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Warsi and Tebbit at war over Islamophobia
Tory Baroness complains about bigotry – Tebbit says it never happened before the Muslims came to UK
An unseemly row has erupted between two senior Tories over attitudes to Muslims in Britain. It follows the news that one of the most prominent Muslims in Britain, Conservative peer Baroness Warsi, plans to use a speech tonight to complain that Islamophobia has passed the "dinner table test" - in other words, it has become normal and acceptable to denigrate Muslims.
Lady Warsi, who is co-chairman of the Tory party and sits in the Cabinet, also feels that the constant differentiation between "moderate" and "extremist" Muslims fuels intolerance. She is due to make the comments in a speech at Leicester University tonight.
However, extracts have been trailed in advance – and have not gone down well with another prominent Conservative peer, Norman Tebbit. He has reacted to the extracts – published this morning by the Daily Telegraph - with an extraordinarily rude blog, even by his standards.
"Had Baroness Warsi sought my advice, I would have counselled her not to make the speech," he wrote in the blog, also carried by the Telegraph.
"I would have told her that the Muslim faith was not discussed over the dinner tables of England, nor in the saloon bars, before large numbers of Muslims came here to our country.
"Then I would have told her to go to our Christian churches and listen to what was said about her religion and those who practise it, then to the Mosques to hear what is said in some of them about the Christian faith and those who practise it (or about Buddhists, Jews, or even those who have no faith at all).
"After that, I would say, she might consider who is in need of her homilies on prejudice. Until then a period of silence from the Baroness might not come amiss."
Tebbit, once nicknamed the 'Chingford Polecat', is famous for having once devised a 'test' of his own - the so-called 'Tebbit test'. This ruled that any immigrant who failed to support England at cricket was clearly not loyal enough to their new home country.
Baroness Warsi's speech marks an abrupt departure from the previous Labour government's policy of strictly avoiding matters of faith. She will tell the audience at Leicester: "It's not a big leap of imagination to predict where the talk of 'moderate' Muslims leads; in the factory, where they've just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: 'Not to worry, he's only fairly Muslim'. In the school, the kids say: 'The family next door are Muslim but they're not too bad'."
It will not be the first time Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim woman to attend Cabinet, has broached the subject. She made similar claims at the 2009 Conservative Party conference, and in an article in the New Statesman magazine she said: "If you have a pop at the British Muslim community in the media, then first of all it will sell a few papers; second, it doesn't really matter; and third, it's fair game."
Baroness Warsi rose to prominence in 2009 when she appeared on the same edition of Question Time as BNP leader Nick Griffin. She is not a typical Tory. In addition to being a Muslim she also describes herself as a "Northern, working-class roots, urban, working mum".
In 2004 she quit her job as a solicitor to stand for Parliament, but lost to Shahid Malik. She was then giving a peerage and quickly rose through the ranks of the party, becoming a vice-chairman in 2005. ·
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@ Diana Wilson. How are you to know if the white boy sitting beside you with a knap sac isn't going to blow you up? I think your attitudes have been formed by the media and not by reality. Try googling "all terrorists are Muslim except the 98% that aren't". Some pretty interesting stats.
Ho, well "deltagemini", you think the Xtianity is somehow to be painted "as bad" as the Islamo? What?? Is that the best verse you can quote to illustrate your case? Where are the Mad Methodists and Angry Anglicans, blowing up the London Underground and London Routemaster buses, and flying planes into buildings? Huh? Where are they? Want to think about it? Want to go on and on about the Crusades? Think that is going to help you, referring to wars of the 12th century that were Christians defending themselves from Turk (Seljuk Turk if you have enought history to know your stuff)? Huh? Come on...
What is commonly unknown is that true religion is always 'extreme'. The words of Jesus of Nazareth : 'no-one cometh unto the Father but by me' are extreme and exclusive. All other religious ways are excluded from 'The Father'. This is extreme. Anyone who does not accept this idea is not Christian. Most so called church going christians are ignorant of the Bible and its fundamental teaching. I suspect that most Muslims are ignorant about Islam. The Koran has within it many unacceptable and 'extreme' ideas. If you are a true Muslim you must accept all the ideas embraced by so called extremists, like the stoning of women, disembling to protect the faith, 'striking off the head of the infidel', going to war to protect the faith, accepting slavery getting the dubious services of 72 virgins if martyred and numerous others. So called 'moderate' muslims are just lazy, not having the commitment to 'true Islam'. If my premise is false then the Koran should be modified, along with the teachings of its mullahs, to be more acceptable and trustworthy to the rest of us. If muslims want to convert us to their 'faith', which particular schismatic sect are we supposed to embrace? Sunni, Shia, Suffi? Meanwhile it would be a great convenience to the population of Britain, most of whom have no desire whatever to 'convert' to any stupid religion, if we could distinguish clearly between true Muslims, who are dying to blow us up and get the girls, and the lazy uncommitted rest who are presumably not motivated by the same righteous zeal.
