Paris Tragedy, Clichés and Cycle of Backlash

Two weeks ago Paris was hit by the massacre of its inhabitants who were enjoying the start of weekend. A total of 130 people lost their lives and hundreds were injured. The loss of innocent life said to be the highest since the world war. Most of us were in a shock and were trying to get our heads round the extent of the tragedy and feeling sorry for the friends and families of the victims. A group of people, however, could not wait for the blood of the victims to dry and started to exploit the tragedy for their twisted agendas. They were firing up tweets, blogs and rants on the media, generally spouting hate. Their behaviour was against all human values of sympathy and respect for the dead. Following is a sample of their tweets:

Barefoot Syrian refugees with
her 3 young children in Europe

 The target of these tweets, refugees fleeing war zone of Syria and other conflict zones. These people have been criticising European Governments for allowing Brown Muslim Refugees into the white Judeo- Christian West. These hate preachers and fear mongers have been opposing the policies of the European Union, in particular the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Threy cheered countries like Hungry for putting obstacles in the miserably hard journey of refugees, which has taken lives of thousands. This exploitation of Paris tragedy shows the depravity of these people. Despite their hateful views, they are the respectable face of the racism/ Islamophbia. In fact some of them are part of a network of Islamophobic industry including the Gatestone Institute and their subsidiaries like the Henry Jackson society and supporters of sub-subsidiaries such as the Quilliam foundation. These are the respectable faces of the hate mongering fraternity. Together they inspire, incite and radicalise ordinary people who don’t just tweet vile abusive and threatening tweets but put that in practice. The inflammatory language used by our media and Politicians doesn't help. The use of words like hoards, swarms and swamping doesn’t help.

When something like Paris tragedy happens clichés such as “they hate the West“ are banded about. However, no one explains that why the large parts of the West like, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, etc are spared of such attacks. Why only countries involved in the conflicts have been targeted by these people? Of course there are other clichés like “they hate our values”, “they hate our lifestyle” and “they love death while we love life”. This message is reinforced with “they are barbarians and savages”. This language stems from the feelings of superiority and racist attitudes that are prevalent on both sides of the Atlantic. The attitudes which have been responsible for deaths of unarmed black people in the US and gave rise to the black lives matter movement. This kind of language is also designed to cover up the failures to integrate generations of descendants of migrants who are the main culprits in Paris like tragedies. Furthermore, it is easier to blame people far away for the atrocities than accept the circumstances leading to the enfranchisement of own citizens.

Denial seems to be the name of the game when comes to wars and its consequences. It has been used by the Pentagon after bombing weddings and hospitals etc. Denial of the motives of attacks on the westerners and on the western soil is also part of the same strategy. Recently, Ken Livingston made remarks about 7/7 bombers on a tv programme, saying that they (bombers) gave their life because of a political cause and our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blair supporter Matt Forde, who was also a panelist on the same programme, tried to shut Ken Livingston by claiming that it was offenssive to the victims of 7/7 bombing. It is this kind of bullying which is keeping us from discussing the real issues, which are keeping us in a cycle of unending violence. The reality is that only one of the mass murderers of Paris was known for his IS supporting activities. The rest were not known to be religious or known for any extremist tendencies. Some of them ran a bar which was closed for illegal activities, couple of months before the atrocity. It seems that they had become radicalised within that short period of time. Furthermore, at the time of their murderous activity they were high on drugs, not on any kind of religious fervour.      

It is the people like Maajid Nawaz and the sponsors of Quilliam Foundation with their rhetoric of ideology, who have been spreading fear of Islam and Muslims. Then they turn around and claim that there is no such thing as Islamophobia. Over the years, they have been casting increasingly wider net to label all Muslims as Islamists, non violent extremists, etc. The reality is that apart from a cultish group of approx. 200 to 300, which doesn’t believe in the democratic society, the vast majority of Muslims have always taken part in the democratic processes. There have been Muslim councillors and lord mayors going as far back as 1970s and 1980s. There are number of Muslim MPs and ministers in the cabinet and shadow cabinets. The reality is that Quilliam, their sponsors and so called prevent programme is doing real damage to the active participation of Muslims in Politics, Education, Employment, Media, etc. Maybe that is the goal of their sponsors; to undermine, disenfranchise, and suppress the voice of the Muslim community.  

Coming back to the Paris tragedy, there was an immediate backlash from the French in the form of bombing of the alleged capital of Daesh, Raqqa. Bearing in mind that France is already bombing in Syria, why didn't they bomb Raqqa before? Is it because the risk to the civilian population is greater in Raqqa than in other places? If that is the case then how bombing Raqqa civilians will improve their security? Now France has asked UK to join them in the bombing campaign over Syria, where risk of killing civilian population is greater. Although our Government has made an unconvincing case to join France in the bombing campaign in Syria, they may still get approval from the parliament. There is however a concern about the alleged remarks attributed to the PM David Cameron, that people opposing the proposed action in Syria are terrorist sympthisers. This unfortunately confirms that debate is suppressed at the highest level.

After the Paris attacks media talked about backlash against the Muslim citizens of the West. It was an odd prediction as they had nothing to do with what had happened in Paris. However, the backlash has happened, mainly due to the media rhetoric and headlines like in the Sun below. We must not forget the wide spread incitement and abuse on the social media.

