Guess Who is Defending Tommy Robinson!

I look forward to the articles by Douglas Murray of the Spectator and Henry Jackson society. My anxious wait is in a vein hope that maybe just maybe he will talk about something interesting and change his topic to something more akin to the title of his previous “think tank” named “the centre for community cohesion”. I am not talking about the work of this think tank, which was to create divisions rather than cohesion.  Alas week after week I am disappointed to see that his talent remains limited to calling people anti-Semitic and his rhetoric continues to be anti Muslim and anti migrant/ refugee.

He obviously is happy with this static state of intellectuality probably because it attract funders. He has found supporters of this limited talent in the UK, across the pond in the US and through the channel tunnel in the mainland Europe. Not to mention support from the Spectator and the BBC which provides opportunities for regular appearances on the News and ethics programmes. Such appearances often include his friends and fellow beneficiaries of funds from the Gatestone Institute, the Quilliam gang. I am not sure if the Quilliam lot could be classed as his friends, as they receive funds from organisations of which Douglas is a director. And it seems there is no limit to the funding for Quilliam and Henry Jackson Society activities, details here , here and here . Furthermore, quilliam also recieved funding from Sam Harris along with royalties for joint appearances and a joint book. 

Anyway his latest article/ blog ,published on 9^th of January, gives false headline as he did for his article on the anti war protest during the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2014. The current article headed “Cologne exposes a crisis in our continent, yet parliament is debating Donald Trump” is nothing more than a defense of Tommy Robinson. May be because, Tommy Robinson is setting up an English branch of the anti Muslim party Pegida. Tommy also attended a rally in Cologne where he declared, we are men, we protect our woman that’s what men do. Although his disparaging remarks about Mrs. Merkel did not go down well with the organisers. It seems Germans still respect their leaders.

This support for Tommy Robinson reminds me courting and grooming of Maajid Nawaz. He was also picked up, after he lost all support from the Muslim community,and propelled into the mainstream as a profit of reform (before you say it spelling mistake is deliberate). The reformist title was borrowed from Ayaan H Ali. It seems Tommy Robinson is another addition to their project. Because while the Quilliam and Maajid Nawaz etc. are projected as reformer to the educated and literati classes, Tommy Robinson would be a foot soldier to appeal to the disaffected lower classes. So, on the one hand Maajid Nawaz will spread the message that there is no such thing as Islamophobia and on the other, Tommy will spread the phobia through Pagida. Tommy has already been given all clear by the Jewish Chronicle for not being anti-Semitic. Now Douglas is asserting that the establishment has been mistreating Tommy while allegedly letting Muslims off the hook. This neatly fits into the narrative of discrimination against white lower classes and favoritism of BME communities.

At the time when Muslim and BME organizations including charities are coming under sustained attack on the recommendation of people like Quilliam, Nick Cohen and Eustonites, Harry’s Place, etc. this alleged victimhood of Tommy Robinson will be a good distraction. Today any organisation or individual who comments on or oppose the governments “Prevent” agenda is being attacked. Universities and other institutions who allow them onto their premises are set upon by the media. To borrow a phrase from Nick Cohen if they succeed silencing Muslim individuals and organisations then “What’s left” will be the Quilliam. That will give real meaning to the George W Bush’s misguided banner of “Mission Accomplished”.

Talking of Nick Cohen, another self proclaimed Liberal and leftist and the author of What’s Left, he has been busy. Did you know that there is a Wikipedia entry , created in December 2015, for the phrase "Regressive Left". If you read the entry, you will say Nick’s figure prints are all over it. Although he has given full credit for coining the phrase to Maajid Nawaz, a little research will show that the phrase has been borrowed from this site.. In any case the word regressive was first used in taxation to show variation of tax according to income. Regressive tax was a good thing though, as it dropped down if your income fell. In a recent interview about resignations and sackings of shadow ministers, Ken Livingston described the sacked and resignees as hard right. In my view this description of resignees/ sacked shadow ministers perfactly fits Nick Cohen and his politics.

The description of Tommy Robinson as a victim of the establishment will soon change to his right to free speech. That will be an hypocritical stand by Douglas Murray and co, who fund an army of snoopers in the false guise of "student rights". They criticise Universities, student unions and University staff for allowing discussion and debate on University premises. Our Universities are famous and admired for their ability to discuss and debate important issues of the day and produce tomorrow’s leaders. However, these people don’t care about the damage to the reputations to our Universities in the international market. They are happy to sacrifice peace and co existence in favour of maintaining purist and supremacist ideology of the far right. In short they want to undermine the community cohesion which took years to build.

