Last month the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) published a report on the BNP authored by Edmund Standing which caused quite a stir. The controversy stemmed from a baseless and, frankly, absurd allegation that CSC was deliberately seeking out to minimise and downplay anti-Muslim bigotry. The insinuation behind that charge is pretty clear and you don’t need me to spell it out.
Two things need to be said about Standing’s report. The first is that it does cite examples of the BNP’s anti-Muslim bigotry and these are mentioned throughout the report. The second is that the report itself never set out to provide a conclusive study on the BNP’s ideology – it was instead an investigation of their ‘online fascist network’ exploring the views of BNP members, sympathisers and supporters on places like YouTube and the blogosphere.
Therefore, I don’t want people construing this as criticism of that report. It achieved what it set out to do – investigating the online fascist network.
Ever since however, Standing has engaged with the ensuing debate by arguing that anti-Muslim bigotry is merely a ‘tactic’ of the BNP and not an integral part of their ideological outlook. I don’t think we should be jockeying for position on this issue – who does the BNP hate the most – but I was uncomfortable with Standing’s argument. Even if he’s right and the BNP is just adopting an anti-Muslim stance to win votes that is an alarming indication of the way some people are starting to view Muslims in this country.
I thought about penning a response to Standing, but then saw this wonderful rebuttal by Yahya Birt which is absolutely on the money. I could not have put it better myself.
1. It is incoherent with regard to what racism actually is by way of a false division between biology and culture/civilisation. Classic colour racism based on nineteenth-century pseudo-science always had a cultural or civilisational element to it. Now disproved by genetics to be absolute nonsense (there is no such thing as “race” scientifically speaking), the ground has shifted to most contemporary racism having a cultural basis, but older psysiological distinctions have not been erased, just justified in cultural terms. So rather than there is a hierarchy of distinct and inferior races with different civilisations (as well as primitives and barbarians) we have a distinct and inferior civilisations that map on to so-called “races”.
The idea of cultural racism recognises that persons and ideas or symbols, or “races”/”peoples”/”nations” and cultures/civilisations, are not easily separable. Islamophobia and anti-semitism are both contemporary forms of cultural racism. If someone sticks a pig’s head on the gates of a mosque or defaces and vandalises a Jewish cemetery, both are recognised as forms of cultural racism and attacks on the symbols of these communities. Neither is easily categorizable as purely racial, but these are the sorts of behaviours that we need to stand against and need not get into an intellectual muddle about.
2. There is the insensitive and condescending presumption that those who are the targets of the BNP’s abuse shouldn’t take it seriously. Nick doesn’t really mean it when he says Islam is a cancer that should be removed from Europe: it’s just a tactic. This fails the test of Ockham’s razor: the simplest explanation is most likely to be the truest one. The onus on those to prove that he doesn’t mean what he says, and I’ve yet to see evidence that that is the case. That isolated quote from 2000 at some far-righ convention with David Duke is hardly the “smoking gun” it is made out to be.
3. It seems obvious to me that politically this is a disabling argument. A group (Muslims) who are being attacked by the far right are effectively been sidelined and their legitimate concerns marginalised by this line of argument. It serves no good political purpose and could actually be quite insidious. Equally this is not a zero-sum game. To say that the BNP has targetted Muslims is not to say that they still don’t want to affirm their anti-semitism and classic colour racism.
As has been said before, we are struggling here was complicated and interlocking debates about national identity, multiculturalism, fundamentalism, terrorism and so on. These won’t be sorted out by a simple-minded return to classic 1970s anti-racism.
22 Comments
Do the BNP view anti-Muslim rhetoric as a vote winner?
Do they hate white Muslims just as much as brown Muslims?
The BNP are not Islamophobes. They don’t have a clue about Islam let alone have the ability to create an essentialist political case against it. They are anti-Muslim bigots as long as Muslims can be associated with dark-skinned immigrants to Britain. By the same token neither are they anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh and anti-Penetecostal specifically unless these religions collectively refer to Asians and blacks.
The BNP have always been a racist party which exists to play on populist fears of immigration and plain and simple white-race bigotry. Fundamentally the BNP’s racist politics is based on the principle that black peoples are inferior and the jews are involved in a worldwide conspiracy against the White Man.
