Has anti-semitism become normative in the editorial policy at the Guardian? Here’s a story that suggests that it is certainly getting there.

Yesterday the Graun reported that Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, had awarded a £2M grant to the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity which provides security for Jewish schools. For the Guardian this was a “scoop” because Gove had sat on the CST board since 2007.

Unfortunately the Guardian failed to explain that CST is not the recipient of any of the donations it receives. It simply distributes funds to various security companies which provide services to Jewish schools, none of which Gove sits on the boards of. Even Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, tweeted this:

“I’ve had many disagreements with Michael Gove, but on this one he’s right: CST do a great job on security for Jewish schools.”

The decision by the Guardian to publish a false accusation could be put down to shoddy reporting or an over-zealous impulse to “stick it to the Tories”. But that fails to explain its egregious decision to deny CST a right to reply; instead the newspaper buttresses its report with the opinion of Professor David Miller! Yes, you read that right; none other than David Miller “of the Spinwatch pressure group, which campaigns for greater transparency in politics”. Miller is quoted in the report:

“It is blindingly obvious that he should have stood aside, as this is a potential conflict of interest. This is another example of transparency rules in the UK being ineffectual and in serious need of overhaul.”

Readers of the Spittoon are already aware of Miller’s work and his commitment to “greater transparency”. The sources of David Miller’s organisational funding and the fact that certain anti-semitic references have “mistakenly” crept into the information disseminated by a SpinWatch contributor have already been discussed here.

Harry’s Place has condemned the Guardian’s uncritical embrace of Miller in straightforward terms:

David Miller also runs a series of websites, one of which reproduced the thesis of a notorious neo-Nazi, Kevin MacDonald. MacDonald believes that Jews are genetically predisposed to scheme and conspire against non-Jews. The article was eventually removed, after this was pointed out to them. But, as far as we can tell, nobody was “sacked” from Miller’s project for promoting neo-Nazi antisemitism.

David Miller’s various web sites have not been averse to smearing moderate British Muslims who are opposed to organised Political Islamic lobby groups in the UK. Moreover, Miller’s campaigns to “expose” lobby groups curiously fail to expose any Islamist lobby groups. A search for information on the activities of the Islamic Forum Europe or the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, to take two examples, draws a complete blank. The selective absence of data on particular lobby groups on a web site that purports to catalogue lobby group activity in the interests of “transparency” is revealing. It would suggest that SpinWatch is not without an agenda.

Toby Young frames it like this:

So, let’s be clear about what the Guardian is doing here. It’s running a hit piece about the Secretary of State for Education that falsely accuses him of acting improperly, the source for which is a purveyor of anti-semitic propaganda.

What’s striking about this is that it inadvertently highlights the two biggest weaknesses of Guardian journalists: their knee-jerk opposition to public service reform and their willingness to regurgitate anti-semitic propaganda. Given that the Secretary of State is a conspicuous philo-simite, I daresay he will continue to be targeted. Let’s hope next time the Guardian does’t rely on the likes of David Miller.

So what opinion should we hold of a newspaper that becomes the mouthpiece for a character like David Miller?

Following the Breivik atrocity, the ‘counterjihad’ blogosphere had a certain amount of shuffled feet and shifty glances. One common refrain is that there is a fire of condemnation heard about the grisly acts from groups who were in the process of excusing it when it appeared to be a Jihad atrocity. That’s true, but it’s a truth that cuts both ways. Another line is that Breivik can’t be inspired by a given person because he also cites a large list of other figures including Churchill, Ghandi etc. Well, I know bad faith and casuistry when I see it. One cannot insist that various jihadist should be taken at face value when they say their religion is their inspiration and then demand that Brevik be taken at something other than his face value.

That said, there is also a bad faith attempt to use this gross crime to silence any criticism of both Islam and the Islamic far right. The wretched Stalinist technique of the amalgam, and the related tactic of assuming that the worst motive for anything is always the right one. And then there’s the combination of hyperbole with banality. In particular the term fascism has become diluted to the point of meaninglessness, applied by a certain section of the left to everything from budget cuts to Srebrenica, from David Cameron to Nick Griffin. A word that can mean so many things ends up meaning nothing. This is particularly bad in the barrooms of the web, where ill-thought positions must be defended to the death. The same thing can be seen on the right, where “radical Marxist” or Stalinist thrown around with the same lack of continence.

What makes Øyvind Strømmen such a treasure is that, when he starts discussing fascism, he tells us exactly what he means. He gives us the definition of Roger Griffin, Professor at Oxford Brooks University:  ”Fascism is best defined as a revolutionary form of nationalism, one that sets out to be a political, social and ethical revolution, welding the ‘people’ into a dynamic national community under new elites infused with heroic values. The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence.” And he adheres to it severely, insisting that, whatever one thinks of them, restrictions on immigration, or even xenophobia, are not fascism.

It’s for this reason that he is worth taking seriously when he warns about a resurgent European fascism. Central to his analysis is the work of the blogger Fjordman (Peder Jensen). Reading through Defeating Eurabia (an achievement in itself), Strømmen shows that Jensen’s views agree entirely with the classical model of fascism. The EU is predicted to collapse, civil war result and only a strong, revolutionary caste of nationalists can be the answer to both the current decadent ruling class and the Muslim minority.

The precision of this analysis is worth noting. Mark Steyn, Bruce Bawer, and Sam Harris have all posited the rise of the European far right in response to the Islamic, but none of them can be called fascist, as they write in various degrees of warning. Jensen, by contrast, actively advocates for such revolutionary overthrow. Moreover, Strømmen is one of the few writers (your humble servant amongst them) who noticed the connection of Breivik with the nouvelle droite, the European fascist international. His book, Eurofascism, is now available online, and is probably the best work on the subject around.

Strømmen’s restraint makes him all the more devastating. It would be neither true nor useful to indict the whole or even the majority of the counterjihad scene as fascists. However, in the same way that one can argue that in many cases there is no firewall between conservative Islamic religiosity and Jihadism, one can argue that in other cases there is no firewall between the crypto-fascists and the counterjihadists. The blog BrusselsJournal, for example, routinely praises the writers of the nouvelle droit, whose website Arktos features such items as posters of Codreanu, the founder of the Romanian Iron Guard.

There really isn’t an excuse for tolerating this sort of thing. As the old AIDS slogan goes, “Silence = Acceptance”. Peter Hitchens, a proud and open reactionary, believes in the Christian religion as the moral basis of Britishs society, is opposed to homosexuality, supports a strong law and order system, and sharp controls on immigration. Yet no one could seriously call him a fascist because he makes it quite clear that he despises the BNP and any other neo-fascist who tries to get chummy or ingratiate himself. Serious conservatives should pay heed.

The method of getting at the truth is the dialectical and adversarial. But name-calling is not dialectic, nor are taboos or tantrums. Dialectic requires sound arguments based on facts. For this reason, Strømmen’s work on the rise of Eurofascism is invaluable, and should be read by anyone with a serious interest in the various far-right factions, be they Islamic, home grown, or otherwise, on the loose today.

Last Sunday, the BBC hosted an edition of The Big Questions that examined arguments for and against the existence of God. Being an agnostic myself, I found the arguments presented by the ‘for’ side extremely weak and self-contradictory. Even more off-putting was the arrogant and smug manner in which certain individuals presented their arguments, especially the Middle Eastern sounding Muslim chap and Adam Deen. Both of these individuals touched upon the oft-repeated fallacy that the Quran must be the word of God since it contains no errors.

This is a very popular argument used by Muslim preachers who generally rely on audience’s ignorance of the Quran to win the argument. They also have a natural advantage in that people are fearful of criticising Islam and are therefore often reluctant to enter into the debate. It is also an argument that I often made when I was a young Muslim and am therefore very familiar with it.

It is, however, deeply flawed. The Quran not only contains many scientific and historical errors, there is also strong evidence to suggest that it was been changed, altered and authored by more than one source.

Most Muslims when faced with these contradictions will seek out an apologists attempt to answer them. They will post a link to said apologist and say ‘see, these have been dealt with’. What they won’t do is ask themselves, ‘how credible are these explanations’? Technically any contradiction is any ancient book from the Middle East can be explained away through the use or creative language interpretation, metaphors and other sophisms. But these explanations are rarely credible or convincing to the neutral observer yet appease believers due to their confirmation bias.

Some of these explanations rely on logic such as given in this example. If you were told ‘go to your home’, you would most likely interpret that as meaning going to your physical address where you reside. However, the word ‘home’ could also refer to a safe place and it could refer to somewhere you feel comfortable. Yet no sensible person would interpret ‘go to your home’ as meaning find a safe place or go to somewhere where you feel comfortable. Now that is the kind of fanciful interpretation words and phrases in the Quran are given by Muslim apologists who deploy mind-bending logic to preserve their holy book.

In the interests of time and your patience, I will limit myself to providing four such Quranic contradictions. I have heard Muslim attempts to explain away all of the below contradictions on numerous occasions, yet most of their explanations are so ridiculous that they don’t even deserve referencing.

Contradiction 1

The Quran states:

The Jews call Ezra a son of God, and the Christians call the Christ a son of God. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. God’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!
[Quran 9:30]

Putting aside the harsh and uncouth tone of the above verse, the content is simply incorrect. No Jews have ever claimed that Ezra was the son of God. You will not be able to find a single document or Jewish reference that makes this claim. Even if there was an obscure and minority sect in 7^th century Arabia that did make this bizarre claim, it is hardly accurate to call them ‘the Jews’ without further clarification. That is a bit like saying ‘The Muslims believe that Ghulam Mirza Ahmed was a Messiah’. If someone made that statement, Muslims would be the first to challenge it and quite rightly so.