The results are painfully clear to the victims of Islamophobic/ racist attacks. Although victims of such abuse are people of all ages, often it is the women who bear the brunt of this hate crime. Most victims are targeted because of their obvious visibility as Arabic/ Asian appearance and this sometimes results in attacks on other brown coloured non Muslim communities too. Women are targeted for such abuse as they are doubly visible as Muslims because of their colour and dress/ hijab and because, like the terrorists, they are probably considered a soft target.

Politicians are no better in addressing the problem. Only the Labour MPs have raised the issue in the Parliament. Shadow equalities minister Kate Green MP raised her concerns about the staggering 300% increase in, already high, Islamophobic attacks. As far as the Government is concerned, they have been busy enacting/ introducing annual instalments of counter terrorism/ extremism legislation / regulations. The Prime Minister has been making major speeches on the prevention strategy. PM and his minister's strong statements and so called prevent programme, has created an atmosphere of suspicion affecting whole of the Muslim community. The role of this approach in the increasing number of Islamophobic attacks and discrimination, affecting daily life from education, employment, public service to charitable activities, can not be denied. Government's reliance on selected individuals and organisations for advice and consultation and not the mainstream communities is responsible for some of its ill thought policies. Unfortunately some of the advisors are motivated by their own agendas. This became clear in the saga of the Cage UK, an organisation named by the Prime Minister in one of his speeches. As it happens the courts disagreed with the assessments made by the people advising him and attacking the charitable status of the organisation.

During the debate on Syria, conservative MP Rahman Chishti raised his concerns about the use of the words Islamic State, which have been abandoned by the UN, US, EU, France and many more, in favour of the Arabic name Daesh.  He said to the PM that the using Islamic State instead of Daesh was giving rise to Islamophobia. PM David Cameron’s response was that dropping Islamic State in favour of Daesh would risk losing the public. Obviously what he was more concerned about losing public support to extend bombing strikes in Syria. Furthermore, he was probably worried about the loss of support from the right wing press and organisations. This supports the idea that such terms are often used for political purposes which is a reckless attitude as it has devastating consequences.

 PM has at many times said that the UK government operates strong anti extremism policies, which he says are the toughest in the world (even Gatestone Institute calls it draconian). However, it seems the government has failed to conduct a thorough impact assessment. Apart from paying lip service, the government has shown no enthusiasm to tackle the scourge of Islamophbia. During the attack on Gaza in 2014, criticism of Israel was described as anti-semitic, by people like Douglas Murray. This is not to say that their weren’t anti-Semitic incidents, there were. This resulted in a robust response by the government to reassure the Jewish community and a parliamentary report on the issue was published.

Now that the parliament has voted to extend the bombing campaign into Syria, there is a risk that any negative implications will undoubtedly result in backlash against the Muslims. Therefore, it is imparitive that the Government reassures the community by acknowledging the existence of the problem of Islamophobia and take steps to reassure the community. Furthermore, it should consult mainstream Muslims to develop strategy to counter and safeguard Muslim citizens. This is important as anti-Muslim hate crime can only lead to disenfranchisement, which is believed to be a major factor in so called radicalisation. 

Freedom of Speech and Hypocritical Alliance

I had started to write this before the brutal, unnecessary and unjustified Murder of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo staff and 2 Police Officers. My thoughts are with the bereaved families and the French people of all persuasions. From the information available so far it seems that the attack by these criminals was motivated by revenge for the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh).

From what I know about the life of the Prophet (pbuh), the perpetrators actions contravene the way he lived his life. He did not seek revenge or harm against those who had caused him pain and discomfort. I know that some of the Islamophobe Industry will disagree and will try to produce disputed texts, etc. However, that doesn’t change the fact that they are wrong.    

Speculations are a plenty on the mainstream media and of course the playground of the dark forces the Social media, to jump on the bandwagon and try to capitalise on the tragedy. The morality of these people and the hypocrisy of these people who demand that the Muslims community as a whole should condemn the actions of criminals, did not utter a word of sympathy towards the bereaved families. These are the people who would object to the abhorrent images published by the terrorist groups and then publish them on their websites and tweet them. These are the people who would claim a moral high ground but then defend the atrocities committed by governments. These are the people who create the fear of others and then claim that no such thing as Islamophobia

 That brings me to the topic I had originally started to write. On Friday 2nd January the Independent newspaper ran a front page article, about online Islamophobia and increasing Muslim hate incidents. After considering the matter over the weekend and it’s impact on the him, his organisation and his allies, on Monday 5^th January Maajid Nawaz  Tweeted. Bearing in mind that Monday was the day when anti Muslim demonstrations were bring held in Germany , organised by a Neo Nazi group called, Pegida. While the demonstrations did not achieve any significant numbers in most of Germany and a large number of Germans came out in opposition, they did achieve attendance of around 18,000 in Dresden, an area with little or no immigrant/ Muslim population. The Germen Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned Pagida as haters. Wish our leaders had shown such leadership.

The 'timely' tweet by Maajid Nawaz was retweeted by the usual suspects. They included  the Atheists fraternity, Secular Fraternity, Ex Muslim Fraternity and various Islamophobes including the star pupil of Quilliam's academy of Counter Extremism, Tommy Robinson. Although there are different Titles of these Fraternities, often it is the same people who appear under different banners. Tommy Robinson openly supported the Pegida organised demonstrations and encouraged his supporters to attend. From Tommy's tweets is clear that not only that his supporters and EDL members attend the demonstration but as he boasted 'the lads made contact with the leadership'. So we can safely assume that the Dresden demonstration was not just attended by locals but also their affiliates from across Europe. Maybe that is the reason for the high attendance numbers. Of course our media like the BBC is incapable of doing the simple deductions.  

