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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT color=#ff0000
size=5><STRONG>White terrorists don’t make the news</STRONG></FONT> </DIV>
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<DIV><A
href="http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=12850&grp=66&cat=330">http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=12850&grp=66&cat=330</A></DIV>
<P align=left>
<H5><FONT size=3>A FORMER British National Party member has been accused of
possessing the largest amount of chemical explosives of its type ever found in
the country.</FONT> </H5>
<P>Robert Cottage, 49, of Talbot Street, Colne, appeared before Burnley
magistrates last week charged with possession of an explosive substance.</P>
<P>Officers claim that their find is the largest haul of chemicals of its kind
discovered.</P>
<P>The case has attracted little publicity as the national media continue to
focus on Muslims.</P>
<P>Cottage reportedly drives disabled children to school. Police sealed
off Cottage's home and were believed to have continued their search over the
weekend. His Peugeot car has been taken away for examination.</P>
<P>Cottage was charged under the Explosives Substances Act 1883 last Monday. 22
chemical components are believed to have been recovered from his house.</P>
<P>David Leach, representing Cottage made no application for bail. Magistrates
remanded Cottage in custody and referred his case to Burnley Crown Court.</P>
<P>Cottage, a sub-contracted driver for Lancashire County Council, stood for the
BNP in the May elections in the Vivary Bridge ward of Pendle Council.</P>
<P>62-year-old retired dentist David Bolus Jackson, of Trent Road, Nelson, was
charged with similar offences. It has been reported that police discovered a
rocket launcher, a nuclear biological suit, chemicals and BNP literature.</P>
<P>Christiana Buchanan, who appeared for the prosecution in Jackson's case,
alleged the pair had "some kind of masterplan".</P>
<P>Cottage and Jackson of Trent Road made separate appearances in court charged
with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose. Both
were remanded in custody.</P>
<P>Amid alarm from nearby residents, police tried to reassure neighbours that
they had not discovered “a bomb making factory.”</P>
<P>A local BNP councillor, Brian Parkinson, distanced his party from Cottage.
“It certainly wouldn't condone the sort of thing he is allegedly being connected
with”, he said.</P>
<P><FONT
size=7>..........................................................................</FONT></P>
<DIV><FONT size=4><FONT color=#ff0000><STRONG>Jack Straw has unleashed a storm
of prejudice and intensified division</STRONG> </FONT></FONT></DIV><FONT
size=4><FONT color=#ff0000><STRONG></STRONG></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT size=4><FONT
color=#ff0000></FONT></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT size=4><FONT color=#ff0000><A
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1890820,00.html"><FONT
color=#800080
size=2>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1890820,00.html</FONT></A></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV></FONT></FONT><FONT face=arial,helvetica,sans-serif
size=3></FONT>
<DIV><FONT face=arial,helvetica,sans-serif size=3></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=arial,helvetica,sans-serif size=3><STRONG>Singling out women who
wear the niqab as an obstacle to the social integration of Muslims is absurd and
dangerous</STRONG></FONT> <BR><BR><FONT face=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif
size=2><B>Madeleine Bunting<BR>Monday October 9, 2006<BR><A
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">The Guardian</A></B> <BR><BR></DIV></FONT>
<DIV id=GuardianArticleBody>It's been quite extraordinary: one man's emotional
response to the niqab - the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes - has
snowballed into a perceived titanic clash of cultures in which commentators
pompously pronounce on how Muslims are "rejecting the values of liberal
democracy".
<P>Jack Straw feels uncomfortable and within a matter of hours, his discomfort
is calibrated on news bulletins and websites in terms of an inquisitorial
demand: do Muslims in this country want to integrate? How does Straw's "I feel
..." spin so rapidly into such grandstanding?
<DIV class=hide_class id=spacedesc_mpu_div style="DISPLAY: none">
<DIV class=hide_class id=spacedesc_mpu_iframe
style="DISPLAY: none"> </DIV><A name=article_continue></A></DIV>The
confusions and sleights of hand are legion, and it's hard to know where to start
to unpick this holy mess. Let's begin with its holiness, because this is an
element which has been absent from the furore. There are two distinct patterns
of niqab-wearing in this country. One group wears the niqab by cultural
tradition. Often they are relatively recent migrants, from Somalia or Yemen for
example, and for the record it is not a "symbol of oppression" but a symbol of
status.
