Denouncing Anwar al-Awlaki
This is a post by Robin Simcox which is also posted at Centre Right
Anwar al-Awlaki – the jihadist preacher who was in direct contact with Nidal Hassan, the sole suspect in the Fort Hood, Texas killings – recently wrote a blog approving of Hassan’s actions, calling him a “hero”.
A briefing paper issued yesterday by the think tank I represent, the Centre for Social Cohesion, outlined the connections to the UK that al-Awlaki has and some of those over here that have previously praised or hosted him. This was today picked up by the Times and it has obviously come as a source of embarrassment to those in the UK who previously praised him that al-Awlaki really is as dangerous as many of us had tried to previously warn. Someone who should be feeling suitably ashamed is Osama Saeed.
In 2006, Saeed – an SNP Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Glasgow Central, and the chief executive of the Scottish Islamic Foundation, who received £215,000 from the Scottish government – vociferously defended al-Awlaki following his arrest for his links to al-Qaeda. Saeed called this “further evidence of what a crock the war on terror is” and that al-Awlaki had “preached nothing but peace”.
Following the story in the Times, Saeed has today tried to distance himself from al-Awlaki. He now believes al-Awlaki’s “opinions have swung dramatically”, and that “he has changed”. The SNP say that “Anwar al-Awlaki formerly expressed moderate views – his more recent comments are disgraceful and have been condemned by all right-thinking people”.
All of this is very welcome, but it is unclear why exactly it is only now that Saeed has decided to speak out. He today said that he disagrees with “a host of other matters which [al-Awlaki] has more recently written and spoken about”, so is perhaps not shocked that al-Awlaki regards Hassan’s acts as heroic. And Saeed is right about one thing – it has been clear for a while from al-Awlaki’s output where he stands.
His ‘44 ways to support Jihad‘ is a reasonable indicator. Stating that ‘Jihad today is obligatory on every capable Muslim’, extracts include:
“Preparing for Jihad is obligatory since Jihad today is obligatory and the sharia rule states that: ‘Whatever is needed for an obligatory act becomes obligatory’. Arms training is an essential part of preparation for Jihad…The issue is so critical that if arms training is not possible in your country then it is worth the time and money to travel to another country to train if you can.”
On non-Muslims:
“The hatred of kuffar [non-Muslims] is a central element of our military creed. We need to realize that Allah will not grant us victory as long as we still have some love towards his enemies in our hearts.”
Until it was recently shut down, al-Awlaki also espoused his views on a blog. He said the following of Israel, in December 2008:
“The illegal state of Israel needs to be eradicated. Just like Rasulullah drove them out of the Arabian peninsula the Jews of Palestine need to be driven out to the sea. There are no Israeli civilians unless they are Muslim. When the enemy targets our women and children we should target theirs.”
On al-Shabaab – the Somali group linked to al-Qaeda, banned in the US and currently doing its best to decimate Somali with suicide bombings and medieval interpretations of Sharia law, al-Awlaki said in December 2008:
“[Al-Shabaah] not only have succeeded in expanding the areas that fall under their rule but they have succeeded in implementing the sharia and giving us a living example of how we as Muslims should proceed to change our situation.The ballot has failed us the bullet has not.”
Recent ‘living examples’ include the whipping of women for wearing bras and men without a beard.
All of this comes on top of the fact that the 9/11 Commission identified al-Awlaki as a ’spiritual advisor’ to two of the 9/11 hijackers and that he has been cited as an inspiration to the Toronto 18 terror cell in Canada arrested in 2006.
Saeed went on record to publicly defend him, even after the findings of the 9/11 commission. Fair enough – a bold stance, perhaps, but one honestly taken and it is encouraging that he has now decided that al-Awlaki’s views are unacceptable. What is interesting is that it has taken until November 2009 for Saeed to get there. It was hardly a secret before Hassan’s killing spree that al-Awlaki was a consistent glorifier of terrorism and his ideology identical to al-Qaeda.
Yet until al-Awlaki’s links to Hassan emerged – and Saeed was subsequently embarrassed in the national press – a man who has every chance of being in the next British parliament felt no desire to nuance his position whatsoever. He did not publicly distance himself from al-Awlaki’s reprehensible views. Not on jihad, not on his racist views towards non-Muslims, not on his desire to see Israel eradicated and not in his support of the al-Shabaab.