After the signal from Maajid his comrades sprung into action, including the self declared master of 'sarcasm' Richard Dawkins, who tweeted . His subsequent tweets were about religion not being a race and so on. He, however, failed to elaborate what he was trying to say. Was he trying to say that being Islamophobic or Anti-Semitic wasn’t racist or that it was ok to be anti-Semitic or islamophobic as it wasn’t racist. Only he knows what he meant but whatever it was, it was in defence of people like Tommy Robinson and anonymous twitter trolls like Jihadi Joe and Spellchecker. In the recent days the twitter accounts of both of these trolls had been suspended by the Twitter. Mr Dawkins took up their case and despite clear evidence of their bigotry he claimed that they were brilliant satirists like him. While he was successful in getting their accounts (not sure if he deserves the credit) he was criticised by most of the Atheist community for his support of the bigoted anonymous trolls.

This point by Maajid and others that the criticism of Muslims/ Islam is not racist, xenophobic or Islamophobic, has no logic except that that is their point of view. The fact is that long before Maajids’s conversion, this has been the stated position of Mr Dawkins and others like Bill Maher, Sam Harris and their followers. So it is not an original thought of the Chair Maajid, it is the next stage in his evolution.  The Lawyers Secular Society also responded to Maajid Nawaz’s tweet and published this  tweet  and published an article on their website. If we apply the logic of these lawyers then the term anti-Semitism could also be said to mean nothing, as Semite mean a collection of races of Middle Eastern region. Therefore, to use it as a term for the hatred of Jews is as illogical as their claim about Islamophobia.
   
The fact is that the Islamophobia is now an internationally recognised term to define anti Muslim hate, propaganda and to spread fear of Islam and Muslims. The failure to acknowledge this suggests that these people do not accept any form of rights of Muslims of protection from harassment, intimidation and violence. It is this attitude along with suggestion that Islam is an alien religion not compatible with the secular democratic values of the west is not only bigoted but dangerous. Then we are living in strange times when with the aid of CGI anyone could become a star, when a karaoke singer could become pop star with the help of technology and no original material, any man could become journalist with autocue and plagiarised material and anyone become politician by learning to dodge questions and quick answers without thought.

I was very much heartened by the Journalists, commentators and members of the public, interviewed by the BBC. Despite attempts by the BBC presenters provocative and divisive questions the interviewees were calm and calculated and refused to blame the religion or the majority of Muslim community for the dreadful action of murderers responsible for Paris massacre. Instead they were worried about the exploitation of the event by the Far Right organisations and were opposed to the Islamophobic and xenophobic tendencies of these organisations. BBC's own cultural correspondent Tzvetan Todorove, who happened to be French was interviewed for the BBC Newsnight. He said that he was worried that the murders will strengthen Xenophobic and Islamophobic attitudes in some quarters. He also eloquently pointed out that there was no such thing as absolute freedom in a secular democracy and citizens have responsibilities to the society. Today on the Question time Liberal Democrat voiced the same sentiment and said that in our democracy people have freedoms within the law not absolute freedom as some have been suggesting.

Therefore, the notion of absolute freedom to cause offence and hurt is a basic right of secular society is contradictory to the principals of the secularism. Then the new Secularism and Atheism has mutated into something un recognisable from founding principle. The new values are extremist tinged with hate, bigotry, xenophobia and of course Islamophbia. Their hypocrisy becomes clear when they say they want to maintain a Judeo-Christian culture. Not surprising as it is the same crowd acting under different banners. The true secularism  protects all religions and does not allow people to discriminate people or denigrate their rights, on the basis of their beliefs, culture and race. Furthermore, the promotion of the idea that Islam is an alien religion is also a false propaganda. The Islam as a religion belongs to these lands and shore like as any other religion / belief and so do the Muslims. Any belief other than that is bigoted, racist xenophobic and yes Islamophobic.

On the day of the French Murders the Islamophobic fraternity was very busy on the social media, Hundreds of tweets a minute were being fired. They were not only spreading hate they were demanding that the media should defy normal procedures and publish show offending cartoons. Not surprisingly these included known suspects like Tommy Robinson, LSS, Ex Muslims forum, Secularists, Atheists and of course BBC's own Nicky Campbell. BBC and other news channels interviewed hundreds of experts commentators from all around the world and of course they included Quilliam’s, Maajid Nawaz and Douglas Murray of The Henry Jackson Society and Gatestone Institute. These three organisations and above mentioned are most active in the Islamophobic activities and spreading hate and fear of Islam Muslims and fear of persecution in the Muslim communities and then clam there no such things as Islam phobia. BBC allowed Nigel Farage to get away with remarks that there was a fifth column in the midst of us. It was only Jon Snow of Channel Four who confronted him and Geertt Wilders about their xenophobic and neo Nazi stand. 

Due to my addiction to the News, Current affairs and politics, I had the misfortune to watch the Daily Politics Show today, hosted by Andrew Neil and Joe Coburn. The guests included two “opposing and respectful specialists” Maajid Nawaz and Douglas Murray. As expected there was no considered discussion but regurgitation of old rhetoric of Islam being responsible all atrocities in the West and Maajid Nawaz begging for funds. Furthermore these supporters of freedom speech were upset that Media had been using Muhammad Shafiq to comment on the Paris events.

