Finsbury Park Mosque used to be the base for the hate preacher, Abu Hamza.
Following his eviction, the mosque was gifted by Bob Lambert’s Muslim Contact Unit to a board which included the fugitive Hamas commander, Mohammed Sawalha. Bob Lambert is now being funded by the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood front organisations, Islam Expo and the Cordoba Institute, who underwrite his “academic” project at Exeter University.
That happened five years ago.
This Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood institution is, quite naturally, celebrating its achievements. And very impressive they have been too.
At their celebration event last month, look who turned up:
The event, which lasted for more than two hours on a Friday night, was well attended and well received by members of local
council, metropolitan police, community organizations, Muslim community representatives, local MPs, researchers and the guest of honour for the event his Rt. Hon. Sadiq Khan, MP, Minister of State for Transport.
…
Finally, the guest of honour his Rt. Hon. Sadiq Khan talked about how he sees the experience of the mosque and thanked the trustees and the staff for their hard work and success.
Who else was at this event?
This was followed by a few words from Dr. Daud Abdullah Deputy General Secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain who highlighted the importance of working together to bring about success.
Daud Abdullah is a signatory to the pro-Hamas Istanbul Declaration which contains a thinly veiled threat of violence against those who “stand with Israel” and against the Royal Navy, if it acts to enforce the Gaza ceasefire. He absolutely refuses to remove his name from this Declaration.
Now, you’ll remember that when the Muslim Council of Britain was brought in from the cold last month by the Islamist-friendly Home Secretary, John Denham, we were treated to the following promise:
The Department for Communities and Local Government insisted that Mr Abdullah would have no contact with ministers under the new arrangement.
It said: “In light of the MCB’s letter we do not consider this to be an MCB issue. They have made clear to us that Daud Abdullah signed the statement in question in a personal capacity.
We still have concerns about the uncertainty of Daud Abdullah’s personal position on this issue. Until he is able to provide the clarification that we have always been seeking we will not be engaging with him.”
Absolute bollocks, wasn’t it?
Not only has a senior Labour minister appeared on a platform with Daud Abdullah. He has turned up to cheer on what is effectively a Hamas takeover of a British Mosque.
What is Labour to do about those once-safe seats where the Tories smell blood and are pumping in publicity worth tens of thousands of pounds before the election campaign officially starts? To effectively reply demands an early raid on the war chest and with that comes the risk of running out of money during the campaign proper. The national party is not in a position to top-up those local budgets overstretched by the early start.
That’s the dilemma facing party strategists in Bassetlaw as Ashcroft’s money hits the ground. Mann is a target not just because the effects of a cruel boundary change are yet to unwind but becasue he is effective. His blood would taste sweet to those Tories who resent his views on class and probity – they used to hate him because he effectively defends his constituents against vested interests and now they hate him because he spoke out during the expenses scandal.
Money is needed to fund the Bassetlaw campaign. And it is needed now.
The threshold for publication of donations is £200 and donors must be registered to vote. Donations over £1500 (to one or more than one candidate) are to be disclosed. Donations over £7,500 are published.
Please donate early – Ashcroft is making his presence felt.
At City University in London, some Muslim students have refused to use a new multifaith prayer room. The university closed the old Islamic prayer room and encouraged Muslims to use the new one following an alleged attack on Muslim students last year. The university believes the new room will be safer.
These students disagree with the decision. They do not want to share space with worshippers of any other faith. So they set themselves down in Northampton Square for prayers.
Well, the university’s Islamic Society (ISOC) is among the UK’s most radical. It has even issued threats to the student newspaper, The Inquirer.
The City University Islamic Society has caused controversy this week after two website posts were published and quickly deleted including one that defended radical Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. A second post entitled “Words to be written in gold” strongly condemned the the Inquirer newspaper over the reporting of homophobic Islamist preacher Abu Usamah’s visit to City University in November, warning of “severe and painful punishment” for the reporters of the newspaper.
Tomorrow the ISOC launches its “Justice Week”. This is from the announcement:
We are also aiming to fundraise at the stalls and the events for an organization that helps the families of Muslim prisoners of war, such as Hhugs.
Hhugs is a charity that supports the families of convicted and suspected terrorists. It works closely with Moazzam Begg’s Cageprisoners.
Note the ISOC’s “prisoners of war” line. Evidently it has chosen sides in what it regards as a legitimate struggle.