Contradiction 2

The Quran States:

So let man consider from what he is created. He is created from a gushing fluid that issued from between the loins and ribs. (Quran: 86, 5-7)

The gushing fluid, semen, is not issued from between the loins and the ribs. It is created in the testicles and issues from the tip of the penis. There have been many Muslim attempts to re-interpret this verse in light of modern science. Most of these attempt to provide creative interpretations for the words ‘Sulb’ (backbone) and ‘Tara’ib’ (ribs). Apologists claim that sulb refers to the erect penis whilst Tara’ib refers to the sexual areas of a woman. However, you will never find these words being give those interpretations in any credible Arabic dictionary and there are no other examples in Islamic sources of these words being used to mean sexual areas of the man or woman.

Futhermore, all Tafsirs (commentaries) from Ibn Kathir onwards have interpreted sulb and Tara’ib as meaning ribs and backbone. Alternative interpretations have only been advanced very recently when this contradiction was pointed out. Whatever, you make of this mess, pardon the pun, you can’t disagree that the Quran is anything but vague, misleading, opaque and thus a poor guide or reference.

Contradiction 3

The Quran states:

Allah is He who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see; is firmly established on the throne; He has subjected the sun and the moon! Each one runs for a term appointed. He regulates the matter, explaining the signs in detail, so you can be certain of meeting with your Lord. (Quran 13:2)

And

Don’t you see that Allah merges night into day and he merges day into night and he has subjected the sun, and the moon each running its course for a term appointed. And Allah is aware of what you do. (Quran 31:29)

Every single tafsir (commentary) of the Quran written prior to the 20^th century also supports this view, as did almost all Muslim scientists of all the past. In fact even some Muslims defend this view today along with many who still believe the earth is flat, since that what the Quran suggests in many verses.

Modern apologists have claimed that the since the Sun does actually have an orbit around the Milky Way, the verse is technically correct. However, this far-fetched interpretation fails to take into account the fact that the sun’s orbit takes roughly 226 Million years. In the verse, God is supposed trying to convince mankind of his majesty and asking them ‘don’t you see’ and referring to clearly observable phenomenon. The orbit of the sun is not observable by humans and therefore this explanation makes absolutely no sense unless you are a believer who is desperate to find any explanation.

Contradiction 4

The Quran states:

And of every thing We have created pairs: That ye may receive instruction. (Quran: 51:49)

Not every creature procreates or reproduces through male and female sexual relationship. The whiptail lizard in the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, and South America consists only of females who reproduce by parthenogenesis. The Qur’anic Allah does not know anything about the biological process by which new individual organisms are produced. Today we know you can find an organism which creates a genetically-similar or identical copy of itself without a contribution of genetic material from another individual. There are also hermaphrodites.

So there you have it. There are of course, many other such contradictions but the above should suffice to bury the claim that the Quran is inimitable.

In a recent piece for the New Statesman, Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz made the point that government should bypass Islamist front groups such as MAB, IFE and the MCB when engaging with Muslims. Rather Muslims should seek representation through their elected politicians, just like all other citizens, and Islamist inspired organisations should not be allowed to monopolise Muslim representation. Quite a straight forward argument you may think, who could possibly be upset with a challenge to anti-democratic means to representation and extremism?

Welcome to the world of Bob Pitt. Bob is an ageing and outmoded far-left blogger who has developed a reputation for making mind-bending and logic-stretching arguments in order to contort reality to his fit his cynical far-left worldview. In Bob’s world, Islamophobia is not a societal scourge to be challenged, but rather something to be exploited and manipulated for short-term political point scoring. His website www.Islamaphobiawatch.com’ is less about Islamophobia and more about attacking his political opponents, many of whom are Muslim.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that Bob was not happy with Maajid’s piece.  In fact, he has an entire piece on his website attacking it. In his piece Bob claims that Maajid:

‘…presents an argument against the state having relations not just with Islamists of any variety but with any group claiming to represent any section of the Muslim community.

This is not of course a view that prevented Nawaz and his friends at Quilliam from accepting generous state funding under the last Labour government, on the spurious grounds that they represented a tendency within the Muslim community that could assist in the campaign against terrorism. And if the principle of rejecting co-operation with Ikhwan-associated political organisations were applied to foreign policy it would lead to the UK breaking relations with Tunisia and Egypt.’

Firstly, Maajid does not argue that the state should have absolutely no relations with Islamists or groups claiming to represent any section of the Muslim community. Rather, he quite clearly argues that government should not rely on such groups when engaging withBritain’s diverse Muslim communities because they don’t represent Muslims, they are not elected and they represent the more repressive and reactionary strands within Muslim communities. Secondly, Quilliam never claimed to represent any Muslim community nor any sections of it, this is made very clear from their website. Thirdly, Bob’s foreign policy analogy is simple laughable because in Tunisia and Egypt there have been elections recently and Islamists have won a large share of the vote. Hence, engaging with those governments is very different since the Islamists within those governments have a democratic mandate, which their counterparts in the UK lack. Also, co-operating with Islamists on issues of concern is very different to relying on them to represent the views of people they don’t represent and have had no contact with.

As a Muslim, I take offence to Bob, under the guise of tackling Islamophobia, attacking people who are speaking against attempts by Islamists to monopolise Muslim engagement, especially when the arguments made are so lame and badly argued. I appreciate sections of the left have been drifting aimlessly for a number of years but this really takes the biscuit.

Then again, Bob is rumoured to have belonged to Gerry Healy’s Workers Revolutionary Party, which was known for having links with Saddam Hussain and Colonel Gaddafi. Healy himself was accused of sexually abusing female colleagues and enjoying a financially comfortable lifestyle whilst allowed fellow activists, who he lived off, to live in poverty. With roots like that its not surprising that Bob produces such lame nonsense.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to takes some of the more dogmatic left-wing commentators seriously these days, especially when it comes to foreign policy. Whether it be Seamus Milne at the Guardian, Robert Fisk at the Independent or Mehdi Hassan at the New Statesman, their op-ed pieces tend to follow the same predictable rules, which are:

a) The West is always wrong
b) Outspoken enemies of the west always deserve our sympathy
c) The vast majority are on our side

Take this latest piece from Mehdi states:

“The easiest and quickest way to expose the hypocrisy of our government’s, and the wider western world’s, professed support for democracy and freedom in the Arab world is to say just two words: Saudi Arabia.”

Then, after pasting an extract from the BBC’s website about the Saudi crackdown on internal protestors, Mehdi states:

“…in October, when Prince Nayif – the Interior Minister who has been behind much of this repression – was appointed Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the US government lauded the move and President Obama said:
The United States looks forward to continuing our close partnership with Crown Prince Nayif in his new capacity as we strengthen the deep and longstanding friendship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

And here’s our premier, David Cameron, welcoming “the strength of the bilateral relationship between the UK and Saudi Arabia” in a meeting at Number 10 with Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal.

Depressing, isn’t it?”

I’m no fan of the Saudi regime but surely Mehdi must realise that foreign policy is never guided, in its entirety, by idealism. Saudi Arabia, despite its appalling human rights record, is the world’s largest oil exporter, a huge investor, a large export market and an important source of intelligence when it comes to counter-terrorism. This doesn’t mean we should never criticise it, but rather we can’t afford to completely cut if off.

Foreign policy is always a mix of idealism and realism. The fact that we maintain a relationship with the Saudi’s doesn’t mean we have completely abandoned supporting democracy abroad. Mehdi can see this when it comes to other countries but not when it comes to the US or the UK, because, of course, the west is always wrong.

But this line of argument is also a bit rich coming from someone who practically defends Iran’s right to nuclear weapons while simultaneously ignoring the Iranian regimes brutal crackdown on its internal critics. But we mustn’t forget, Iran is an enemy of the west so it deserves our full sympathy.

The fact that such dogmatic and predictable commentary is allowed to be printed in mainstream media outlets is shocking and indicative of a broader trend in British politics. Namely, commentators actually care very little for what is happening in the outside and have no sense of perspective. Everything they say and do is rooted in their own parochial political vendettas and aimed at boosting their credential within their own social circles.

Depressing, isn’t it?

As Bob Lambert’s credibility in Londonistan is sinking faster than Euro, it would be wise for anyone commenting on identity politics, foreign affairs and counter-terrorism to try to dissect his motives and background in dealing with the Islamists. We are, by admission, an esoteric group of political scientists and hacks who are trying to understand the complex implications of Bob’s demise. But, are we blinding ourselves to the obvious.

I believe there are a few questions which we need to urgently grapple with before we understand the nature of the beast. We also need to understand that Bob was the figurehead for a greater movement within Whitehall and the British Establishment. The first question being: Is Bob Lambert a liberal or a realist? Also: Does British neoliberal foreign and economic policy rely on having Islamists as union busters, left-wing bashers and regime destablisers abroad?; Was Londonistan build on realist foreign policy or was it developed by multiculturalism?

These questions and their answers will help to lay the foundations of our future relationships with the wider world, the Muslim world especially. The answers will also have an effect on British politics and domestic security. Michael Gove, Melanie Phillips and British neocons have tried to pass off Londonistan as being part of and caused by multiculturalism. Is it?

