Not a Normal Country

Some will call this anti-Semitic

On 10^th November an Israeli sponsored account, which spreads state propaganda, tweeted the following:

This account, Israel News Flash, tweets propaganda as "Breaking News". Account tweets are then copied to people like Tommy Robinson, Trek Fatah, KT Hopkins and dozens more by twitter account of Charlie Green who's profile shows that he is an ex diplomat.

The young Palestinian boy in this picture is one of the 80+ Palestinians, mainly teenagers, shot dead by the Israelis since the latest troubles, which started at the beginning of October. During this period 10 Israelis have also been killed. On 13^th November2015 Two more Israelis were killed and one Palestinian was shot dead and over 100 were injured by live bullets at a demonstration. The Palestinians say that majority of the victims of Israeli policy of shoot to kill were unarmed and at the wrong place at the wrong time. A closer inspection of the knife placement in this picture can only strengthen the Palestinian version. The shoot to kill  policy isn’t new but what is new is that it has now been legalised. The Palestinians of any age including children can now be shot and killed for any descent including for stone throwing. Young children, as young as 6/7, can be described as terrorists and imprisoned.

Its not that Israel didn’t imprison children before, it did, however, now it can put them in front of military courts and prison them as terrorists. Furthermore, Israel continue to apply British colonial era practice of demolishing homes of Palestinians, accused of so called terrorist/ descent activity, rendering whole families homeless.

We in the west are  bombarded daily with rhetoric, by trolls on social media, newscasters and politicians like Boris Johnson, that Israel is a modern western democracy. Also that she is the only democracy in the Middle East. Yet I can’t think of a time when this so called democracy wasn’t involved in the suppressive and discriminatory behaviour towards the Palestinians and others living under her rule. This behaviour has been universally condemned, well almost universally. In fact Israel is the only country in the world which has broken/ ignored as many UN resolutions as the years of her existence. Not forgetting a bunch of resolutions which have been vetoed by the United States of America. No wonder Israel behaves like a villainous Mini Me and continues to apply the most brutal, discriminatory and apartheid practices against the Palestinians, Arabs and other minorities.

The fact is that Israel didn’t evolve as an organic nation but more like a creation of science fiction. What I mean is that Israel didn’t come to being because the people had always lived there and had gained independence and nationhood like many of the nations in existence today. Israeli story is more akin to a science fiction where aliens land from another planet. Like the Science Fiction, Israelis were given permission to settle in Palestine by the earth power, which at the time happened to be the British. Then in the fashion of sci fi they turned on the power that gave them sanctuary and the indigenous locals. They went on a terrorising spree of killing and expulsion of not only the indigenous population but also the British Imperialists.   

Israel’s relation with fiction has continued throughout her existence. From divine right to supposed ancestral home to reliant on Hasbara to spread fictional rhetoric. Israel and her supporters spread the rhetoric of being a modern democracy with civilised values. However, when it comes to the reality the picture is anything but that. It is a portrait of dark colonialism and suppressive apartheid. Where mistreatment of minorities, migrants, Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Gaza is a daily reality. Where exists a deliberate policy of discrimination, use of deadly force and suppression. Where intolerance shows in the shape of imprisonment, racial abuse of African migrants. Where claims of gay friendly atmosphere are made but gay pride is attacked and you will have no open doors for sanctuary to gays fleeing persecution. Where criticism of state is banned and so is flying of Palestinian flag. Where you will be denied visa to visit, even to co religious, if state considers that you have been involved in the activity of criticising the state of Israel and her policies of suppression.

Fiction, lying, racism, discrimination, use of deadly force iaren’t limited to rogue elements, it is the official state policy. It starts from the top with the Prime Minister Netanyahu, his advisors, spokes persons, cabinet ministers and the Knesset. We all know the racist broadcast by Netanyahu during the elections, warning that Arabs are voting in droves. His most daring fiction came with attempts to rewrite the history and to rehabilitate Hitler by shifting the blame for holocaust on to the Palestinians and Muslims. It seems that he has started to believe his own Islamophobic propaganda and that can’t be good sign for a person leading a country.

 Israel and Netanyahu are aided and abetted by a group of fiction writers and propagandist. They hold onto the scripted lies and spread the fictional idea of Modern Western Democracy. More often than not they also share Israeli Ideals of racism, discrimination, inhumanity and war. Whether it is the Gatestone institute, Bill Maher, Tommy Robinson, Henry Jackson Society and Douglas Murray, they all spread Islamophobia, racism against the refugees and advocate bombing of other countries. Others include new atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and self declared reformed radical Maajid Nawaz.

