Bob and Bungle – Forget the BNP, let’s attack Quilliam

This morning I turned on my computer and was immediately confronted by a bizarre article from Bob Pitt of Islamophobia Watch. Quilliam accuses anti-BNP protestors of ‘thuggery and hooliganism’ is an amateurish bit of slime aimed at Lucy James (who has kindly written one guest post for the Spittoon in the past) for comments she made about anti-fascist protesters in a piece for Progress Magazine.

She wrote,

Last weekend the BNP’s annual shindig ‘Red, White and Blue’ took place in a small town in Derbyshire. Reports said that the number of attendees was only marginally more than the number of anti-fascist protesters who congregated outside the gate. Unfortunately, these anti-BNP protesters soon became violent – leading to a total of 19 protesters being arrested. Although it is good to see ordinary people protesting against the BNP, such protests become ineffective when they descend into thuggery and hooliganism. Just a week earlier, for example, violent clashes erupted between the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism in Birmingham, leading to bottles, sticks and banners thrown, and brought police in riot gear onto the streets.

Bob, however, wilfully distorts Lucy’s words by cutting off that final sentence.

“Unfortunately, these anti-BNP protesters soon became violent – leading to a total of 19 protesters being arrested. Although it is good to see ordinary people protesting against the BNP, such protests become ineffective when they descend into thuggery and hooliganism.”

Lucy James, research fellow at the Quilliam Foundation, writes at Progress Online, 18 August 2009

No other account has alleged “thuggery and hooliganism” on the part of anti-BNP protestors at Codnor, so far as I’m aware. The worst that was reported was “minor scuffles” as some demonstrators tried to push through police lines.

Lucy did not allege the existence of “thuggery and hooliganism” at the Derbyshire protests, she was alleging its existence at the Birmingham protests. “Thuggery and hooliganism” was documented there by a multitude of sources so this crude attempt to discredit Quilliam (Bob concludes his article saying “How much lower can the creeps at Quilliam sink?”) completely fails to convince. Not least because even anti-fascist magazine Searchlight shares Lucy’s concerns.

[W]e also have to change our tactics on the streets. The hammer attack on a BNP activist in Leigh, Greater Manchester, in March was an unmitigated disaster. When we learnt about the BNP’s intention to hold a fundraising event in a local nightclub we got almost 5,000 people, including 400 from the local area, to sign an open letter from a local vicar calling for the event to be cancelled. Our pressure proved successful but what should have been a great media story, showing the strength of people power against the BNP, became three days of appallingly negative local headlines after an anti-fascist struck a BNP member in the head with a hammer. [...]

There is also a need for an honest debate about the use of rallies, marches and pickets. While one could argue that it is important continually to oppose the BNP gaining any legitimacy, such protests are increasingly ineffective and, probably more importantly, a distraction from the real work required in the communities.

But Bob is not concerned with the finer points of anti-fascist tactics; he just wants to attack Lucy and her employers, Quilliam. If he were genuinely concerned with beating the BNP then he would’ve mentioned what makes up the majority of Lucy’s article, discussion of her new paper dismantling the BNP’s attacks on Islam.

Violence is not the answer to countering the BNP. The BNP is best opposed through a systematic deconstruction of their slurs against ethnic and religious minorities. In a paper entitled In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda [pdf], I aimed to do just that. Since about 2006, particularly post-7/7, the BNP has consciously changed their rhetoric from being anti-Asian, -Black and -Jewish, to being ardently anti-Muslim. Released last week, the paper takes 10 of the key accusations thrown against Islam and British Muslims by the BNP, and points out their intellectual inconsistencies and factual weaknesses. Rather than simply dismissing the BNP’s ideology as racist or bigoted (an approach which the BNP’s steady popularity proves is not working), there needs to be a greater focus on intellectually undermining and countering their arguments.

Which would’ve been the end of the affair, but then Inayat Bunglawala jumped into the ring. Crediting Islamophobia Watch with first pointing this issue out, Bungle’s iEngage today also published an article under the title Quilliam accuses anti-BNP protestors of ‘thuggery and hooliganism’.

The way to challenge the BNP’s anti Muslim racism is certainly through a sustained, fact based critique of its wildly false ideas on Islam and Muslims and its exaggerated anti Muslim scaremongering, as Lucy James claims. But that would require an interest in accuracy and facts, something QF’s James appears to have lost sight of in her portrayal of anti fascist demonstrators in Codnor.

Laughably, Bungle seems completely unaware of Lucy’s “sustained, fact based critique” of the BNP and instead reiterates Bob’s flaky arguments which were based on a misunderstanding (and misquoting) of what Lucy wrote.

Bob and Bungle, what a pair. So desperate to attack Quilliam that they can’t even be bothered to read to the end of Lucy’s 614 word article. If they had bothered to do so then they would’ve realised that, far from slandering the name of anti-fascist protesters, she has put together a devastating attack on the BNP. She deserves applause, not condemnation.