Multiculturalism is often seen as a liberal and progressive movement. Phillip’s Londonistan and Gove’s Celsius 7/7 all talk about how multiculturalism was the cause of how the British state allowed Islamist maniacs to use the UK as a political and financial centre for their operations. This is a slight of hand. Multiculturalism, which arose from postcolonial studies and policies to welcome people from the Commonwealth and to help combat the rise of the far-right, isn’t the major reason we have regime-changing fundamentalists in the UK. Neocons and realists have known that Islamism was built up to combat Nasser’s nationalism and communism in the Muslim world. The neocons and realists have both talked about it in Atlanticist style think-tanks for years during the Cold War. Did 9/11 happen and they conveniently forgot?

Mark Curtis, the author of Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam, believes that the British Establishment has always enjoyed close ties to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s security apparatus. He believes that the trinity uses radical Islamism to push foreign and domestic policies. During the post-Cold War period and the build-up to 9/11 the prize of Central Asia, and its natural resources, was at stake. Londonistan was central to this new Great Game. Curtis looked at diplomatic cables and reports from the National Archives. He showed how the trilateral relations helped to create Londonistan during the Cold War. The US often joined in, but it was usually a very British affair. The project was foreign policy realism at its best, using human rights and minority politics, post-colonial theories to protect their investments (i.e. the Islamists). But how does Lambert and the Establishment fit in?

Bob’s talent for ‘going native’ is what made him an effective undercover operative and agent handler. His betrayal of democratic principles for the Establishment’s ‘greater good’, can’t be allowed to escape our analysis. He’s picking up a big-fat pension for his work on countering economic and political adversaries of the state. Bob’s work on Islamism is central to domestic security and British foreign policy. He must have backers in the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

To the majority of people, most of his previous targets are simply democratic and noisy protest movements. Lambert’s work on countering Irish republicanism was a genuine and essential task for national security. The rest of his work was not. It makes the FBI’s COINTELPRO, an illegal domestic spying programme, look like a picnic. In the last decade, British intelligence services aren’t covering themselves in glory, but it was inevitable that this would happen especially after the Iraq War and the skewing of intelligence, facts and figures.

Intelligence services should stick to doing military, counter-terrorism and counter intelligence work. They aren’t there to rock the British democratic boat or to lie to get us into potentially illegal foreign wars. They also shouldn’t be using radical Islamists or anyone else to rock others boats unless they are an active threat. The tactical aspects of their work are second to none, but the strategic part, which is dictated by the mandarins of Whitehall, is shoddy and dangerous at best. It’s not cost or politically effective. And, that is a realist interpretation of their policies. Machiavelli, Kissinger and Plato would shake their heads in bemusement.

Kissinger, who is hated by many liberals, has actually completed an about turn in the last few years. Kissinger knows that the realist’s…erm… realities are now for accountability and fairness in government, rather than secrecy and double-dealing two-track policies both at home and abroad. He knows that George Soros and his campaign for open governance has won even as we head into uncertain times were double-dealing would have been a nice tool for statesman.

As a liberal I find the state’s role in countering genuine protest disgusting. The fact that British officers were pimped-out to other European governments to combat their own democratic lawful ‘subversives’ is also a disgrace. The Establishment’s handling of politics, the economy and the flirtation with Murdoch Empire has been a stain on Britain for decades. It’s all coming out now, pretty rapidly, and the foundations do look precarious, but these problems should have been dealt with years ago. It’s a Cold War mentality which is borne out of suspicion and arrogance. The Establishment hate and despise their publics and politicians almost as much as the rapidly dwindling Middle Eastern dictators. There needs to be urgent reform.

I’m not a hand wringing conflict averse liberal, but I don’t want our intelligence services playing games of empire. There have been major developments in foreign affairs over the last twenty years. History has now shown that investing in radicals at home and abroad for the sake of outdated realism hasn’t given us any real economic or political dividends. We never seize the land or the resources of the places we invade. So, why bother? We would have saved money and our prestige in the world by doing little rather than interfering in Machiavellian schemes, especially with nations such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who know how to pull the wool over the eyes of our security and diplomatic corps.

Lambert’s Londonistan is beginning to crack, but if we fail to see what helped to build it we won’t be able to move on properly. It is almost guaranteed that the Establishment will build something else to take its place. As the rest of the world is starting to have an awakening, democratic or not, it’s too early to tell, we need to realise that we need to wake up to our own foibles in the security realms, which have frankly been a national disgrace and an international mess.

We are a democracy that believes in fairness and justice. Our intelligence agencies are designed to break laws, they can still do that, but they must take stock that our foreign policy and strategic objectives must become clearer, although waterproof, in the wiki-age or we will lose friends fast. The Establishment isn’t liked or trusted by the British public never mind the new polity in the Middle East. The rising publics of the Middle East need to be able to trust us. We have a lot of work to do.

On Monday, British Islamists and their supporters under the banner of the Bangladesh Crisis Group gathered at the London Muslim Centre to preach to their flock that Bangladesh was committing serious human rights abuses in their desire to finally try the perpetrators of the genocide of 1971.

This group of supporters of radical Islamism have finally crossed the Rubicon and they have potentially shot themselves in the foot by amassing Jamaat and Muslim Brotherhood leaders together. Strategically, for them, it is bad to inject them into the highly contentious issue of their fellow Islamists committing genocide in Bangladesh. The genocide happened. It’s been well documented. Arguing against it is like trying to push the tide back. It’s irrational. It obviously has Islamist leaders worried. They are claiming there are mass human rights abuses by the Bangladesh government and that there is massive US counter-terrorism involvement in the tribunals as a way of gathering support from useful idiots in Britain’s academia.

Bangladesh does lag behind in human rights, it is undeniable, but it’s usually down to corruption, lack of education on procedure and ethics which is mainly through a lack of finances. They haven’t got the money. It shouldn’t be an excuse, but it’s reality. To think that Bangladesh, which is still one of the poorest nations in the world, can have a model police force beyond reproach is wishful thinking. The scandals around Rupert Murdoch and News International has show that even the highly developed and politically corrected, brow beat Metropolitan Police Force at Scotland Yard aren’t beyond temptation.

Bob Lambert, an ex-Special Branch Officer and ex head of the Muslim Contact Unit (MCU) at the Met gave a speech at the event. He has been one of the leading lights, or probably more accurate the last beacon of hope, for Islamists in the remnants of Londonistan. He wants to retain the policy of allowing radical Islamists to have London as their centre of operations away from the Middle East and South Asia. He seems to think there is a wide gulf between Islamists and Salafists, but in reality this isn’t the case. It’s a false debate.

Osama Bin Laden the worlds most celebrated Salafist leader has pumped money into Pakistani political parties in the past. Salafists don’t believe in democracy. They aren’t allowed to have any part in elections. It’s Haraam (forbidden) in Islamic law. Lamberts narrative has major holes in it. This means Bin Laden was a hypocrite or the religious side of Islamist terrorism has been overplayed. Lambert reckons that “moderate” Islamists are an effective counter-balance to Salafists. Has Lambert and other Western academics been sucked into a false and misleading debate and been played for fools? Yes, I would argue they have. Lambert is still trying to cling onto his woeful theory. Islamists and the ignorant are still his major audience. Judging by the content of the speeches at the event on Monday the lack of knowledge on Bangladesh is clearly apparent from the non-Islamist speakers. So, why did they wade into it?

The covenant of security which was believed to have existed between the British Government and Islamists before 9/11 was half torpedoed when Tony Blair joined the US led war on terror. Blair’s bi-polar policy against radical Islamism was half-cocked he believed he could launch dodgy invasions of Muslim countries, yet leave British Islamist figures and institutes that were suspected of supporting terrorism untouched. The British government should have upped its efforts to do its own spring cleaning while the Arab Spring was at its height. They hinted at it with a review of Project Contest, the government’s counter-terrorism strategy. This would have helped to level the playing field for all political parties in the Middle East and South Asia. Londonistan will be important in the future of the Muslim world and will undoubtedly have an impact on which way the wind eventually blows.

Lambert thinks he’s a realist and a good attentive listener: a new breed of copper for a new way of policing. When he worked for the Metropolitan Police he was not the, “lock-them-up-throw-away-the-key” type of law enforcement official. He likes to think he’s a thinker. He rightly believes that crimes, mainly terrorism, often have more complex psychosocial factors. Irish Republicans had legitimate grievances and violence came from it. Talking to Sinn Fein and addressing the issues of Northern Irish Republican was a noble way to end a protracted conflict driven by sectarian hatred and distrust. Conflict resolution and dialogue was a good thing. It wasn’t appeasement. It wasn’t as simple as allowing terrorists to get away with murder. But, there aren’t many parallels between Irish Republicans and Islamists. Hugging an Islamist won’t work. The Pentagon even tried it with the late terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki in the early years. It failed.

Islamists like to latch onto divisive causes and make them worse. Hijacking others causes. Islamists certainly haven’t enjoyed great public support in the Muslim world, even though they have been exceptions such as in Algeria, Gaza and Sudan. It is a bit unfair and premature to say that because democracy hasn’t been allowed to flourish there. There is one thing that Islamists thrive on and that is violence. They, like other extremists, need conflict. Hamas showed that they are perfectly willing to bring pain on their populations if they can get some kind of political reward for it. Get a suicide bomber to attack Israelis, let the Israeli’s respond (mostly, I concede disproportionately) and let your charity fronts help the victims. It proved to be a winning political formula for Hamas. They cynically keep the cycle of the violence going. They use jingoism and violent racist rhetoric to increase hate and ignorance. Then claim they are defending their populations from aggression. Pakistan’s military, religious parties and dreaded ISI have the same strategy.

