Harry's Place

So two groups of racist scum are going to be descending on central London today are they? Fucking great – that’s my Sunday ruined then.

What sort of person would support an Al Quds Day March?

http://www.petertatchell.net/international/alqudsprotest.htm

We are very annoyed. It seems they have bowed to the pressure from people like the English Defence League.”

A feather in the cap of EDL?

I agree that these two groups deserve each other. I think it fair and right that they are allowed to counter protest. What’s the betting EDL turn up with a dozen Israeli flags? Now, while we can all hate any racism from EDL I think it would be brialliant if they did turn up with Israeli flags. Not that it implies they support Israel or that they enjoy support from Jews but if you were disgusted with these terrorists-supporting mobs and their hate speech then wouldn’t you be secretly having a laugh?

Ssshhh. Don´t mention the mosque riots in Harrow, I did, but I think I got away with it!

Ssshhh. Don´t mention the mosque riots in Harrow, I did, but I think I got away with it!

It was all the fault of those 15 members of EDL who took fright and left. Once the anti-protestors realised they had no-one to throw their bricks at or squirt bleach at – so they took it out on the police. But you are right. Don’t mention it.

Yes, the so-called Islamic Human Rights Commission and the so-called English Defence League deserve each other. Though the former may be even more repellent than the latter, the competition is close.

Kudos EDF, clearly a necessary bunch. Succeeded in doing what years of Harrys Place being mildly annoyed (at Islamist racism, hatred, murder) has failed to do.

Orlando Figes has now reacted angrily to the article by Saemus Milne who was reacting angrily to Niall Ferguson who was reacting angrily to Stalin’s behaviour before World War Two. Wish I had a blog:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/12/second-world-war-poland

There must be something afoot at the BBC. On the Teletext it said that the Al Quads demo was prevented from gathering in its ‘traditional’ meeting place of Trafalgar Square. That’s traditional, like hallowed by centuries. Then, I was just reading an item on the discovery of prehistoric remains at Kent’s Cave in Torquay, and the last paragraph says something along the lines of ‘these discoveries push back the time of the appearance of humans from the previously estimated 6,000 years.’. WHAT???!!! (Sorry, don’t know how to do a link.).

Guardian,”For the past 27 years, a number of groups – both Muslim and non-Muslim – led by the Islamic Human Rights Commission have gathered to make a stand against oppression of all kinds.” If that is so maybe this year they will dedicate their march to the oppressed people of Iran.
Just to save any misunderstanding for the last two years part of the counter demonstration has involved Iranian students dismayed by the marchers support for the Iranian regime.

The site has already played a key role in helping to unlock the secrets of the past – previous excavations there have revealed that humans have been on earth longer than the previously estimated time of 6,000 years.

Sue, it’s really unclear in this article but it is possible that this refers to a Victorian excavation which may well have unearthed evidence contrary to a more orthodox Biblical interpretation about when people first appeared.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/devon/8253091.stm

During the 1820s, Father John MacEnery – a Catholic chaplain from Ireland – made some discoveries at Kents Cavern which challenged the Bible’s text about the origin of man.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2009/01/26/kents_cavern_2009_dig_feature.shtml

OOPs! Not Victorian era, the 1820s.

James said:

Kudos EDF, clearly a necessary bunch. Succeeded in doing what years of Harrys Place being mildly annoyed (at Islamist racism, hatred, murder) has failed to do.

Exactly.

I think people here get queasy stomachs at the though of actually confronting and demonstrating.

It’s easier for them to write off EDL as BNP Nazi thugs. It’s also manifestly wrong and obscures the importance of taking a stance against the real fascists.

Even the mainstream media aren’t totally falling for that meme anymore. As a result, the EDL have achieved more in a few weekends than HP has in a few years.

It time we supported them. Fuck. No. It’s time we joined with them. The wider variety of people who turn out to protest against Islamofascists, the more spotlight is shed on them.

Personally, I think all protests should be confined to Hyde Park. No marches. No mobbing Trafalgar Square.

If the government is sincere in finding a solution, it needs to come out of this state of denial, stop pointing fingers at others and instead recognise the root causes and its own responsibility within that

”It time we supported them. Fuck. No. It’s time we joined with them. The wider variety of people who turn out to protest against Islamofascists, the more spotlight is shed on them”.

Good god. Concerned at the use of the use of ‘we’ here. Ok, if you want to stand next to a bunch of (at least ‘BNP voting’) FOOTBALL HOOLIGANS then that’s fine. People can talk about the decline of the left as much as they want, but when it joins with the far right then its truely over.

Will you be bringing your pitbull and fred perry gear then?

Some chants for you to learn before you turn up:

”ENGERLANDENGERLANDENGERLAND”

”Dirty Muslim Bastards” (only when in proximity of said ‘moslems’ of course).

”We want our cuntry back” (repeat to fade).

Tool. Utter tool.

I would have more sympathy for the IHRC were they not also in the business of trying to pressure people on the back of acts of violence.

I have none. I have no sympathy for people importing foreign disputes into my city. I’m glad they weren’t allowed to rant in Trafalgar Square. I used to to feed the pigeons and climb on the statues. Cunts should not be allowed to steal it from me for their miserable political campaigns.

I have far more sympathy for the EDF (and I have none at all for them) than I have for the patronising prole hating sneer ‘leftism’ of jonno.
the EDF are not the BNP in diguise, as the SWP/uaf/searchlight crowd would want us to believe.
It suits these political failures to paint the edf in these terms as it serves to vindcate heir version of antifascism which revels in state bans and ‘vote anyone but the nazis’ whilst getting their sexual jollies while watching asian youth fighting the police. (observe Martin Smith scuttling after the rioting kids on the Sky news coverage of the harrow demo). BY setting up the EDF as a modern version of the SA they can try to obscure the fact that all their lollipops and petitions to the home secretary have not prevented one iota the growth of the BNP.