This hypocrisy of advocating free speech while seeking to ban others from speaking has stifled the debate within the society the Muslim community and has given Islamophobes a free hand to spread fear and hate. By supporting and demanding bans in the Educational establishments, media, and public life, these people have created a vacuum of positive role models and have suppressed the free thought. Yes some people will have a point of view or an interpretation of the holy scriptures which is perverted but by banning them and driving them underground you deny the Muslim Community to challenge and debate such notions. The state sponsored censorship of thoughts and views is creating an atmosphere of fear and helplessness in the Muslim Community and this pressurised bottling of emotion is and will result in the undesired outcomes which we all want to prevent.

As it happens I also watched the late programme this week on the BBC where I had to suffer the ridiculous analysis of the Paris event by Andrew Neil. I was, however, looking forward to some sense of balance from the announced guest, David Aaronovitch. However, I was disappointed, because while advocating freedom of speech, David Aaronovitch promoted the idea, that those who don’t agree with his interpretation of freedom of speech, they can move to different countries. The hypocrisy is that even if some people move to different part of the world, they will still be subject to his long standing support for the interventionist policies. In other words you are not allowed to live a peaceful life whether they are in the west or in any other part of the world.

Then he suggested that Muslim should hold large demonstrations like they do when Israel commits atrocities in Palestine as though atrocities committed by state are equal to the murders committed by criminals. I didn’t see him organising or attending such demonstrations against Israel, which by the way were multi racial, multi faith and non faith individuals. Neither it seems he had the ability to organise demonstration of any kind. The heart of matter is that all those who are vocal in criticism of Islam and Muslims happen to be extremist supporters of Israel. These are the people who labelled demonstrations against atrocities in Gaza as anti-Semitic. These are the people who instead of promoting unity as a nation are promoting divisions.

Andrew Neil and David Aaronovitch wanted British media to publish certain cartoons from Charlie Hebdo to “spread the fear”. It would definitely cause the offence and spread the fear in the Muslim communities. While it is acceptable for people to cause offence, it is clear that people has a right to take offence otherwise what is the point. If people are not allowed to air that they are offended without fear, intimidation and bullying then where will that bottled pressure go? Muslims do not need to apologise for their beliefs and certainly do not need to abandon their country on the say so of some Journalists like Andrew Neil, David, Nicky Campbell or Politicians like Nigel Farage.     

Following are some of the tweets to give you a flavour and you decide which are racist, bigoted, xenophobic or Islamophobic or all in one.
http://mobile.twitter.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/552803726772420608?p=v
http://mobile.twitter.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/552783220962787328?p=v
http://mobile.twitter.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/552574856001507328?p=v    

  

2014 The Year When, .....

Islamophobia became Institutionalised

2014 is the year in which world experienced both natural and manmade disasters. There is very little you can do to prevent natural disasters but prevention of manmade disasters like wars, is entirely feasible. However, they require courage determination and will to understand and change. It requires ability to learn lessons from past mistakes and history. It requires ability to resist the pressures by self interest groups and to stand up to the agitators. Unfortunately our political leaders and masters lack such courage, determination, understanding and ability to learn the lessons.  

It is shameful that in the year that marked 100^th anniversary of the start of the First World War, we had to remember millions more deaths through wars, along with the lives lost in that war. To keep the populations on side, all wars require propaganda and disinformation to justify the sacrifices in blood and treasure. Especially, when politicians use the rhetoric of fight for decades, they need to have a scapegoat. Our politicians tread a fine line they don’t want unrest at home, so they play lip service to the minority communities while their actions give clear signal to the agitators to continue to spread hate. It seems that the politicians think its a price worth paying.

The mainstream media like the BBC plays its part as government’s mouth piece for propaganda. After all it is dependent on the government funding along with the licence fees, a tax we all must bear. Foreign and Commonwealth office uses BBC to spread propaganda throughout the world stoking fires of conflict, which create refugees. At the same time it continues to spread propaganda against the migrants, asylum seekers and minorities. Furthermore, BBC remains one of the major employers of asylum seekers to spread propaganda in their former home countries. As far as the minorities at home are concerned BBC fails to employ/ promote black and minority ethnic communities. The problem is so deep that comedian Lenny Henry openly came out to criticise BBC, Mainstream Media, and the entertainment industry of institutionalised racism.

The BBC Board and the Executive Board remains almost exclusively white and from the elite classes. BBC entertainment programmes remain exclusively for the majority community. It has failed to interests of the minority communities, not only the migrant communities but also the Celtic minorities of Scotland, Wales and Ireland and the regional communities of England. Despite moving some of its operations to the Manchester, the management stranglehold of the South and the privileged communities remains. It has failed to promote the role models for the minority communities instead it propagates caricatures of ridicule and sides with the hate preachers.  Despite remaining the public and taxpayer funded organisation BBC is exempted from the Freedom of Information Act. You might say that because of its secretive policies, procedures and agendas, BBC is the North Korea of the Main Stream Broadcast Media.  