A major worry for outsiders looking at the event is that speakers and organisers at the event gave thinly veiled threats of pushing Bangladesh into a revolution or their “own Arab Spring” or “Asian Spring” which is highly misguided and dangerous. It’s also a highly undemocratic charge and smacks of irrational arrogance. I wonder what the late Edward Said would have made of it. I bet he would have asked Lambert for a quiet word.

Bob Lambert, Toby Cadman and others should have stayed away from the event as a result of this key demand. The promotional literature clearly pointed this was the conference’s main objective. If I was advising the Government of Bangladesh, I certainly wouldn’t give Toby Cadman a visa to enter the country now he’s spoken on this platform. Islamists and their apologists aren’t democrats. They don’t care about people’s needs or their franchise. They ignore it. The apologists have narrow minded short-term goals which would lock countries like Bangladesh into uneasy alliances and irrational compromises with Islamists. The people of Bangladesh have spoken, they don’t want radicalism in Bangladesh but do people like Bob Lambert and Oliver McTernan ever care to listen to the people?

Bangladesh had elections and the overwhelming majority of Bangladeshis want the end to the “Culture of Impunity” and believe the war crimes tribunals are the start of this process. But, what do you expect from Islamists and their supporters? If the ballot box fails and justice starts to creep up on them, they believe it’s time to pull down civil and political society and rebuild it in their own warped image.

If Lambert and Co want to build lasting bridges they should get their Islamist friends to renounce the worst of their ideology and apologise. They need to take responsibilities for their crimes. It will give them much need credibility and their detractors confidence in the future. Sometimes, only justice can steer you through the complexities of conflict resolution. If you try to subvert that and the truth you will always fail to create a lasting solution. Papering over cracks is often needed in conflict resolution, but in Bangladesh, Jamaat-i-Islami broke the foundations. They are going to have to face reality.

As an illiterate and  impoverished Christian woman faced the sentence of death for blasphemy, a secular leaning Governor of Punjab tried to intervene to get her freed, describing the blasphemy law as a ‘black law’ and was killed by his own guard after being named by clerics as ‘wajib ul qatl’, or necessary to be slaughtered.

The history of the law mandating the death penalty for blasphemy can be traced back to an earlier chapter in the history of Pakistan. In the British times a law was enacted in the then undivided Indian penal code, article 295A, which makes it a criminal offence to: “insult the religion or the religious beliefs of any citizen with deliberate and malicious intention to outrage their religious feelings.” This law, still current in India, has in Pakistan been further modified to include article 295B which mandates life imprisonment for defilement of the Quran and article 295C which prescribes the death penalty for the “use of derogatory remarks in respect of the Holy Prophet.”

The reason the British found it necessary to bring this law into effect was the Ilm ud din episode which has striking parallels with today’s events.

A book had been written called Rangeela Rasool ‘colourful prophet’ in Hindi which quoting embarrassing stories from the hadiths painted an unflattering picture of Islam’s founder and was published by a Raj Pal in Lahore. Imams inLahore incited their congregations to kill the blasphemous publisher and hearing this, a carpenter called Il-mud-din bought a dagger and stabbed Raj Pal to death.

He was arrested and eventually executed by the British Raj, who however seeing how incensed the Muslims had become over the issue introduced the law in 1927 to deal with blasphemy (the above 295).

Ilm-ud-din was deemed a great hero by the Muslim masses. He was represented by up and coming lawyer Jinnah (later to be founder of Pakistan) and his funeral rites were organised by Allama Muhammad Iqbal (later to become Pakistan’s national poet). He was given the honorific title Ghazi Ilm-ud-din Shaheed. Ghazi is a title of honour for a Muslim who slaughters a non-Muslim for the cause of Islam and Shaheed is the term for a martyr. Until now he remains a great hero inPakistan and where he was once jailed there is now named in his honour Ghazi Ilmuddin Shaheed Mosque.

So the law that accounted for the death sentence on Asia Bibi, directly evolved from a similar event of Muslims seeking to murder a blasphemous non-Muslim.

In the same way there are clear parallels with the treatment of the murderers Ilm-ud-din and Qadri. Both are lauded as heroes and given the same honorific titles Ghazi and Shaheed. The Judge who has sentenced Qadri to death is now in fear for his life and lawyers have trashed his courtroom to protest the sentence against Qadri. Huge rallies are being held by Pakistan’s religious parties in support of Qadri whom they laud as a true lover of Islam’s prophet or “Ashiq-e-Rasool”. Not content at just murdering Taseer, his son too has been kidnapped, and is apparently being used as a bargaining chip for the release of Qadri.

It is indeed a bind for the Pakistani Government, caught between honouring its National ideology of Islam and all that entails or between being a responsible member of the community of nations. As the history shows in the past both its founder and national poet came down on the side of a killer of blasphemers.

The Pakistani Government has been a leading proponent of trying to export a watered down version of its blasphemy laws to the United Nations along with other OIC countries. Much of the hullaballoo about Islamophobia you hear of from Islamic organizations in the West is also similar attempts at trying to criminalize blasphemy.

There is an interesting article I read online translated from Urdu in which the author Maulana Nademul Wajidi says:

Does he not know that in undividedIndiaaLahoreresident had dared to challenge Muslim’s self-respect having written a book called Rangeela Rasool (The colourful Prophet). An illiterate young Muslim Ghazi Ilmuddin had answered him with his sword. Having killed him, he had proved that no one can insult our prophet. Muslims will never tolerate that. Recently Pakistani Punjab’s governor Salman Taseer was killed for showing sympathy for the accursed blasphemer Aaasia Bibi. His own bodyguard Mumtaz Hussain Qadri killed him.

The punishment for blasphemy can be nothing less than death. Muslims have always punished blasphemers with death. But we are live here inIndia. We are merely demanding punishment in accordance with laws of this land. Why should the government have any problems then?

The learned Mullah is indeed correct. Muslims have indeed punished blasphemers throughout history with death, but will use any means to shut up the critics of Islam at their disposal.

For those unaware of some of these historical killings of blasphemers you can go right back to the time of the holy prophet of Islam and see that he instigated his followers to kill many of his critics (blasphemers):

On the orders of Muhammad a follower went and killed Asma Bint Marwan, a woman suckling her infant child:

Umayr Ibn Adi came to her in the night and entered her house. Her children were sleeping around her. There was one whom she was suckling. He searched her with his hand because he was blind, and separated the child from her. He thrust his sword in her chest till it pierced up to her back. Then he offered the morning prayers with the prophet at al-Medina. The apostle of Allah said to him: “Have you slain the daughter of Marwan?” He said: “Yes. Is there something more for me to do?” He [Muhammad] said: “No. Two goats will butt together about her. This was the word that was first heard from the apostle of Allah. The apostle of Allah called him ‘Umayr, “basir” (the seeing).

Another critic of Muhammad, Abu Afak, an old man, composed poetry that doubted Muhammad’s claims to be a prophet. Muhammad said: “Who will deal with this rascal for me?” One of his followers then went and killed Abu Afak.

There are numerous other examples of killing of blasphemers in the time of the prophet such as:

Sunan Abu Dawud Book 38, Number 4349:

Narrated Ali ibn AbuTalib:

A Jewess used to abuse the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and disparage him. A man strangled her till she died. The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) declared that no recompense was payable for her blood.

Throughout the Islamic domination of the subcontinent also blasphemers were killed again and again in keeping with the Islamic tradition that the Mullah writes about above. There is this example I read of, about a man murdered as he made the apparently incredibly blasphemous claim that both Islam and Hinduism were true:

It is related in the Akbar Sháhí, that there came a Bráhman,* by name Laudhan, who dwelt in the village of Kaner, who had one day asserted in the presence of Musulmáns that Islám was true, as was also his own religion. This speech of his was noised abroad, and came to the ears of the ‘Ulamá. Kází Píyára and Shaikh Badr, who resided at Lakhnautí, gave fatwas which did not coincide respecting the merits of the case. Consequently ‘Azam Humáyún, the governor of that district, sent the Bráhman, the Kází, and Shaikh Badr, all three into the King’s presence at Sambhal. Sultán Sikandar took great pleasure in disputations on religious questions, and on this occasion summoned all the wise men of note from every quarter. Mullá ‘Abdu-lla, the son of Mullá Ilahdád, Saiyid Muhammad, and Míán Kádan, from Dehlí, all the Mullás in short of his empire, were summoned to Sambhal, and the assembly of the also present on this occasion. After investigating the matter, the ‘Ulamá determined that he should be imprisoned and con­verted to Muhammadanism, or suffer death, and, since the Bráhman refused to apostatize, he was accordingly put to death by the decree of the ‘Ulamá. The Sultán, after rewarding the learned casuists, gave them permission to depart.

The incitement of Muslims to kill blasphemers is a recurring theme throughout history. The basis of it lies within the teachings of Islam. Islam believes it has the right and mandate to murder those who oppose it in word or deed. This is due to the very founder of the religion using such means and those means in fact assisting the rapid expansion of Islam.

The world needs to be aware of methodology in play to shut down debate on Islam by devout Muslims. Devout Muslims will when in power or a strong position seek to kill blasphemers or critics of Islam. When in a weaker position vis-à-vis critics they seek to use other laws and means to silence critics. The current push for international blasphemy laws and talk of Islamophobia represent that path of action.

Rather than laws to entail and criminalize criticism of Islam, strict laws that severely punish those inciting murdering in the name of Islam need enacting and enforcing. This would work towards eliminating this unacceptable menace to societies around the world.

