As if there weren’t enough Islamist front groups out there, now Islamophobia Watch is announcing the formation of another one – Kafa (meaning “enough” in Arabic) which is to be launched at this (pdf) event.
Kafa*/Enough Launch Meeting
Defend the Muslim community
Friday 26 June 6.30pm
Bishopsgate Institute, Bishopsgate, London EC1
(Opposite Liverpool St tube)*Kafa is arabic for enough
Speakers include:
George Galloway MP, Daud Abdullah, Diane Abbott MP, Anas al Tikriti, Ismael Patel, Lindsey German
Stop attacks on the Muslim community
Muslims in Britain are facing attacks on many fronts. These include:
- The high-profile arrests under terror legislation of Muslims who are subsequently released without charge, creating a climate of fear and harassment;
- An increase in violent attacks on Muslims in the streets and on Muslim places of worship;
- The targetting of Muslims by the far-right British National Party;
- Aggressive policing of Muslims on demonstrations, apparently designed to deter them from participating in peaceful protests;
- The racist misrepresentation of Muslim views and practices in the mass media;
- The political harassment of Muslim leaders by government ministers.
These and other developments threaten to create a climate of hostility towards Muslims in Britain in contradiction to traditional tolerance and damaging to community cohesion.
We believe that all people should come together in support of Muslims in Britain, and not leave them to confront these challenges alone.
We call for a broad-based campaign to confront the growth of racist attitudes towards Muslims and rising governmental and state harassment of Muslim citizens.
Signed:
Daud Abdullah Muslim Council of Britain, Annas Al-Tikriti British Muslim Initiative, Amir Amirani filmmaker, Lord Ahmed, Mohammed Ali Islam Channel, Moazzam Begg ex-Guantanamo prisoner, Tony Benn, Lauren Booth journalist, Louise Christian human rights lawyer, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Professor Terry Eagleton, David Edgar playwright, George Galloway MP, Lindsey German Convenor StWC, Father Alan Green Chair of Tower Hamlets Inter-Faith Forum, Shamiul Joarder Friends of Al-Aqsa, A.L.Kennedy writer, Bruce Kent, Ken Loach filmaker, Lowkey rapper, Alice Mahon, Drew McConnell Babyshambles, John McClure Reverend and the Makers, Councillor Abjol Miah, Seumas Milne journalist, Andrew Murray Chair StWC, Peter Oborne journalist, Gareth Pierce human rights lawyer, Murad Qureshi AM GLA, Mohammed Sawalha BMI, Mark Serwotka General Secretary PCS, Phil Shinerhuman rights lawyer, Clare Short MP, Jonathan Steele journalist, Baroness Jenny Tonge, Walter Wolfgang, Councillor Salma Yaqoob
The goals of this campaign appear noble enough, but the same cannot be said of the planned speakers. They hardly need introducing, but these individuals’ unpleasantness cannot be reiterated enough.
First off, George Galloway – famed cat, scab and employee of the Iranian regime. There’s Daud Abdullah who managed to drag the MCB’s reputation even further into the mud by supporting Hamas and military action against foreign (including British) ships sent to Gaza and Anas al-Tikriti of the British Muslim Initiative. A leading light of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain, al-Tikriti thinks that Holocaust Memorial Day is all about serving Israeli interests. Not to forget Abdulrahman Jafar who is listed as speaking on the pdf flyer but not elsewhere. He is with Azad Ali‘s Muslim Safety Forum.
Then there’s Ismael Patel who set up Friends of al-Aqsa (which Habibi blogged about recently) and Lindsey German, Convenor of Start the War Coalition – famous for putting on dodgy plays and publishing the 9/11 troofing work of Lowkey. Which is without mentioning the list of signatories to the campaign – a smorgasbord of Islamists, their fellow travellers and dupes. There’s much more which could be written about each one in this motley crew so please feel free to contribute in the comments your favourites from among their many unpleasantries.
If it were just Galloway, Abdullah, al-Tikriti, Jafar, Patel and German speaking, there would be nothing that worthy of note here. It would be just another bad day in London. However, it is claimed that Diane Abbott MP is also speaking. I hope this is a mistake.
If it is not then this means that Abbott intends to speak alongside two of the organisers of Islam Expo (al-Tikriti and Patel). Hazel Blears had this to say about that particular event.