From a potential member of the next British parliament, that is nowhere near good enough.
Comments
| 12 November 2009, 9:02 pm |
An excellent piece Robin
I am interested in Osama Saeed’s previous support for Awlaki, especially after his reinvention of himself as an SNP member for an “independent” Scotland.
An independent Scotland within the Caliphate he advocated in the past, or just on its edges, waving a Saltire patriotically?
http://web.archive.org/web/20060218121337/www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1605653,00.html
Back in 2005 he was demanding that a Catholic primary school in Pollockshields should change its name from St Albert’s to a Muslim name, and to reorientate itself to become an Islamic school because a majority of its intake were from Muslim families:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060908205128/news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=71792006
What is it about Islamists who go from extremist organizations and openly espousing Islamist attitudes (Saeed was with MAB – founded by Muslim Brotherhood bigwig Kamal el-Helbawy) and then hook up with official bodies and pretend to be supporters of the mainstream?
In 2006 Osama Saeed was bleating on about Muslims in Britain being treated like Jews under Hitler, long before that comment was taken up by Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari of the MCB and more recently by the ludicrously non-objective senior political editor of the New Statesman.
Most current Muslim “representatives” in Britain really do not appear to represent the moderate “Sufi” style Islam that politicians have portrayed them as being.
But Osama Saeed, going from someone who in 2006 urged Tayside Muslims not to cooperate with police, now pretends to be a pillar of the community:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080603134240/www.thecourier.co.uk/output/2006/11/07/newsstory8939138t0.asp
When will political parties who offer patronage to such people realise that it is never wise to have foxes in charge of the hen house?
| 12 November 2009, 9:09 pm |
I’m sorry but I have to disagree. Saeed will succeed not in spite of his associations but because of them. We here in the US, in far left circles, can’t decide whether to celebrate Hasan or merely tow the line and call him another victim of all of this.
| 12 November 2009, 9:18 pm |
“When will political parties who offer patronage to such people realise that it is never wise to have foxes in charge of the hen house?”
When they stop looking after their own narrow self interests and start doing the job they were originally employed to do.
Another ‘moderate’ muslim illuminated by the light and yet some will no doubt still deny the evidence, the left want to stay in the dark, like children they don’t want to be told there is not really a father Christmas, they won’t accept it, never, never, never, “we will keep the red flag flying there”.
As for the Tories, they just don’t make em like they used to.
“foxes in charge of the hen house?”
I would had thought that “Rats in charge of the cheese cupboard” would be a more fitting way of putting it.
| 12 November 2009, 9:28 pm |
Rats in charge of the cheese cupboard?
Much more appropriate, AOS!
| 12 November 2009, 10:01 pm |
How strange that it takes a devout Muslim soldier in Texas mowing down a dozen of his unarmed comrades to make for an awkward moment for an SNP candidate in Glasgow and his sponsors. As Adrian Morgan argues, none of the revelations should be in the least urprising – in fact, were predictable from the beginning. Elsewhere in these coloumns, Habibbi, Lucy lips and other have shown that there is every reason to expect that the Texan assassin will produce awkward moments for others embedded in our political institutions, including the Home Office. Who or what is driving the readiness to harbour and protect this ridiculous awkward squad?
Most importantly, are there any parties that will give cast-iron promises to deal with it after May 2010?
| 12 November 2009, 10:13 pm |
I know that most British people are only interested in Israel and Islam – hell, I can’t remember the last conversation I had about anything else – but did anyone notice Gordon Brown’s speech today about the effects of immigration policy?
Obviously it wasn’t important or anything, and wasn’t about anything anyone cares about, but I was just wondering if anyone else had noticed it.
| 12 November 2009, 10:23 pm |
I also think that it should be noted that the solicitors who supported the event by Cageprisoners – whose sponsorship deals are promoted proudly on the foot of the flier – should also be shamed.
These are: Birnberg Peirce and Partners -(one of whose senior partners is the self-righteous moralist Mme Gareth Peirce who gave back her CBE in 1999), Khan solicitors (can’t find out which Khan solicitors right now) and Tyndallwoods.