This is not the first time. Al Qaeda preacher Anwar al Awlaki is indeed a hero to City ISOC and his opponents are “monkeys”. When there were reports Awlaki may have been killed in December, this is the message they posted on the ISOC website (it has since been deleted):
Is al-Aulaqi Dead?
May Allaah protect him and the Muslims.
…
What evidence is there that Imaam Anwar al-Aulaqi was present in that gathering in the first place?
This was a gathering of staunch al-Qaa’idah soldiers from what I have read… why would Imaam Anwar al-Aulaqi be there in the first place? This is just a delusion that the media managed to pull before the ignorant’s eyes by their careful choice of wordings.
Not only that, those killed in the raid were not only soldiers, but also amongst them many women and children – may Allaah have mercy on them.
How do the prancing monkeys feel about rejoicing at the thought that “santa” gave them a grande christmas present – the death of al-Aulaqi?
Muhammad is no more than a Messenger, and indeed (many) Messengers have passed away before him. If he dies or is killed, will you then turn back on your heels (as disbelievers)? And he who turns back on his heels, not the least harm will he do to Allâh, and Allâh will give reward to those who are grateful.
[Aal Imraan (003:144)]
This is what Allaah said about His last and final messenger, the best of creation. There are many others like al-Aulaqi, and if he dies a hundred more like him will arise, alhamdulillaah [praise to God]. So what is there to grieve about, when Allaah will grant him what he prays for?
The ISOC also posted this tape reminding people not to trust anyone in the media, not even al Jazeera, and to stay true to Awlaki for Islam.
For Awlaki supporters, who better to have round during “Justice Week” than Asim Qureshi of Cageprisoners? That outfit finds Awlaki “inspirational”.
Qureshi still bangs the “root causes” drum, as you will see in this article about jihad published on the Cageprisoners website in January 2010:
The rationale or the ‘why?’, however perverted, that led to the tragic decisions by Abdulmuttalib [the undie bomber] has once again been ignored completely. Despite his own admission that foreign policy has played a crucial role in his decision making process, this factor has been put aside as governments and the media seek to present ‘how’ he came to take such actions.
Yes, let’s allow people who attempt mass murder to determine our foreign policy. Great idea.
Another of Qureshi’s solutions is yet more talk about jihad:
The reason why the Jihad v Terrorism talk at UCL was arranged, was because it was felt that the time had come to really address an issue that young Muslims are very much struggling with – it was something that needed to be spoken about in order to help clarify the differences without simplistic statements of condemnation that do not convince anyone.
…
Wider than these conferences -it is important for Muslims in the UK to be given the space to speak about jihad at conferences, in the mosques and at demonstrations. There has been much misunderstanding as to its meaning, far too often the concept is mischievously misinterpreted for nefarious purposes. As a concept it is extremely important for Muslims as it is used as the term that defines the defence of Muslim countries/people against foreign occupying forces. Only by opening up the debate about jihad in the mosques will Islamic scholars find the space to really begin challenging the ideas of Muslims who are confused of the rights and wrongs.
Yes, I suppose this speech from 2006, for example, could be “mischievously misinterpreted” as Qureshi supporting the murder of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan:
We embrace the mercy. We embrace every single thing that is set upon us and we deal with it because we have no fear. So when we see the example of our brothers and sisters fighting in Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan then we know where the example lies. When we see Hezbollah defeating the armies of Israel, we know what the solution is and where the victory lies. We know that it is incumbent upon all of us to support the jihad of our brothers and sisters in these countries when they are facing the oppression of the west.
Another “Justice Week” speaker will be Murtaza Khan of Undercover Mosque fame (a transcript is available here).
Like UthmanLateef, he worked Awlaki fan circles well into 2009, appearing at the “End of Time” Awlaki event on January 1 at the East London Mosque’s London Muslim Centre and another meeting at the Brady Centre in Tower Hamlets in April 2009.
Remember that Khan thinks Jesus wants gays dead, just as he does, as reported here.
Let’s take a look at a few other views Khan has pushed in his furious tirades at mosques and ISOCs around the country.
Khan is a 9/11 troofer. In the midst of a typically spiteful separatist assault on the west, he says:
We [Muslims] did not take down the Twin Towers. You [non-Muslims] yourselves took them down. So in your disguise of “war on terror”, you will kill your own people, because you don’t care about them.
In the same speech, he claims sharia is great for Jews and other non-Muslims.