Last night I went along to a political rally organised by the Bangladesh Crisis Group which is an offshoot of the British Jamaat-e-Islam front, Islamic Forum Europe. I arrived at the Water Lily Centre which was the advertised venue to be told that the event had been moved to the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel. It was later expressed in the rally that the meeting had been moved because of “political pressure”. My guess is that the Water Lily Centre, which is controlled by Awami League supporters, decided not to host any political lobby involving Toby Cadman in case it irritated their leaders in Awami League HQ in Dhaka.

I thought that it was fitting that the rally had been moved back to London Muslim Centre, the nerve centre of the Jamaat-e-Islam in the UK. After all, it was the DCLG which correctly observed that the ELM/LMC is the base for Jamaat-e-Islami in the UK.

The attendance was very good, with more than 350 people in the “men’s section” alone and more upstairs in the “lady’s section” in the LMC. The rally kicked off just after the sunset prayer, with a reading of an apology from Kemal Helbawy, the chair of the Bangladesh Crisis Group, who excused himself for his absence because he was in Cairo. Helbawy is a member of the Egyptian franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood and has advocated the justification for killing children. It is, therefore, worthwhile to note that the Jamaat-Ikhwan alliance here and also the incongruity of having someone with his views proffering advice on human rights.

There were a total of 17 speakers from the initial advertised roster of 21.

The first to speak was Bob Lambert of the European Muslim Research Centre. Lambert was good enough to confess at the onset that he had never been to Bangladesh and had limited knowledge of the facts in Bangladesh first hand. He used the opportunity to discuss the “failures of the War on Terror” and to plug his new book.

Next was Moazzam Begg, who needs no introduction to those concerned with counter-terrorism in this country, who had nothing specific to say about the situation in Bangladesh but instead spoke about his “work in Libya”. He set forth a polemical rant about “oppression of the Muslims” which had everyone in the room cheering enthusiastically.

“What you’re seeing happening in Bangladesh are the birth pangs. You can see that the most demonised organisations of the world are the Muslim organisations. Everywhere you go, east, west, Islamic countries or not. And here you see in Bangladesh, the Jamaat-e-Islami, that is being demonised, that its activists are being imprisoned. Why? The reason is the same reason why Ben Ali captured, tortured and beat the people from the An-Nahda party. The same reason why Ghaddafi captured and tortured the people from the Islamic groups there. The same reason why Hosni Mubarak tortured and imprisoned the people from the Islamic groups there. For fear of legitimate opposition that had tangible abilities to challenge the status quo, i.e. they are afraid.”

Next to speak was Toby Cadman, and it is his speech that I waited to hear with interest. Cadman is the British barrister representing the five leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islam charged by the War Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. I wanted to know why a barrister was appearing at a political rally with Islamists and the supporters of war criminals. He stressed early on that he was not opposed to the Tribunal but had deep misgivings that his clients may not be receiving a fair trial in Dhaka.

“As the other speakers have said, Bangladesh is entering a very, very dangerous period. It’s not just the Tribunal. Now I’m just here to speak about the wider political issues because that’s not what I’m instructed to do. My job is to represent those currently detained and those facing allegations and, as I said, I will continue to do that. But that also involves discussing the wider political issues. The complete breakdown in democracy, the barring of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Now the wider political issues, that falls under the responsibility of a large number of international organisations. That’s not for me to get into as a lawyer. And what I’ve been doing is calling on these organisations to engage on a diplomatic level with Bangladesh to resolve these problems before it transcends into a humanitarian crisis. I think we’re on the brink of that right now. Some of the other speakers have already mentioned that. But as I say, those are the issues that need to be addressed by the international community. This government in particular, my government needs to step up and recognise that there is a serious problem.”

As Jamaat-e-Islam’s barrister, Toby Cadman is right to draw out any failures in due process and judicial norms by the War Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. However, here in London, he is sharing a platform with political groups who have been involved with crimes against humanity, sectarian violence, terrorism and human rights abuses of their own in Bangladesh and elsewhere. It is correct that people should speak out against the use of special security forces used by successive governments of Bangladesh which has led to various humanitarian abuses. But for an international barrister to point out these political and human rights abuses in Bangladesh, which are legion, and to conflate them with the due process obligations of the Tribunal is politicking and simply disgraceful.

Next to speak was Oliver McTernan, who spoke about the human rights abuses in Bangladesh in the most abstract terms and admitted that he had only educated himself on the issues prior to attending the rally, from the internet.

Farooq Murad of the MCB spoke next. Murad’s father, Khurram Murad, was the vice-Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and, as you would expect from the MCB, used arresting phrases to suggest that the whole matter was an international religious struggle against the oppression of Muslims:

“What is happening in Bangladesh now is an insult to the Ummah”

Imam Hazim Fazlic who is from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and is an imam in Birmingham, was next to speak. One of the points he made was that he hoped that Bangladesh would be the subject of some kind of humanitarian intervention by the international community, similar to Bosnia. This was not met with a very enthusiastic response from the audience.

Walid Saffour, of the Syrian Human Rights Committee, ended his speech with these words:

“May God protect our Maulana Delwar Hussein Sayeedi!”

This caused a full-throated cheer from the ELM audience, a response which made me sick to my stomach. Delwar Hussein Sayeedi stands accused in Bangladesh charged with looting, plundering, arson and rape of members of the Hindu minority. A full account of his crimes and the evidence brought to the Tribunal can be found here.

Other speakers who also addressed the LMC last night were Jonathan Fryer and Dr Noureddin Meladi. Fryer mentioned the human rights abuses in Bangladesh perpetrated by the Rapid Action Battalion, an elite crime force which has been responsible for many extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh.

Next to speak was Mahidur Rahman, who is the ‘Chief Coordinator’ of the UK chapter of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) in the UK. For some reason, Mahidur Rahman failed to mention that it was his party, the BNP, which was responsible for the creation of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). It was under the BNP government that RAB had become a “government death squad” in 2006, which a US human rights group accused of being responsible for killing 350 suspects in custody.

Mahidur Rahman made no mention of this, choosing instead to lay the blame of the RAB’s human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings firmly and in gross partisan manner on the Awami League instead.

We next had Noureddin Miladi, a Tunisian who suggested this little Islamist nugget of wisdom:

“[Democracy] as has been going for the last forty years on Bangladesh, has been something imposed from above. And all the rulers have, in a way, sustained by western powers because they serve their agenda of the western powers”

Musleh Faradhi the leader of the IFE spoke next. In addition to suggesting that the War Crimes Tribunal is some kind of Neocon conspiracy ordained by George Bush, he dishonestly mangled an historical fact:

“They found something special for Bangladesh and that is war crimes and war criminals. Because they know, because their gurus told them the bigger the issue that you raise, the young people of Bangladesh will become very emotional. They would think ‘How can these people be the enemy of the country, how can a group of people work against the independence of the country?’

Therefore they have found an issue and they have tried to make an issue of something that was not an issue. Because Bangladesh reconciled with what happened in 1971. People who were criminals, they were tried and the people who were not criminals were forgiven by the founder of the nation. But why it has come up after forty years? Only because they want to suppress opposition”

This is a blatant lie made here by Faradhi. It is his assertion that criminals were tried in 1971. But war criminals have not faced judicial proceedings until now. Perhaps he should have listened to his colleage, Toby Cadman, who had just previously said on the same platform:

“It’s important that Bangladesh, as a nation, brings an end to this particular chapter and brings an end to impunity. It has an obligation under international law to do this. It also has an obligation under international law to do it properly.”

And that is exactly what should be done. And it would be advisable that the Jamaat-e-Islami activists of the East London Mosque and the Islamic Forum Europe and their various friends who all spoke at the meeting yesterday accept that justice be served by supporting the judicial processes in Bangladesh under the War Crimes Tribunal.

It is also imperative that the War Crimes Tribunal itself comply to all international judicial process and norms so that the accused can get a fair trial.

The right, in contrast, views the western enlightenment as being the ultimate high point in human civilisation. Therefore, all attempts to create orderly societies should be rooted in enlightenment principles and there is very little to be learnt from others. The developing world is viewed as an exotic place that one must understood and navigated through whilst holding onto and preaching western enlightenment values.

Approaches to Islamist radicalisation by both camps are, therefore, severely hampered since the ideological framework being used doesn’t allow either camp to see the whole picture. This results in an inconsistent, self-serving and an agenda driven approach to analysing the problem. From the left’s point of view, Islamist radicalisation is merely a reactionary response to western capitalist imperialism. Therefore, discussions about solving such forms of radicalisation must focus on western foreign policy. From the right’s perspective, Islamist radicalisation is symptomatic of the failure of Muslims to grasp enlightenment values; hence their approach is rooted in debating the ideas and ignoring the geo-politics.

Despite, Islamist radicalisation being publicly discussed and debated since late 2001, we are no closer to a consensus on how to understand or tackle the phenomenon. This failure is, I believe, largely attributable to the lack of a rational, objective and non-ideological approach to the subject matter. Voices from both sides of the political spectrum view it as a pawn, as they do with other issues, and any sensible voices get lost in the ensuing cacophony. Then we have Muslim voices that either play the blame game and deny the existence of the problem in the first place or acknowledge the problem but attribute it to a form of backwardness that they don’t want to be part of or address.

This situation also makes very strange bedfellows who share little more than blind spots. The left thinks it can tap into those Muslims who prefer to play the blame game by appearing to stand up for Muslim issues. In reality this couldn’t be further from the truth, the left has a far worse track record of supporting those who are responsible for killing and oppressing Muslims than the right. The right thinks it can use those Muslims who do wish to engage in an ideas-based debate. This, however, often results in them having to go along with the rights inconsistency on extremism and ignoring anti-Muslim extremism.