May I suggest that the Baroness may be confusing prejudice and fear? How am I to know if I sit next to an obvious Muslim, carrying a knapsack, on a train or bus whether he is an extremist who might be intent on carrying out some terrorist act or whether he is one of the good guys wishing nothing but well to his fellow passengers? "All terrorists (so far) have been Muslim, but not all Muslims are terrorists". Discuss.
The first thing to do in debate with Muslims, in my experience, is reference their history of violence since the first century of Islamic conquest, AD632 to AD732. They burst out of Arabia in the early seventh century and cut their way east to India and west to south-western France, where they were stopped by the French king Charles Martel in 732 at the Battle of Tours-Poitiers. They retired hurt to Spain, and were finally expelled from Spain in the 'Reconquista' in 1492. They still whine (the sophisticate Muslim at least) at parties in appartments in Brussels, Belgium and in public places in Walsall, UK. They like to forget that they started the aggression in the first place.
Tory Baroness Warsi emails me as a conservative to update on what they are doing. I could not and cannot tolerate this woman. She's like the first worm in an apple trying to work her way through a party she probably really does not agree with or even want to tolerate! She should be gone from the Tory/Lib party for good!
Wow! That must be the quickest invocation of Godwin's Law I have ever seen!:
"Godwin's law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies) is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1989 which has become an Internet adage. It states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. In other words, Godwin put forth the hyperbolic observation that, given enough time, in any online discussionâ??regardless of topic or scopeâ?? someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
In interesting times, if moderates don't make friends with moderates, the immoderates gain the field. "Us" and "we" and "them' are political pronouns which anyone commenting on this ought to use with caution. For every loathsome act done and idea expressed by men claiming to be Muslim (and there are many) similar vileness may be found in the actions and ideas of men who claim to be Christian. When I hear the ludicrous ideas propagated by extremists I challenge them - being an interfering old busybody. Living deep in the inner city I also know a lot of people - from many faiths and none, like my own. The dinner table analogy isn't such a bad one since it's often chit chat among people who don't get out enough, who don't talk enough to strangers, who fear what is 'other'. I don't know about Islamophobia (a word with promiscuous meaning) but I am rather sure that there are too many in chatterers whose understanding of the world comes at second and third hand rather than from the company of strangers, from conversation with fellow citizens on the streets, in parks, on allotments (I have one), in the markets,at work, on railway station concourses (I don't have a car and travel by public transport and bicycle) on trains and buses, in churches and mosques, in the shared work of voluntary groups, and in each other's homes.
So, if I was to say "I believe that extremist Muslim terrorists should be rounded up and jailed", but leave out "extremist", would that be less divisive and intolerant?
( Lady Warsi, who is co-chairman of the Tory party and sits in the Cabinet, also feels that the constant differentiation between "moderate" and "extremist" Muslims fuels intolerance.)
Well said Lord Tebbit and also Maurice Brady. Although a big part of me cant stop thinking if I had replied to the Baroness using the same words, I would without doubt be a racist.
Well done Norman!!
Well said Norman Tebbit. You need to face it Ms Warsi - there is a lot to denigrate!
So, what we have here is an unelected politician - telling the rest of us to moderate our opinions (as in private conversations!) around the dinner-table. Now that's a new degree of contention expressed by ANYBODY representing a political party - Certainly in the latter half of the 20th century & the new millennium! Previous exponents of these tactics were Germany's National Socialists (NAZIS) & The Khmer Rouge. Cameron is making a big mistake going down this road. And - just to follow his & Warsi's logic - if differentiating between 'muslim moderate' & 'muslim extremist' is so obnoxious to their sensibilities, do we refer to this aggregate of islamic practitioners as simply 'muslims'! thereby confusing the issue even further & denigrating even further, the community she (and presumably Cameron) wish to shield! Leave well enough alone.