History has testified, when the sharia was implemented, non-Muslims lived under our rule better than the way you treat them today. That’s a fact. You call us antisemitic, you say you hate al Yahood [Jews]. When Jews were persecuted, where did they run to? They fled to al Andalus, they fled to the Maghreb, where the Jewish community still live there today.
Murtaza “Jesus wants you to kill gays” Khan really is woefully ignorant. Hundreds of thousands of North African Jews fled their countries for Israel or Europe after 1948. The communities that remain today are tiny.
Any woman who comes out of her house, perfuming herself, every single eye that looks at her, she is an adulterous woman.
…
Any woman who comes out of her house, perfuming herself, and every man that smells her, then she is just classified, according to sharia, as an adulterous woman.
Read about the companions [of the prophet] when they done these actions. They were strong enough to say “whatever the sharia says, I am ready to take that punishment”. That woman who got stoned to death, when some of the blood went here, there, and some of it landed on some of the companions and they reviled her, evil woman, evil blood on my face, what did the prophet Mohammed say about this woman? The tawbah [repentance] that she’s done, if it had been spread over 70 men of Medina, it would cover all of them and beyond that, meaning she was ready to take the punishment that she’s done.
But yet we find today a loose environment amongst Muslims and a loose understanding. Do whatever you want to do and then go and get married. A destructive and an evil sin.
Yvonne Ridley is the greatest testimony that when you claim about Taliban and the oppression that they commit you had your headlines ready when she was coming back to this country. The headlines were ready. “Oppressed by militants. Malicious individuals. Barbaric people.” And when they asked her the simple question “How was you treated?” she said “Well I was treated quite well by these people”. And after that she testified and she became a Muslim.
So there’s no barbaric nature in Islam. Real Islam teaches women how to conduct themselves, how to behave inside society. So our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our wives are precious to us. We don’t just let them go out with any man and whoever they find on the street. Come home and say to their parents ”I am going out with so-and-so”. That’s your culture. You do whatever you want to do, son. That’s not our culture, that’s not our way of life. That’s how you find that the evil in society at the moment, the corruption of AIDS as we mentioned in society, is because people are fornicating like dogs and animals. Excuse the expression, but that’s the real fact. You’re behaving worse than animals.
…
You don’t have no understanding of life. They’re like cattle, nay, they’re more astray than cattle.
The fornicating woman and the fornicating man, flog them 100 times. The sharia says flog them 100 times and to send them out of the land for one year.
…
Why is the punishment for a married individual more harsher than for a young man, or a man who has not been married before, etcetera, or a woman. It’s because the married man has that form of release. And the woman as well. So the punishment for them becomes stoning to death.
…
We need to begin to think about these concepts of what is the final end, even though we know that we are not living under sharia at the moment, so these things cannot be enforced. But bear this hadith [narration of words or deeds of Mohammed] in mind.
Luridness. Promiscuity. Free mixing. Sexual interaction. Laughing. Joking. All of this with the opposite sex is nothing but evil things.
…
The thing that destroys many of our youth in this country is women have destroyed them. Their lusts and their desires take them away from the deen of Allah.
…
We’re not harsh. We don’t need to speak to no woman who’s not a mahram [kin whom one may not marry] towards us. That’s the way we should be. That’s the way Muslims should be. This flirtatious speech that you find among sisters, the way they talk to a man. That’s not the speech of the ummah of the believers. Never ever deceive your voice in front of a man. Even though we know that a woman’s voice is not awra [nakedness], but if you deceive your voice, treachery! This sort of love and affection, then that’s forbidden according to the sharia. You speak according to the Qur’an, you speak clear words, and words even full of harshness to a man who is not related to you.
As for this flirtatious behaviour, even under the disguise of Islamic seminars, the way that people speak to one another, it is against the sharia given to the prophet Mohammed. It is the deception of the devil.
…
People might say “you’re harsh”, “you’re rude towards women”. I don’t care if I’m rude towards women who have got nothing to do with me.
Now there’s a man who is a perfect fit with the ridiculous, obnoxious and nasty people who run City ISOC.
I stumbled across this article published in the journal, Jewish Social Studies, which examines the anti-semitic campaign waged by British leftwing activists who were protesting against the Anglo-Boer War in 1900.