However the political debate is conducted, one thing is for sure, it is completely disconnected from reality and non-ideological voices struggle to be taken seriously. Political commentators from all sides are deeply entrenched in tribalism and allow their prejudices to dictate what issues they address and how they address them. All the while, the whole discussion about radicalisation gets more and more divisive with no end in sight.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the English Defence League.

The EDL is a very peculiar organization. Denounced on the one hand by the establishment as another far-right group, and on the other hand, by Nick Griffin as a neocon Zionist front organization, it sometimes seems that there’s a different EDL for everyone you talk to. To untangle this, I thought it useful to take a look into the EDL’s beginnings.

The EDL’s origins lie with the British National Party. Now, one has to be clear about this. Despite any attempt at rebranding, the BNP is not simply right-wing populist party. It is not even a ethnic identity nationalist party. It is a party whose foundations are the open admiration of the worst of the Hitler regime, and they never manage to keep this under wraps for long.

However, in recent decades they have managed to keep it under wraps long enough. In a speech that Griffin gave in America (to the like minded David Duke and others), Griffin said

“There’s a difference between selling out your ideas and selling out ideas. […] Use saleable words, freedom, security, identity, democracy […]“.

Saleable words indeed, and ones that became even more saleable as the collision between reactionary Islam and liberal society heated up. Very few people will object to immigration because of rubbish about the evils of racial mixing. However, far more will object when they find that it means honor killings, lynch mobs and virulent anti-Semitism, and they will not be happy to be simply dismissed as racists for that. And some of these people found their way into the BNP.

Now, the result was that this group found themselves at odds with the full Nazi menu of the BNP, but still thought the reasons they joined were decent ones, and thus the BNP was defeated by its own mask. The EDL took the mask and played it for real. For example, the EDL’s leadership does reach out to the likeminded from all racial backgrounds, and it is also makes a great deal of its defense of gay rights. More importantly, the EDL would later throw out its own founder, Paul Ray, for his continuing links to the classically racist European “New Right”.

Furthermore, it can claim – with some justice – to be a more genuine expression of working class outrage than the officials of any of the three main parties, much less the upper-middle class socialists from the universities. Say what you will about the football culture of this nation, it is genuinely proletarian and an eraser of racial divides.

I realize that the foregoing seems like a defense, but that is only because our usual ways of thinking about things have become completely out of date. The foregoing is why the EDL is a far more dangerous movement than suspected. In a remarkable article on Standpoint, Louis Amis noted that it was not the EDL’s claim to be nonracist, but it’s claim to be nonviolent that is most suspect. Indeed, Tommy Robinson, the groups current leader, bragged to Amis about how the EDL had no hesitation about beating up any neo-Nazi who tries to infiltrate it. The footballhooligan connection gives the EDL a rough and easy taste for violence.

To understand why this is dangerous, ask yourself the following: if the EDL get out of hand and go on a riot, will they carefully target only the likes of Anjem Choudry and al-Muhajiroun? Or will they more likely hit the businesses and homes of the average man in the street? And who would benefit from such a collision? Historically, reactions to Islamic aggression have often been just as terrible to the people they were purportedly defending. The Crusades, called in response to Islamic conquest of the Middle East, first slaughtered the Jews and Byzantines before they ever reached Islamic lands. It was the Reconquista of Spain that gave rise to the dread Inquisition. More recently, the rise of Milosevic and the Bosnian genocide was propelled by fears of Izbetovic’s Islamic Declaration and of memories of the 2 million killed by the Ottoman Jihad in the First World War.

Then there is the matter of the EDL allying with members of Sikh and Hindu fascist movement, such as the Shiv Sena and RSS. Like the EDL, these movements were initially formed out of a reaction to Islamic aggression, and one thing that the Shiv Sena can be credited for is the hounding out of public life of the late great M.F. Hussain.

Given this history, even taking the EDl’s professed restraint at face value, does anyone think this would remain the same if things took a lurch to the worse? Or might we see the birth of a multiracial, multicultural violently reactionary movement with sufficient numbers and clout to decide that it didn’t need to worry about what the men in Downing street think?

Down this path lies a very dark future, one of segregated ghettos patrolled by the goons of each side, and only those of a secular, Enlightenment spirit left with nowhere to go.

Shortly after the riots, Mehdi interviewed the father of one of the victims of the riots in Birmingham, a brave and outspoken man called Tariq Jahan. One would think that the interview was an opportunity to explore the tensions in the city, the impact of Tariq’s brave intervention, the grief of his family, the future for his community. But no, in characteristic fashion Mehdi Hasan used the opportunity to, yes you’ve guessed it, bash the right and little esle. Mehdi spends the first half of the interview using quotes from Tariq to justify his attack on the PMs proposed tougher sentencing for rioters and statement about ‘broken society’. The pathetic wasted opportunity of an interview can be seen in full here.

To make matters worse, a week or so before the interview with Tariq Jahan, Mehdi published a piece on the riots in which he stated

“The debate about the riots is being hijacked by those who want to push partisan agendas and narratives. But shouldn’t we wait for evidence?”

Really Mehdi, I wonder who those people are. Or is it only ok when people on the left hijack debates to push partisan agendas? The rest of the piece again, and predictably, attacks right wing political commentators without proposing or analysing much else.

This kind of tribal, point scoring, punch and judy political commentating doesn’t really help anyone. It may have an impact within Mehdi’s social circle but it doesn’t do much for society. But the real tragedy is that a supposedly respectable publication, like the New Statesman, actually publishes this rubbish.

Okay, that was slightly harder to type than I expected. Lest anyone think I am being flippant about this disgusting atrocity (I refuse to use the word tragedy, which carries connotations of either self caused or non caused), let me point out that the above drivel has been mobilized following every atrocity by the Islamic ultra right for the last ten years. It was heard last weekend too, when Islamic fascists initially claimed responsibility for the horrifying events on that Norwegian island and in Oslo.

The reactionary left and the pro fascist left have spent the last ten years building the most accomplished machinery of excuse and justification for far right violence without ever asking themselves whether other groups might like to use it. You cannot excuse and defend movements so far to the right that they make Nick Griffin look like Nick Clegg and then posture as an ‘anti-fascist’.

A seed of dragon’s teeth has been sown, and its harvest is at hand. Brevik’s fellow ‘knights templar’ include the German neo-Nazi Nick Greger, Johnny Adair, the former leader of Ulster Freedom Fighters, Paul Ray, former BNP member, and even Serbian war criminals and African gangsters. It gets worse still. The rise of the Islamic far right has been a force multiplier for homegrown far right groups. Given the failure of Western governments to confront, say, Islamic Jew-bashing in Oslo or Islamic gay bashing in Amsterdam, it is unsurprising to see significant percentages of the population turn to less savory movements. This, however, does nothing to ameliorate their character. To take my least favorite example, behind closed doors the German NPD openly admits that its agenda is the destruction of the German republic and the restoration of the Reich. Similarly, Le Pen, who has tried to reinvent himself as the defender of French Jewry until quite recently was perfectly happy with ‘oven jokes’ in public. Lest anyone think that this sceptered Isle is immune from this, allow me to relate that, wandering down the streets of our own dear city with my young lady, from the window of a speeding car I heard two shaven headed Neanderthals call out: “Race Traitor!”

It is worth stressing that it is mainly those who have been alert to the menace of the Islamic far right who have also been aware of the more homegrown variety. The neoconservative Douglas Murray has produced two reports on the spread of hardcore neo-Nazism and its links with the BNP. In some of the most chilling sentences I have read, Sam Harris wrote: “The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its inhabitants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists. To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: it does not bode well for the future of civilization.”

Having seen them proved right, it is a bit much to see men such as this slandered. I note with some weariness a Guardian column implicating Bruce Bawer in this massacre. I also notice the reptilian Chris Hedges has decided to dispense with innuendo and state that Sam Harris is responsible for Breivik. Anyone who believes this will believe anything. One would not know, reading these articles, that Bawer is a gay liberal who has written extensively on the bigotry of America’s Christian right. One would also not know that Sam Harris is one of the most liberal and internationalist thinkers on the world stage today.

Leaving aside the opportunism and dishonesty involved, there is a greater problem. It is part of the process that has driven all criticism of the Islamic far right into the fringes and margins, and in that outer darkness monstrous things have bred. Furthermore, this discourse has so relentlessly cheapened and abused the terms ‘racist’, ‘far right’, and ‘fascist’ that they have lost their pungency and warning power. We are at the point in the story where the little boy meets the real wolf. And we are all the little boy.

I shall give one example of this. It is common to hear Geert Wilders described as ‘far right’. Now, whatever you think of him, how can this epithet be sanely applied to a philosemite who has made opposition to racism, misogyny and homophobia the centre of his campaign?

This debased discourse will only ensure that things get worse, especially given the transnational and transcultural spread of the fascist virus. Discussing the EDL rally with an honorable old feminist friend of mine, I maintained that the most unsettling thing about the EDL was that they probably are not racists. Racism is inherently self-limiting. A return to a mono-racial Britian is simply not going to happen. On the other hand, try to imagine the consequence of the EDL allying with the Hindu fascists of the Shiv Sena and RSS. Both groups already have a significant present in the United Kingdom (for example, they were capable of bullying the artists M.F. Hussain into submission even after he fled to our shores), and it is already possible to hear sympathy for Breivik coming from that quarter.

