Filling the bogeyman role

With both Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Muhammed out of the loop due to either incarceration or ‘banishment’, it was only a matter of time before the British media presented the mantle of ‘Most Evil Islamist Fruitcake’ to another willing individual. Enter Anjem Choudary of Al Mouhajiroun. A glutton for media attention, Choudary’s deranged but calculated outburts have shown him to be more than willing to fill that role and, not to mention, column inches.

Anjem Choudary having a quiet moment to himself

Edmund Standing’s breakdown of the media attention devoted Choudary discusses the demonisation ‘by association’ of Muslims as the inevitable result of this over-exposure. Here is an excerpt:

Al Muhajiroun (and its other front groups) is, and always has been, an extreme fringe group in British Islam, rarely managing to get more than a couple of hundred Muslims out for its meetings and ‘conferences’, yet, thanks to a ridiculous level of sensationalist coverage of Choudary and co’s antics in the British media, many people seem to be under the impression that these nutcases represent the views of the majority of Muslims in Britain. If you look at most of the major Muslim scare stories in the British media over the past few years, Choudary turns up again and again. For example:

Who called for Muslims to break Jihadists out of jail? (April 2009) – Anjem Choudary

Who said that Muslims should raise money for ‘mujahideen’? (March 2009) – Anjem Choudary

Who has repeatedly said he wants to see ‘the flag of Allah flying over Downing Street’? (e.g. March 2009) – Anjem Choudary

Who said that every British woman should wear a burkha? (March 2009) – Anjem Choudary

Who called Valentine’s Day ‘evil’? (February 2009) – Anjem Choudary

Who called Christmas ‘evil’? (December 2008) – Anjem Choudary

Who said that Muslims are not allowed to wear Remembrance Poppies? (November 2008) – Anjem Choudary

Who gloated over the Mumbai terrorist atrocities? (November 2008) – Anjem Choudary

Who said Muslims should have more babies and ‘take over Britain’? (September 2008) – Anjem Choudary

Who called for the Pope’s execution? (September 2006) – Anjem Choudary

And so on.

If the majority of Muslims in Britain really subscribe to views like these then why do the media have to rely so heavily on this one man and his groups for their scare stories about Muslims? The simple answer is that the majority of Muslims in Britain don’t really subscribe to views like these, yet the BNP wants us to believe in apocalyptic fantasies of a Muslim ‘take over’ of Britain and regularly uses news items like these to bolster its claims.

His conclusion is spot on.

A big problem of course is the level of pandering to loudmouth Islamic activists and communalist Islamists that we have seen in this country through multiculturalism, ‘political correctness’, and Government programmes for ‘tackling extremism’. This needs to stop, but so does hysteria about Britain turning into an Islamic State with people like Choudary at the head of it. The media love people like the Luton Jihadist ‘protesters’ because they make for a juicy story and the BNP love them because they can spin the offensive posturing of a handful of fringe loons into a recruitment tool by talking in their leaflets about ‘ensuring that British soldiers are not abused on the streets of our cities by Muslims’. But let’s get some perspective here. Yet again, the bigots of the BNP are trying to sell fear and resentment as a Trojan horse for their racist agenda. Don’t buy it.