As you read the below excerpt, substitute “Anglo-Boer War” with “Iraq War”; substitute “Jewish capitalists” and “Jewish financiers” with “Zionists,” “neocons,” and the “Israel Lobby”; substitute “Boers” and “Zulus” with “Arabs” and “Muslims.” The result is a narrative that is dishearteningly familiar:
The Anglo-Boer War was perhaps the most controversial conflict in all of Britain’s long imperial history, a Pyrrhic victory from which the winner emerged without laurels or applause. One of the more startling aspects of the controversy provoked by the war was the sudden discovery of a “Jewish question” by an anti-war movement which somewhat opportunistically attempted to use the Jewish background of many of the financiers prominent in South African life as a way of as a way of discrediting the Conservative government and inflaming the public.
It was Cecil Rhodes who conceived the foolhardy plan to overthrow President Paul Kruger….Though Rhodes had clearly masterminded the plan, several prominent Jews had played significant roles in the episode…their close association with Rhodes confirmed in radical circles the existence of a crucial nexus joining Jewish finance with British imperialism. The fact that most Jews of note in South Africa had remained remote from the conspiracy or had indeed been hostile to it was conveniently ignored.
With war apparently in the offing [Marxist politician] Henry Hyndman and Harry Quelch, his strong supporter who now edited [the socialist newspaper] Justice….squarely laid responsibility for the approaching conflict upon a “Jew-jingo” gang and a “Jew press” which had somehow brainwashed the public into enthusiastic support for “piratical imperialism”….While denying that he himself was anti-semitic, Hyndman continued to insist that the war was a monstrous plot hatched by the ruling classes and their master, the capitalist Jew, and that it was “us common shall have to … in blood.”
In the House of Commons the outbreak of war served to make anti-semitic statements respectable, especially on the part of those who were convinced of the existence of a capitalist plot. Philip Stanhope, in offering a controversial amendment on 17 October, laid direct responsibility for the war on Rhodes and his associates, “generally of the German Jew extraction,” who had used their vast wealth to subvert the British press, thus producing a climate favorable to their schemes. Stanhope’s motion garnered one hundred thirty-five votes.
[Meanwhile] Jewish culture, was never deemed worthy of the respect accorded that of the Boers and Basutos, since it was perceived as entirely materialist. Jews were also not eligible for consideration as among the world’s oppressed peoples, despite the undoubted precariousness of their existence. The Jewish Chronicle observed ironically that “while the anti-semitic press is busy with tales of Jewish Napoleons of finance who hold the people of Europe in the palm of their hand, hundreds of Jews are slowly starving to death in Bessarabia. The world is so occupied with tales of Jewish finance that it has no ear for tales of Jewish misery.”
The editorialist was perceptive indeed; for the very existence of the “capitalist Jew” somehow served to preclude any meaningful grasp of the essential nature of anti-semitism, even by those traditionally sympathetic to victims of prejudice. Thus by the same thought process which transformed Boers and Zulus into symbols of uncorrupted innocence, the modern Jew came to personify an encroaching industrial civilization rapidly eroding spiritual values and destroying the fancied unities of a lost utopia.
Somehow on the very brink of the twentieth century the reductionist logic and the tiresome cliches of nineteenth century anti-semitism acquired new strength and luster, not least because of the respectable and progressive sources from which they had emanated.
The Guardian has a new report on the boohoo hooligans who are being sent down for attacking police officers and smashing Starbucks at last winter’s Gaza demonstrations in London. It includes this line:
Muhammad Sawalha, president of the British Muslim Initiative anti-racist group
“Anti-racist”?
The British Muslim Initiative (BMI) was one of the leading organisers of the Gaza demos. BMI placards taunted Jews with the Israelis-are-Nazis slur: “Stop the Holocaust in Gaza”.
The BMI likes that vicious line. Here it is again in August 2009 at a “Stop the War Coalition” and BMI demonstration at Downing Street. The man in the beige suit is Sawalha.
At the Gaza demos, speaker after speaker hailed Hamas. Here’s Azzam Tamimi ranting on January 10, the night of the worst violence near the Israeli embassy:
Today we are all Hamas! Today we are all Hamas! Today we are all Hamas!
…
Israel has dug its grave. Zionism has dug its grave. You count the years. That embassy over there one day will be a Palestinian embassy. The Zionist flag will come down and the flag of Palestine will go up.
Pro-Hamas demonstrations are Mr Sawalha’s element. He is a fugitive Hamas commander who has found London a welcoming refuge and handy operating base since the 1990s.