The BBC kick started the Islamophobic year, by allowing Nicky Campbell to conspire with so called Humanists and probably also with the Chair of the Quilliam Foundation, Maajid Nawaz, to start the cartoon controversy. Since then it has conspired with the outside agencies and individuals to ban the voices of reason. It has bowed to the social media and twitter campaigns to block mainstream Muslim voices from appearing on TV. Social media campaigns have targeted many of the mainstream Muslims speakers commentators and writers. The campaign also targeted the various scholars in an attempt to pave the way for Quilliam Foundation to claim to be the only authoritative voice on Muslim issues.   

After the cartoon controversy media attention shifted towards the conflict in Syria and a sudden turn by the media from portraying British Muslims, who had gone to help refugees and support the fight against the regime, from humanitarians to branding them Jihadist, terrorists and threat to the UK security. There was very little investigative or probing journalism or efforts by the Media, the Government and her contractors, to assess or investigate the factors behind the attraction or reasons for the young teeage Muslims boys and some girls taking such drastic and life changing action. Instead a campaign to demonise the whole of the community commenced giving excuses to frame new regulations and creating new powers which will affect not only the minority community but the whole UK population.

Then came the so called Trojan Horse story based on a fake letter. The story ran and ran culminating in the ofstead inspections and reports. At that point institutionalisation of Islamophobia started to become clear. Despite the protests from the teaching community, pupils, the parents and the governing bodies, schools were downgraded and some put in special measures. These actions were contradictory to the Education Secretary, Michael Gove’s stated position of parental choice and free schools. It seemed a deliberate attempt to deny minority communities, the same choices available to others. Instead of offering solutions, such as support and training for the governing bodies the government’s actions seemed designed to stop minority communities from gaining the position of authority or having a say in the education of their children. We have seen this kind of attacks on Muslim authority figures in the Met and on an elected Mayor in London. 

In between we had the so called anti Halalification campaign on the media and social media. There was opposition to the Law Society’ guidelines on drawing up Islam compliant wills, now withdrawn. There were continuous efforts to link FGM, forced marriages, and honour killings with Islam. Also any criminal activity by a Muslim was disproportionately highlighted and linked to religion. There was a campaign to remove Islamic books and literature from schools. Although, books and literature regarding colonialism, slavery, etc remains available. We seem to be on a dangerous road to eliminate diversity of knowledge to having a monolithic state provided knowledge (similar to the system in the China and North Korea). It is dangerous because we now live in a global village and we need knowledge good and bad to interact with our neighbours.

Then we had the grooming cases and the reports which highlighted the failures of the care system, police and local authorities but the media remained fixated on the colour, race, ethnic heritage and religion of the offenders. In the year when well known faces mainly celebrities connected to the media in general and BBC in particular have been prosecuted and convicted of sexual offences and paedophile activity of the powerful and ruling classes is being investigated , it seemed convenient deflection  to highlight  minority and Muslim offenders. Then we have the Maajid Nawaz’s friend Tommy Robinson who continues to tweet his bigoted views against Muslims. His recent appearance at the Oxford Union clearly brought out the ugly side of Islamophobia and even those who campaigned for Tommy to appear at the Oxford Union seemed disappointed. However, the Islamophobes and some bloggers seem still willing to give him benefit of doubt and tweet and retweet his vile propaganda.

With the rise of the UKIP and the immigration debate, some individuals and organisations have started to move the debate of immigration towards Muslim migrants. Especially towards the settled communities and second and third generations who are born and bred in the western culture and are oblivions of the culture of the countries of their forefathers. This is where the xenophobia and racism meets Islamophobia and the racism of Islamophobes starts to come through.

Any Islamophbic review of the year can not be complete without the mention of the chief Richard Dawkins and his friends. As usual Mr Dawkins continued his Islamophobic tweets claiming it to be satire. He also continued to retweet stuff clearly recognised as bigoted by others. Here is an Article by Tom Owolade . Dakins friend Sam Harris continued on the mission of spreading Hate. His appearance on the Bill Maher show, where he was confronted by the actor Ben Affleck for his bigotory, made international headlines. Sam Harris found support from the obvious quarters but even he didn’t expect support from the Chair Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation. Maajid Nawaz made few dollars in the process. After his failure to make any real money out of his encounter with the “ex-EDL” Tommy Robinson, Maajid Nawaz intend to make more money from this new relationship by writing a book about his encounter with Sam Harris.

Quilliam also provided one of the funny moment of the year by issuing a Fatwa against travel  to Syria. As though these young men knew the meaning of a Fatwa and what it stands for. Majority of the young teenagers who had gone to Syria did'nt have any deep religious beliefs or upbringing. By issuing a Fatwa, Maajid Nawaz and Quilliam exposed themselves to be an organisation without a clear idea how to relate, understand and tackle issues of young Muslims growing up with continuous demonisation and dehumanisation.of Muslims. This year Maajid Nawaz and Quilliam has moved the goal post again. They started with radicalised to extremist to Islamist to current position that anyone who believes in Islamic scriptures is a threat. This evolution reflects Maajid Nawaz’s journey from Hizbe Tehrir to the ideology of the ex muslims, atheists, humanist and now partnership with Sam Harris.   

The most worrying development in 2014 has been the Institutionalisation of Islamophbia by the government through its actions. After the spat with Mr Gove the Home Secretary, Theresa May started to act tough in her words and deeds. This year new legislation and regulations have been introduced, which have been framed to frame individuals leaving them no option but to plead guilty. In other cases the prosecuting authorities doesn’t need to prove anything except that the individuals had travelled to Turkey and possibly to Syria. This has already resulted in youngsters being jailed for unreasonably lengthy times.

