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 5th 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
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 5th 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
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