New in town, he became a Hamas facilitator, according to the US indictment (pdf) of Mohamed Salah, one of his accomplices, for obstruction of justice:
Mohammed Qassem Sawalha, a/k/a “Muhammad Khadhem Sawalha,” “Abu Obeida,” “Abu Ubada,” “Abu Ubaydah,” “Abu Ubeida,” and “Abu Obadah,” was initially a Hamas leader in the West Bank until he relocated to London, England in the early 1990s. Defendant Salah and co-conspirator A met with Sawalha in London while en route from the United States to Israel in 1992 and 1993. During these meetings, defendant Salah and co-conspirator A received instructions from Sawalha regarding particular Hamas-related activities they were to carry out while in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
…
In approximately August 1992, Salah met with co-conspirators Marzook and Mohammed Qassem Sawalha regarding the need to revitalize Hamas terrorist operations in the West Bank. During the meeting, Sawalha, who had previously been in charge of Hamas terrorist operations within the West Bank, identified specific Hamas members still residing in the West Bank who could be used to revitalize Hamas’ terrorist activities.
Sawalha is still at work for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2004 IslamOnline, the Muslim Brotherhood website headed by Yusuf al Qaradawi, named him “manager of the political committee of the International Organization of the Brothers [i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood] in Britain”.
In 2005 Robert Lambert of the Metropolitan Police and other fools gifted the Finsbury Park Mosque to supporters of Hamas, including Sawalha. He is a trustee of the renamed North London Central Mosque to this day. At the time the mosque was taken, he was queried about Hamas. He’s a have-cake-and-eat man, who says he supports Hamas, but he will not comment on “military activity”:
Sawalha’s link with Hamas emerged after he was named as a co-conspirator in an American court case involving racketeering and conspiracy. Last week the cleric, who arrived in Britain 15 years ago and has been given indefinite leave to remain, said that he still supported Hamas, notorious for its suicide attacks in Israel.
…
Asked whether he supported the military activities of Hamas, he replied: “I have no comment on the question of military activity. I am working here to give a new direction to this mosque and break with the past.”
In 2008 he compared “eminent” Qaradawi to the pope and the British government to medieval persecutors for banning the Hitler fan:
The British Muslim Initiative (BMI) lauded Qaradawi, chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research and a trustee of the Oxford University Center for Islamic Studies, as an “eminent” scholar.
It regretted the government’s decision as “an unwarranted insult” to Britain’s two million Muslims.
“The negative impact of this ban is no less than that of banning the Pope from entering any of the Muslim countries,” said Mohammad Sawalha, BMI president.
“We would have to go as far back as the medieval age when scholars were hounded and vilified in order to find a similar retrograde decision.
In February 2009 he was one of the UK signatories of the pro-Hamas Istanbul declaration (pdf), alongside Daud Abdullah of the Muslim Council of Britain and Shah Jahan Abdul Qayyum, the imam of the East London Mosque.
Around the turn of this year, he was an important contributor to George Galloway’s convoy for Hamas. For example, here he is (middle left) in Damascus, meeting Hamas leader Abu Marzook on behalf of the convoy.
After the convoy, it was off to Beirut. Sawalha and Sabah al Mukhtar, the former Viva Palestina trustee and mad Jew hater who thinks “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is some kind of prophecy for our times, attended a conference that united leading figures in Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iraqi “resistance”. The conference statement celebrated jihad:
The statement pointed out that resistance is the logical road for people to reach their goals, paying tribute to the heroic resistance in Lebanon and Palestine as outstanding models for resistance values and ethics in confronting the terrorism perpetrated by the Zionist enemy, as well as the role of resistance in Iraq in confronting U.S. occupation and hegemony.
Back at home in Britain, Sawalha is a Guardian fan who dismisses the government’s anti-extremism measures. It is all a Zionist plot, he suggested last October:
The British Muslim Initiative (BMI) is appalled by reports that government has been using its Prevent programme to spy on Muslim citizens. We hail the principled decision of the Guardian newspaper to publish the findings of its investigations, which confirm that the programme has maliciously targeted Muslim communities through what Liberty describes as “the biggest spying programme in modern times”. BMI president Muhammad Sawalha said, “This campaign of espionage is a hallmark of totalitarian societies. It is an unfortunate throw back to the Cold War years when spying was the order of the day.” “We are deeply aggrieved that such measures should be adopted to target law-abiding citizens in a modern democracy”, he added. The BMI recognizes in the government strategy a dark political undercurrent of hostility engineered by the Zionist, Islamophobe and Neo-Con alliance (ZINC).
