In the world of Maajid Nawaz, he is the man of the moment. He has got a show with LBC radio and is one of the panellists on the Sky News programme the Pledge. He is sharing stage and appearing in blogs with Sam Harris, Ayaan H Ali, Douglas Murray, etc. He has co written a book with Sam Harris and has appeared in a movie, produced by Islamophobes, about his trip to Australia with Sam Harris. He has received a “humanitarian award” from “UN Watch”. He addressed a gathering of people who claimed to be Zionists against the annual Al-Quds March in support of Palestinians. The crowd included Tommy Robinson supporting Football Lads Association members who were also there to protest against the Al-Quds march. He claimed that he was outraged by the Hezbullah flags at the Al-Quds march. He has never spoken against Nazi flags, gestures and Israeli flags at anti Muslim rallies by EDL, Pagida, etc. organised by Tommy Robinson.
On top of the above Maajid has been offered a settlement of 3.375 million dollars by the Southern Poverty Law Centre. SPLC says that they have been “persuaded” by some influential figures that Maajid has done some work countering anti Muslim bigotry. We are yet to learn of this compelling evidence.
What we know is that all the evidence points to Maajid Nawaz being associated with the Islamophobic activity. Let us start with his radio show on the LBC, he hasn’t presented a single show in which he hasn’t criticised Muslims calling them bigots, extremists, etc. and he promotes his show telling listeners to expect exactly that. that. His treatment of Muslim callers to the show is well rehearsed, his tone becomes aggressive, he talks about things not relevant to the subject i.e blasphemy, sharia, capital punishments, etc, etc. This also gives him opportunity to criticise “the left” for working supporting Muslims like Islamophobia. On the other hand pre arranged callers i.e. Ex Muslims, etc are given every opportunity to criticise Muslims/ Islam. Furthermore, Maajid Nawaz cleverly and shamelessly uses his racial, cultural and religious heritage as a licence to shut down his critics in the mainstream white community and other panellists on the programs such as the Pledge. Maajid doesn’t hesitate to compare Islamism and what he calls regressive left to Nazis.
Maajid Nawaz repeatedly tells exaggerated stories about himself and own importance. He claims that as a teenager he was chased by the Combat 18 thugs armed with knives and hammers but he never came to any harm. The combat 18 wasn’t a street fighting racist group but a highly secretive group with aims to target prominent politicians and other public figures, not teenagers. He claims that he went to Pakistan as a recruiter for Hizbul Tehrir but nothing is disclosed about his success. He also makes a lot about his arrest and time spent in prison in Egypt today. The reality is that he was part of a group of four British prisoners, one of whom was released. The other two were white British and because of them there was pressure on the authorities to do something. Their case was taken up by Amnesty International because they all made allegations of torture. Maajid now says that he wasn’t tortured and he has now fallen out with Amnesty over their criticism of the atrocities committed by the state of Israel against Palestinians in the occupied territories and Gaza. Furthermore, Maajid is a committed critic of those who were actually tortured and held without charge in Guantanamo Bay.
Maajid Nawaz is unashamedly associates, collaborates and supports those active in the field of anti Muslim bigotry, correct term for which is Islamophobia. Maajid Nawaz used to call himself a moderate Muslim and not a reformer. However, he now calls himself a reformer Muslim and claims that he is influencing people like Sam Harris and Ayaan etc. There is no evidence that supports his claims instead his own activities and rhetoric has become similar to his company and he seems to have adopted Islamophobic tropes. Furthermore, he consciously supports racist and far right figures like Tommy Robinson, etc. Maajid’s friend Douglas Murray calls European, far right, Islamophobes, racists, supremacists, like Geert Wilders, Victor Orban his friends. Geerat Wilders recently sent this message to Free Tommy Robinson rally in London. By the way the rally & Tommy Robinson's legal costs are being borne by an Islamophobic, anti Arab/ Palestinian, Zionist and anti refugee organisation called Middle East Forum . The Maajid himself sent a tweet to the British Prisons Minister re his concerns about the safety of Tommy Robinson. He says his concerns were on humanitarian grounds. Similar cconcerns were sent by Geert Wilders & Breitbats Raheem Kassem. Furthermore, he used the imprisonment of Tommy Robinson to blame Muslim and Pakistani communities for Tommy Robinson, ignoring the fact that Tommy has been a racist who turned #Islamophobe. Muslims are neither responsible for his xenophobia or repeated imprisonments for which he pleaded guilty.
Maajid Nawaz is quick to speak in support of white far right, racists, Islamophobes, and new Nazis but never in support of Brown Muslims subjected to the same treatment. Instead he calls Anti Fascist groups to be named as extremists. Recent example of his support for the far right is his at detention of Laura Southern by UK Border Force and subsequent denial of entry to UK. Without checking Maajid said that she was a Christian conservative. He claimed that she was being barred for distributing “blasphemous leaflet "blasphemous leaflet" during her previous visit to the country. Day before coming to the UK Laura Southern had posted a video about her friends being detained by the UK Border Force. She was talking about Generation Identity’s Austrian co founder Martin Sellner and his girlfriend. Generation Identity is a pan-European movement which is anti immigration and want to deport non whites from Europe. Laura Southern herself doesn’t claim to be Christian but says she is agnostic. Incidentally they were all coming to UK for a meeting with Tommy Robinson.