Why? You may ask. Because as everyone is now claiming that it has only been recently that Awlaki has gone “heavy”. This is rubbish. Because, as I mention here:
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.4729/pub_detail.asp
in December 2008 – 8 months before this Cageprisoners event – On his website, Anwar al-Awlaki had published a message from the Islamists who have been murdering civilians in Somalia, Al-Shabab. The message ” thanks Awlaki for his advice that he sent them. Al-Shabab claimed that Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, the girl who was stoned to death on October 27, 2008, was 20 years old and was practicing adultery.
The girl was stoned to death in front of 1,000 people. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported claims by Aisha’s father that she was only 13 years old and had been raped.”
Links above. The link from Awlaki’s website is now down, so I may reproduce it in full below.
It does not look good for Gareth Peirce and the other PC lawyers to be seen sponsoring an event where a guest speaker will be appearing who has “given advice” on how to murder a 13-year old rape victim in the name of his deity.
I wonder where having prestigious lawyers supporting such a person teeters on the edge of committing a crime – that of glorification of terrorism?
| 12 November 2009, 10:32 pm |
Here is the proof that Awlaki was involved with acts of terrorism at least eight months before the Cageprisoners/Cordoba event.
http://www.anwar-alawlaki.com/?p=63
al-Shabab: Reply to the Greeting and Advice of Sheikh Anwar
December 27, 2008 – السبت 01 محرم 1430 by Anwar alAwlaki
Filed under Imam Anwar’s Blog, In the News
133 Comments
Reply to the Greeting and Advice of Sheikh Anwar AlAwlaki
Sabti 29 Dul-Xijjah 1429 (27/12/2008)
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
السلام عليكم و رحمة الله
Reply to the Greeting and Advice of Sheikh Anwar
O beloved Sheikh Anwar,
We ask Allah to reward you for your encouragement and words of advice. Your words have reached us and, by the will of Allah, we will benefit from your recommendations. The enemies of Islam are increasing their efforts more and more these days and are directing more attention to the media battle and the battle for the “hearts and minds.” As we have seen even recently, they are continuously throwing accusations at those who want to live by the law of the Creator. For example, we can take the issue of the stoning of the woman in Kismayo. The disbelievers have falsely reported that she was 13 years old, unmarried, and was raped. The reality and truth is that she was over 20 years old, married, and was practicing adultery. This is just one example of how they twist the news, so we would like to take this opportunity to advise our brothers not to believe any news reported about us except from our official Media Department.
Sheikh, we look to you as one of the very few scholars who stand firm upon the truth and defend the honor of the Mujahideen and the Muslims by continuously uncovering the feeble plots of the enemies of Allah. Allah knows how many of the brothers and sisters have been affected by your work so we ask you to continue the important effort you are doing wherever you are and never to fear the blame of the blamers. Keep us in your invocations as you know this path is always full of trials and Allah tests those that He loves. We ask Allah to guide the Muslims and to open their eyes to the plots of their enemies and to give them the strength and success to hold firmly to the rope of Allah. We ask Allah to protect you and all of those who are standing for the truth. We ask Allah to join us together in this world and in the highest of Paradise. O Sheikh, we would not only look at you as only a soldier, but as the likes of Ibn Taymiya during the trials of the Ta’tars.
Your brothers from Shabab Al-Mujahidin.
| 12 November 2009, 10:43 pm |
Obviously it wasn’t important or anything, and wasn’t about anything anyone cares about, but I was just wondering if anyone else had noticed it.
I just went over to the Times and noticed it for a few minutes.
| 12 November 2009, 10:56 pm |
“Obviously it wasn’t important or anything, and wasn’t about anything anyone cares about, but I was just wondering if anyone else had noticed it.”
I may have noticed it, but then again I may not have, I can’t remember to tell you the truth, anything the Uk prime minister says has a Zero “being retained in the memory banks” effect.
Mr Brown and his labour government are as an old black and white silent movie to me, a quaint picture of a past age, a silent page that serves only to remind me how glad I am that my life is not as drab as they, the Left, want it to be.
