Author: Mick Hartley

Back to the "Islamophobia" debate. From the Times:

The definition of Islamophobia adopted by the Labour Party put “grooming gangs” in inverted commas and suggested that using the term in relation to Muslims was racist.

The wording was contained in a report by an all-party parliamentary group (APPG) of MPs co-chaired by Wes Streeting, now the health secretary.

Since March 2019, the party has adopted the “definition and examples” set out in the 2018 report, which includes a warning that “Asian grooming gangs” were a modern iteration of “age-old stereotypes and tropes about Islam”.

The document listed these as “sexual profligacy and paedophilia, or Islam and violence”, concluding that they “heighten vulnerability of Muslims to hate crimes”.

On Wednesday Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, said that, according to the APPG on British Muslims report, “talking about sex groomers was an example of Islamophobia”. She added: “This is exactly why people are scared to tell the truth.”

And why it's clear that Labour – see Starmer's claims about jumping on the "far-right" bandwagon – is not going to learn any lessons here. Hands over ears, carry on as normal. Talk of grooming gangs is "Islamophobic".

Ann Cryer, the former Labour MP who first raised concerns that white girls as young as 11 were being groomed by British-Pakistani men, said she was shouted down as a racist in meetings and that local councils “were petrified of being called racist and so reverted to the default of political correctness”.

Claims of racism were also levelled at Andrew Norfolk, the Times investigative reporter who exposed the grooming scandal in 2011, and Sarah Champion, the MP who spoke up for victims of abuse in Rotherham.

Champion was nominated in the “Islamophobe of the year awards” in 2018 by an Islamic charity.

That's how it works. 

y that they may seek to foment unrest among non-Sunni supporters of the former regime against the new rulers.

But any notion that the revival of the fortunes of Sunni Islamism represents a net gain for the West and its allies should be dismissed.

The advance of Turkey and its clients raises an alternative banner for political Islam in the region, one with in many ways greater capacity and sophistication than Iran.

It introduces a third focus of power, in addition to the Iran-led bloc, and the loose alliance of US-aligned states centred on Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

2025 will see competition between these three blocs, with the stance of the US, and the extent of its involvement, perhaps the key element that will determine the course of events. Buckle up – the ride is far from over.

As regards the new Syrian rulers – the new acceptable face of Jihad with the turbans and blood-chilling rhetoric abandoned from the old Al-Qaeda/IS days – they're making all the right noises to reassure the international community, but of course it's inevitable that suspicions remain. The 2015 video of the new Syrian Justice Minister Shadi Al-Waisi overseeing the execution of a woman for adultery is absolutely chilling (this MEMRI clip thankfully stops before the actual gunshot to the back of the head), however much he may claim that this stuff is now all behind him.

And what of the Syrian Kurds? Erdogan wants them destroyed, but they've always been allies to Israel and the West. Could they be the spark that sets off a war between Turkey and Israel?

earborn Heights Shiite scholar Ahmad Qazwini said at a December 13, 2024 Friday sermon at the Islamic Institute of America that it is impossible for a Muslim to lose against a Zionist on the battlefield, because the Muslim will either kill the Zionist and send him to Hell, or he will be killed by the Zionist and will go to Paradise. He said: “How can you lose? It’s a win-win situation.”

Convincing.

what we defend. […]

It’s important to understand one thing: every time we publish a cartoon, whether it’s about politics, religion or society, it’s because something relevant has happened. If we draw Muhammad, it’s not because we just want to draw Muhammad; it’s because Muhammad is in the news. We are a newspaper that comments on current affairs. To be honest, we’re not really interested in Muhammad. It’s not our problem. We’re not interested in God. We don’t give a damn. But unfortunately, God matters a lot to people in the world, and some use God to exercise a toxic, totalitarian power over others. That’s what we’re fighting against. […]

We’ve now become aware that Islamism is a political ideology, a totalitarian ideology. This is what we need to take a stand against. It’s not against believers. We don’t give a shit about the believers. The believers aren’t the problem. Believers can believe what they like. The problem is the use of these beliefs to control society. That’s what religion does. It’s about how worship, belief and faith are used to exercise control over society and individuals. That’s where the danger lies. […]

Terrorist attacks work like this: if we give in to fear, we will lose more freedoms. We no longer publish what we want to. We reinstate laws to ban blasphemy, as Denmark has just done. But that doesn’t change anything. The terrorism is still there. It still wants to kill. It still wants to kill people who gather to drink, to talk to each other, to make newspapers, to listen to music, even to pray, too. The terrorism doesn’t go away.