Freedom of Speech and the Rhetoric of Blasphemy

Since the Charlie Hebdo Murders, freedom of speech has become the mantra of the phobic community. To add Muslim angle to the mantra and to stay on course for inciting hatred against Muslims, Blasphemy has been added into the mix. Maajid Nawaz even presented a motion for free speech and right to blaspheme, at the Liberal Democrat spring conference. Being a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Liberal Democrats, he should have known that UK abolished the blasphemy law in 2008. Furthermore, the freedom of expression is enshrined in the law. Not surprisingly, Maajid’s motion and its adoption by the Liberal Democrat conference received praise from people like Nick Cohen .    

Anyone who has some knowledge of their faith or faiths in general knows that, no faith or faith scriptures mention blasphemy. Furthermore, all faiths support freedom of thought and speech because that's how faiths spread. So where does this term and idea comes from, if not from religion or faith. As far as I know the blasphemy was first constructed and introduced by the Christian or cannon law. In the UK it was adopted into the common law in the 17^th century and was only abolished in 2008. It was mainly introduced in common law to maintain the supremacy of the Church of England over other factions of Christianity.

A different form of blasphemy law was introduced in the colonies by Britain. The purpose of this law was more administrative than religious. As colonial rule expanded, it brought previously independent Hindu, Christian and Muslim areas under colonial administration. Furthermore, Britain needed to give protection to the missionary work by her clergy and newly converted subjects. So the aim of this legislation was to maintain order and to prevent communal violence. To date it remains on the statute books of these former colonies.

The reason such laws remained on the statuette books is that the newly independent countries were based on newly created borders which didn’t exist before the colonial rule. Furthermore, these new borders contained diverse communities, thus the need for this administrative tool to protect minorities not the majority religions. The prime example of this is the states of India and Pakistan. The laws in both countries protects, although not successfully, all religions not just the majority religions.

UK has abolished the blasphemy law, which mainly protected Christianity but it enacted new legislation with a view to protect minorities. The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, is similar to the version introduced in the former colonies and is an administration tool. The act also preserves the right to freedom of speech/ freedom of expression but outlaws hate speech. Similar laws can be found on statute books of most European countries. Even France, the bastion of secularism, maintains laws for freedom of religion and against hate speech. It is another thing that such laws are rarely enforced and are flouted by the Far Right and “New” Atheists or anti-theists, secularists, humanists, etc.

As well as introducing the motion at the Lib Dem conference, Maajid Nawaz has also written an essay on the topic of Blasphemy. He starts his essay with the claim that the religious Prophets had blasphemed against the prevailing social constructs of that time. In other words when prophet Muhammad (pbuh) told people that burying daughters alive was wrong or Jesus spoke against money changers for profiteering from misery or Moses preached against pharaohs brutal rule, they all committed blasphemy. By that logic, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and today Palestinians, etc are blasphemers against the oppressive apartheid systems.

Maajid Nawaz’s convoluted arguments of cultural relativism, neo- oriental liberalism, can be summarised in few simple words. Western liberal society is monolithic and has no room for other cultures, identities, values or rights to equality. This attitude clearly ignores the fact that Majority of Muslim and other minorities in this country are born and bred here and regards themselves as British. When they go on holiday to Europe, North America, East or West they introduce themselves as British. Its people like him and other phobes and racists who want to give them the labels of their heritage. Hypocritically, Maajid Nawaz and co get on their high horse, when talking about other countries and protection of rights of minorities and cultures. Lecturing them to protect their religion, rights and cultures while doing the opposite here.

His position seems to be that minorities fighting for equality and maintaining their identity is a bad thing. On the other hand he claims, without providing any evidence, that there are minorities within the Muslim Minority who are experiencing victimisation. The fact is that himself and the so called ex-Muslims have aligned themselves with the powerful fascists, racists, New Atheists etc. They are deliberately provoking and attacking the Muslims and minorities. He includes himself in those minorities and hypocritically plays the victim card while criticising UK minorities for playing victim card. As usual he maintains that the majority of Muslims are extremists and are trying to impose Sharia and blasphemy on the liberal society. He is not interested in the socioeconomic situation and the attitude of some in the host community towards the minority communities, which has ghettoised some communities. Instead he claims that far right is profiting from the feeling of victimisation of the majority community. His attitude towards the orient and globalisation of the world ignores the fact that orient didn’t just provide the spices, silk, tea wealth; it also influenced and shaped the so called western values.