Faisal, I have to disagree with you. If you look at the youtube channels examined by Standing in the CSC report then you will find videos dedicated to taqiyyah. This is clearly concern with Islam as a religion, not the skin colour of its followers. So far as my understanding of Standing’s arguments goes, they simply cannot explain this.
I was going to write a post about this (it’s been sitting in drafts for over a week now) because I think the raison d’etre of Standing’s report is misguided. He wanted to prove that the BNP remains an old-school neo-Nazi organisation and he adopted a methodology which allowed him to prove this. However, he missed the very obvious point that the BNP’s neo-Nazi ideology has been infused with anti-Muslim hatred and this led him to ignore a wealth of available evidence about BNP anti-Muslim bigotry.
Standing can make the point that he is looking at what the BNP is like under the surface and that’s why he didn’t deal with the BNP’s anti-Muslim stance, but this ignores the fact that the BNP’s public anti-Muslim bigotry is a seriously watered down version of the hatred evidenced within the youtube channels of BNP supporters.
I am not suggesting a grand anti-Muslim conspiracy by CSC/Standing – as Yahya observes (in a truly excellent piece) the simplest explanation is probably the most likely. The Standing/CSC report looks to me like a rushed piece of work which proved what it set out to prove but, unfortunately, was trying to prove the wrong thing. Cock up, not conspiracy.
Yossarian,
Have you read Neil D, from Harry’s place, coverage of the ‘anti-Islamic fundamentalism’ protest in Birmingham?
Here is an excerpt of one commenter on the Stormfront (neo-nazi blog) that Neil D picks up on:
“EDL are trying to do something admirable but with the rumours use of drugs and letting blacks and other muds in means that this is not an outfit that I would to support.
Yes Muslim behaviour is disgusting but personally would settle for nothing less than a white UK and white Europe that the removal of the negroids, Muslims, Indians of all faiths, Chinese, etc in other words all non whites.
Not to mention the one race that is actually a bigger threat to the whites than all of the above combined the Jews. Thanks to them our armed forces are involved in pointless other seas as they leave an open doormat for any scum that’s wants to come our nation.”
If we agree that the BNP’s ideology stripped bare is still neo-Nazi, then the above comment is telling of their ideology. It is all based on race.
You say:
“This is clearly a concern of Islam as religion, not the skin colour of its followers”
Do you honestly think that if the majority of Islam’s followers were not brown, South Asians, Arabs, etc, that the BNP would still have a problem with it?
You use one example of where they site Taqiyya. Is it so hard to believe that perhaps maybe because Muslims, to them, are a bunch of ‘muds’, that they would develop a hostility for the religion these ‘Muds’ believe in, and would perhaps then do some research into this religion which practices ‘taqiyya’? What drives them first, hatred of Islam and hence a hatred of Muslims, or hatred for Muslims because, lets face it, most of them are brown in skin tone, and therefore hatred for Islam?
Do you honestly think if all Muslims in this country were white, that the BNP or its neo-nazi followers would have really cared about Islam? Do you agree that Islam has become associated, in the minds of the BNP and neo-nazi’s, with the colour of skin of those who adhere to the religion?
Seerat,
Much of the point of Standing’s report is that the rhetoric of the party leadership is far removed from what party supporters are involved with. If you look at BNP supporters’ attitude towards Islam, they’re significantly nastier than those of Nick Griffin et al . This is a point which, given the prominence of anti-Muslim bigotry in the BNP’s rhetoric these days, I would’ve liked to have seen given greater prominence in Standing’s report.
To be honest, I don’t find counter factual style theorising, such as imagining what would happen if Islam were mainly followed by white people, at all useful as it would entail vast changes to the history of this country and therefore to contemporary culture and society. Whatever initially drove the BNP’s initial turn towards anti-Muslim bigotry, the fact remains that the BNP’s ideology is now massively anti-Islam qua religion, not simply “it’s the religion of darkies” type antipathy.
I’m not entirely sure what point you are making with the reference to Neil D’s article on Harry’s Place – the quotes from Stormfront indicate to me that Stormfront type neo-Nazis are opposed to “muds” etc being in this country as well as sharing the EDF’s opposition to the religion of Islam. Also, how does the demonstrated connections between EDF and the BNP correlate with your citing of Stormfront criticisms of the EDF to prove a point about the BNP?