Theresa May, who has ambitions to be the leader of the conservative party, made a dramatic announcement at the Party conference in September, to introduce Extremism Disruption Orders which would prohibit individuals considered to be extremist and hate speakers from appearing on Radio, TV, Protests and posting messages on the social media, without permission. Its telling that the opposition to the proposals came, not from the Muslim community but the Islamophobe community who felt that their hateful activities would come under scrutiny. People like Maajid Nawaz, secularists, atheists and humanists who had been demanding ban on Muslim speakers and those who had made career out of spreading hate and fear, suddenly became supporters of free speech. These people never raised a voice about loss of liberty and freedom of people on the bases of suspicion, alleged and perceived extremist activity and not actual crime. Suddenly they remembered the value of free speech.

On 26^th November the Home Secretary Theresa May introduced the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill. The Bill is being fast tracked and could become law at the beginning of 2015. In summary the bill will powers to seize passports of people suspected of travelling to Syria etc, could exclude citizens from the country (It has a serious potential of abuse), move people from their hometown to another place. It would stop insurance companies from paying ransom payments. It would place statutory duty on the public institutions, including Schools, Colleges and Universities, to stop people from becoming radicalised. Even Nurseries for 2 Year Olds feel they will have obligations under the bill. The Bill directly contradicts the 1986 Education Act , which places a duty on the Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges to ensure freedom of speech. Furthermore, the Bill includes extensive powers regarding monitoring of social media and other communications. 

We musnt forget the assault on the Muslim operated charities. Charity is one of the main pillers of Islam and every Muslim must pay a certain amount from his/her income and assets to help those in need. Muslim charities are involved projects to provide safe water, sponsoring orphans, education and development projects all over the world including at home. They help refugees and victims of conflict from Palestine to Syria, Syria Sudan and Yemen. Because of their humanitarian work in the conflict zones, and pressures from the Israeli lobbies, they are being put under suspicion.     

So we welcome the New Year with new definition for the British Values which restricts right to freely speak, travel and communicate. Furthermore, the big society means, Employers and Landlords checking your immigration status and Educational and other Institutions restricting freedom of discussion, debate and learning. The Young Muslims are already facing an uphill struggle to obtain employment due to the stigmatisation by the hateful rhetoric and crude language used by the Mainstream and Social Media and now their travel, holiday plans will also be affected by the new powers of seizing passports and exclusion orders.

Happy New Year     

You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover But....

You Can Judge a Person by the Company they Keep

I was away for couple of months and returned back home to UK towards the end of May. As I landed at the airport I could feel the change in the air. My first clue was the change of attitude of the UKBA staff at the airport. I was with a wheelchair bound person, therefore we were the last to leave the plane. When we got to the passport control I expected it to be empty but there was crowd still waiting. They were mainly relatives who had come to visit their families or retired who had come on a tourist visa. Some like us had returned after visiting family abroad. The staff which is normally friendly and professional were more harsh and unfriendly. There was a translator present, probably to help with UKBA questions. However, he was not standing by the officers but had been told to stand away and was only called after humiliating remarks about people not being able to speak/ understand English. This is clearly not a great advertisement for the Great Britain.  

I later learnt that I had missed the UKIP victory in the local and European Elections. Furthermore, UK media, especially the BBC, had been giving disproportionate amount of time to the UKIP and Nigel Farage and the racist and anti immigrant rhetoric. While Nigel Farage mainly talks about the European Union and the policy of freedom of movement, the real victims of his rhetoric are the settled non European communities. This is reinforced by our colour blind media, who doesn’t differentiate between European and non Europeans. Whenever, there is discussion about immigration, they always show clips showing long settled Asian communities.

Then came the so called “Trojan Horse” story giving media another chance to target the minority communities, not only in Birmingham but nationally. What I found interesting was that the Chairman Maajid Nawaz and Quilliam Foundation were getting exclusive air time on issues affecting the Muslim communities. Often it seems that Quilliam and Chairman Nawaz are mainly there to reinforce the government, media  and Henry Jackson Society line. There seems to be no room for the alternative point of view. In the recent conflict in Gaza the BBC insisted on having Israeli voice. At times it seemed that Mark Ragev worked for the BBC and other media, repeating the same lies without question. However, BBC doesn't apply the same principal of proportionality when it comes to the issues related to the minority communities in the Uk.  

• The question is that why Chair Nawaz, a prospective Parliamentary canditate for the Liberal Democrats, gets so much air time. We know when it comes to the Muslim and Asian immigrant communities, BBC and other media are in breach of their own code of conduct of impartiality and fair reporting. This is made worse by exclusively employing Quilliam and Chairman Nawaz to speak on issues affecting the Muslim and Pakistani communities. Furthermore by giving Chairman Nawaz air time, who is a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats, BBC is probably in breach of the electoral rules.

