Why is it that the media keep paying so much attention to the tiny group of extremists al-Muhajiroun/whatever name they’re going by this week? It is very clear that the only beneficiaries are Anjem Choudary and his chums, who get free publicity for their views, and an array of other people of varying degrees of unpleasantness who can use events like the Luton protest to advance their own agenda.
First it was the BNP. I’m not going to link to their website to avoid helping its google ranking, but coverage of this story is unsurprisingly unpleasant. It is replete with lines like:
The shocking anti-British army protest by a group of Muslims in central Luton is a portent of what is to come unless the Islamification of this country is halted
This is in addition to references to “the colonisation of this country by Third Worlders” and “Luton is well known as a heavily Muslim colonised town” as well as dark warnings from their defence spokesman.
Mr Mullins said that a recent intelligence community report had warned of large scale unrest this coming summer, spurred on by the economic crisis. “This is bound to be exacerbated by the presence of large numbers of people in Britain who are hostile to everything for which this nation stands,” he said.
But now it’s the turn of the Express to use the Luton protests to advance unpleasant views of a different variety. Reporting on the news that three of the al-Muhajiroun lot have been arrested on suspicion of breaching public order, the Express itself attacks the basic precepts of law and order.
To compound the injustice, police stepped in to defend the militants from patriotic well-wishers who tried to oppose them.
Don’t get me wrong, what those protesters were doing was despicable and if they have broken the law they should be prosecuted. But the Express is calling for the police to stand by whilst people, albeit people with unpleasant placards, get attacked. Here is a video which makes pretty clear what kind of objection those “patriotic well-wishers” were going to raise to the al-Muhajiroun protesters.
It seems pretty obvious that the protesters were in physical danger and that the police were right to stand between them and the very angry crowd. Even if you are expressing deeply offensive views and have caused a breach of the peace, the police should still protect you from an angry mob.
It gets worse though. The Express then suggests that it should be a matter for outrage that the police gave protection to one of of the protesters after his home was attacked.
Bashir, who is in his 20s, sparked further outrage when he was given 24-hour police protection after the windows of his home were broken.
However unpleasant your views, whatever crimes you are suspected of, the police are there to guarantee your safety. Even if you belong to an al-Muhajiroun front. But, on another note, this man should not even be in the news. He and people like him are best ignored, not put on frontpages. The BBC’s continued habit of inviting Anjem Choudary onto their programmes and the tabloid press’s obsession with reporting every crazy utterance that leaves his mouth only helps him, the BNP and those who have no respect for the rule of law.
It’s time to give Anjem Choudary and his chums exactly as much recognition as they deserve. None. They can spend the rest of their lives making waves in a dirty little puddle of obscurity rather than across the entire British media. We must not let their unpleasantness continue to provide fuel for the unpleasantness of others.
9 Comments
Good stuff. The Express deserves to be held particularly responsible for any BNP gains in future elections, as it has acted as a propaganda sheet validating their views. Still, the British media in general share some of the blame given the amount of attention they give to Choudary. See my post ‘Which Muslims?’ for more on this.
Edmund, thank you and you are absolutely right about the rest of the media. The Express is just a particularly egregious example. It is truly astonishing that you can’t even turn on GMTV without being treated to his rubbish. That said, Anjem’s appearance on the Big Question was quite entertaining for his failures on knowledge of the Qur’an and simple Arabic.
George, interesting post, but I’m not sure it does any good by not linking to the BNPs site – after all, it’s always itnteresting to see what they try to take offline when the spotlight is put on them. Just a thought anyway.
Thanks P.B.L.B.,
The reason I chose not to link to the BNP site is that, whilst trying to find a good video of the Luton protests I stumbled across quite a few videos which had clearly been put up by BNP members. I have no intention of aiding the BNP’s hijacking of this event by linking to their articles and thereby pushing them up the search engine listings.
Unfortunately this kind of anti-Muslim rubbish is standard BNP rhetoric at the moment and, I imagine, rather than take the article offline, they would probably be glad that I had highlighted it for them.
George,
I totally take your point about denying the BNP the oxygen of publicity, but don’t you think that just represents a poverty of aspiration when it comes to dealing with the far-right? Surely that’s what the ‘Nothing British About the BNP’ site is all about – pushing them into the spotlight so they can have their 15 minutes of absurdity, so people can see them for what they really are?
Oh, I absolutely agree that we should put their unpleasantness into the spotlight – I simply disagree with helping them push their propaganda at people. I’ve put up a screenshot of that particular page so that people can see how nasty the BNP are without helping them improve their search rankings.
George – can’t disagree with that!
Good work on the blog btw, although it’s amazing how quickly the HT trolls move in.
Thank you. I hope you enjoy The Spittoon.
I wonder if in the Mojo’s ‘imagined’ Islamic state, the state police would protect protesters with banners saying ‘Death to Islam’, or inflammatory remarks about the blessed Prophet Muhammad. Either way, depending on the protection of the British police whilst they insult British values is pure hypocrisy.