The hypocrisy of people like Douglas Murray and others is breathtaking. They cry that Syrian and other refugees coming to Europe of ½ billion people will affect Jodeo-Christian culture of Europe (even after acceptance of the refugees Muslims will only be approx 3.5% of the European population). The same people who oppose resettlement of refugees in Europe fervently support the Netanyahu’s policy of importing co-religious to already overpopulated occupied territories of Palestine, where settlers now make approx 30% of the West Bank/ occupied territories.  

These fiction writer Israeli supporters conveniently ignore at least 50 pieces of Israeli legislation, discriminating against the 20% of the “Israel proper” population of Arabs, affecting their family life from Marriage to buying a house. Then there are Palestinians living in the occupied territories in the West Bank. They face daily barrage of bullets, abuse and humiliation, not only from the ever present security forces but also from the armed settlers. The settlers have not only stolen their land, both residential and farming, they have the audacity to claim that they are doing favours by employing Palestinians as slave labour. These settlers are an extremist bunch on par with the IS, Indian RSS and Myanmar’s extremist Buddhists. Settler’s extremism and radicalism is many time greater than Maajid Nawaz’s greatly embellished radicalism.

We must remember the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, who have been subjected to an ongoing medieval style siege. They are surrounded from all sides with no prospects in Gaza and have no chance to escape to better their lives. Along with the walls and barbed wire, they are monitored from Military ships, drones and from time to time bombed by military jets. Last year over 2000 including 500 children of Gaza were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed by what could only be described as mad army. Their lives, livelihoods, health provisions, education, ability to farm and build homes are all subject to control. There homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, power stations and even beaches have been bombed by Israel. They don’t even have control of the safe water supplies.

Israel’s apartheid system is often compared with the South African system but in reality it is worse. As brutal and suppressive it was the South African regime didn’t use tanks and fighter jets against the black population. It did not invade neighbouring countries or sent bomber jets to invade and bomb. It didn’t have the walls erected or watch towers installed. It didn’t kill people at the mass scale as Israel does. It didn’t arrest and imprison children at the unprecedented rate. It didn’t make it legal to shoot and kill stone throwing children, It didn’t classify children and others protesting against the inequalities as terrorists. It didn’t classify the whole swaths of population as terrorists. It didn’t use military courts instead of the civil courts. It didn’t implant 600,000 foreign settlers in already heavily populated areas and armed and trained  them to kill.

During his latest visit to the United States this week, Netanyahu has once again stated that Israel is the only safe space for his co-religious. This is a slap in the face of all western democracies and their freedoms, which has allowed his co-religious people to flourish without any kind of discrimination. The dangerous nature of oppressive policies of Israel are sometimes criticised by some free thinking politicians like the Swedish Foreign Minister speaking after the Paris attacks. Yet this unlikely country continues to receive political support from our politicians and most importantly monitory and military support from the US.  

False Equations

In the recent days a well known Islamophobe joined the Social Media’s mass medium of Twitter. This has been welcomed by the so called man of science and reason, Richard Dawkins, who no longer promotes either the science or involves himself in a reasoned debate. Instead his mission in life seems to be to acquire funding from suspect funders and then to distribute those funds to groups and individuals actively promoting Islamophobia. Why wouldn’t Richard Dawkins welcome Ayaan H Ali to Twitter, the medium he has exploited to make inflammatory and hateful sometimes racial statements. The 140 characters limit is also an excuse to not to make a reasoned argument. He also supports anonymous troll accounts which are overtly and crudely racist and Islamophobic but he calls them satirical.

The other person who welcomed Ayaan is Maajid Nawaz, a PPC for the Liberal Democrats and the Chair of Quilliam foundation. He responded to the tweet by Sam Harris, encouraging people to follow her and Maajid quickly obliged. Maajid also endorsed Ayaan H Ali’s article in the Wall Street Journal and the forthcoming book. Some people believe that Ayaan H Ali already had an account under the name of Secular African. This account had Islamophobic, hate and racist agenda. It openly promoted hate of Muslims and especially of Arabs and supported Israel, especially during the attack on Gaza, when it relayed IDF propaganda. No wonder she has voiced her desire to convert to Judaism. This account also incited Hindus against Muslims, during the Indian election, and supported Narender Modi with a desire to get him to follow back.