Anyway sorry what was the question.
| 12 November 2009, 10:58 pm |
Good to read you again, Adrian. Always a source of great information.
| 12 November 2009, 11:02 pm |
Of course it was about something interesting and relevant. I saw the Telegraph entry earlier:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6551345/Immigration-has-cost-some-parts-of-Britain-says-PM.html
and the Times entry:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6913856.ece
But while he have a prize-winning turnip like Alan Johnson as our Home Secretary, who in July famously told the Home Affairs Select Committee that: “I do not lie awake at night worrying about a population of 70 million. I’m happy to live in a multicultural society. I’m happy to live in a society where we not only welcome those coming to live and work in this country…”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/5828207/Alan-Johnson-I-dont-lose-sleep-over-prospect-of-70m-population.html
It will mean nothing. It was revealed recently that despite this government publicly introducing a “points system” for immigration, the government actively encouraged uncontrolled immigration in practice, to swing the vote in inner-city constituencies and force multiculturalism upon us.
This was gerrymandering on a massive scale – with 2 million people arriving in a space of 8 years. In 1987, Dame Shirley Porter at Westminster Council was found guilty of gerrymandering by allowing 500 homes a year to be sold to potential Tory voters. What Blair and Brown have done is millions of times worse. Porter was initially charged £27 million and was accused of “the worst, the most cynical and callous and indeed the most costly conspiracy of political corruption in this country in the modern age.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3867387.stm
If that was how Shirley Porter was treated, then the current government should be….. – am I allowed to suggest that certain politicians should be strung upside down from lamp-posts?
But as Labour deliberately ignored the points system it introduced before, this current announcement is a cynical ply to regain the white working class votes for Labour. Shirley Porter – by comparison – should be beatified.
| 12 November 2009, 11:06 pm |
And it is very good to meet you again Abu Faris.
As you are a sincere person who opposes Islamism, what is your view on the behaviour and attitudes of people like Osama Saeed?
| 12 November 2009, 11:07 pm |
If I turned up at the Cats Protection League with a bucket of drowned kittens, I very much doubt that they would set me up with £215 000 for “outreach”, endorse my political ambitions, and lobby for my writings to be published in the Guardian. Actually, I think they would kick my sorry arse down the stairs. Perhaps that is because they take their mission statement seriously. What they tell us, is what they really mean.
Maybe it is time we started getting a bit boisterous, a bit rowdy even, with the people who don’t.
I do like straight talking. Always did. Many years ago I found myself in a field in the countryside, with a rather impressive heap of manure along one edge. As a Chinook helicopter approached us, one man had the good sense to shout “Shite here, Fan coming. Get down, and keep your mouth shut!”.
I think it’s called the ring of truth, but I couldn’t swear to it.
| 12 November 2009, 11:11 pm |
>> If I turned up at the Cats Protection League with a bucket of drowned kittens, I very much doubt that they would set me up with £215 000 for “outreach”, endorse my political ambitions, and lobby for my writings to be published in the Guardian.
It would work for PETA.
| 12 November 2009, 11:20 pm |
Wardy, Brown could announce the arrival of aliens from outer space and still no-one would pay him much attention; he’s a lame duck.
| 12 November 2009, 11:22 pm |
Alec, PETA just want us all to know how sincere and wonderful they are, and how good they look naked.
| 12 November 2009, 11:24 pm |
“And it is very good to meet you again Abu Faris. As you are a sincere person who opposes Islamism”
Yes he is, now why on Earth are people such as Mr Faris not given the job of mending fences between the British muslim and non muslim people.
Why?
Can anyone explain it to me because I am genuinely perplexed, we desperately need people of the Mr Faris caliber, yet the powers that be employ Islamist sympathizing lunatics, why?
I just don’t get it.
| 12 November 2009, 11:25 pm |
Incidentally, no kittens were drowned in the drafting and submission of my comments.
| 12 November 2009, 11:27 pm |
I just looked on PETA’s website. Seductive model Christian Serratos posing naked in a wood, viewed side-on, with front bits covered:
http://action.peta.org.uk/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=5&ea.campaign.id=4971
The caption reads: “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur”
Does that mean she shaves the fur off her… er… umm?
| 12 November 2009, 11:30 pm |
Monty, in North America, at least, PETA ‘euthanisizes’ high numbers of animals.
| 12 November 2009, 11:34 pm |
Naxy, they are not doing what we think they are doing, or what they pretend to be doing, or what they tell us they are doing.