Chairman Nawaz is neither a member of the government nor a spokes person for the Liberal democrats. He should either resign from the Quilliam Foundation or step down as the Prospective Parliamentary candidate. He neither speaks for the Muslim community nor does he represent their views. His and the Quilliam Foundation views are are more reflective of their supporter organisations like Henry Jackson Society, British Humanist (Atheist) Society and the Neocon- Gatestone Institute. The Liberal Democrats must also decide whether his views reflect the views of the Liberal Democrats. They were quick to punish David Ward for his support for Palestine but have failed to take action against Chairman Nawaz for his support for Israel and attacks on the Palestinian resistance movements. He showed no sympathy for the victims of indiscriminate and targeted bombings in Gaza. He probably agrees with Douglas Murray, who described vast number of people who protested in London, as anti-Semites.  

By the way Chairman Maajid Nawaz has been on a VIP trip to Israel while Palestinian Americans and Palestinian Britons are refused visas to visit their homeland.

It is no accident that Chairman Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation got free reign in the media. They had a little help from his friends including David Aaronovitch, Ian Dale, Nicky Campbell, Nick Cohen, etc. and of course the Atheists, Humanists and Ex Muslims. These people have been hounding the few voices in the media and the social media including Mehdi Hasan, Mo Ansar, Salma Yaqub and Mo Shafiq. While this clique had been after these prominent Muslims for some time, they needed a brown face to front their agenda. When they saw Chairman Nawaz under pressure, after his ill judged remarks to change the wording of Quran, during the Tommy Robinson affair, they offered him help and a protocol which he gladly accepted. They however, wanted to judge his "liberal and secularist" credentials, which was tested during the cartoon affair in January.      

I want to understand that how a cartoon, which had been around for several years, suddenly became a symbol of freedom of speech. Was it really about freedom of speech and liberalism or there was a sinister agenda. It seems to me the whole thing was staged through the BBC programme the Big question and a deliberate provocation. The host of the programme, Nicky Campbell is often found involved in Islamophobic activity on twitter. He likes to quote, out of context, translated passages from Islamic text. Its not that he is a scholar of Islam, he is just reading from the selected texts, supplied by a cell in Israel. Such texts are often used by the anti Muslim organisations. I have asked him and Tommy Robinson to tell me where I can buy a copy of the books they quote from but to date I have had no response.   

Coming back to the cartoons and why I think the whole thing was staged. I want you to consider the following twitter conversation, on 3^rd February 2014, between Chris Moos (one of the t-shirt wearers), Nicky Campbell and LSS (Lawyers' Secular Society) :

Chris Moos to Nicky Campbell:

Hi @NickyAACampbell could you please clarify that u were aware we were wearing @JandMo t-shirts #bbcbq and, consented to us uncovering them?

LSS to Nicky Campbell

Nicky, LSS is also hoping you can clarify this asap, Thank you @ChrisMoos_ @NickyAACampbell @JandMo

Nicky Campbell response to the above

@LawSecSos @ChrisMoos_ @JandMo have Dmd Chris

In light of the above and on the balance of probabilities, I would say that the whole thing was staged.

Now you decide whether or not Chairman Maajid Nawaz also had an advance notice of the planned spectacle and whether his act of tweeting the cartoon was deliberate. Before you decide one more thing to consider, Chris Moos and his accomplice, who wore the cartoon bearing t-shirts, are both members of the humanist society and so is Chairman Nawaz.Furthermore, Chair Nawz is still following him on twitter.

Following are some of the statements and claims Chairman Maajid Nawaz has made:

·         He was not radicalised in any mosque and in fact he was forcefully removed from outside a mosque for distributing HT leaflets;

·         He joined HT in search of identity (due to severe racial harassment) and for the Political reasons (due to situation in Bosnia);

·         He had a prominent role in HT

·         He is fluent in Arabic

·         After the cartoon affair he claimed that he did it for Salmaan Taseer and Malala Yousufzai

·         He set up an organisation called Khudi in Pakistan

The question is if he knows that radicalisation doesn’t take place in mosques, why doesn’t he confront those who say it does?

If he joined HT in search of identity and for political reasons then why doesn’t he give benefit of doubt to the young people of today, who may be going through the same struggle. Why does he dismiss them as Islamists and extremists? Why does he say that situation in Gaza, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Egypt etc. is not relevant?

His claims about his role in HT and his claims about fluency in Arabic language were exposed as lies by a young atheist called Layla Murad. 

His claims that he had tweeted cartoons for Salmaan Taseer and Malala is nothing but exploitation of his Pakistani heritage. The supporters of Salmaan Taseer and Malala don’t want anything to do with him.

As far as the establishment of “Khudi” is concerned, it was a back door revival of the failed organisation called "Laltain" and "Roshani", which were sponsored by Richard Dawkins. In any case, Khudi severed links with him after the cartoon affair.

Now consider, what his new friends and sponsors say about him:

• In a Richmond Forum organised debate Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had nothing intellectual to contribute apart from attacking Quran and the prophet, she liked the “evolution Chairman Maajid Nawaz had gone through;

Another atheist, Taslima Nasreen tweeted (tweet now deleted on Maajid Nawaz’s request:

• It was nice to meet fellow Pakistani atheist Maajid Nawaz (It was only when others latched on to the tweet, Chairman Nawaz asked her to delete the tweet and stated that he had decided not to disassociate himself from Islam). Her next tweet doesn't clarify the situation but leaves it open to interpretation. She tweeted:

@auddin76 , @MaajidNawaz is probably a progressive Muslim, not an atheist. Thought he is as everyone is atheist in world humanist congress.