Another area we should be watchful of is Eastern Europe and Russia. A 1999 German documentary on the far right interviewed one neo Nazi speaking cheerfully of the fact that his ideas found far more ready acceptance in the former Eastern bloc, and that Russia had more neo Nazis than all of Europe. Though one has to visit certain grim websites to find this out, Breivik is already being feted as a hero there. And of course, it was the Eastern Orthodox Church that gave clerical sanction to the genocide of Bosnia.

A third threat, and one that has been completely missed comes from the European Union. The EU sells itself as the restraint on the worst impulses of nationalism and xenophobia, and does so in the most cheap and demagogic manner. However, when Norman Lowell, one of the leading ‘thinkers’ of the “New European Right” was giving a speech in London (titled ‘Implementing the Imperium’. Seriously.), he stopped to cheer up some BNP members. Don’t worry, was his line, about getting members into the House of Commons. Your success in the European Parliament is much more important. The EU Parliament manufactures the majority of European legislation, and it is not subject to much in the way of democratic – or any other kind of – oversight. If this sounds like the vain ravings of a fascist loser, consider that the third largest block in the European Parliament, after the Center Right and the Socialists, is the far right alliance. So an institution sold as a corrective to ultranationalist xenophobia may yet give us Festung Europa. Wonderful.

There are some serious lessons to be learned here. The first is that nothing will be gained by further narrowing the bounds of discourse. It is worth reminding everyone that the Weimar republic had no less than two hundred prosecution of the NSDAP for hate speech: all this did was to force the party to clean up its image and make it more attractive. Conversely, none of the empty posturing about the BNP did as much good as Nick Griffin being caught on tape giving his real views to David Duke and his supporters. The more people can hear about the true views of these people, the better.

The second is that all fascists are brothers under the skin. In his manifesto, Breivik specifically calls for cooperation with Jihad terrorists to carry out attacks in Europe and allow them the establishment of a theocratic tyranny. Conversely, on 9/11 the televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson joined Al Qaeda in praising the attacks as divine punishment, while many neo Nazi and white supremacists expressed their envy and admiration for the killers. Meanwhile, many anti-fascist and reformist Muslims condemned the attacks in round and solid terms. And, of course, in the same way that Breivik targeted his fellow countrymen, it is precisely these brave Muslims who are the first targets of Islamic fascists.

The third is that there is no sectarian answer to the problem of sectarianism. The shadow of a ghost of a point that our comentariat have had in the last few days is that there are some writers on the subject of Jihad and Islamic supremacism – Melanie Phillips, Robert Spencer – who root their opposition in a defense of “Christian” or “Judeo-Christian” civilization, something of an undefined term. Even a cursory reading makes it clear they mean a society of free speech, equality of the sexes, individual rights and so forth, but the vagueness of the term provides a modicum of cover for those whose vision of ‘Christian Europe’ is rather different. Indeed, it is quite possible, perusing the wild-lands of cyberspace around The Brussels Journal, to find those who are nostalgic for Codreanu and the Iron Guard.

Over thirty years ago, Ayn Rand warned of global balkanization, and its roots in irrationalism and tribalism. She has been proved right. Individualism and internationalism are not merely items on a menu, they are the only moral and practical way in which to organize the world. This must not be forgotten as we find ourselves, like peppercorns in a grinder, between two fascist movements competing for the right – or do I mean Reich? – to destroy liberal society.

Time then, for a stiffened spine. For some resistance, for some internationalism, for some solidarity. Time, in short, to reaffirm the values of the Enlightenment and to earn the title of ‘antifascist’ that has been too long defaced by frauds and failures.

In this video (warning extremely graphic) you can see three men beaten to death by a mob of Muslims and having their heads repeatedly smashed in by poles and sticks even after they are long dead. It is sickening and a terrible crime against humanity for the mere crime of having a belief that mainstream Sunni Muslims find blasphemous to their dogma.

Now this issue has reached the courts and judgment has been handed down as per the following news story:

DENPASAR, Indonesia — An Indonesian man who survived a deadly mob attack by Muslim hard-liners was sentenced Monday to six months in prison, prompting outrage from rights groups over a sentence that was harsher than what some of his assailants received.

Deden Sudjana, a member of Ahmadiyya, a minority Muslim sect that many conservative Muslims consider heretical, was found guilty by a district court in the province of Banten on charges stemming from the February incident. Judges said he had refused police orders to leave the scene and had wounded one of the attackers.

The judges rejected a charge of incitement leveled by prosecutors, who had sought a sentence of nine months.

The clash, in the remote district of Cikeusik, caused international outrage after a graphic video of it surfaced online. It showed the police offering little resistance as more than 1,000 villagers descended on a home where 21 Ahmadis were staying, killing three and then beating and stomping on their mud- covered bodies.

The attack and the trial that followed have been widely denounced as evidence of declining religious tolerance in Indonesia, where the police, officials and the justice system have often appeared reluctant to punish — and, in some cases, are alleged to have colluded with — Islamic hard-liners, who have engaged in increasingly frequent attacks on Christian churches and on properties owned by Ahmadiyya.

Last month the same court sentenced 12 villagers, including a 17-year-old who was seen in the video bashing a man’s skull with a rock, to between 3 and 6 months in jail over their involvement in the attack. Prosecutors did not seek charges of murder or manslaughter.

This vicious attack was posted on the internet and seen by hundreds of thousands of people but inspite of that the Indonesian police and courts have made a mockery of justice by treating murderers with kid gloves and seeking to blame the victims.

As per this following story you can see the complicity of the police and ‘justice’ system in covering up for the killers:

Police arrested and charged 12 suspects in relation to the attack. Despite facing sentences of up to 12 years in jail, prosecutors recommended prison sentences of between five and seven months for the defendants.

On the other hand, prosecutors recommended nine months in jail for Deden Sujana, the head of security for the Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI), for allegedly provoking the attack.

So the court outcome is only what the prosecutors sought. This injustice makes the Indonesian legal system itself complicit and guilty in the persecution and brutal slaughter of followers of this sect.

Indonesia, in spite of having a relatively moderate forms of Islam compared to other parts of the world has a problem with the more uncompromising Islam too. Around 42% of the population supported stoning for adulterers 30% thought killing apostates was the way to go in a recent pew survey. There is no wonder they are acting on the killing of ‘heretics’ and ‘apostates’ part of that.

Both stoning adulterers and killing apostates are mainstream Sunni Islamic positions practiced since the beginning of Islam.

If you look to another country in this pew survey, Pakistan, you find 82% support for stoning to death adulterers, which the Taliban and others having actually been carrying out, and 76% support for killing apostates. No wonder there have been machine gun attacks on Ahmadi Mosques, in one such attack 80 people were murdered. In Pakistan however Ahmadis are called by the State as non-Muslims and their places cannot be referred to as Mosques by the media. They can be locked up for even saying asalam alaikum, the Muslim greeting.

Mainstream Sunni Islam has plenty of problematic aspects and when it is used to form the basis of laws injustice will certainly be the outcome.

The remarks appeared in an article written by SIAN ‘leader’ Arne Tumyr which was published on the group’s website on Sunday night. The site had released a shorter statement eight hours earlier condemning Breivik as ‘an enemy of Norway’. Both pieces remain on the SIAN site, which currently bares the following passage on its homepage: ‘Islam is the backdrop for this tragedy – this incredible and horrific mass murder that Sian takes the stand from. Also we feel with the relatives. The political correct Norway, however, has its share of the blame – the politicians have put a lid on Islamic debate – despite the fact that most of the Norwegian people is opposed to Islam.’(sic)

Tumyr’s article also denied the presence of xenophobia in Norway, explaining that in contrast to “Islamic states”, “in Norway there is no hatred of ‘strangers’ – only resistance to foreigners who want to take from us our values and subjugate the Norwegian culture”. It further rejects any calls for “dialogue”, since “a good Muslim has nothing – absolutely nothing to dialogue with. They have only Islam, ‘the prophet’ and Sharia – and it is this that in time will govern Norway.” Tumyr also wrote of “the political authorities who said on Sunday, stated that they would work for the multi-cultural society” that “in plain words” this meant “they will work for continued Islamization of society”.

SIAN is the Norwegian branch of ‘Stop Islamisation of Europe’, an umbrella group which entrusted its American branch, Stop Islamization of America, to writers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in January 2010. On Sunday, SIOE co-founder Stephen Gash agreed with a commenter on the group’s Facebook page that Breivik had been ‘Islamised’, replying that the killer had ‘behaved like a Muslim’.

Since SIOE and SIOA have issued statements condemning Anders Breivik, it will be interesting to see whether they will now disown their Norwegian branch or take action against its leadership. It would also be worth knowing whether they agree with SIOE’s co-founder that this sociopathic murderer ‘behaved like a Muslim’.

Adam Barnett is Research Co-ordinator for the One Law for All campaign and author of the forthcoming report ‘Enemies Not Allies’ (released next week), which investigates the EDL and SIOE. He can be reached via The Spittoon.

In 2007, Sizer accepted an invitation to give a series of lectures in Iran. Sizer was invited by Ayatollah Khomeini’s daughter – Zahra Mostafavi. Ayatollah Khomeini ruled Iran with an iron fist.

Under Khomeini’s rule, many Christians were arrested and even killed, for “heresy” and “insulting Khomeini”. Khomeini died in 1989, but his cruel ‘Khomeinist’ politics live on. Sizer has aligned his theology to co-operate with Khomeinist politics. McRoy has presented Khomeinist suicide bombers as virtuous.

