 | |
| Author | Michael Gove |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Islamic terrorism |
| Published | June 29, 2006 |
| Publisher | Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
| Pages | 153 |
| ISBN | 0-297-85146-2 |
Celsius 7/7 is a book by British Conservative politician Michael Gove about the roots of Islamic terrorism. It was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, a subdivision of the Orion Publishing Group, on 29 June 2006.
In this study, Gove discusses both the emergence of Islamism and the West's response. It distinguishes between "the great historical faith" of Islam which he writes has "brought spiritual nourishment to millions", and Islamism, a "totalitarian ideolog[y]" which turns to "hellish violence and oppression" in a similar way to the 20th century ideologies of Nazism and Communism. [1]
He discusses the factors that led to the development of large-scale Muslim terrorism and how the West has failed to stand up for its liberal values in the face of this pressure, including his analysis of the alliance between Muslim fundamentalists and the Western left.
According to Andrew Pierce, writing for The Daily Telegraph in December 2006, this book has been studied by leading members of the British Government, who have adopted a number of his suggestions. [2] It was positively received by journals like The Times Literary Supplement and Literary Review from terrorism experts Walter Laqueur and Michael Burleigh. [2] Steven Poole in The Guardian called it "remarkably trite" and asked "what universe is Gove living in?" [3] Damian Thompson in The Daily Telegraph wrote that Gove's analysis is rooted in an "essentially Manichaean" world view, which over simplifies the complexities of Islamist terrorism. Although, according to Thompson, Celsius 7/7 provides a useful analysis of Western 'appeasers' of militant Islam, by and large comparing the war on terror to a war against a totalitarian ideology is "misleading, and even dangerous". [4]
Since the book was published, Gove has been accused of harbouring a hostile attitude towards Islam and Muslims. [5] The author William Dalrymple has attacked the book as a "confused epic of simplistic incomprehension" and pointed out that contrary to claims on the book's jacket that Gove was an authority on Islamist terror, he had in fact never lived or travelled in any Islamic country, knew little about Islamic history or theology, and showed no sign of having met or talked to any Muslims. [6]
Gove was vigorously defended by British authors Melanie Phillips and Stephen Pollard, who rejected Dalrymple's analysis, [7] [8] and Gove himself has replied in The Times. [9]
Islamophobia is the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general, especially when seen as a geopolitical force or a source of terrorism.
Qutbism is an Islamist ideology which was developed by Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966. It has been described as advancing the extremist, jihadist ideology of propagating "offensive jihad" – waging jihad in conquest – "armed jihad in the advance of Islam", and simply "Islamic-based terrorism".
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is a non-profit organisation based in London. Its stated mission is to "work with different organisations from Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds, to campaign for justice for all peoples regardless of their racial, confessional or political background." The group is based in London and was established in 1997. The organisation, since 2007, has consultative status with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
The Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is a trans-Atlantic foreign policy and national security think tank, based in the United Kingdom. While describing itself as non-partisan, its outlook has been described variously as neoliberal and as neoconservative. The Society identifies itself with a "forward strategy" to spread democracy and liberal values globally. It is currently focused primarily on supporting global democracy in the face of threats from China and Russia. The Society is also known for its reports related to Islamic and far-right extremism. The Society is named after the American politician Henry M. Jackson.
"Islamofascism", first described as "Islamic fascism" in 1933, is a term popularized in the 1990s drawing an analogical comparison between the ideological characteristics of specific Islamist or Islamic fundamentalist movements and short-lived European fascist movements of the early 20th century, neo-fascist movements, or totalitarianism.
Jihad Watch is an American far-right anti-Muslim conspiracy blog operated by Robert Spencer. A project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Jihad Watch is the most popular blog within the counter-jihad movement.
"Londonistan" is a sobriquet referring to the British capital of London and the growing Muslim population of late-20th- and early-21st-century London.
Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within is a 2006 best-selling book by the British journalist Melanie Phillips about the spread of Islamism in the United Kingdom over the previous twenty years. The book was published in London by Encounter Books.