Take the Islam Expo at the weekend. I was clear that because of the views of some of the organisers, and because of the nature of some of the exhibitors, this was an event that no Minister should attend. Organisers like Anas Altikriti, who believes in boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day. Or speakers like Azzam Tamimi, who has sought to justify suicide bombing. Or exhibitors like the Government of Iran.
Not because the vast majority of Muslims at the event were not decent citizens; they were. But because the organisers were trying to influence the audience in certain directions. And by refusing to legitimise the event for these specific reasons, we would hope to isolate and expose the extremists and ensure they were not part of the event next year. Our policy is designed to change behaviour.
She will also share a platform with Daud Abdullah.
A letter leaked to The Independent on Sunday shows that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, wrote to the Muslim Council of Britain, calling for Dr Daud Abdullah to resign.
She alleges he was one of 90 Muslim leaders from around the world who signed a public declaration of support for Hamas, the elected government of the Gaza strip in Israel, and military action against Israel.
A spokeswoman for the department said: “We are concerned that the statement calls for direct support for acts of violence in the Middle East and beyond. We are also aware that a senior member of the MCB may have been a signatory to this statement. If it is proven that the individual concerned had been a signatory, we would expect the MCB to ask him to resign and to confirm its opposition to acts of violent extremism.”
Standing up against anti-Muslim bigotry is always to be applauded, but why with these companions? Blears may no longer be running the show, but it is extraordinary that Diane Abbott, a Labour MP, may be prepared to speak on stage with no fewer than three people considered by her government, with good reason, personae non gratae.
If Abbott is really planning on speaking alongside these men then Labour’s Prevent strategy must be in even worse disarray than previously feared. That is not a reassuring thought. So, Diane. Please say it ain’t so. You’re not really going to speak at this event, right?
8 Comments
What about speaking up for moderate Muslims who are harrassed and bullied by many of the above people .
Enough, or ‘Kifaya’, is also the name of the Egyptian grassroots group that was set up to oppose Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship and which calls for free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections in Egypt – aiming to be a sort of Egyptian version of the Solidarity movement which ended Communism tyranny in Poland.
It’s utterly repulsive that the Islamists, communists and their fellow travellers who make up the British ‘Kafa’ should seek to steal the memory of this Egyptian group by adopting the same name. The Egyptian group sought to end tyranny and dictatorship: the British group is composed of individuals who willingly, knowingly and repeatedly turn a blind eye to Islamist fascism. Indeed, some members of ‘Kafa’ not only turn a blind eye to such fascist groups but actively endorse, praise and promote them.
Well said Inspector.
“Seumas Milne and Diane Abbott in foolishness shocker” – hardly news is it?!
What a rag-tag assortment though…some bloke from Babyshambles, a guy who is essentially famous for heckling, and thingy-who-used-to-be-in-a-band-with-that-dude-from-the-Arctic Monkeys*.
* True fact: McClure admitted in an interview with the NME in August 2006 that he only named his second band, ’1984′, as it was one of the only books he’d ever heard of. Spectacular.
“HERESY IS ANOTHER WORD FOR…being a Neo-con”
Trust me, there’s no “freedom of thought” there! One thing makes me happy; every time you guys are at your shindigs with your far-right, neo-con Masters you must feel a tinge of sadness every time they whisper amongst themselves, away from your earshot. Are they calling you the “field slave” we all know you are!!! hahahah, gosh must be quite lonely toiling in the “cotton fields” in order to be accepted by knowing the Masters never will. Tragic
“Are they calling you the “field slave” we all know you are!!! hahahah, gosh must be quite lonely toiling in the “cotton fields” in order to be accepted by knowing the Masters never will.”
I see the self-loathing Islamist nutters have woken up.
Jbro’s comment illustrates the intellectual dishonesty of the ideological fusion of leftist radical authoritarianism and religious inspiration. This fusion of ideological stances is the maelstrom of Islamisms – both their character and also their problem.
cites a myth of master-slave relations; and that the former are actively deploying the latter as pawns in some titanic (but oddly, not immediately observable) struggle against other equally well formed opponents themselves engaged in slave rebellion against the masters’ provisions and instructions.
Both traditional radical leftism and most of what is foundational to all Abrahamic religions – share this theme of liberation from oppression as central, foundational myths and have actively used these in their political activity. Both Lenin and Mawdudi actively promoted effectively the same values – our party (and only our party) will liberate you from the conditions of oppression. Where Trotsky and Qutb differ is simply their core constituencies – for Trotsky these are the workers without regard to faith, nationality, gender or other permutation. For Qutb, it is a set of people, selected by religious faith (Islam) without regard to social class.