He talks about reformation but forgets that so called reformation came from within the Christian community not from outside. It is not the job of the so called ex-Muslims, Atheists or Quilliam to tell Muslims what to do. Muslims, for centuries both under Muslim rule and non Muslim rule co existed with various sects, cultures and religions. There were and still are inter religion, race, and sect marriages all around the world. There are no elected religious political parties anywhere in Muslim majority countries. Only countries where religiously influenced parties or persons are in power are India, Israel and the USA. People like Ayaan H Ali are not bothered by the election of fundamentalist religious party being in power in India. They are not bothered by the persecution of the low cast Hindus or religious minorities. They ignore the role of religion in Judicial and political systems in Israel or US.

As usual Maajid Nawaz is providing cover to his friends, who are involved in the racism, islamophobia and bigotry. The people, who have made a career out of their fascist activity by creating divisions and hate preaching. These people include Tommy Robinson, Sam Harris, Douglas Murray and Ayaan H Ali. Maajid and his friends use the rhetoric of freedom of speech to voice their bigoted views about the Muslim minorities in the west. They play the divisive games by praising some minorities while criticising the others. For example, Tommy Robinson would tweet praise about Sikh and Jewish minorities, while continuing his vile rhetoric against the Muslim minority. Recently Tommy Robinson tweeted guidance about recognising Sikhs by their turbans and to respect them. What this means is that everyone else of brown skin such as Sri Lankans, Arabs, South Americans, Indians, etc whether Christian, Hindu, Non Muslim, are a fair game. However, differentiating the Sikh women from Muslim women isn’t that simple so they remain open to the misogynistic attacks by his followers.  
  
The other thing Maajid and others say is that they have the right to offend. The question is what is the motive behind the offensive activity i.e. cartoons. Is it freedom of speech/ expression or there is sinister politics behind such cartoons. When Chris Moos and his partner appeared on a BBC programme and displayed their t-shirts bearing cartoons, what message were they relaying? Prior to their appearance on BBC Chris Moos and his partner had worn the same t-shirts at a university, during fresher’s week.  They had a stall purporting to promote atheism but their t-shirts had nothing to do with promotion of atheism. You don’t promote something by offending people, you antagonise them. If they wanted to promote the message of humanism and atheism then why didn’t they wear the t-shirts Richard Dawkins sells in his shops? Clearly their intentions were not about promotion of their ideology but to create divisions among students. Dawkins was so impressed by Chris Moos and his partner’s actions that he awarded him the humanist of the year award, but ignored his brown partner.

The fact is that such actions have nothing to do with freedom of expression. Neither are they satirical, as claimed by Richard Dawkins. They are deliberate attempts to stigmatise and dehumanise Muslim and minority communities. They are a copy of the Israeli rhetoric to dehumanise Palestinians by spreading lies i.e. Palestinians use their children as human shield. As it happens all of these groups and individuals are open supporters of Israel and her policies of suppressing the Palestinians. Sam Harris and Ayaan H Ali have openly agreed with IDF propaganda that Palestinians use human shields. Whether it is Tommy Robinson, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Ayaan H Ali, Nick Cohen, Douglas Murray or Maajid Nawaz, they are all working with a clear political agenda. They give legitimacy to the war on terror which to date has claimed more than 2 million lives. Their role is to distract the populations of the West from what is happening around the world and keep them in a state of paranoia and fear.
     
A cursory look at the twitter activity of these people will tell you that neither of the above activity do anything to further their cause or belief. Instead you will find a common thread in their tweets. You won’t find Quilliam and Maajid addressing the Muslim youth with counter extremist message or Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris preaching atheism. You will not find Nick Cohen criticising Israel or Douglas Murray writing anything other than demonising of the Muslims and other minority communities and accusing them of anti-Semitism and homophobia. You won’t find Ayaan H Ali making civilised conversation about her rhetoric of reformation but inciting violence and supporting suppression of Muslims and minorities. You don’t even need to look at Tommy Robinson tweets to know his vile views, yet he has received admiration from all of the aforementioned.

Don’t be bamboozled by the rhetoric and sound bites by polished performers, always look beyond the glossy exterior and you may find the ugly truth of bigotry, Xenophobia, racism,Islamophobia, etc

Pushing Back Boundaries but, ....

