Enjoy!

Why would Councillors have heard of some of the dubious characters that some of us learn about through Harry’s Place and nowhere else? Why would Councillors know about bookings of meeting places?

The authorities must begin to be less defensive in their approach to activities which are advancing aims objectively in favour of totalitarian and anti-democratic forces behind a smoke screen of ‘civil rights’. Some of these groupings, whatever they claim for their motives, effectively support the war aims of the enemies of the open society, the only sure basis of ‘civil rights’ for all.

As for the above comment about Jihad, there are three important factors.

One, the term Jihad means struggle and is clearly defined by the Five Schools of Islamic Thought and Jurispudence as meaning the struggle to defend Islam. As there is no war against Islam, none of these institutions have declared, supported or endorsed a Jihad – in fact not since the Crusades.

Secondly, many in Islam are in the belief that there are two Jihads, the first or Jihad al Sghrir (small Jihad) is this struggle to defend Islam. The second is Jihad al Kabir (large Jihad) as being that of the internal struggle against oneself to be a better person. It is based on a haddith saying that the Prophet Mohammed said after a battle that basically the small Jihad has now been won, now it is the time for the real and larger one.

The third point is the most important. Terrorism and terrorist groups, radicals and extremists, political parties and militant groups – all of them have agendas and claim what they want or need to support that agenda. That is expected, but it does not represent the core principles and the established Schools of Islam.

In fact the problem is radicalism in general, be it the radical religous types in Islam that are in fact dangerous and causing terrorism, but other forms or radicalism as well – the radical far-right that tries very hard to demonize the faith of 1.6 billion Muslims for their own agenda, the radical leftists that will do whatever to make themselves look like the saviours of the world, all them feeding off each other, pointing to blame the other as justification for their own radical and harmful deeds.

(Solkhar is the pen-name of a retired western diplomat and specialist in the tracking of terrorism-financing. He is a liberal Sunni Muslim by choice since the age of 17 and is now a permanent resident of the historic Moroccan city of Marrakech.)

I hope you are clear with the difference between Jihad and terrorism.

Most venues are privately owned. Councils would have no reason nor remit to monitor each and every venue in their area. Only that which they do own. Depending on the area, this would leave heaven-knows how many private venues available. I have never had to deal with such a situation but given that private venues are private, a council would likely have to go through some bureaucratic route in order to prevent a private event going ahead. Supposing a member of the public only brought the matter to their attention a day before the event?

Secondly, it is actually risible that the government state that it is up to local authorities to decide these things. Councils are responsible for issues that are quite small in the overall scale of things; however, if a council acting on behalf of its residents, rejects a plan that the government want implemented, they (the government) just bulldoze through objections anyway. More often than not, the public don’t realise this and blame the council/councillors.

I couldn’t agree more – speaking as someone who has been one.

Depending on the level of council (i.e town, city, unitary etc) many councillors are non-paid volunteers who have full-time jobs. The actual council staff are responsible for providing them with information upon which to base decisions and the Clerks/Officers will also make recommendations. Although many councillors will research in order to be fully appraised of the matter at hand, some – often because they have busy full-time jobs – may not.

Over time – though not on my particular council – I have read about councillors who were given incomplete information, dodgy recommendations (because of incomplete information) or who have been intimidated by members of the public. Also, Alexander is absolutely right; Councillors themselves aren’t necessarily up to it either. It isn’t a job that attracts many people, especially if it is unpaid. Thus, parties may find themselves scratching about for candidates come election time and may not be as discerning as they should be because it’s become a matter of ‘bums on seats’.

Given these – and other – facts, councillors really shouldn’t be the ones making decisions of the type mentioned in this article.

I believe it was Ed Hussain who said on BBC 5Live a few years ago that he envisaged de-programming camps for hard-core young Islamist radicals where they would have their views on the Koran challenged by Egyptian Islamic scholars.

Surely one easy criteria is that if anything you say is an incitement to kill anyone then you get banned or if a UK citizen then arrested and trialled for incitement to murder.

I can only hope that Cameron’s attitude to fascists in sheep’s clothing is more draconian than the current “progressive” approach.