America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is a 2006 non-fiction book by the Canadian newspaper columnist and writer Mark Steyn. It forecasts the downfall of Western civilization due to internal weaknesses and Muslim population growth in Western countries and the world generally. Based on his own observations, Steyn says that the fall of the Western world is caused by three factors: demographic decline, unsustainability of the advanced Western social democratic state, and exhaustion of civilization. By 2007, Steyn's America Alone, had already convinced many American conservatives that there was an imminent and inevitable Muslim invasion. The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) filed Human rights complaints against Maclean's magazine—in which they accused the magazine of Islamophobia—with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Ontario Human Rights Commission, based partly on Maclean's publication of a chapter from Steyn's book, "The Future Belongs to Islam".
Douglas Kear Murray is a British author and political commentator. He founded the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2007, which became part of the Henry Jackson Society, where he was associate director from 2011 to 2018. He is also an associate editor of the conservative-leaning British political and cultural magazine The Spectator. Murray has also written columns for publications such as The Wall Street Journal. He is known for his criticism of immigration and Islam.
Quilliam was a British think tank co-founded in 2008 by Maajid Nawaz that focused on counter-extremism, specifically against Islamism, which it argued represents a desire to impose a given interpretation of Islam on society. Founded as The Quilliam Foundation and based in London, it claimed to lobby government and public institutions for more nuanced policies regarding Islam and on the need for greater democracy in the Muslim world whilst empowering "moderate Muslim" voices. The organisation opposed any Islamist ideology and championed freedom of expression. The critique of Islamist ideology by its founders―Nawaz, Rashad Zaman Ali and Ed Husain―was based, in part, on their personal experiences. Quilliam went into liquidation in 2021.
Deepa Kumar is an Indian American scholar and activist. She is a professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University. Kumar has been referred to by the Media Education Foundation as “one of the nation’s foremost scholars on Islamophobia" and by the New York Times as "a world-renowned scholar of Islamophobia and race." She is a leader in the Rutgers faculty union, the AAUP-AFT. When she was president, the union fought for gender and race equity, and in 2019 won a contract that AFT president, Randi Weingarten, said “will inspire higher education professionals across [the] country to fight and win their own battles to improve their lives – and the lives of others – in the streets and at the bargaining table.”
Qanta A. Ahmed is a British-American physician who came to prominence as a doctor specializing in sleep disorders. She has also worked as an author, women's rights activist, journalist and public commentator.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) is a non-profit research group founded by Steven Emerson in 1995. IPT has been called a prominent part of the "Islamophobia network" within the United States and a "leading source of anti-Muslim racism" and noted for its record of selective reporting and poor scholarship.
Sir Charles Blandford Farr was a British civil servant, intelligence officer, and diplomat. He was Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and Head of the Joint Intelligence Organisation at the Cabinet Office until his death in February 2019. Before that, from 2007 until 2015 Farr was the Director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) at the United Kingdom's Home Office.
The Muslim Safety Forum (MSF) is a British-based organisation set up to challenge the "unfair focus on the Muslim community when it came to policing activities and enforcement of anti-terror policing legislation". It was founded in 2001 and comprised a number of Muslim organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE), and others. It was described in 2010 by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) as "a non-governmental umbrella group that represents over 40 Muslim organisations in the UK". The MSF has been described by Shiraz Maher in The Jewish Chronicle as "an extremist group dominated by Islamists who support Hamas".
Islamism has existed in the United Kingdom since the 1970s, and has become widely visible and a topic of political discourse since the beginning of the 21st century.
Islamophobia in the media refers to negative coverage of Islam-related topics, Muslims, or Arabs by media outlets in a way that is hostile, untrue, and/or misleading. Islamophobia is defined as "Intense dislike or fear of Islam, especially as a political force; hostility or prejudice towards Muslims", and the study of how and to what extent the media furthers Islamophobia has been the subject of much academic and political discussion.
Shiraz Maher is a British writer and analyst, and Director at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) at King's College London. He also teaches at Johns Hopkins University. The son of Pakistani immigrants, for several years after 9/11 Maher was a member of the Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, but left the movement after the 2005 London bombings and became an outspoken critic of radical Islam. He has written for leading newspapers in Britain and elsewhere, produced reports and studies on counterterrorism strategy, and appeared in the international news media as a commentator on jihad and radicalisation.
Allegations of Islamophobia in the UK Conservative Party have been made, including against senior politicians, such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Zac Goldsmith.