Mostafavi thinks her father was a righteous man. She wants to spread his politics across the Middle East, and encourages children to become suicide bombers for Khomeinists in Lebanon, at a theological conference in Iran.

I have written a document to explain the phenomenon, of Christians like Sizer and McRoy working together with Khomeinists to promote an evil, radical agenda.

You can download the document here:

The Evangelical Intifada

Liberal author Sohrab Ahrami comments:

“Iranians of the Christian faith, like other ethno-sectarian minorities – and, indeed, the vast majority of citizens – are daily targeted by the ruthless clerical regime that misrules Iran.  It is beyond obscene then, to see a Christian leader like Rev. Sizer kowtow to Iranian theocrats. And it is heartening to hear strong, liberal-democratic and Christian voices of conscience hold men like Sizer to account for their moral abdications.”

It is highly hypocritical of Sizer and McRoy to chastise Christian Zionism as being obsessed with war and Armageddon in the Middle East, and then ally themselves with Islamist Mahdists who theologise and threaten the destruction of Israel whilst trying to bring about the apocalypse. They have strained a gnat and swallowed a camel.

Yet Stephen Sizer’s bishop – the Rt. Reverend Christopher Hill – considers Sizer to be engaging in legitimate political activity, helping Muslim and Christian people in the Middle East.

By aligning with Khomeinists, however, Sizer may well land many Iranian Muslims and Christians in further peril, strengthening the hands of their Khomeinist persecutors. Across the world, Muslims and Christians should oppose Rev Sizer’s dangerous theological and political game. Please forward this document and make others aware, of this scandalous activity.

The Church of England has correctly ruled that its vicars should have nothing to do with the BNP. The church will ban clergy who are found to be BNP members.

Now the Church of England must reject Khomeinist fascists just like it has rejected BNP fascists.

Please pass this document on to any concerned Muslims and Christians you know, and let’s send out a clear message to the Bishop of Guildford about extremist theology. We will not tolerate it, and neither should he.

There was a marriage this week, a pretty big one, and no it wasn’t anything to do with the legalisation of same sex marriages in New York State. It was the public marriage of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-Islami movement. A major event in international Islamism. It’s also going to have a major affect on international relations and security in the future.

It is safe to say that the Egyptian event would have certainly been one of Sayid Qutb’s milestones. Islamist watchers around the world wouldn’t have been surprised; since the 1950s the Muslim Brothers and Jamaat have maintained close relations. They’ve played and flirted with each other for years.

In 1952, Said Ramadan, a leader in the Muslim Brother the father of Tariq Ramadan; the prodigal son and neo- European Islamist, was once dispatched to Karachi, Pakistan to help Jamaat organise their youth and student movements. It really was love at first sight, but cynics have said it was the Cold War which brought them together.

The Muslim World League (MWL), or Rabita al-Alam al-Islam for us smug types, has been trying to marry the pair since the Soviet-Afghan Jihad in the 80s. The MWL is a supranational organisation, the big umbrella, for pan-national Islamism; it’s sponsored and paid for by the government of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. It drives Saudi expansionism through education, charity and Islamic finance. Petro-dollars pay for the venture. The Muslim Brotherhood in Arabia and the Jamaat-i-Islami of South Asia were brought in to be the political side.

It would be wise to point out that two Islamic charities which are controlled by the MWL, Al-Haramain and the International Islamic Relief Organisation, have been financing al-Qaeda and jihadi terrorism, but don’t worry many of the branches have been shut by the international community, so please don’t worry about that. Let’s not ruin the honeymoon for them. It’s their future which counts. Any accusations that al-Qaeda and other groups have been financed by their networks is irrelevant…

These two power houses of international Islamism have often been sharing together, but they didn’t want to rush things. They had their own careers to build. They needed their independence, mainly for public, security and electoral reasons. But, in Europe and North America, away from the media hounds and the paparazzi, they had basically moved in together. While at university, they shared a couple of homes in international capitals. Wills and Kate could have taken a leaf out of their book in how to be discrete. The happy couple kept organising conferences and setting up Islamic research institutes like the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Institute for Islamic Political Thought (IIPT).

Through the guidance of the MWL (a.k.a. cupid or the matchmaker) they even helped to setup the International Islamic Universities (IIU) and the Markfield Institute for Higher Education (MIHE); these organisations would help their illegitimate children (sorry: academics and economists) to grow their careers within the international Islamist orbit, but they were still part of the big happy family. MWL wanted their families and friends to get on together: ‘A family which prays together stays together.’

It would be interesting to see if the marriage was a private affair with Jamaat-i-Islami deciding to elope to Egypt for the ceremony or if MWL and others were there to share the big day. There hasn’t a great deal of press on the subject. But, one thing is for sure as the Arab Spring stretches to a Pakistani Summer, they will have an interesting honeymoon…

Download FATWA on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings (pdf)

Update: FATWA-on-Terrorism-and-Suicide-Bombings_NoRestriction (can copy and paste from the document now) – Thanks AF!

The racist, homophobic and supremacist global Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir are having its 2011 annual event in Tower Hamlets. This event is being held at the Water Lilly Centre on Mile End Road. This is a venue that has Tesco as one of its tenants and is regularly hired out by the local council.

Tower Hamlets has recently been exposed as a hot-bed of extremist activity. Anti-Gay stickers have been plastered on lamp posts, non-Muslim teachers have been beaten up for teaching religion to Muslim students, moderate Muslims have been attacked for not practising their faith a certain way and the local mayor has strong ties to Islamist groups in the area. Is it any wonder that the aforementioned things take place in this borough when local venues are happy to host hate preachers who promote homophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-western views. Preachers who believe in killing gays, eradicating Jews, attacking moderate Muslims and encouraging Muslims to hate western nations.  These venue managers couldn’t care less who is speaking as long as they are getting paid.

Tower Hamlets has enough problems already and doesn’t need Hizb ut Tahrir marching into the borough to stir things up. All decent minded people should pressure the venue to cancel the booking. Details below:

The Water Lilly Centre
0207 790 2211
info@waterlilly.net

*************

Like the fruit of the medlar, Hizb ut Tahrir turned rotten long before it was ripe.

For years the group has boasted of inspiring a popular revolution on the Arab street and said it was in a position to ‘mould public opinion’ in favour of a Caliphate if only people would rise up against the regimes. Now that it’s finally happening, the party is nowhere to be seen in the Middle East.

Hizb ut Tahrir is failed and failing. But don’t just take my word for it.

For some time now I’ve been hearing of senior members defecting from the party in the UK. I wasn’t sure what to make of it but now I’ve had confirmation about some of the most significant departures over the last two years from a source still inside the party who is also preparing to leave. Recent significant departures include:

Farooq Khan* – Formerly on the national executive

Hasan Mujtaba – Formerly on the national executive

Asif Khan – Formerly on the national executive, formerly editor of Khilafah magazine (HT’s monthly), author of HT book on jurisprudence. You can read his book here (note that the editor listed on page 2 has also left the Hizb!)

Abid Husain – Formerly on the national executive,

Nadeem Ajayb – Regional director for Birmingham/West Midlands

Yusuf Patel – brother of Hizb ut Tahrir’s former British leader, Jalaluddin Patel

These are not the only serious defections, but they are the most significant ones in recent times. Since 2007, much of the Hizb’s middle management has also been decimated around the country. I’ve heard of – and met up with – countless erstwhile comrades around the country who once looked like they’d never leave the party. Now, they’re all realising life beyond.

The hizb’s problems extend way beyond defections. Internally, they’ve been suffering serious turbulence too. While he was still on the national executive, Farooq Khan, wrote to the party’s global leadership complaining about Jalaluddin Patel’s stewardship. He was rebuked as ‘arrogant’ and told to obey the amir – but the party investigated nonetheless. They dispatched Nasim Ghani from Bangladesh to investigate problems in the British chapter. In the event, Ghani failed to back Patel and he was then dismissed. Ghani stepped in as interim leader.

Then Asif Khan allegedly told other members he was resigning because of the cowardice of HT’s global leader Ata abu Rishta who is in hiding (and has been for many years). By contrast, Khan argued, Benazir Bhutto (for all her faults) had at least stood by her ideas and tried to affect public change in Pakistan. If she could demonstrate such commitment to her ideas – and die for them – then why should HT’s leader remain in hiding?

It reminds me of a trip I made to Pakistan in 2002 when I was with the Hizb. I wasn’t there on party business but I started hanging out with some of the members in Karachi – all of whom were from Britain. They complained that loads of guys from the UK had originally committed to moving to Pakistan telling them, “You go and we’re right behind you” but, when push came to shove, hardly any followed!

Farooq Khan and Asif Khan, along with Hasan Mujtaba and Abid Husain were all on the national executive when I became the first senior member to resign in 2005. At the time they organised the party’s machinery to discredit and crush me. Those were trying days, but I suspect they suffered no comparable indignity given just how many people are leaving the Hizb these days.

On a personal level, I’m sure those who played a hand in attacking me in 2005 will forgive me for being more than just a little smug about all this.

For leaving, I say ‘Ahlan wa Sahlan’ and dedicate this song to them:

My source in the party assures me he will leave soon. I can understand his hesitation, it can be difficult to take the final plunge. He’s speaking to others too. Another wave of defections could soon be on the cards. Watch this space.

*It should be stressed that I’ve not been able to confirm Farouq’s departure with my source. I heard from someone else that he’s left, but I’m not entirely certain about him, though I know for certain that he remains seriously disgruntled even if he has not yet departed.