Ayaan H Ali has been criticised for her comments that incite violence against Muslims and support suppression of their rights in Europe and North America. This criticism hasn’t just come from Muslims, but Atheiests and Academics alike. In light of the above mentioned, her desires to convert to Judaism is understandable. This, however, conflates with her stated position of being an atheist. We, however, shouldn’t be surprised as other New Atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, have also shown soft spot for Judaism, Christianity and Israel.  While Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris may have a chance of being accepted in the Jewish state, Ayaan H Ali, however has no chance of being accepted. She should look at the racist attitudes of Israelis towards African Jews and immigrants and the recent comments by Bibi Netanyahu in the Israeli elections.

In her article in the Wall Street Journal Ayaan H Ali promotes her book and gives the impression that she is arguing about the reformation in Islam. She claims that the Christianity and Judaism had already gone through this process of reformation and that it has only brought good to the humanity. About the Christian and Jewish reformation in Europe she says:

“because their faiths went through a long, meaningful process of Reformation and Enlightenment, the vast majority of Jews and Christians have come to dismiss religious scripture that urges intolerance or violence”

She also says that

Their religious beliefs exist in an uneasy tension with modernity—the complex of economic, cultural and political innovations that not only reshaped the Western world but also dramatically transformed the developing world as the West exported it. The rational, secular and individualistic values of modernity are fundamentally corrosive of traditional societies, especially hierarchies based on gender, age and inherited status.

The reformation is something Maajid Nawaz has also been talking about. He also wants a debate in the Muslim communities and argues for a British Islam. However, most of his debates have been with the New Atheist community and he ends up agreeing with them. He promotes Quilliam’s Osama Hasan as a scholar who even issued a Fatwa on the issue of British Muslims going to help or fight in the Syria conflict. If anything, this tactic has backfired as the number going there have increased not decreased. It seems that most of these travelers were neither religious nor previously known for extreme or violent behavior. This undermines his claims of Islamism and ideology being behind this trend.

Anyway coming back to the issue at hand, has the reformation really stopped the violence and is it the driver behind the modernity. The history suggests that there is little evidence in support of such claims. While it did bring some periods of stability and peace, in the long run it caused more death and destruction then any time before. It replaced religious fervor with nationalistic jingoism and superiority politics. The debate about reformation was really about the power of the established church and personal and nationalistic views of the ruling classes. There were some sincere reformists like the German reformist, Martin Luther of the protestant movement, his views were rejected by the English king who wanted his own reform and head the Church.     

As far as the violence and religious intolerance is concerned, the reformation did not stop the Spanish inquisition, which lasted for nearly 440 years. It seems that non violence and religious intolerance only applied to the various factions of Christianity not the Muslims or Jews, who were forced to convert to Christianity.  Those who didn’t convert were killed or expelled. That is just one example of religious violence and religious intolerance that has continued after the reformation.  

This intolerance and violence continued during the colonialism era, which subjugated people of other religion, race and colour. This was fully supported by the Church and sometimes even the scientific community. The reformation did not stop the slavery of Africans and all the brutality which came with the trade or stopped transportation of Indians to other continents. It did not stop the brutal treatment and genocides of the indigenous people of Americas or the Australia.

The reformation and enlightenment did not prevent the world WWI or WWII or the genocide of the Jews in Europe. The Jews in Europe had experienced massacres and expulsion throughout the reformation and enlightened period. The only safe place they ever had was in the Muslim communities in and outside of Europe. The wars against communism were also tinged with the religious zealot as wars against the unbelievers who had closed churches. The same rhetoric was applied to support Afghans against Russia and which formed the basis for establishing the Mujaheddin army which later turned into Taliban and Al-Qaida.

History tells us that in the newly independent countries, after breaking the shackles of colonialism, from Algeria to Yemen, enlightened, secular and socialism leaning leaders emerged. However, one by one those leaders were got rid of. These leaders were undermined by the west by overtures to the military and by supporting religious parties, saying to them socialism conflicted with Islam and religion. Leaders such as Nasser, Bhutto, Sukarno to name few. Lets look at Pakistan, which gets special mention in Ayaan H Ali's article and probably the book. In 1960's and seventies Zulifqar Ali Bhutto established a political party which overtly said in its manifesto that Islam is our religion and Socialism is our politics. The party won by landslide in open and fair elections. During the elections and the party rule, US and other western countries supported the religious parties. Their was a queue of western ambassadors, lead by US,  to visit his the humble residence of Jamat Islami scholar and leader Mowdudi. Bhutto was replaced with a Military ruler, who did introduce some Islamic law.  
  