They wouldn’t dare.
They are harvesting votes. They are always harvesting votes, and they know how to get them. And it isn’t from Abu Faris, however much we may treasure his submissions here.
It is high time we stopped being as stupid as they think we are.
| 12 November 2009, 11:39 pm |
This is the problem, AOS. The genuinely representative Muslims do not get a look-in, because they are a) not funded by a foreign fanatical state or international Islamist body or b) they are not twisted, two-faced “politicians”, and c) they are too sensible and decent to be haranguing people and demanding the submission of a society that already allows them equal legal rights.
What sickens me is most is that what the Islamists argue for here – the imposition of sharia upon all Muslims, and for 7th century jurisprudence to be fully recognised by the secular legal system – has failed in every single Muslim country that it has been introduced.
Moderate Muslims who are support secular democracy and work, contributing and paying taxes, have nothing to “interest” or “engage” this current government or the lazy media that we have.
Who wants to hear about people who are essentially little different in their aspirations or lifestyles to anyone else?
Freaks or fanatics always make good copy for the press, and the weasely political animals are good at conning government figures to loosen the purse strings and give them massive donations for doing sweet Fanny Addams.
| 12 November 2009, 11:40 pm |
“It is high time we stopped being as stupid as they think we are.”
I concur, but surely they must have some sense of self preservation, they don’t all come from muslim majority constituencies.
| 12 November 2009, 11:46 pm |
I know Alec. PETA are contemptible poseurs with trust funds and more money than sense.
I’m an animal lover myself, especially cats. I adore cats, but I always give whatever bit money I can to the Dogs Trust too. I know there is cruelty to animals in our society, but what lifts my spirits is the way most ordinary people don’t stand for it. The best work is done by folk who don’t prance around half naked for Hello magazine.
| 12 November 2009, 11:48 pm |
“Who wants to hear about people who are essentially little different in their aspirations or lifestyles to anyone else?”
I do, I like people who share mine and most other peoples aspirations, but you are indeed correct, as Monty says “It is high time we stopped being as stupid as they think we are.”
Well we had all better hurry up, this situation cannot be allowed to fester any longer.
| 12 November 2009, 11:53 pm |
Adrian Morgan
The Khan sollicitors is Christian Khan of Gower St (formerly Christian Fisher).
Louise Christian is the co-founder, Siddiq Khan formerly of the firm is now a Labour MP.
http://www.christiankhan.co.uk/
On Thursday 9th December [2004].. Louise Christian (together with Gareth Peirce) was honoured with the Judges Award in the Human Rights Awards sponsored by Liberty, the Law Society and Justice, for ‘outstanding contribution in defending the rule of law’ for work in defending people detained in Guantanamo Bay.
The judges were eminent people from the legal profession including Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice.
At the ceremony in the Law Society’s Hall Louise Christian said she hoped the award would put pressure on the British government not only to bring back the detainees remaining in Guantanamo Bay but to insist the US authorities close down the whole prison camp.
However she said she feared that Guantanamo Bay was only the tip of an iceberg whereby increasing numbers of Muslims are being detained without trial all over the world in the name of the war on terrorism.
http://www.christiankhan.co.uk/ViewNews.asp?NewsID=40
Unlike Gareth Pierce, Louise Christian is a rather warm and wonderful though lately like most of this proffessional cohort of human rights Lawyers, once outsiders now feted by the establishment, she has become increasingly imperious in manner and beyond reason in relation to Islamism.
Louise Christian has been a central figure in campaigns involving miscarriages of justice.
The firm represented Paul Hill one of the Guilford four who suffered an unquestionable major miscarriage of justice.
She has worked tirelessly for the victims and relatives of those who have died in accidents and disasters, notably the Potters Bar Rail Crash.