…
The BMI calls on our government to scrap the discredited and wasteful Prevent programme and disassociate itself forthwith from the jaundiced advices of the anti-Muslim ZINC alliance. For further information and interviews, contact: Anas Altikriti 07899 80600 British Muslim Initiative
This time round, Sawalha pretends to support the law but actually speaks up for rioters, telling the Guardian their trials will only lead to more trouble:
But, because of the fact that the people being brought before the courts are disproportionately Muslim, Sawalha says, the consequences could be disastrous: “The British Muslim Initiative encourages Muslims to express their feelings and ambitions and frustrations only through political and legal processes. But if anything sends the message that Muslims cannot express themselves through political processes, and they will not be dealt with like others, it will give more strength to the fringes within the community who say democracy and the political system doesn’t apply to Muslims in this country. This will only increase the frustration and sense of alienation among these people.”
Er, these are not people out to “express themselves through political processes”. They’re thugs.
This is what the “political processes” looked like to a police officer who was at the January 10 demonstration:
All of a sudden we heard calls from one of our other serials that dozens of people tried to break through the gates to get to the embassy and were climbing the fencing, throwing anything to hand, throwing burning flags at the gate and that they needed more units to help out. Within seconds we heard the call that no police officer wants to hear “more units now, urgent assistance, we’re under attack, officer down”
What had started as a several dozen turned into a hundred or so and the officers were being attacked with missiles including glass bottles, balloons filled with paint, scaffolding clips and metal poles, and a couple had been dragged into the crowd and were beaten to the floor. One officer was knocked unconscious by a scaffolding pole, two received really bad facial injuries and the other officers (male and female) were kicked and punched repeatedly until a couple of PSU’s managed to get to them.
…
We got back to our posts near the front of the march to be told that a couple of shops opposite the embassy had been attacked and ransacked and that protestors had been seen stealing bottles and knives which were distributed through the crowd and subsequently thrown at the officers at the front gate. We were then informed by a serial at the gate that they had had several bottles of accelerant thrown at them which failed to ignite.
So some of the thugs have been brought to book and sent down. Yes, best call in an “anti-racist” campaigner from Hamas UK to complain about justice being done. Guardian standards must be maintained.
As I am sure many, many people do on the weekend, I have been flicking through some of the back issues of Workers Hammer, the monthly paper of the Spartacist League. It is not necessary for me to get into much detail about their political views as it suffices to note that they are a small fringe Trotskyite organisation. As such, they wish, like other small fringe Trotskyite organisations, to smash the state and impose a dictatorship of the proletariat. It is rather fortunate for humanity that they will not succeed as when Communists obtain power the only thing that they seem to be successful at, and I concede that they have been very successful in this area, is killing people.
The Spartacist League in Britain is linked, via an international network of small Trotskyite organisations, to the American organisation of the same name. It can be noted that paedophiles might be attracted to the Sparts (as those that have heard of them tend to refer to them) as they support the aims of North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) which would like to legalise sex between dirty old men and young boys.
I have been digressing. One thing that small fringe Trotskyite parties on occasion do quite well is to attack other small fringe Trotskyite parties. I am all in favour of this activity. I encourage them to do more of the same and leave the rest of us in peace. These attacks can, on occasion, be carried out satirically. With that in mind, the February 1986 issue of Workers Hammer contained a song, written by one of their comrades, entitled “The Workers Power song.” Workers Power is another small Trotskyite group that would like to smash the state and impose a dictatorship of the proletariat but will not succeed. I copy the first lines of the song below as I did find it amusing:
The Workers Power Song
The Shah was a man
Who ruled in Iran
And we really thought
He really ought to go.
Well, the Ayatollah K,
Had a lot of things to say,
He used to live there,
So he ought to know.
He won’t go very far
But he’s better than the Shah,
So even though he’s quaint,
We really have to say:
He could be a lot better,
He’s not a Trot to the letter,
But he’s out there,
And he’s showing us the way.
He’s leading a mass movement,
Which could do with some improvement,
But it really isn’t up to us to say.
Cos he’s on the front line,
And we’re running out of time,
So we’ll support him anyway.