In the Wrong Direction

Not a day goes by when a section of the British society is not in the news headlines. Even if there was a serious tragedy in the world affecting 100s, it would not trump the action / perceived actions of an individual from this community. Such coverage is deliberately normalising the issues which were made taboo by decades of struggle. This continuous highlighting of issues affecting the community is pushing back the boundaries but in the wrong direction. This is happening because every action and inaction of the community, is being looked through the tainted glass of prejudice. This prejudice is affecting more than the community in question.

Recently Channel Four broadcasted a documentary, presented by Trevor Phillips, a former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The documentary titled “Things We Won’t Say About Race That Are True”, seems to be based on the old stereotypes. However, he failured to acknowledge, that the old stereotypes had in the past, given rise to hatred, violence and atrocities rarely seen in the human history. Therefore, it is important to fight old and the new stereotypes to prevent this happening again. While the documentry has been criticised by activists like Lee Jasper , it was welcomed by the right wing media such as the Daily Mail, which published this, incorporating his article. It is not surprising that only people they found to agree with him were couple of Tory MPs. The Mail, which is not a fan of the Equality or Human Rights, couldn’t help to have a dig on Trevor Phillips himself, stating that he received salary of £112,000 for 3.5 days work.

                                                           Cartoon by Operation Black Vote

Trevor Phillips’s only achievement was to merge the various branches of the Equality into one. I personally don’t think that this achieved the goals previously set by the various independent commissions. As the head of the EHRC, Trevor Phillips had started from the complacent belief that the equality, especially in the field of race had been achieved. His actions to merge various branches of equality commission were more to do with empire building than reality on the Ground. Since then we have seen case after case revealing institutionalised racism and discrimination not only in the field of race but also of gender, disability and the under privileged. The Rotherham case is as much, if not more, of institutionalised discrimination against the under privileged white community who’s complaints were ignored, of groomers being from a certain section of community. This is supported by the Oxford council’s admission, that their failures to investigate such cases properly had nothing to do with any political correctness.

Unfortunately, Trevor Phillips has allowed himself to fall into the trap of increasingly blurred lines made possible by the continuous headlines and reckless media coverage using inflammatory language. The mainstream media and the Politicians have muddled the equality issue with stereo types. It is now normal to hear Xenophobic language when discussing immigration, racism when discussing Islamophobia, macho attitudes when discussing sexism, derogatory remarks when discussing disability, label of anti-semitism when discussing Israel/ Palestine conflict and rhetoric of freedom of speech, while inciting hatred against Muslims.

The social media has also played a role in this normalisation of pushing boundaries in the wrong direction. People think that they can get away with typing their inner most dark thoughts in the anonymity of the Internet. We have seen threats of rape and violence against women, blatant lies and stereotypes to spread religious, racial and other forms of hatred. Unfortunately, the bigots take comfort in the knowledge that they have the support of respectable figures on the internet and in mainstream media. The trends on the twittersfield become headlines for the 24 hour media, hungry for more and more headline fillers. So tweets about halal/ kosher food become national headlines.

The recent example is the Clarkson fracas with an Irish producer, which turned out to be a serious unprovoked physical and verbal racial attack. For few days it looked that, like many times before, Clarkson would survive the latest mess of his own making. BBC did everything possible to keep Clarkson on their books but as more and more witnesses came forward, they had no choice but to ignore the tank carrying one million signature petition. The petition is the perfect indictment of the prevailing attitude in sections of the society. Despite the tragedy in the French Alps, BBC gave prominence to its decision to not to renew contract with Clarkson. BBC journalists gave his sacking disproportionate air time. They made arguments about his value, for bringing 50 million pounds, and made light of the physical assault, describing it as 30 second incident. It is this kind of attitude that minimises the gravity of similar actions against minorities.

The common thread, in majority of Clarkson's misdemeanours, is the race including the latest incident that included remarks about the victim being Irish. Although, he has been equally vile towards, women, disabled, etc. he receives admiration for not being PC, as though this is something to admire. Astonishingly, he received support from high profile people including our Prime Minister. It is this kind of support which normalises, racism, sexism, Islamophobia and victimisation of other disadvantaged groups, sick and the poor working classes. Such racism also affects the unity of the United Kingdom, as throw away remarks are made about the Scots, Welsh and the Irish for political gains.