I’m afraid that you seem to me to be making the exact same mistake as Standing; the desire to prove that the BNP remains neo-Nazi has led to a failure to recognise that the nature of neo-Nazism in the UK has “evolved” and an opposition to Islam is now a part of that disgusting group of ideologies.
Yossarian,
What, in your opinion, has brought on the BNP’s recent targeting of Islam?
A hatred of everything that is not British according to the narrow definition of that word that the BNP adopts and an awareness that the unfamiliarity of the majority in Britain with Islam and concerns about global terrorism means that the most acceptable of the BNP’s many bigotries amongst the masses is against Islam.
Where I differ with you, Seerat and Standing is that I believe the BNP’s ideology now (and it probably did not in the past) includes a rejection of Islam not simply as a manifestation of the difference of brown skinned people but because Islam the religion, its traditions and the texts associated with it are themselves considered alien. Yes, the BNP is full of people who dislike Jews, gays, drug-users, brown people, blue people, black people, slightly off-white people, whatever – but it is also full of people who hate Muslims in and of themselves because they are followers of Islam.
Islam is the new vote winning punch bag. Or vote loser if you happen to be accused of being Muslim as per Obama!
I don’t think the BNP have an ideological take on such matters, but islamism provides them with enough propaganda material to further hate darkies through stigmatizing Islam.
It is a cultural form of racism and an exploitation and furthering of anti-Muslim fears.
We shouldn’t read too much or too little into it. People may have legitimate differences but the facts are the BNP appeal is simplistic, and it’s agenda singular but the propaganda will always develop – a bit like islamists such as the hizb, behind it all is a call for khilafah period.
Simply, brown people are not hated because of Islam, but Islam is hated because it is represented by brown people on the whole.
The problem is that across Europe the massive anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiment is growing in political circles where we have BNP types in power sharing government in countries such as Denmark.
So we should be aware of such developments and their impact over here.
Islamists have contributed to the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment, they should be ashmed of themselves.
Do they hate white Muslims just as much as brown Muslims?
This is probably the wrong question to ask.
The BNP is a party with a very long history and a deep ideology. That ideology has changed and modified over time, but it is still fixed on one issue: “race”.
Put simply, “race” to the BNP is what “class” is to the SWP. The SWP cannot abandon a class analysis, or abandon revolutionary socialist politics, even though they run for elections (unsuccessfully), or talk about Islamophobia a lot. As far as the SWP is concerned, these are essentially tactics and ‘transitional demands’. They’ve not abandoned class, they’ve just tried a different tactic to reinvigorate their politics.
This is precisely what the BNP is doing, in using Muslim bating as a strategy to win votes. Griffin has said as much – specifically that you can’t win votes talking about Jewish conspiracies, but you can win votes talking about Muslim paedophiles!
So, what would the BNP make of a white Muslim? My guess is that, nowadays, they’d regard him as a “race traitor”.
However, six years ago, the BNP had a candidate who was a white Muslim convert.
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_2003_04_28_racism.shtml
Does that answer your question?
Yossi
You give far too much credit to the majority of these neo nazi thugs. Their hate of Islam is not based on any sort of theological dispute, but because to them it represents brown people who dress and talk differently and are therefore a threat. Therefore, mose of the derogatory language they use when referring to Muslims is usually based on their skin colour or how they dress or what they eat, not on the doctrine of their religion.
Many of the youtube channels and online material also has a lot of anti-Catholic stuff, much of it centred around their view of all Catholic priests as paedos.
The fundamental basis of white supremacism is just that – a belief that the white race is genetically superior to all others. They’re not critical thinkers on religion, they don’t support progressive ideas and defend reason – they support irrationalism, blood mysticism, and authoritarianism. They have simply jumped on an easy and growing bandwagon.
The Great Satan. What you are saying may well be the case for many BNP supporters, but the point is that there are, among the videos on youtube channels examined by Standing in his report, videos about taqiyyah (as well as other more detailed looks at Islam as a religion, not as the religion of brown people). I’m afraid that the situation may be rather more complex (and anti-Islam) than you and Standing imagine.
