and this week two such article caught my attention.
The first was in the comment section of the Guardian, usually notorious for just how extreme the views expressed there can be. The piece in question was by Sohrab Ahmari and simply titled Beware those who sneer at 'human rights imperialism'. Ahmari mounts an admirable attack against the morally redundant arguments of his fellow Guardian journalist Stephen Kinzer who has claimed that Human Rights groups are embarking on a kind of western imperialism of moral values. As Ahmari rightly...More >>
It is only natural that those who feel an attachment to the State of Israel should also feel compelled to take a stand and speak out in Israel’s defence. We currently inhabit a climate where a wide alliance of forces internationally are clamouring to delegitimize the young Jewish State out of existence; what self respecting friend of Israel would fail to take up the campaign to rebuff the mendacious and more often than not false accusations levelled against this nation under fire? After all, the rhetoric of Israel’s startlingly determined enemies is more than self evidently vicious, it is also extremely dangerous. The emotive language opponents of Israel employ is clearly intended to stir up intense levels of hatred while their agenda is one that hopes to see Israel left so isolated that it will either no longer be able to defend itself or will simply collapse from a series of economic and demographic negatives.
Surely then in the face of such alarming and annihilationist campaigns against Israel, her supporters have no time left to lose in...More >>
It’s as curious as it is concerning that the London Review of Books should be considered staple reading for anyone wishing to get anywhere in intellectual or academic circles, but with its almost 50,000 per edition readership making it Europe’s most widely circulated literary magazine, it undoubtably has become just that. However radical the publication’s rhetoric it is of course quite entitled to write whatever it likes, that’s something I don’t think anyone would want to see taken away.
What I object to however is that I or indeed anyone else in the country should be having to bankroll this kind extremism through their taxes. Research recently undertaken by Just Journalism has exposed that throughout its 30 year long history the London Review of Books has been funded by uncomprehendibly generous levels of public money.
Just Journalism has exposed that starting in 1981, shortly after its establishment, the London Review of Books has received no less than £767,679 from the Arts Council England, all public money. Money that rather than going towards public services well and truly...More >>
I first came across Lowkey while attending one of the many anti-Israel events that regularly take place at UCL, the surreal gathering which transported one to a parallel universe of truth and fiction dragged on for the best part of the evening.Before the standard ‘Israel’s an Apartheid State’ lecture got underway we were first serenaded by what I can only describe as an anti-Western propaganda anthem with a difference.
Now I can’t claim to be a big fan of Rap music but I have to confess that as soon as I got home I became engrossed in trying to find out who this angry young man in the video was and found myself listening to several of his tracks repetitively. It turned out that this part-Iraqi part-English hip hop ‘artist’ has been responsible for producing some of the most radically subversive and hateful music available for young opponents of Britain, Israel and America to date.
The track we had been subjected to was simply called ‘Terrorist?’ and while it came with the same self-contradictory and unsophisticated lyrics as it seems the...More >>
A policy of free speech at all costs, even if it means incitement to hate, terror and violence, is an irresponsibly dangerous thing. Yet at least one might be able to respect the commitment to the principle behind such a policy. No such respect then is due to the London School of Economics. Under the guise of operating a free speech policy, it has opened its doors to countless hate speakers only to slam them tightly shut in the face of speakers that might offend certain benefactors and key constituencies on its campus. 
In the past the accusation has certainly been made that the centre-left media has a tendency to always sing from the same song sheet, that they simply don’t represent the plurality of opinions and free comment that they claim to be so commendably in favor of. For the most part I’ve tended to agree that the evidence laid out for all to see on the pages of the editorials of the major left leaning newspapers would support this claim. Yet every so often an opinion piece will appear that breaks the mold and this week two such article caught my attention.
It is only natural that those who feel an attachment to the State of Israel should also feel compelled to take a stand and speak out in Israel’s defence. We currently inhabit a climate where a wide alliance of forces internationally are clamouring to delegitimize the young Jewish State out of existence; what self respecting friend of Israel would fail to take up the campaign to rebuff the mendacious and more often than not false accusations levelled against this nation under fire? After all, the rhetoric of Israel’s startlingly determined enemies is more than self evidently vicious, it is also extremely dangerous. The emotive language opponents of Israel employ is clearly intended to stir up intense levels of hatred while their agenda is one that hopes to see Israel left so isolated that it will either no longer be able to defend itself or will simply collapse from a series of economic and demographic negatives.
It’s as curious as it is concerning that the London Review of Books should be considered staple reading for anyone wishing to get anywhere in intellectual or academic circles, but with its almost 50,000 per edition readership making it Europe’s most widely circulated literary magazine, it undoubtably has become just that. However radical the publication’s rhetoric it is of course quite entitled to write whatever it likes, that’s something I don’t think anyone would want to see taken away. 
I first came across Lowkey while attending one of the many anti-Israel events that regularly take place at UCL, the surreal gathering which transported one to a parallel universe of truth and fiction dragged on for the best part of the evening.Before the standard ‘Israel’s an Apartheid State’ lecture got underway we were first serenaded by what I can only describe as an anti-Western propaganda anthem with a difference.