Whether or not Maajid is a Muslim is not the issue, it is his evolution which Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Taslima Nasreen are fan of that exposes his insincerity and hypocrisy. He says that he want to work from within to reinterpret Islam but he will not do the same to counter the Islamophobia and the hate preaching from his friends. I must admit I was a fan of Chairman Nawaz but as his “evolution”, language and ideology became closer to people like Tony Robinson and Douglas Murray, I became suspicious of his motives. 

The sad thing is that Chairman Nawaz and his colleagues do not understand the agenda of their new found friends. They don't see the effects of Islamophobia, hate speach and racism, all rolled into one strategy of his new chums, that causes severe damage to the community relations. As a man who claims to be a victim of brutal racial harassment, chairman Nawaz seem to be blind to the fuelling of hatred on a larger scale. He doesn't see the stereotypes he is promoting with a limited knowledge. He doesn't know that Pakistani Muslims are a minority in the South Asians living in the UK but this fuelling of hatred against brown Muslims effects all brown people, be it Hindu, Sikh, Christians, etc.

The atmosphere of fear created by these, mainly South based organisations and individuals, affects disadvantaged communities of all backgrounds in the country. It causes divisions in those disadvantaged white and migrant communities and gives rise to the ugly racism and Islamophobia. The result, people are abused attacked, children are bullied, women are subjected to molestation. People are threatened and are forced to install secure fences, cctv cameras for the safety of their children, Homes, businesses and places of worship are attacked. 

In light of the perceived increase in the extremism, I recently posed a question on twitter about the achievements of the Quilliam Foundation and Chair Nawaz. The only answer I received was from Jeremy Duns. He said:

I will name 3: exposing Mo Ansar, Ibrahim Hewit, Adnan Rashid   

I was surprised at the answer which made no sense as I did not see the relevance to the question posed. Chair Nawaz claims that the Quilliam Foundation is an Anti Extremism organisation. I am not familiar with all the names but understand none of them have been associated with any extremist activity. They are all articulate, intelligant and self assured people who expose Islamophobia. If they have no link to extremism then what the expose was all about. Jeremy Duns then sent me link to his website and an article he had written about Mo Ansar. During the of writing this, I also found articles by Ian Dale and Nick Cohen and it became clear that the Quilliam Foundation can't claim credit for the work of others. 

I am not familiar with Jeremy Duns's work but his profile says he is a writer of fictions but he is trying his hand to write non fiction. If his article, regarding Mo, is anything to go by, he be better of sticking to the non fiction. There is nothing in any of the articles about Mo which suggests that he has done anything wrong, apart from speaking up on the issues affecting the Muslim community. Nobody is questioning his intelligence or self assured assertiveness. The only thing they question is that how Mo rose to such prominence position in the Muslim community and in the media. It seems that these people can't stand that a man from the North, not educated at any prestigous institute and a Muslim broke through the fences.

• Ian Dale's gripe is that Mo Ansar made a complaint against him for his behaviour towards an old Imam. We know how he treats old men, we have seen him on live TV  wrestling an old man who came into the shot during a book promotion shoot.   

• Nick Cohen's writings are about supporting neocons and opposing liberal left. In particular he is angry with the liberal left for supporting Muslims against Islamophobia. He is an ardent supporter of Israel. He is also friends with many of the BBC's producers and editors.
• Nicky Campbell is a presenter with a gift of gab, he needs that as he has no qualifications. He was often involved in arguments with Mo Ansar mainly on twitter. He holds strong anti Muslim views and am surprised he is allowed to host programmes like the BBC's Big Question where he broadcasts his personal prejudices.

Coming back to the Chairman Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation, I am astonished and amazed at the naivety of the government to use an organisation which has zero percent support in the Muslim community. I am less surprised at the BBC using Quilliam and Chairman Nawaz on issues related to the Muslim community. Their bias is abundantly clear to the public who demonstrated in their 1000's outside the BBC, during the Gaza conflict. Furthermore, you can not expect better from the organisation, which employs bigots like Jeremy Clarkson and Islamophobes like Nicky Campbell.

Due to the company he keeps and the view he holds, I have no hesitation in calling the Chairman Nawaz an Islamophobe. He follows people like Maryam Namazie, Tarek Fatah, Ex Muslims and other Islamophobes, who are alaways looking for negative stories in Muslim countries/ communities. Some of such stories are found to be untrue but are never withdrawn. They, including Quilliam associates, share and tweet these stories. He, increasingly reminds me of “Jaffar”, a character from the cartoon film Aladdin, who’s ambition seems to be power and gold and he would do anything to achieve his ambitions.   

  

Update 01/09/2014

On Sunday Maajid Nawa was busy publicising so called "British Fatwa" and bigging up his colleague Dr Usama Hasan as Islamic Scholar. Usama Hasan has no qualifications, apart from ability to translante Arabic into English, to qualify him as an Islamic scholar. How is this different from individual Taliban Imams issuing fatwas in Afghanistan. 

It seems that as more and more people are questioning Quilliam's claims of countering extremism and are seeking prooof and they in desparation are doing anything to get headlines. Unfortunately, these headlines raise more questions.

Its time for the Quilliam to come clean and explain, reasons for their failure to connect to the Muslim population of Britain, especially the younger generation. Could it be that they only rely on promotion of negative images of Muslims and Islam and perpetuate stereo types.

Whatever the reasons it is clear that Quilliam has failed to make an impact on the British Muslim population and the wider public.