So we must fight against it, physically, but we must also fight against it ideologically. And the only way to combat it is by continuing to be who we are, by continuing to exercise our freedoms – and to exercise them with the strongest conviction possible.

Another NHS case where a woman has to fight for somewhere to change in privacy, away from men. From the Times:

A nurse suspended after she complained about a trans woman in a female changing room has beaten an attempt to gag reporting of her employment tribunal.

The health worker claims her experiences amounted to harassment and is taking legal action against both her employer, NHS Fife, and the colleague who undressed in what she believes should be a female-only space.

The clue's in the name: female changing room.

In a rare move, the health board and the trans woman made formal applications for the case to be heard in private and the names of those involved and the hospital department where they worked to be kept secret.

The nurse — as well as gender-critical campaign groups and major media organisations, including The Times — opposed gagging attempts at a special hearing in November.

Judge Antoine Tinnion has now ordered that all proceedings be public and that the parties be named. It can now be revealed that the nurse taking the action is Sandie Peggie and that the trans woman she accused of harassment is a doctor called Beth Upton. Both work at the A&E department of Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy….

Peggie at one point is understood to have been told she could change in a cupboard if she was uncomfortable with her trans colleague.

NHS Fife in September announced that it had paused development of its trans policy “following growing coverage and public debate”.

Which is exactly why these tribunals need to be in the public eye – so this kind of trans pandering over women's concerns gets exposed.

Liitle joy at the Friday sermon in Yasuj, Iran for the (segregated) audience, as Imam Nassir Hosseini describes a Syria taken over by foreigners: "one half of Syria is occupied by the Turks, and the other half by the Zionists". The Zionist regime "attacked some of the places there with nuclear bombs".

From MEMRI TV:

In his January 3, 2025 Friday sermon in Yasuj, Iran, which was aired on Dena TV (Iran), Nassir Hosseini warned that Iran's enemies, the enemies of the Shiites, are like "rabid dogs" – if not confronted, they will defeat you, but if resisted, they will back down. He cited Syria as an example, claiming that when Syria's resistance wavered, the Zionist regime destroyed much of the country’s military infrastructure. Hosseini also asserted that Israel used nuclear bombs in Syria, emphasizing that disunity and a lack of resistance lead to such devastating outcomes.

his stifles not just speech but the contestation of ideas essential to progress, representing a capitulation to those who seek to control discourse through intimidation.

Russell Lee, February 1937. "Posey County, Indiana. Havoc wrought on farmland, highways, roads, farm buildings, equipment, homes by 1937 flood. Automobile after the flood on Mackey Ferry Road near Mount Vernon."

[Photo: Shorpy/Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration]

A Times report – Royal Society of Literature chiefs quit as diversity drive implodes. Apart from efforts to make the society more inclusive, with predictable results…

Prior to recent “inclusivity initiatives”, would-be fellows could be nominated only if they had published two works of “outstanding literary merit”.

One prominent writer, Don Paterson, said however that one new fellow appeared to have “published a single poetry pamphlet”. Another, Amanda Craig, said that while previously it had been seen by some as being “a bit too pale, stale and male”, it had now become so diluted that it was “no longer the kind of distinction that it was”.

…there's the Salman Rushdie business. The society refused to issue a statement of support after Rushdie was stabbed, on the grounds that this “might give offence”. They couldn't take sides, apparently, between an author and his Islamist would-be assassin. Those who wanted Rushdie killed might be offended.

Hadley Freeman had a good piece about this at the time. 

This still strikes me as one of the all-time lows of British woke "inclusive" culture.

of the media and political class turned a blind eye to it (with some important and admirable exceptions), precisely because so many of the perpetrators were motivated by anti-white animus. That fact is so shocking, and so significant, that we cannot find the right words.