<P></P>
<P>The second group comprises the small but slightly increasing number of
younger women who wear it as a sign of their intense piety. This latter prompted
the memory of being taken as a child by my mother to visit the Poor Clares'
convent in York. We gave alms to these impoverished women who had chosen
complete segregation from the world as part of their strict spiritual
discipline; we talked to the gentle, warm mother superior through the bars of a
grille that symbolised their retreat from the world. No one accused these nuns
of "rejecting the values of liberal democracy" - yet they were co-religionists
of the IRA terrorists of their time.</P>
<P>The point is that within all religious traditions there are trends
emphasising the corrupting influences of the world and how one must keep them at
a distance. Catholicism and the celibate monastic tradition of Buddhism
interpret this in one way. Salafi Islam interprets it in modes of dress and
behaviour in public places. Since when has secular Britain become so intolerant
that it can't accommodate (no one is asking them to like) these small minorities
of puritanical piety?</P>
<P>But the bigger part of the muddle is why Straw felt entitled to privilege his
emotional response without questioning it more deeply. Does it not occur to men
opining on their sense of "rejection" at the niqab that it could be equally
prompted by separatist lesbians? Or on another even more obvious tack: how
comfortable does the woman wearing the niqab feel coming to visit her MP
ensconced in his cultural context, at ease with enormous power and authority?
Comfort is a disastrous new measure for interactions in a diverse society. I've
got a long list of discomforts. Does that licence me to make demands of others?
I find talking to blind people difficult because I rely on eye contact.
Similarly, dark glasses are problematic. And, to my shame, I often give up on
conversations with people hard of hearing because I over-rely on chat to kindle
warmth.</P>
<P>So forget comfort and accept the starting point for any kind of tolerance:
that it's not easy, that it requires imagination, that it makes demands of us.
Learn new forms of communication and your world expands.</P>
<P>This debate about the niqab is the flipside of another, parallel debate (led
by women) about the over-sexualisation of another subset of women who dress very
provocatively (no men complaining here). One of the impulses for women who
choose to take the niqab is how highly sexualised public space in this country
has become. How do you signal your rejection - even repulsion - at what you
regard as near-pornography blazoned over billboards?</P>
<P>A point worth pondering is that a minority of young women are so repulsed by
the offer of femininity in Britain - rapidly rising alcohol abuse, soaring
sexually transmitted diseases - that they have sought such a drastic option as
the niqab.</P>
<P>And here's the most damaging aspect of Straw's self-indulgent intervention:
the niqab is a drastic option and one that many Muslim women reject. It is the
response of a minority who feel that they are living in a hostile climate.
Straw's comments have unleashed a storm of prejudice that only exacerbates the
very tendencies which prompt some Muslims to retreat. They undermine efforts
within the Muslim community to build more self-confidence, to encourage tightly
knit communities to reach out. They have elevated the situation of a tiny
minority of women who are often the most fearful anyway into a national problem
- even that they form a barrier to successful integration.</P>
<P>This is dangerous and absurd. There are many far more important barriers to
successful integration. Two-thirds of children from families of Pakistani and
Bangladeshi origin are growing up in poverty. More than 20% of all Muslim youths
between 16 and 24 are unemployed. In many areas, the desire of second generation
Muslims to integrate is being stymied by "white flight" from residential areas
and white families using parental choice in education to avoid schools with
large numbers of Asian pupils. Outgoing, confident ethnic communities are built
where they find understanding, opportunity and engagement. We need to ask
ourselves whether that is what we have provided.</P>
<P>Straw's comments on the niqab escalated into an utterly false implication
that Muslims don't really want to integrate. Television reports ran over
pictures of monocultural playgrounds. Ted Cantle's identification of "parallel
lives" in his report on the Bradford riots of 2001 has morphed into a problem
that is being laid entirely at the door of a small minority that is impoverished
and marginalised. This is ugly.</P>
<P>And there is another, equally ugly, agenda here. Many Muslims were surprised
at Straw's comments - including close political Muslim allies - given his long
relationship with the community in his constituency. There has been speculation
on his political ambitions. But the point that intrigues me is how Straw is
elevating this question as one of primary national concern. In an article on
Tony Crosland in the New Statesman last month, Straw cited the Labour thinker's
belief that class was the great divide in society, and added that, now,
"religion" was the great divide.</P>
