It is far too easy to deride Anjem Choudhary’s latest brainwave in the redtops, snigger at pictures of his pained, constipated expression and dismiss his Angry Muslim Sideshow as a parody of itself. At the same time, allowing this man unchecked access to the toxic publicity he so craves would be a mistake. It would be British Muslims who would suffer if his devisive shock-tactics were ignored or, worse, unopposed.
Rumbold of Pickled Politics knows very well why Islam4UK must be countered:
I think that the authorities are right to let Islam4UK’s demonstration go ahead, despite its unpleasant nature. But I am also heartened to see that a counter-demonstration has been organised, and not by the likes of the EDL or the BNP. Anjem Choudary’s goal is to become the face of British Islam, thus increasing communal tensions and making life worse for your average British Muslim. Demonstrating against Mr. Choudary isn’t a vote for the war, but rather a refusal to let him dominate the public’s perception of Muslims.
This Saturday, amid massive tabloid hype, al-Muhajiroun (AM) were supposed to be marching through central London calling for their vision of Shari’ah to be imposed in the UK. Under the name Islam4UK (a name they’ve admitted is simply associated with a website front-group for AM), al-Macaroon managed to grab headlines with their mocked up images of Buckingham Palace converted into a mosque and the fountains of Trafalgar Square converted to be used for ritual ablutions prior to prayer. This provoked a number of Muslim groups into organising counter-protests in Piccadilly Circus.
Then AM abandoned their plan to march in central London and instead held a rally in Walthamstow. Predictably, the Express covered this protest and incendiary comments made at it by AM’s current leader Anjem Choudary (referred to by the article’s author, James Fielding as a “Sheikh” despite the fact that Anjem doesn’t even know basic Arabic) but omitted to mention any counter protests.
Macaroon member demonstrating his wit and intellect
One of the hazards of being a London resident these days is that, if you decide to go to your local high street on a Saturday morning to do a spot of shopping, you risk running into Anjem Choudary and his (tiny) collection of belligerent, under-thinking (and undersexed) young men sometimes known as al-Muhajiroun (or al-Macaroon here at the Spittoon) and the “roadshows” they organise to try and identify vulnerable targets for radicalisation.
Last weekend it was the residents of Camden who woke up to find it was their turn to host these misfits. Although their video suggests that the “roadshow” passed off peacefully, this was not the case. Have a look at these photos:
Anjem getting a ticking off from the guardians of kufr/police
Sheikh Andy (Anjem) Choudary, the self-parodying “emir” of Islam4UK, the latest renaming of Al-Muhajiroun (or Al-Macaroon as we prefer to call them here at the Spittoon), has released a video in which he attacks the critics of the English Defence League!
If ever proof were needed of the phenomenon of one set of extremist nutters requiring the existence of other set of extremist nutters to validate its own existence, it is this video statement from Sheikh Andy, in which he takes full credit for the creation of the EDL, which he says was caused by the provocation by “sincere Muslims” in Luton and Birmingham:
“The EDL and Casuals United who rose solely against the Extremist Muslims, erm Muslims, have a right to object to what we are calling for and engage in public dialogue wand discussion. But we should not allow those people, like the UAF and the Socialists and the Respect Party and the Labour Party to hijack this agenda for their own personal and selfish aims which have nothing to at to do with Islam”
Oxford House in Bethnal Green, east London is a community organisation dating back to 1884. To support its role as a venue for theatre events, drama, dance and the like it receives money from a wide range of organisations including the National Lottery, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and even the EU – see page 14 of their Charity Commission records for more details.(pdf)
It also does a sideline in hosting the nastiest Islamists London has to offer. It has regularly been the location for talks held by “Young Muslim Cooperation”, a blatant front for al-Muhajiroun. Salafi Media (another al-Muhajiroun front) hosts a large number of videos recorded at Oxford House. So unwilling is Oxford House to recognise the unpleasantness of their guests that, when the police stepped in to stop an event being held at Queen Mary’s University of London, al-Muhajiroun were allowed at the last minute to move the festivities to Oxford House. Islam4UK, the most open of al-Muhajiroun’s many fronts, even planned a conference Rise of the Khilafah there back in February.
The irascible Inayat Bunglawala is back, and he has British Muslims for Secular Democracy in his sights. The cause for this particular outburst – Shaaz Mahboob has suggested that some British Muslims lack compassion for UK soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan. In particular, Bunglawala picks up on Mahboob’s claim that the British Muslims who condemned the despicable al-Macaroon Luton protests “apparently did so fearing a backlash from the rest of the British public, not for their love and respect for the British soldiers”.
This is a statement I personally was quite troubled by when I first read it, but then Bunglawala’s ramblings quickly demonstrated that Mahboob has a point – at least in the case of the Black Knight himself.
Islam4UK have been road trippin’ for a ‘dawah’ (proselytising) mission around the UK. Latest destination: Tooting Broadway, London. Date: 20 June 2009.
Islam4UK is an odious organisation headed by Anjem Choudary, the new head of the-should-be-banned-extremist-outfit al-Muhajiroun. Islam4UK’s followers – who have been dubiously re-named as the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama’aah (ASWJ), lit. meaning ‘Adherents to the Sunnah and Community’ (a vague term) – propagated ‘the Deen [religion] of al-Islam to the local community’ in Tooting, and provided an ‘illuminating foretaste of how Britain would transform under the Shari’ah [Law].’
Don’t be fooled. These aren’t just a bunch of guys literally trying to follow in the footsteps of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed’s example (Sunnah), but manipulate the term to create front organisations and generally act as thugs while doing their so-called ‘dawah’ (more like distorting the Prophet’s example) work.
Global Issues Society will be hosting a debate between Anjem Choudary, who will argue that Sharia law should take precedence because it is “divine”, and Douglas Murray (Centre for Social Cohesion, Director), who will argue that British law supercedes. The debate will take place on the 17th of June 2009 (click on the poster image for venue details and timing).
This will be the first time that Anjem Choudary will be speaking as the new UK head of al-Muhajiroun. Exiled hate preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed set up this foul, fringe and extreme Islamist group in 1996 and was it previous leader. The group disbanded in November 2004 before the government could ban it. Now they have re-launched, and unfortunately, the group is still legal.
Please do come to this event and support the motion against Choudary, and let’s challenge him and his followers.
There were reports of violence, with onlookers claiming that an Asian man was hit across the face with a banner and left with a bloody nose.
'Anti-Islamist' extremists
Protestors wore masks with the horned face of Sayful Islam, who is lucky enough to be the public face of the protests against British soldiers in Luton in March. Those protests were launched by members of the Ahle Sunnah al Jamaah, a splinter group of Al-Mouhajiroun. The incident sparked off a nationwide wave of anti-Islamist tirades. And rightly so.
Why is it that the media keep paying so much attention to the tiny group of extremists al-Muhajiroun/whatever name they’re going by this week? It is very clear that the only beneficiaries are Anjem Choudary and his chums, who get free publicity for their views, and an array of other people of varying degrees of unpleasantness who can use events like the Luton protest to advance their own agenda.
First it was the BNP. I’m not going to link to their website to avoid helping its google ranking, but coverage of this story is unsurprisingly unpleasant. It is replete with lines like:
The shocking anti-British army protest by a group of Muslims in central Luton is a portent of what is to come unless the Islamification of this country is halted
This is in addition to references to “the colonisation of this country by Third Worlders” and “Luton is well known as a heavily Muslim colonised town” as well as dark warnings from their defence spokesman.
