home 
|
| contact
|
| action
|
| weekly worker
|
| respect
the unity coalition |
| european social forum
|
| theory
|
| resources
|
| what we fight
for |
| programme
|
| join |
| search
|
| communist university
|
| links
|
| our history
|
Weekly Worker 613 Thursday February 23 2006
Subscribe to the Weekly
Worker
Censorship rally
Standing ovation
I can also report two new standing orders this week. Comrade JS, just recovered from illness, has taken out a monthly SO for £30 and writes: “I hope to increase this when funds allow.” Very much appreciated, comrade. The other new regular donor is NN, who has managed to find a useful £10 a month for the Weekly Worker. Finally I can report cheques from two stalwarts who never forget us, even though neither has a standing order. I refer to comrades TR (£60) and SW (£10). Thanks to all those who have pushed our February total up to £514 - you all deserve an ovation. But we still need £86 in just five days. How about some of you internet readers chipping in? We had 14,916 last week, but no online donations. Help push us well over the £600 monthly target. Robbie Rix
|
Last
week I promised some good news in the shape of standing orders paid
to our paper. Sure enough, according to our latest bank statement,
a good number of payments have been made - thanks to comrades NP,
AD, PM, MH, KG and DB for their excellent help, not to mention the
Revolutionary Democratic Group, Socialist Party comrade PC and SWP
member NG. In all they have pushed up our total by no less than
£284.
Yvonne
Ridley
As a journalist, no one appreciates freedom of speech as much as I do. However, this crisis over the vile cartoons published in the Danish media has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
Let us tear away the fancy words of the Danish journalists, their bigoted queen and their politicians - this is pure racism and nothing more. Islamophobia has become the last refuge of the racists … Of course, now that the Danes have been unmasked as racists, they are desperately scrabbling over their slimy words to lecture us about freedom of speech. And there are other racists from islamophobic countries like France and Austria who have jumped on the bandwagon to attack islam and the muslims living in Europe.
In the 1930s, European newspapers also published hateful cartoons, but the victims were the Jews. I don’t have to tell you what outrages followed …
My faith is my nationality and when you attack it you are being racist and islamophobic. I can see very little difference between the Nazi propaganda of the 30s and the vile words that are being spewed out attacking islam across the pages of the European media …
We’re moving now towards the segregation days of the black Americans in the 1950s. That’s what we are heading towards in Britain today under Blair. I wonder how long it will be before he invites the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan to tea?
John
Rees
If those had been cartoons portraying the reverend Jesse Jackson as a golliwog or Jews as hook-nosed moneylenders, then, rightly, there would have been outrage from one end of Europe to another …
There are some people that say that it is not really the same because islam is a religion and not a race. Firstly, let me point out the obvious. Especially since 9/11, islam has been recategorised as a race by the Bush White House, by the British government and by governments around the world and by the media. They need a scapegoat, they need an enemy, they need a justification for war and islam is that scapegoat, is that enemy, is that justification.
It is overwhelmingly true that most muslims are poor and dark-skinned in this country and the rest of Europe and so when they attack muslims, they know that overwhelmingly they are attacking poor people who are not the same colour as them …
So there are some religions that are overwhelmingly held by the poor and excluded and there are some religions that back up the establishment, the rich and the powerful. So when the rich and the powerful attack the religion of the poor and excluded, then everyone should know what side they are on ...
I won’t say we are in the 1930s with the muslim community in the same way that the 1930s affected the Jewish community in Europe. But I do say we are at the beginning of that road. There is a nasty, pre-pogrom air around in the media and the so-called ‘enlightened’ classes in this country.
George
Galloway
These are not cartoons. These are racist posters. I say this to the people on the liberal left, to some on the far left, who have been taking a different point of view to us on this. If I told you now that somebody had put up racist posters over in Liverpool Street station, how many of you would say, ‘It’s a matter of freedom of speech’ and how many of you would come with me to tear those posters down? This freedom of speech idea is utterly hollow …
There are nine European countries where the denial of the holocaust is illegal, is a crime and for which many are languishing in prison. And rightly so. Because the denial of the holocaust is a code for hatred against Jews …
When Der Stürmer caricatured the Jew as a hook-nosed moneylender, it did so in order to generate the political power that led to the massacre of millions of people because of their ethnicity and religion. Of course, we are a long way from there. But the sulphur is in the air - can’t you smell it? …
Mr Blair has now made it illegal for anyone in Britain to express support for freedom fighters, underground soldiers in the night, fighting oppression, fighting occupation anywhere in the world.
Well, Mr Blair, I support the freedom fighters. I will continue as long as I have breath to glorify - yes, glorify - those who have taken up arms to fight against your criminal wars and your occupation of their countries.
