Well, as we move into 2016, it has been another year where my colleagues and I have been at the front-line of working with faith communities in the United Kingdom and where we have also stood firm against anti-Muslim bigotry. We have also continuously made the case that bigotry from some small sections of Muslim Read More
Through the work that we do in Tell MAMA, it is clear we have been blessed with many people who are committed to tackling anti-Muslim hatred. Many of these people do the work selflessly and with commitment to tackling prejudice, bigotry and hatred. We honour and value them. On the rare occasions where there are Read More
“We are racist, we are racist and we love it.” That’s the chanting Hira had to listen to a she travelled alone on a train. The group of men had already asked if she had a “bomb under her scarf”, made comments about eating bacon and had alcohol poured on her. But most shockingly of Read More
Boris Johnson has launched a new phone app to make it easier for Londoners to report hate crimes, writes Jack Mendel. The Mayor of London’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) launched the new app – ‘Self Evident’ – on Thursday, during National Hate Crime Awareness week. It seeks to to enable a greater confidence in the reporting of Read More
There are those who think that calling individuals ‘House Muslims’ who are in the public domain and who work on issues affecting Muslim communities, a perfectly normal and acceptable statement. There are those who believe that by Muslims trying to give people the best opportunities through equality, they automatically become Muslims who serve the ‘white Read More
The Head of Religion and Ethics in the BBC, Aaqil Ahmed, recently posted this blog on why he made the decision to hold ‘Songs of Praise’ from a small community built church in the ‘Jungle’, a piece of land where refugees desperately try and maintain a meagre pitiful existence in Calais. Aaqil Ahmed provides some
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Read MoreFor the last 3 years, TELL MAMA has built up evidence on the language of anti-Muslim hatred. Key terms and words that are used and targeted towards Muslims have been collated through our work and we have worked with partner agencies to explain the meanings of the terms, their links to Muslim communities and the
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Read MoreAl-Qaeda’s Ayman Al-Zawahiri has pledged allegiance to the new head of the Afghan Taliban in an audio on-line message. The move is seen politically to enhance the status of the new leader, (Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour), after the death of the Group’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, some two years ago. Al-Zawahiri stated, “We pledge our allegiance … (to the) commander of the faithful, Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour, may God protect him.” The move is seen as a way of shoring up the waning support for Al-Qaeda, a group which has largely lost traction and support to groups such as ISIS and local splinter extremist groups in countries across the Maghreb to the Middle East. The move is also meant to try and hold the group together as it started to splinter after the reported death of Mullah Omar.
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Read MoreIt is almost unthinkable to speak of violence without equating it with religion. This is true in many ways as Mark Juergensmeyer notes: “Violence has always been endemic to religion. Images of destruction and death are evoked by some of religion’s most popular symbols, and religious wars have left through history a trail of blood. The savage martyrdom of Husain in Shiite Islam, the crucifixion of Jesus in Christianity, the sacrifice of Guru Tegh Bahadur in Sikhism, the bloody conquests in the Hebrew Bible, the terrible battles in the Hindu epics, and the religious war attested to in the Sinhalese Buddhist chronicles indicate that in virtually every tradition images of violence occupy as central a place as portrayals of non-violence. This raises two haunting questions: why are these images so central, and what is the relationship between symbolic violence and the real acts of religious violence that occur throughout the world today”.[1] Juergensmeyer raises some interesting questions and René Girard believes “that [his] mimetic theory offers an exhaustive explanation of the phenomenon of religious-inspired violence”.[2] In contrast, Michael Kirwan confidentially claims that Girard anticipated ‘religiously-inspired’ violence and atrocities (including 9/11).[3] Therefore, one does not need to look further to understand this [...]
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Read MoreNews reports have highlighted the fact that the so-called Islamic State has released 22 elderly Assyrian Christians that it had kidnapped from villages in the North-East of Syria. The captives were taken earlier in 2015 , though according to the UK ba... Read More