Both Maajid and the Quilliam foundation, which he says he founded, work to exaggerate negative stories about Muslims and undermine positive ones. Their work is more about self promotion for sake of keeping their backers, partners and followers happy and to give cover to anti Muslim rhetoric. Furthermore, financial rewards remain a motivator in their work. Initially they worked with the government and allegedly produced a list of Muslims for the security agencies. Then they worked with the Henry Jackson Society and Douglas Murray in return for financial support. Later Sam Harris enticed them with a donation of thousands of dollars. Sam them took Maajid to Australia so he could say he has a Muslim friend who agrees with him. Now Quilliam gets funding from the Templeton foundation and in return Israel gets full support from Maajid and Quilliam.
You may say that Islamophobic rhetoric is in the DNA of the Quilliam Foundation and people working for it. It is not just Maajid who has alliances with the Islamophobic people and organisations but most people attached to the Quilliam have the same work ethics. Here is Haras Rafiq grovelling to notorious Islamophobe Tommy Robinson and saying that Tommy is not racist or white supremacist. Here is Maajid Nawaz statement on the issue. Haras Rafiq and Tommy Robinson were brought together by the BBC’s Daily Politics programme presenter Andrew Neil and Tim Marshal of Sky news , told Haras and Tommy that they need to sort out their issues by talking and shouldn't they be on the same side. Andrew Neil acts as media godfather for the right and has provided platform to many anti Muslim and other right wing activists including Britain First,BNP, UKIP, etc. Andrew Neil is also responsible for introducing Douglas Murray, Maajid Nawaz to the British public.
Maajid and Quilliam continue to attack Muslims by manipulating data and presenting as research.For example their report on so called grooming gangs has been debunked in this Twitter thread by Luke Wilson and this article byJ Spooner & J Stubbs. Now Maajid's own colleague at LBC radio Matthew Stadlen is asking why Maajid & Quilliam hasn't publicly responded to this criticism. They, however, continue to quote dodgy surveys as factual information. As far as I know Quilliam has never conducted any research or surveyed Muslims themselves and rely on third party work to make outrageous claims about Muslim minorities in the west. Maajid Only person who had conducted a genuine research at Quilliam was Julie Ebnar in the rise of the far right but she found that Maajid and Quilliam distanced themselves from her research. After the above mentioned Tommy Robinson affair Julia left Quilliam and wrote a book on the subject of the rise of the far right and racism disguised as criticism of Islam.
Despite Maajid’s claims of working against anti Muslim Bigotry and apparent change in his twitter activity, he remains committed to his alliances with Islamophobes. He celebrated his “win” over SPLC with some of these people. He is like a teenager who wants to be with the clique of cool but cruel kids. To please the clique he says things which sometimes even surprise them. This can be seen in his podcasts with Sam Harris where he made a joke at the expense of the Prophet. Maajid also agreed with Sam that like him Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch had suffered unjustified reputational damage and that he would have no trouble in working with him. His immaturity could be seen in the reaction on Twitter to the offer of settlement from SPLC.
Maajid Nawaz cleverly and shamelessly uses his racial, national, cultural and religious heritage as a licence to shut down his critics in the mainstream white community. He probably applied the same tactics with SPLC and used his friends such as those who gave him “humanitarian award” (I call it bribe) through UN watch, for his criticism of the UN Human Rights Council. UN Watch employs people who are anti Arab, anti Palestinian and Islamophobic. One such person is Richard Kemp, who was successfully sued for libel by Muslim politician, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, for calling her supporter of extremists and Jihadists. Maajid Nawaz has also criticised Baroness for working with grassroots organizations& for asking for investigation of Islamophobia in the Conservative party. Fault of the Human Rights Council, criticism of Israel for the atrocities being committed in occupied territories and Gaza against the Palestinian people and continuous land grab for illegal settlements occupied by mainly by North American Jewish people. I sincerely hope that SPLC haven’t been hoodwinked as Maajid’s employer LBC radio had been who thought that Maajid had received humanitarian award from the UN. Although it is curious that Maajid received SPLC offer approximately a month after his speech after receiving the award. Notice the usual reference to Combat 18, etc.
Only silver lining in this sorry affair is that the settlement money will be paid by SPLC insurers and comes with strings attached that money to be spent on fighting anti Muslim bigotry. Hope that means community based projects and not those sponsored by the establishment. It is probably the conditions of settlement which are making Quilliam and Maajid anxious and he is desperate to meet with Mr Cohen of the SPLC. After very public pressure he seems to have secured a meeting with the SPLC and he is taking director of Quilliam Haras Rafiq with him. Maajid has even started to tweet differently but it is not going down well with his followers and he started to losing twitter followers. He is back to his usual style of tweeting now.
Despite Maajid’s claims of working against anti Muslim Bigotry and apparent change in his twitter activity, he remains committed to his alliances with Islamophobes. He celebrated his “win” over SPLC with some of these islamophbic people & tweeted "I don't fuck around". As usual he exaggerated (lied) about effects of his listing by Thompson Reuters. He is like school teenager who wants to be with the clique of cool but cruel kids and to please the clique he says things which even surprises them. This can be heard in his podcast with Sam Harris where he made fun of the Prophet of Islam and agreed that another Islamophobe, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch wasn’t a bad man and he would have no trouble in working with him.
From the actions of Maajid Nawaz a reasonable person will conclude that he is involved in politics of distraction, deflection, division and destruction. He distracts people from real issues by making strawman arguments to protect Israel and her supporters, who happens to be all the people he associates with. He deflects people by providing cover for people like Sam Harris, Ayaan, Tommy, etc. by supporting their arguments and by saying no such thing as Islamophobia. He acts to destruct communal harmony in the Western society by sowing seeds of suspicion against minorities and their struggle for equality.
I do hope that SPLC would see the ugly truth and reconsider their offer.
