George Readings, from Quilliam, has a must read piece at CiF entitled Female Genital mutilation cannot be defended as part of Islam.
In the piece, George lays into those – like Ken Livingstone – who continue defend Qaradawi. There is a special mention for Bob Pitt of Islamophobia Watch and Andy Newman of Socialist Unity, whose defence of FGM is motivated by their political alliance with Islamist groups, for whom Qaradawi provides religious rulings which legitimise their murder of civilians.
It is a great piece and I urge you to read it through. The comments are fun too. This was my favourite:
While I agree completely with what George Readings says, I do wonder who these people like Bob Pitt and Andy Newman are, and who they represent? I’ve never heard of them, and I just wonder if they represent half a dozen nutters of the People’s Front of Judea variety.
That is true. However, both have played an important role in bringing fringe Islamist politics in to the mainstream. Andy Newman has been allowed to join the Labour Party – he was previously a senior RESPECT activist – where he is certain to cause mischief. Bob Pitt played an important role in the vilification of Ken Livingstone’s opponents – including Peter Tatchell – as racists. So, they do matter.
And what they do matters as well. This is why:
“By suggesting that Qaradawi and his pro-FGM views are progressive relative to those of other Muslims, these so-called leftists are unwittingly mirroring the anti-Muslim bigotry of people such as Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders and others who suggest that all Muslims are inherently violent, misogynistic and backwards and therefore we shouldn’t expect anything better from them than support for mutilating the genitalia of female offspring.”
We know this to be untrue. Indeed, FGM is opposed not only by Muslim liberals but also by many traditional Muslim scholars.
Were the likes of Pitt and Newman actually interested in defending Muslims, rather than promoting their own fringe “anti Imperialist” politics, in which Muslims are cannon fodder, they’d stop echoing the likes of Geller and Wilders.