She is on the board and a key figure in INQUEST a non profit organisation that represents Pro Bono the relatives of those who have died in suspicious or unexplained circumstances in Government custody or detention, hospital, or in industrial or environmental incidents where there is an inquisitorial investigation by a Coroner.
Until recently, the results of tireless work by INQUEST, to change the law and procedure to be client centered these inquisitions upon the death, left relatives bewildered and legally unrepresented while expert tax payer funded lawyers represented the individual and collective agencies (Dr’s, Nurses, paramedics, Prison Guards, Police etc) who had first hand knowledge of how the person came to die, and even may have been implicated in the cause of that death, in a way that might meet the need to know and to expose possible harm or negligence that was neither in the interests of the bereaved nor Public health and welfare.
The firm has been responsible for some landmark rulings that have eroded a culture of Government immunity and impunity for the consequences of actions that have directly harmed members of the public.
Some days I can see the career pathway, often oppositional and lonely in standing for justice that has led some of these Human rights Lawyers to reflexively reach to represent Islamists who oppose everything they really believe in.
I can even see that a sense of legal outrage against the violations of due process and legal redress established by Guantanamo bay may have precipited them into a clearly framed legal response.
I have argued consistently throughout that Guantanamo bay was wrong in principle and wrong in Law in the way it was established creating a hostage to fortune in which there could be no easy or right outcome.
And yet…and yet I daily shake my head in anger and dismay that they have insulated themselves in a human rights culture of conceit that no longer seems to strive for its previous objects but acts solely in a reactive way to an agenda set by legally astute Islamists who have positioned themselves as the ultimate victims of injustice.
The fact that these human rights Lawyers seem incapable of giving their clients the respect of considering that they may be active calculating and dissembling violent ideologues with a clear and coherent ideology and an equally clear though manifestly warped and unspeakably cruel and violent method for advancing their ideological aims, means that they must presumptively be considered ignorant, wreckless or determinedly blind and racistly unaware that brown people who have been arrested for terrorist related offences might not inevitably be innocent victims of a reactionary political collective targetting but actual individually culpable and active agents motivated to support or practise Jihadi inspired terrorist acts.
By their actions in support of some very obviously very nasty people ideologically and sometimes actively committed to a violent revolutionary Islamist Jihad, they are simply unravelling the gains and the very credibility of a domestic human rights agenda that was achieving a consensual social, cultural and politically multi-partisan status of acceptability..
| 12 November 2009, 11:58 pm |
Quite right Metta, and well said.
| 13 November 2009, 12:04 am |
Especially this bit:
“The fact that these human rights Lawyers seem incapable of giving their clients the respect of considering that they may be active calculating and dissembling violent ideologues with a clear and coherent ideology and an equally clear though manifestly warped and unspeakably cruel and violent method for advancing their ideological aims, means that they must presumptively be considered ignorant, wreckless or determinedly blind and racistly unaware that brown people who have been arrested for terrorist related offences might not inevitably be innocent victims of a reactionary political collective targetting but actual individually culpable and active agents motivated to support or practise Jihadi inspired terrorist acts.”
They are treating their clients as noble savages. Because they are brown people.
| 13 November 2009, 12:12 am |
Anaximanders other sandal
12 November 2009, 11:40 pm
“It is high time we stopped being as stupid as they think we are.”
I concur, but surely they must have some sense of self preservation, they don’t all come from muslim majority constituencies.
————
Naxy, most of them come from constituencies where they reckon the public have “nobody else to vote for”. And this is as significant in Horsham as it is in Tower Hamlets.
So they ignore the interests of the bulk, and go chasing the marginals. They always shaft the loyal, committed, voter, in favour of the fly-by-night. They do it because they can. This is how we get fleeced by political parties.
| 13 November 2009, 12:19 am |
“The fact that these human rights Lawyers seem incapable of giving their clients the respect of considering that they may be active calculating and dissembling violent ideologues with a clear and coherent ideology and an equally clear though manifestly warped and unspeakably cruel and violent method for advancing their ideological aims, means that they must presumptively be considered ignorant, wreckless or determinedly blind and racistly unaware that brown people who have been arrested for terrorist related offences might not inevitably be innocent victims of a reactionary political collective targetting but actual individually culpable and active agents motivated to support or practise Jihadi inspired terrorist acts.”