Lets not forget the war, which in the absence of proof of sated reason, can only be described as a war motivated by religious beliefs of Tony Blair and George Bush. The other recent examples are the Apartheid in South Africa and the current occupation and siege of Palestine by Israel and her apartheid and racist systems. Even the Prime Minister of Israel made openly racist comments to scare his fellow Jews and to get votes. Netanyahu and his administration is known for making anti Muslim and anti Arab statements to justify their wars on Gaza. These attitudes of intolerance, racism and religious hatred are inherited from their homeland of enlightened Europe and the North America. I sometimes wonder if today’s Jewish community is being used by the Zionists, be that Jews/ cultural Jews, atheists or Christians to cause havoc in the Muslim countries.

In Europe these Zionists of all kind are building alliances with the neo-cons and neo-Nazis against the minorities and the Muslim communities of Europe and the North America as well as against Russia. This has created the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in the migrant and Muslim communities. However, I remain fearful that if the history is to repeat itself the Jewish community will be as much of a target as the other minorities and Muslims. This fear is based on the perceptions, as pointed out by Trevor Phillips, of Jews being rich and powerful. Such myths had previously resulted in massacres and genocide in Europe.  The most intolerant of Muslims are the New Atheists also known as the new Humanists and secularists. They suppose to be the enlightened and reasoned ones but most of their rhetoric is neither reasoned nor enlightened. 

Ayaan H Ali’s article gives an idea about her forthcoming book. She claims that she is not against all Muslims and hope that Muslims will reform the religion themselves. She, like the President of the United States, wants to keep all options on the table to confront Islam/ Muslims. This includes the option of force, in other words option of violence which is not very tolerant, reformed or enlightened. Other new Atheists, like Sam Harris, also hold the same views.

The reality of the reformation is that all Christian sects agreed on the divinity, Christ and Bible being untouchable. In other words the foundations of the Christianity remained out of bounds of the reformists. The same applies to the claimed Judaism reformation. However, Ayaan want to attack the core foundations of Islam by attacking the Prophet (pbuh). Without whom there would be no Islam and Muslims today. Anyone who is attacking the core foundations of a religion is not sincere about discussion dialogue or considered reform but purveyor of doom and violence.

The other crazy thing she has come up with is the ‘Madina Muslims’ and ‘Mecca Muslims’. She claims that the Mecca Muslims are more peaceful than the Madina Muslims. The reasons she gives for this is that the Madina Muslims were involved in wars while the Mecca Muslims were peaceful. This shows her total ignorance of the beginnings of the Islam and the life of the prophet (pbuh). She seems to have swallowed the scripts provided to her by the Islamophobe Industry. The facts are as below:

The Prophet (pbuh) emigrated to Madina, due to the violence and threats to him by the idol worshippers of Mecca. He was invited by the Muslims of Madina and other Muslims who had migrated on his advice. When the idol worshipers plotted to assassinate him, he also migrated to Madina. When the leaders of the idol worshippers learnt of the failure of assassination attempt they felt humiliated. They then attacked Madina in their attempt to assassinate the Prophet (pbuh). They attacked Madina on several occasions but every time they failed. This does not fit her description of peaceful and non aggressive people.  

Clearly Ayaan H Ali’s narrative does not fit the facts. By her logic the people and tribes of Mecca, who tried to assassinate the Prophet (pbuh) and attacked Madina on several occasions were docile and pacifists. The fact is that before they embraced Islam, the Meccan Tribes were aggressive warriors. They became peaceful and devout because of Islam not despite of Islam. The people of Madina were always peaceful and provided sanctuary to the migrants including the Prophet (pbuh). Today there is no difference between Muslims of Mecca and the Muslims of Madina. Like 1.6 billion Muslims of the world of all colours, races and nationality, they all try to practice their faith peacefully.

Ayaan H Ali, in her piece for WSJ, states that the Christians and Jewish communities of Madina were told that they could retain their faith if they paid a special tax. She alleges that all others were told either to convert or die. This is a pure fiction. The tax applied to all non Muslim communities. The fact is that the initial attacks by Meccans on Madina did not affect the others as Muslim numbers were low and could easily be targeted. However, as Muslim numbers grew, due to the conversions, the attacks started to affect all communities. However, as only Muslims were defending against these attacks and Meccans had started to approach other groups to spy and collaborate, there was need both for funds and to counter these tricks. Therefore, non Muslims were asked to pay a tax as contribution to the cost of defending and as a declaration of loyalty.     

