British Islamism’s Black Knight Stabs Himself In The Foot

The irascible Inayat Bunglawala is back, and he has British Muslims for Secular Democracy in his sights. The cause for this particular outburst – Shaaz Mahboob has suggested that some British Muslims lack compassion for UK soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan. In particular, Bunglawala picks up on Mahboob’s claim that the British Muslims who condemned the despicable al-Macaroon Luton protests “apparently did so fearing a backlash from the rest of the British public, not for their love and respect for the British soldiers”.

This is a statement I personally was quite troubled by when I first read it, but then Bunglawala’s ramblings quickly demonstrated that Mahboob has a point – at least in the case of the Black Knight himself.

The condemnation of the Luton protestors had everything to do with their being unrepresentative of British Muslim opinion and nothing to do with fearing a public backlash. British Muslims are long accustomed to the views of the fringe minority being exaggerated out of all proportion and erroneously treated as ‘majority opinion’. To suggest that denouncing the protestors was some ruse to deflect criticism by the British public is patently wrong.

In trying to contradict Mahboob’s point all Bunglawala achieves is to reveal himself as one of the group Mahboob describes: a British Muslim who condemned the Luton protests not out of “love and respect for the British soldiers” but out of concern for what the protests would mean for British Muslims. This is even clearer in the iEngage article Bunglawala links to above.

It is a discredit to all those that opposed the invasion of Iraq to see individuals seeking to use the war in Iraq to deliberately polarise relations between communities in the UK.

Images such as these are a gift to the many Islamophobes in our newspapers and broadcast media. Have a look at these stories that have already been published and the readers’ comments they have elicited. Even the BBC’s George Alagiah referred to the hooligans as ‘Islamist protestors’ during the BBC1 6 o’Clock News.

While the tiny group of protestors might feel they have scored a small victory with the amount of news coverage they have generated, the wider consequences of their incendiary and irresponsible actions will unfortunately be felt by much greater numbers of ordinary innocent Muslims. [emphasis added]

No mention of love or respect for British soldiers; not even any concern shown about the al-Macaroon protests being “unrepresentative of British Muslim opinion”. No. All Bunglawala provides is a perfect demonstration of Mahboob’s point; Bunglawala condemned the Luton protests because he was concerned that “the wider consequences of their incendiary and irresponsible actions [would] unfortunately be felt by much greater numbers of ordinary innocent Muslims”.

Bunglawala shows no concern for how British soldiers (and their families) might feel so his attempts to discredit Mahboob’s case only end up strengthening it.  Yet more risible stuff from British Islamism’s Black Knight.