I’m interested by what you say about the anti-Catholic stuff found by Standing. What do you make of this? Is Catholicism not the religion of white people? Going back to Seerat’s hypothetical, doesn’t this mean that the BNP would still be concerned with Islam even if most of its followers were white skinned?
one more point Yossi,
calling the report a ‘cock up’ is unfair and unnecessary, but you are entitled to your opinion. Saying that the BNP is anti-Muslim it to aknowledge what the public face of the party is openly admitting to. The report is meant to show what the BNP is trying to hide, not what they are willing to say on Sky News, this is clearly stated at the beginning and seems to have been either intentionally ignored by some and whizzed over the head of others.
“doesn’t this mean that the BNP would still be concerned with Islam even if most of its followers were white skinned?”
That is a hypothetical question that is difficult to answer, what would a neo nazi do when faced with a white muslim and a brown muslim? One thing you could be sure of is that the brown Muslim doesnt stand a chance , Muslim or not, he still aint white. Their use of a white Muslim BNP candidate does shed some light on this as well.
the anti catholic stuff usually seems to come from the pagans, odinists in particular, and is as childish and simplistic as their Muslim hatred.
The fact that there are taqiyya videos does not mean that these guys even have a basic understanding of the religion, it just means that they have googled around to find negative things to say about Islam – and why would they do this in the first place I ask you? refer to my original points.
The Great Satan
I do feel this discussion is becoming quite circular. I have already made the point that the anti-Muslim bigotry expressed by rank and file BNPers on their youtube channels is nastier and more vicious than the anti-Muslim bigotry that is expressed by the publc face of the BNP.
This difference between public face and youtube channels of members is exactly the point Standing was making in his report yet he missed out this difference on the subject of anti-Muslim hatred. I do not see anything malicious behind this, but it does seem a pretty big oversight. Hence my calling it a cock up.
But six years ago – my point is that the very nature of neo-Nazism is changing and becoming infused with a deep anti-Muslim bigotry. This doesn’t stop it from also being neo-Nazi in the old anti-Jew, anti-black etc sense as well, but everything I come across (including the evidence cited by Standing in his report) leads me to this conclusion.
“that the anti-Muslim bigotry expressed by rank and file BNPers on their youtube channels is nastier and more vicious than the anti-Muslim bigotry that is expressed by the publc face of the BNP.”
I dont agree with that – Griffin has really done the rounds on Islam and short of using swear words, his public views on it are strikingly similar to those expressed by the youtube users and others. He would never dare to publically say the same about Jews. But wait, many of the people behind the scences do say similar, if not worse things about jews – maybe someone should do a report on th….oh wait, they did! talk about circular…
I see you are getting Jews and Judaism and Islam and Muslims mixed up….
I don’t think that it is more than a populist strategy, but also working to confuse people like yourself!
They may well spout many different things but why is central to their identity is not being anti-Muslim to the core.
not confused at all thank you – to Griffin, Islam and Muslims are the same thing. He is of the ‘all Muslims must follow the koran and take it literally and are therefore a threat’ school of thinking. A very simplistic and stupid way to go about it.
Yoss,
I see where you are coming from now. And yes, our points of departure are completely different. Both of our positions are based on observation, but your thesis, is of course just hypothetical. How will you go about proving that neo-nazi ideology has actually shifted to have an inherent hatred of things not revolved around race (by extension of which ‘cultural racism’ is practiced) but of things alien and how can you prove this shift has come about? Would it have anything to do with race at all? From your responses I assume no, so how would such a hatred develop without the ideological race factor?
Please do not use the taqqiya example, as any dumb fuck can use that example and say look all muslims are evil.
Common now Yoss,
you cannot claim something is a cock up becuase it was based on a differing thesis than yours, just becuase you claim it to be so. Please, prove how the shift has occured in neo-nazi ideology – to encompass not hatred of things based on race but anything alien. Why do they hate some alien things and not others. If it is just Islam, then why just Islam. Is hating Muslims because they hate Islam or because the majoirty of them in this country, and where the religion originates from (middle east) are brown?
Using the example of taqiyya is not a ‘clear’ example of the BNP and its supporters having a ‘concern with Islam as a religion, not the colour of skin of its followers’.
Please, enlighten me, convince me that your thesis is right.
Seerat, I am not entirely sure why you are asking me to prove that neo-Nazi ideologies now include hatred of Islam when neo-Nazis so regularly go around saying that they hate Islam. It is up to you to prove your hypothesis that neo-Nazis, when they attack Islam, are not concerned with the religion but are purely concerned with the (majority) race of its followers.