Supporting the Ayatollah Khomeini was not really wise for leftists, for as the Workers Hammer noted a few years later (December 1988/January 1989):
Reports coming out of Iran point to a mammoth new wave of executions of leftist political prisoners now taking place in Khomeini’s jails. Already, an estimated 1000 to 5000 have been hanged or lined up before the firing squads of the Islamic dictatorship and dumped in mass graves. In some provincial cities, the entire prison population has reportedly been massacred. Virtually every political leader of Iran’s pro-Moscow Tudeh Party has been executed, and supporters of the People’s Mujahedin, the Revolutionary Workers Organisation of Iran (Rahe Kargar), Iranian People’s Fedayeen (Majority) and the Fedayeen Minority are said to have been killed in the thousands.
A famous literary theorist can’t get to grips with a phenomenon common to authors he used to admire:
I’m interested in the way a whole stratum of the liberal literati (Rushdie, to some extent Ian McEwan, A C Grayling, obviously Amis and Hitchens) – the very people you’d have expected to be guardians of the liberal flame of tolerance and understanding – have, at the very first assault, rushed into these caricatured postures driven by panic. I’m very struck by how those who are making ugly, illiberal, supremacist noises about the superiority of the west are precisely the sort of literary and liberal characters from whom you’d expect more imagination, openness and sensitivity.
Ignoring the fact that one man’s ‘ugly supremacist noise’ is merely another man’s stated preference not to have his books burnt, his translator murdered and a fatwa pronounced on him – can anyone help the Distinguished Professor out with his mental blockage?
It must have seemed a good idea at the time to the Tory Central Office staff or the think tank policy wonks that devised it but the hustings system being used by the Tories to select Parliamentary candidates went seriously wrong on the seventh of this month in London’s East End.
It may well have been a good thing in places like Cambridge, Exeter or Frimley but ,as the leadership of the ultra left Socialist Workers Party found out to their cost, no system is proof against the power of the leaders of the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets to manipulate the block votes under their command.
The venue for the hustings was St Hilda’s, a charitable institution set up by Cheltenham Ladies College in the last century and very near to Brick Lane. As the Bangladeshi family groups arrived they immediately segregated themselves and when the debate started there were about two hundred and fifty people in the hall.
The whole thing was a charade from the beginning and was shown to be so when one of the white candidates, a woman who by her accent would have been much happier speaking to an audience in South Ken or Cheltenham, asked actual Tory Party members to put their hands up. About twenty did so, all white.
As expected Zakir Khan won the nomination with seventy per cent of the vote so avoiding a run off. What was interesting was that there were a number of Labour and Lib Dem members who turned up to vote the reasons for which make the politics of Byzantium positively straghtforward.
It is now possible to state the actually situation in terms of the relative strengths of the pro and anti IFE groups in Tower Hamlets and this is what is at the heart of the campaign over the next eight weeks. IFE is now grouped around Respect and the Lutfur Rahman group in the Labour Party. Of the IFE/Labour group two of those not selected who defected to Respect, Salim Ullah and Fazlu Hoque, if elected will defect back to Labour in order to vote for Lutfur Rahman as leader of the Labour Group. Those of you who saw the Despatches programme will remember him as the shifty character who kept licking his lips and refusing to answer Gilligans questions.
It is vital for IFE to keep Rahman as leader as it is from control of the council and its PVE money and other funds that a great deal of IFE’s money comes from. It is the election of the actual councillors that presents the biggest problem as Rahman and IFE could just end up with enough candidates to retain control of the Labour Group and therefore the leadership.
Questions are being asked as to why more known IFE Labour Cllrs were not deselected by Ken Clark and the London Regional Party. There was always the situation where if too many were deslected they would simply leave with their block of voters, join with Respect and still end up running the borough. Even so London Labour could definately have culled a few more and not provoked a rebellion. In order to appear politically correct they actually deselected a really good white councillor, Alex Hislop, so they wouldn’t be accused of racism.
The Parlimentary race is now a three way fight. Although the successful Tory candidate Zakir Khan has IFE connections, his brother Dilwar Hussein is the current CE of the London Muslim Centre and a first cousin is the current treasurer, he is running his own campaign and has his own political ambitions. The reason that Labour and Lib Dem members and supporters voted for him in the hustings was to try to dilute the IFE vote across the three parties to ensure that the Labour candidate Rushanara Ali is elected.