Yes indeed, a very cogent reading of the phenomena of the bleeding heart ‘we are more civilized then these deluded savages, they just need our love and protection’ meme.
Some of these people remind of the Victorian era “civilizers”.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these bleeding heart ‘beautiful people’ suggest introducing phrenology into the justice system as a way of showing how these poor victims of imperialism have been oppressed by the evil Westerners.
| 13 November 2009, 12:33 am |
Great response, mettaculture.
You are entirely right. And it is over issues like Guantanamo, extraordinary renditions and detentions that Islamists have a never-ending source of public grievance to milk for all they are worth. And the leftist luvvies fall over themselves to “empathise” with victims of such injustices. The Islamists also know that the nature of some of their people is problematic for free societies – they observe no national boundaries and plot to overthrow those freedoms using maximum force.
We have given in to Islamism for too long. If people do not want to be part of this country, and if they feel more empathy for people in countries they have never been to, they do nothing for our society.
Britain’s Muslims come from a diverse range of cultures and societies, and have various language and politics. What I find disturbing is that many Imams in mosques are often “Islamist” in outlook as the political animals of MB, Jamaat-e-Islami, Tablighi etc. Politically the collectivism of telling all these diverse communities that they must follow “Islam” at all costs serves to make them into “block votes” that must politically be taken seriously.
This forces a mini theocratic conformity onto the diverse communities. Far from spreading “multiculturalism” it creates a weird Islamically-dictated monoculture in our ghettoes and suburbs.
It does not lead to true social cohesion, it only serves to put up boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims.
But the lawyers are strange creatures. Anyone who ostensibly claims to act for the underdog and charges at least £140 per hour (ultimately filched from the taxpayer via legal aid) has the seeds of moral contradiction within.
Mudassar Arani has done some bizarre things – things that could (if I did not want to get sued for libel) could be considered as verging on something similar to bribery and corruption – as when she gave money to 21/7 bomb-plotter Manfo Asiedu – when he was not even her client:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6487669.stm
Arani is stridently Islamist, as in her demands for her convicted terrorist clients to be treated as “prisoners of war”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-468298/Jailed-terrorist-fanatics-treated-prisoners-war.html
Even though I disagree totally with this position, I can at least respect her integrity to be honest enough about where she is coming from.
But I am wary of lawyers (sorry DavidT!). Helena Kennedy was made famous through her support for the Guildford Four, but I do not see her acting on cases of injustice/wrongful imprisonment any more. Leastways, not with Islamist cases. I wonder why…
To reiterate points about the strange people who are currently advising the government, and claiming to speak for all Muslims, there is a very good article here by Martin Bright in the Jewish Chronicle, entitled “Whitehall in turmoil over Muslim advisers.”
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/21912/whitehall-turmoil-over-muslim-advisers
| 13 November 2009, 12:41 am |
Naxy:
“bleeding heart ‘beautiful people’ ”
Well caught, that man.
What a brilliant way of casting the bulk of western society as unlovely monsters. Designate a caste of “beautiful people” and make bloody sure your opponents are not among them.
Simples.
| 13 November 2009, 3:00 am |
First, kill all the lawyers, as the Bard was meant to have said.
| 13 November 2009, 11:30 am |
Would this be the speech where Brown said that immigration should be a central political issue?
The same speech which is in fact his very first on this central issue?
And he wonders why he is ignored?
| 18 November 2009, 10:24 am |
Hassan Is A COWARD. As an officer, you can resign your commission at any time. He could have gotten out of the service. He deserves to live the rest of his life in a wheelchair, with his hands hurting 24/7. Life in prision. NO death penalty. Live the rest of your life in a 9×9 cell, knowing what you have done to innocent people doing exactly what the islamic people are doing…protecting what they believe in. Is your only answer violence? He shoots up a building of unarmed men. hmm tough guy. He is NOT a hero. I guess he is going to have to wait for his virgins huh? so tell me. What good are the virgins after you have laid them all? is that when you go to hell?
And an SNP spokesman said, sneer sneer, bitch bitch, this is a disgraceful attack [cont. page 94].