<P>Obviously, Straw meant Islam. No one is too worried about a shrinking number
of Anglicans or Catholics. It's a magnificent convenience for New Labour to let
the divides of class slip from view as they prove intractable and social
mobility grinds to a halt. In its place, a divide is drawn between a Muslim
minority and the vast majority of non-Muslims. It resonates - as the public
response to Straw testifies - but it is profoundly mistaken.</P>
<P>The job of a political leader at this historical juncture is to prod our
complacencies and prejudices, to open our eyes to recognising how much we have
in common; how much of Islam we non-Muslims can appreciate and admire. How much
Islam can contribute to the far greater problems we all face. We shouldn't be
hounding those nervous or pious women in their niqabs. Their choice of clothing
is as irrelevant as that of Goths. Beware, said Freud wisely, of the narcissism
of small differences.</P>
<P><B>·</B> Madeleine Bunting is director of the thinktank Demos.</P>
<P><A
href="mailto:madeleine.bunting@hotmail.co.uk">madeleine.bunting@hotmail.co.uk</A></P></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1890820,00.html"></A> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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<TD vAlign=top align=left width="100%">
<H4><FONT color=#ff0000 size=4>Letter from George Galloway</FONT> </H4>
<DIV><FONT size=2><A
href="http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=12852&grp=30&cat=138">http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=12852&grp=30&cat=138</A></FONT></DIV>
<H6>George Galloway </H6>
<DIV class=sub align=right> </DIV>
<P align=left>
<H5>At least with hard man John Reid it was man to man hand to hand
fighting. The latest New Labour witch-hunter to come out kicking Muslims,
Jack Straw, has resorted to picking on women. </H5></TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD>
<DIV>And a pretty ugly sight it is too. While he might now wish he'd drawn
a veil over his disturbing preoccupation with his female constituents
clothing he has unmasked how frenetically the Dutch auction in anti-Muslim
rhetoric in Britain is proceeding.Tabloid frenzy feeds Government
ministers who feed the tabloids and the resulting toxicity fuels the kind
of firebombing of isolated Muslims in places like Windsor where this week
the Medina Dairy was attacked. A pre-pogrom atmosphere is being created in
Britain and too few progressives are standing up against it. Imagine if a
minister in the US dared to instruct the Amish how to live their lives;
railed against their unwillingness to act, think, live, dress like the
majority around them?Imagine a demand to the Orthodox Jewish residents of
Stamford Hill that they must end their"separateness", cut their locks, get
out of their "ghettos"? That Sikhs should abandon their turbans?
Inconceivable of course, yet that is exactly what is being demanded by
Straw, and, less noticed, by David Cameron last week of Britain's
beleaguered two million Muslims.Britain is often described as a secular
country. It is not. It has an established church the head of which is the
head of state (come to think of it all concerned have a prediliction for
unusual headgear themselves).<BR><BR>What on earth is tolerant or secular
about demanding of religious people that they should amend their religious
observance to suit those who don't share their beliefs? No politician
least of all one elected serve his constituents has any right to prescribe
a dress code to those to whom he is beholden for his very role in life.
This breathtaking arrogance would never be tried by anyone about any other
group than Muslims. This Islamophobia is the secularism of fools.Less than
10,000 women throughout the country wear the Niqab - the veil covering all
but the eyes. By singling them out in this way for ruthless attention by
the Richard Littlejohns, the John Gaunts, the gutterscribes of the Daily
Express and the News of the World, Straw has committed a cowardly attack
on an already fretful minority of a minority. At the risk of prescribing a
dress code myself; he should put a big sock in his foul mouth and stop
whipping up trouble between the different groups in this already fragile
polity.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>On Sunday many people gathered to commemorate the 70th
anniversary of the great battle of Cable Street. On that day progressive
people of all kinds rallied to protect the significant minority of
immigrants in London's east end against the strutting Jack boots of a
domestic Fascism one of whose very arguments was against the very
"separateness of the Jews who lived there. Their very garb, unusual diets,
habits of living in close proximity to each other was a standing affront
to the beefeating Englishness of the Moselyites.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Leave the Jews alone was the response of the best of the British
left. Let them eat dress and live as they want. It is a call that should
be echoed today. About today's whipping boys. Today's immigrants; the
Muslims."<BR><BR>George Galloway MP<BR>Bethnal Green and Bow Constituency
Office<BR></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV></FONT></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>