To give any guarantee of this it was necessary to have a three horse race but at the moment she is so low profile she isn’t even in the radar and while she owes her selection to the chattering classes of Bow, that’s our local Islington, she simply hasn’t been campaigning and has had to rely on outside canvassers from around the Young Foundation think tank of which she is a Fellow.
Her strategy has been to say nothing controversial, in fact she has been totally silent on everything, and rely on the residual Labour vote and the splits in Respect to get herself elected. Some observers see the emergence of Zakir Khan as enough to get her in but others are not so sure, this is Tower Hamlets after all.
Another factor going against Labour is that all of the candidates on the Bethnal Green and Bow slate are Asian in a borough that still has a majority of white people. My soundings in the pubs across the area, always a useful indication of what’s going on, is that a lot of white people just aren’t going to vote at all. Apart from the tactics that the parties use and the morality of them, a population with roots going back many generations now feel totally disenfranchised to the extent that they have just given up. This syndrome is leading, in other parts of the country, to the rise of the BNP, fact that the great and the good have woken up to at last even if a little late.
The biggest danger is from the Mayoral referendum for the whole of the borough which takes place on election day. The yes vote is being coordinated by IFE and is supported by Galloway, Livingston and Andy E Neuman and his fellow Spartists on SU. The no vote is officially all of the other parties but on election day a significant section of IFE/Labour voters will vote yes.
IFE sees the office of Mayor as its number one priority. Elected for four years the post has control of the one billion pound budget that is available at the moment, with more in the pipeline, and as importantly the power of patronage to place IFE members in position of power. While an IFE member of Parliament would be ideal it is only a possibility. IFE have got their options open on the control of the council. Either Lutfur Rahman gets back as leader or the referendum leads to the election of an IFE Mayor with Azad Ali as a possible candidate and a strong chance of winning.
All in all not a good scenario. Direct rule from Westminster? Well it has been used elswhere and might be the last chance and we are definately in the last chance saloon.
Pakistan — A suicide bomber driving a motorized rickshaw blew himself up at a security checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, officials said, killing at least 13 people, injuring 52 and underscoring the nation’s relentless security threat.
The blast in the small town of Saidu Sharif in Pakistan’s violence-battered Swat Valley was the second major attack in the country in less than 24 hours, raising fears of a new wave of violence by anti-government militants. Suicide bombers killed 55 people in near-simultaneous blasts Friday in the eastern city of Lahore.
BBC: Afghanistan’s Kandahar hit by suicide bombers, 25 dead
At least 25 people have been killed and dozens hurt in four suspected suicide bombings in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, hospital officials say.
The first blast was heard at about 1530 GMT and was followed by three other attacks across the city.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is clearly unhappy about the heavy sentences handed down to the Starbucks-trashers last week. Very unhappy indeed. Almost frothing you might say.
Wind her up. Here she goes:
But this week even I, even I, can see that for the British establishment Muslims are contemptible creatures, devalued humans. As I prayed before starting this column I felt tears stinging my eyes and my face was burning as if I had been slapped many times over. Do they expect me to turn the other cheek? Millions of other Muslims must have felt what I did. And some may well go on to do things they shouldn’t. Their acts will intensify anti-Muslim prejudices and will be used to justify injustice. The cycle is vicious and unrelenting.
Once again at weddings and birthday parties, in quiet, tranquil mosques, at dinner tables across the land, including those of millionaire Muslims, I am hearing murmurs of trepidation and disquiet – voices kept low, sometimes vanishing into whispers, just in case; you never know if they will break down the door. These people are, like myself, well incorporated into the nation’s busy life. Some own restaurants and businesses, others work in the City or law firms and chambers. At one gathering a frightfully posh, Muslim public school boy (aged 14), an excellent cricketer, said in his jagged, breaking voice: “I will never live in this country after finishing my education. They hate us. They’ll put us all in prison. Nothing we do is OK. Do you think I am wrong Mrs Yasmin?”
That’s funny, I was speaking to one of several Muslim lawyers I know the other day - well integrated into the nation’s life just like Yasmin’s examples above: and when we discussed the very same issue he managed to get through to the end of the conversation without choking up in impotent rage about the sentencing of rioters or informing me he’s off to join Al-Qaeda because of a television programme. But then again, he’d come to Britain from a country where people’s doors really were kicked down in the night and could tell the difference between reality and fantasy. And he wouldn’t dream about telling lies about Muslims in the national press for money either.
