Embellishment of Maajid Nawaz by Maajid Nawaz

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.

Legalised Discrimination

In the recent weeks new laws and Bills have been introduced by a country that claims to be a western democracy, despite it being located in the Middle East. These measures include 20 year prison term for throwing stones, collective punishment of demolishing homes and now the Nationality Bill declaring it a religious state. The implications for the indigenous population are that they can be deprived of, already diluted, rights of citizenship. The indigenous population has already seen confiscation of their land, farms and homes and influx of Western Citizens settled on that land. These new settlements, populated by people who are neither refugees nor economic migrants, are often built in a way that it divides existing communities who are then forced to use long routes, separate roads and paths. It increases presence of not only the armed police and army but also abuse , threats, harassment from armed settlers, who arrive with already developed prejudices.

There is no other country in the world which has such discriminative and inhumane laws. I am of course talking about Israel which claims to be a modern democracy. However, her actions do not support this grand claim, they show that Israel operates a discriminative and apartheid based system against the Palestinians / Arabs. This kind of behaviour was previously seen in the colonised countries, most recently in the apartheid state of South Africa.  There are clear similarities between the apartheid regime and Israel. South Africans claimed to be superior on the basis of colour and their western ancestry. Same can be said about Israelis, who have descended from the white western communities. Like South African apartheid regime, Israeli survival is dependent on the trade and aid from the West.     

We in the West believe that we are living in secular societies where human rights of all are protected. We claim to have systems and legislations that promote and protect equal rights of all and the justice system is not based on punishment and revenge but Justice and rehabilitation. We tell rest of the world that we have democratic systems that protects right to air views openly without any repercussions. We have the free and open society with freedom of thought and where disagreements are resolved with intellectual debate and discussion. We proudly take on causes of the people, who are persecuted for their views, politics, religion, ethnicity or who are at odds with their government.

With all the above virtues of civility, how come there is no outcry about the injustices in Israel? Why do our politicians accept Israel as a democratic country? Why does the United Nations look incompetent and incapable of enforcing the Resolutions passed for a period spanning several decades? Why do US keep blocking any resolutions which condemn the massacres carried out by Israel?  Why does the West continue to ignore the outrage felt by their citizens? Why are Palestinians left to struggle under the oppression of this apartheid state?

The answer probably lies in the fact that some of the virtues we were proud of are fast becoming a distant memory. There has been a drip-drip erosion of the very foundations of civilisation which was the envy of the world. The pity is that this erosion has been caused by deliberate action of our politicians and power Hungary civil administration. It has been supported by the people who claim to be people of science and reason, intellectuals, media in general and journalists who fail to carry out their job properly and opt to fill their column with sensationalist headlines not thought provoking analytical pieces.

The turn of the century has not only brought us the dark incident of 9/11, it also brought the darkness in our thinking. It replaced rationality with child like how dare they do this to us. Our politicians, media and intellectuals see terrorists everywhere. This has given our security services to demand for ever more powers and tools. Same applies to US where we have seen that their Police and other domestic forces are now armed better than their armed forces. These forces now believe that they can literally get away with murder.

The reality is that the UK has an extensive experience of dealing with terrorism. We had adequate legislation and experienced security forces to deal with the issue of terrorism. Yes, modernisation was needed to cope with the technological advances. However, this attitude of how dare they, exceptionalism and fear of others, has lead to irrational thinking and legislation which is not thought through. This has resulted in the annual enactment of new legislation and regulations. Often such legislation is brought in a short space of time without proper thought and procedures.

The purpose of good legislation is to be long lasting to bring desired results without bringing unintended implications.. This requires full impact assessment and need for safeguards to prevent unintended and discriminatory effects on the wider communities. When you start saying that you want to control people’s thought processes, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, you betray the freedoms you preach. Furthermore, when you know that the legislation is having adverse affects on the wider community but start to justify it on perceived threats rather than actual events you are not a democrat.

If anything our experiences in the Northern Ireland tell us that despite extensive security measures we were unable to stop acts of terrorism and murder both in the Northern Ireland and on the mainland. With this in mind it is even more surprising that UK has been churning out legislation this way. There is continuous development of hardening of rhetoric. In the recent weeks our politicians and media has used terms like treason, exclusion and detention. This has now been presented as yet another terrorism bill. These proposed measures are more akin to internment, an outdated practice, than a positive measure to bring desired results.

The annual assaults on the freedoms are sinister when white groups and some banned terror groups are allowed to raise funds and are given safe passage to the battlefields. Also people who train and fight with foreign armies are excluded, even if they have been accused of committing atrocities/ war crimes. Furthermore, mercenaries disguised as volunteers and private security firms like G4S and Blackwater are allowed to operate freely.

I wonder why the Prime Minister made the announcement, about the current terrorism bill, in the Australian. I think it is now a policy to revive the old commonwealth plus USA against the alleged threat from the new commonwealth. May be the Prime Minister was impressed by the Australian policy of holding asylum seekers in detention centres based off her shores. Britain has it’s own detention centres but nothing like the Australian or USA’s Guantanamo Bay. Britain had previously unsuccessfully tried an off shore detention centre on a floating ship. May be this time it could build one on Thames Estuary/ Boris Island. Who needs an airport when you need to intern “terrorists”.  

What is surprising is that the old Commonwealth countries and USA, all English speaking, seems to have similar policies. Other countries in the West and other parts of the world has also experienced terrorism but somehow they have managed to keep things in perspective. Spain, for example, has not only experienced internal terrorism it also suffered the most deadliest post 9/11 attack in Europe, managed to deal with issue without draconian laws. Draconian laws, along with the negative rhetoric from politicians and media can only lead to more frustration and alienation. 

Is it a coincident that the same governments who treat their minority communities with discriminative and draconian legislation are also the countries that support Israel? These countries not only support Israel, they supply Israel arms and ammunition to carry out the atrocities. They allow their citizens to fight alongside Israeli armed forces and the highest number of settlers housed in the illegal settlements built on the stolen land are from these countries. They host the organisations that spread propaganda in favour of Israel and spread hate and hysteria about the minorities in these countries. Their state media has sister organisations BBC, ABC, CBC, etc. and private media like Sky which also broadcasts in all of these countries directly or through sister channels.

Despite the advances and popularity of the social media, mainstream media has a very important role to play. Mainstream media which has the ability to reach millions at home and abroad has a responsibility to inform and question our politicians. Unfortunately the mainstream media is in a stranglehold of certain class of people who control the agenda. They make more fuss about a dissident in China than pay attention to the plight of Rohingya in Burma. They are more concerned about the imprisonment of a businessman or a pop group in Russia than the suppression of Kashmiris. They would rather condemn Putin for helping the Ukranians against the Right wing neo Nazi’s than criticise Netnayhu who, as far as the Palestinians and reasonable people are concerned, is a brutal dictator.

In short, you can’t expect governments that operate discriminatory policies and legislation to condemn the discriminatory policies of Israel. It is for us the public to speak up for the Palestinians who are suffering from occupation, oppression, discrimination and increasingly dehumanisation by the Israel and her supporters based in Europe Australia and North America. We must remain steadfast in our support for the Palestinians and their right to freedom and continue to voice our disgust at the shameful apartheid dictatorship of Israel.