I am not an expert on any of the issues listed above but as a member of ethnic minority group with migrant and Muslim heritage, I have views on these topics. We are witnessing the erosion of minority rights earned after long and hard struggles. I say earned as it took decades of fight with the overt, covert and institutionalised racism and discrimination. The equality Acts of 1977 did not work because of the reluctance of the establishment to implement them. This resulted in demonstrations, which were classified as riots despite it being reaction to provocation of discrimination and attacks by organisations like National Front and combat 18. Only after these “riots” and the Lord Scarman’s report, things started to improve. So from the passing of the Act in 1977, it took another decade to see changes especially in the public sector and the public services.  

Fast forward to the second decade of the 21st century and we find that all those prejudices, we thought had been left behind, have resurfaced. Only this time the problem has returned in a respectable form, in our politics, media and in the literati. It has spread like a virus from mainstream politics to the gutters of racist EDL and Britain First. An example of muddle alliances is Tommy Robinson, who still supports EDL, Pagida, Britain First and UKIP but is friends with the Islamophobic new Left, LibDem PPC Maajid Nawaz, and the disgraced Tory PPC Afzal Amin. He openly tweets Islamophobic and racist material on the internet but somehow keeps friendship with this diverse group of people. Maybe he is the new symbol of diversity.

The racist and fascist organisations always had the backing of powerful and influential people. It’s not different today as powerful members of the media, politics and literati, supporting the racist and Islamophobic individuals and groups. They are helping to undermine the progress in the equality field, by spreading fear through the xenophobic rhetoric of immigration and Islam. They cleverly use, all encompassing Islamophobic narrative, that includes all the traits of the Far right. It includes immigration, racism and misogyny . No wonder that people like Richard Dawkins, his followers and the organisations under his patronage claim that no such thing as Islamophobia. The same view expressed by others like Sam Harris and lately by Maajid Nawaz who even issued a Fatwa stating that there is no such thing as Islamophobia. If anyone thinks that the Islamophobia doesn’t affect others, they should read this SAALT report by the US Asian community highlighting the diversity of communities affected by Islamophobic attacks.    

Trevor Phillips, in his article attacked the idea of multiculturalism, and said that in multicultural Britain Muslim children may have a narrow view of the world. At the same time he blames France’s non multiculturalist system for the murder of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. He can’t have both ways. Like many others he doesn’t want to acknowledge that children of migrants have a greater knowledge of the world than their white counterparts. There is a high chance that they are bilingual, they have visited developing countries of their  parents/ grandparents heritage. They probably have the first hand knowledge of struggles of people around the world. They are more likely to have a wider world view through the international media.

Trevor Phillips also talked about the young girls who had gone to the war torn Syria. Again his views seem to have been based on stereotypes rather than facts. It is clear that these girls had normal family life and were happy at school and were A grade students. The question to ask is about their experiences outside of school and home. What I have learnt from two groups of girls interviewed by the BBC News and BBC Newsnight. The first group interviewed was hijab wearing and they said that they had experienced racist, Islamophobic and Misogynistic attacks, because they way they dressed. The second group was interviewed by Evan Davis for Newsnight. They weren’t hijabis and they also said that they also feel that the society doesn’t accept them because of their colour and race. When they said they understood why girls would leave their comfortable life for a warzone, Evan Davis said that their comments could be interpreted as apology for terrorism. Not surprised that the BBC did not release these videos, while other videos like the interview with Ayaan H Ali were released immediately after the broadcast.

There are some people who have spoken out against the Islamophbia but not enough. In a recent appearance on the BBC Question Time, broadcasted on 18^th March, Will Self said that his students overwhelmingly think, that the Muslims are the most oppressed minority in the UK today. In the same week Matthew Parris wrote an article, in the Spectator, titled "Anti Muslim Prejudice is Real and Scary" . Unfortunately his lone voice is drowned by Douglas Murray’s weekly articles in the Spectator, who also wrote this and his other prejudicial gems include this vile article and this . 

It has become respectable to have Islamophobic prejudice and thanks to the false scandals such as Trojan Horse and the Cathy Neman tweets, it has spread from the mainstream media to the school playgrounds. Our universities are being monitored by the new humanists and the Henry Jackson Society supported group Student Rights. Their activity is not dissimilar to that of Hitler’s Nazi Youth. If we want to have a fair and equal society then we must confront this last respectable prejudice. Our failures to do so will have wider implications for all.  

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     

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.

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.