Ayaan H Ali's, like many other, is trying to rewrite the history of Islam and create another label to divide Muslims. She says that she was raised as a Meccan Muslim. Her hostility towards Islam and Muslims and her rhetoric of inciting wars and violence belittles her own argument and factitious and facile theory.     

  

                                                    

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     

Ban this, Ban that - Are they "Liberals", "Lefties" or Fascists?

There is a new breed of so called "activists", journalists and "experts", who continuously call for ban on various freedoms. They claim to be Liberals and Lefties and are often critical of the left. They say that the left is siding with the oppressors. Fact is that these so called Liberals and Lefties are actually wolves in sheep's clothing. They oppose freedom of choice and want to impose their twisted ideology on others. They seems to have political ideology of promoting division, spreading hate and misdirect from real issues of our times. Their views are in fact more akin to fascism than that of the left or Liberalism.

They often pick a topic, an incident, a criminal act and exaggerate, manipulate and twist it to suit their agenda. They ignore all reasonable arguments, in pursuit of their selfish goals and to further their business. While criticising the Left and Liberals, these groups of strange alliances of self proclaimed zionists, ex-muslims, atheists, right wing and new-cons, pursue an agenda of suppression and intimidation.

Let us examine their business, yes it is a business, of being "experts" in "anti extremism", "foreign policy, defence and Islamophobic alarmist. While some are pursuing their agenda anonymously on social media, others are vocal and part of the mainstream. They, however, claim their is no such thing as Islamophobia and that no such word exists. However, David Aaronovitch disagrees with them. .

Following are couple of examples of manipulation of facts by one such group. In a recent case, they manipulated certain words of Arabic, to claim it meant death threats. However, common sense prevailed and exaggerated claims were dismissed by cool heads. In another case they produced a report on "apostasy" in Islamic countries. They inferred that all of the countries listed in the report had death penalty for apostasy, in fact their was no such law in those countries. They did not find any cases of where death penalty had been handed for apostasy. They listed cases of blasphemy, criminal acts and mob rule. They claimed that apostasy and blasphemy meant the same thing and same punishment. This report is a deliberate attempt to distort the facts and to cause alarm and to suppress. They ignored the fact that the apostasy is an English word associated with Christianity and existence of such laws in many non muslim countries. There is no equivalent word for apostasy in Islam.

These groups and individuals want to ban freedom of choice, whether it is of speech, clothing or gathering of people. They even want the Universities to act in breach of the legislation  and want to force people to abide by their rules.

With this suppression agenda, they have the audacity to call themselves liberals and lefties. They use words like segregation, apartheid and try to compare their agenda with the movement of civil rights. They claim to want to promote debate, but are quick to shut down people by labelling them Islamists, extremists and even antisemitic.

They compare themselves with the movements against apartheid, for civil rights, and liberalism, but they never praise those who lead those movements. They ignore modern day atrocities, apartheid and suppression of people by states like Israel and are quick to label people, antisemitic. They support neocon agenda and often advocate and support military intervention. They are quick to justify civil casualties in wars and by drones. The increasingly cooperate with the right wing and fascist groups in Europe, Mid East, Africa and South Asia. This cooperation is not for peace but to continue to sow the seeds of division, hatred and anarchy.

Clearly they have political agenda but it is not of promoting peace and harmony between religions and other ideologies. It is not about highlighting the atrocities and injustices and condemning massacres, like those committed in Burma. It is not about condemning the occupation of Palestine and suffering of people. It is not about condemning torture and illegal imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay and other such prisons. It is rather to misdirect us from real issues of the day and cause alarm about non issues. It is about giving cover to atrocities and to justify deaths of children and civilians by war machines.

Their mantra of banning freedoms and dark agenda of Islamophobia is neither liberal nor leftist but more like a new form of fascism.

UPDATE 

Now that the demo against so called "gender sgregation" has taken place it has become clear the forces behind the propaganda and their agenda. Following are some facts about the demonstartion:

• Barely couple of dozen people attended;
• Committed Islamophbes including Maryam Namazie were present;
• No students could be found at the demo;
• Quilliam foundation was represented;
• Yasmin Ali Bhai-Brown was present;
• Speaches included criticism of foreign students, mainly Muslim from the Gulf region, and alleged money from Gulf countries. Thses speches not only had Islamophobic tones, they had racist tones too.
• Yasmin Ali Bhai-Brown's problem seems to be alleged Saudi money and she lost all sence of rational during her debate on Channel 4  .