Whatever its variation, though, what is epically delusional about this shared myth of the liberation of the target forces from oppression is that in practice (when the Islamists and leftists get over themselves), it is very difficult to actually show reasonable examples of the uniform oppression of “the many” by “the few” that might validate the leftist/Islamist myths about oppression and liberation. Yes, it is possible to identify oppressive and coercive moments in the relationships of people – but there are also moments of consent and cooperation of equals in human affairs.; and the latter relations are not actually existentially under threat from the former, as the leftist/Islamist ideological nexus would want.
Islamists would want to contest this, but it was Fred Engels – a communist – who best encapsulates what is so horrendously lame in their world view. Marx safely dead, Engels set to work “popularising” and establishing his simplified Marxism as the theoretical vehicle for subsequent leftist radical ideologies. One of the popularisms encouraged by Engels was an appallingly clanky meta-historical narrative of “forces” at struggle and the eventual victory of the oppressed over the forces of their oppression. Of course, simple inspection of historical reality puts the mockers on this Engels’ -derived flight-of- fancy as ideological- imperative.
Prehistoric economics as a useful work means evidence-heavy analyses of the economies of extremely ancient societies. All the evidence points to extremely mixed economic and social relations as the norm. Engels posited these societies as primitive communist societies – and yet the evidence is very light for this thesis. There are relations of oppression at work and relations of cooperation in evidence – in fact, just like now: Humanity has not lost a Paradise to which it will somehow return – as much as humanity does not recognise the Garden is – as it has ever been – simply all that surrounds us then, now and in the future.
As I have already written, even where one might show specific cases of oppressive social or economic relations, these do not stop or even remarkably eliminate or impede other relationships of equity and liberty between people as co-operative beings… and vice versa – being free, at liberty does not mean there are fewer cases of being unfree, without liberty. As the former USSR spectacularly demonstrated with an alarming irony, “fighting oppression” means, in practice, horrendous oppression of others… and all supposedly “in the name of” the oppressed!
Remarkably, people not seized by Islamisms’/leftisms’ delusional grand, mythic, narratives tend to seem their lives and those of others as a mix of moments of coercion and consent – and these people are not wrong. Further, critically, these people do not see themselves or others as the bearers and victims of some sort of titanic, existential, life-and-death struggle for the soul of humanity ongoing between good and bad, light and dark, masters and slaves. Engels-inspired Marxists and G!d-bothering Islamists would beg to differ – but then they would, wouldn’t they?
And what’s this about the neo-con-ery of our alleged masters – who are these people? Islamists identify a small, well-cohered social group as the promoters of what they have learned from their Marxist predecessors should be called “neo-conservatism”. What “neo-conservatism” is – and what it means – are questions conveniently neglected by both Marxists and latterly Islamists.
Whatever it is, argues Islamism, we know what we mean by it – we are going to use it to point to a vile myth in which all that is wrong and oppressive in this world is the work and fault of Jews; and neo-conservatism is the justification for all this wrong being done, allegedly, written by Jews, for the benefit of Jews.
Islamism constantly wants to equate the hatred of a religious group (Muslims) by others with acts of racism. But hatred of a religion is not necessarily hatred of a religious person’s ethnic or national identity. But it might be, as Islamism definitely demonstrates: its hatred of the Jews is racist precisely because the nature of Judaism is itself always both ethnic and religious. Islamism bemoans anti-Muslim hatred and – in the same breath – racially abuses an entire people and offers nothing but intolerance of their faith.
(Cont):
In all, I am not a plantation-slave chained to a master in the big house. Nor am I to be equated with one of his house-boys. This metaphor will not hold inspection. Nor is any master I have directly or indirectly to be identified with a particular religious and ethnic sort – the Jews. What gives someone mastery over me and others is, finally, not about factors of birth or faith. Furthermore, where such relations between me and others exist, these do not actually especially threaten any other free relations I have with other people.
I might well agree with some of the thoughts about religion and politics made by writers and thinkers that are generally understood to be socially conservative and economically libertarian. I would and do reject exactly the addiction of these thinkers’ to social conservatism and vandalism of the state’s role in helping to moderate economic relations between people. I think they are wrong in such matters – but what they write about Islamism, religion and its relationships with the political is often right. I am free to come and go, more or less.