James, strangeways and darren – HP is remember a Lefty blog, at the end of the day they will huddle in with the ‘mainstream’ Left, scream ‘racist fascist’ at anybody who actually wants to do anything REAL about radical Muslim mobs destroying the country. Anything more than tuttutting on a blog (oh yeah that really scares radical Muslims don’t you know) is simply anathema to them.

Certainly the BNP is fascist, is EDL? I simply don’t know enough about them (does anybody yet?) to comment one way or the other. Time will tell. It is however doing absolutely fuckall and worse – pandering and appeasing and grovelling before Muslim radicals and mobs that has brought things to this state in the first place, and HP is stuck in ‘do nothing and soon we will all hold hands together and sing Imagine’ mode. Would HP call the Jews and non-Jews who battled Mosley’s fascists in the East End back in the 1930s fascist and racist, because you know violence is violence?

In the 1930s the Jews of the East End could not count on the police to protect them from the fascists. That is hardly the case today.

In fact, Harrow Mosque – through its spokesman, the Lib Dem Ajmal Masroor, made a statement discouraging counter-aggro. I note that Harrow Mosque is aligned with the IFE/Jamaat lot, and links to Muslim Brotherhood websites. Nevertheless, they behaved creditably over this provocation.

Mullah: Have you heard of Charles Darwin, or Richard Dawkins? If so, what’s your opinion of their work?

The BBC were ‘unhappy’ about it, because the relevant sentence has been edited out.

Isn’t it the Iran Iraq war again?

But while it’s fair to want both sides to lose, is this how we want the debate to be taken forward? FFS

Hmmmm, let’s support the EDF ’s cos they’re “doing something”.

Ah, the voice of the scum who think that Britain [sic] is not doing anyfin to “stop imagration” or who are deluded enought to think (whoops, not really approptate word in this context), who fantasise about a “muslimisation” of England so they do somefin. Like going out on the street and pick on a Muzza or two (or their places of worship).

It is looks like shit, smells like shit, then you can bet it’s shit.

Or, in more prosaic terms, the enemy of my enemy is never my friend (assuming, of course, one thinks in the fascist terms of “friend and enemy.”)

It time we supported them. Fuck. No. It’s time we joined with them. The wider variety of people who turn out to protest against Islamofascists, the more spotlight is shed on them.

No! Shtumm! There is a difference between “support” and “use”. Enough support to facilitate them being used is NOT the same as support for their cause.

Neither the police nor the government will confront Islamist Extremism. If EDL wants to be the blunt instrument then a little bit of subtle encouragement may actually force the government and police to start to do the right thing if they want to avoid ‘rivers of blood’.

Blood HAS been spilt. the 52 killed and 700 maimed on 7/7. Blood WOULD have been spilled on 21/7, the airplane plot, Glasgow airport and Mayfair.

“Blood HAS been spilt. the 52 killed and 700 maimed on 7/7. Blood WOULD have been spilled on 21/7, the airplane plot, Glasgow airport and Mayfair.”

Oh, fuck off will you!

How many of those responsible for those crimes are marching today?

But, of course for fuckwits like you, the crimes of some are to be visited (preferably by some neo-nazi thugs) on all who share a religion in which name such crimes were carried out.

“a little bit of subtle encouragement may actually force the government and police to start to do the right thing if they want to avoid ‘rivers of blood’.”

What, like trying them and incarcerating them in prison for their acts. You know, just like what has happened to those who carried the acts out?

But, of course, that’s not what your about, is it! You are a pathetic little person who get their rocks off at the thought of perpetuating violence against others, and, with so many of your kind, are so impotent that you willing to let thugs do it in your name and in that way, think you can escape responsibility.

You make the word “scum” appear too good for you.

Ignorance is bliss, I’m so glad I don’t have to spend Christmas with you, you ranting oaf. I do pity your mum, but I expect she hates you.

Ignorance is bliss…….No it’s not, in this day and age it is unforgivable.

You, “The Left” are reaping exactly what you have sown, it is criminal in my view, criminal that ALL of the people have to suffer for your innate credulity, if it was only yourselves that were the beneficiaries of your childlike folly then I for one could pity your stupidity, but no, your imbecile ideology will effect us all.

For that, oh men of the Left, you have my “everlasting” contempt, especially all the arrogant little pricks such as ………………………………….. fill in the blanks, you know who you are.

Wardytron. something tells me that ‘Ignorance is Bliss’, doesn’t celebrate Christmas.

Ah, that’s a shame. I was thinking of having him over. Me, my wife, our parents, and a comments box troll. It’s our favourite.

Ignorance is Bliss, I don’t think any poster’s response to one of my posts has given me so much pleasure and self-satisfaction as your “I’m all upset” rant.

I must think of a good response to wind you up…….

This I LOVE!

But, of course, that’s not what your about, is it! You are a pathetic little person who get their rocks off at the thought of perpetuating violence against others, and, with so many of your kind, are so impotent that you willing to let thugs do it in your name and in that way, think you can escape responsibility.

You COULD be talking about your typical Al Quds day marcher and their love affair with the terrorists of Hamas and Gaza. (Bit of an own goal there!)

Its the bit about “impotent” I love. Palestinians are “impotent” and passengers of their own self-infliction.

Al Quds protestors demonstrate their “impotence” by marching every year whilst achieving nothing but increasing anger at their support for terrorism.

Ah, I have the wind-up! Given the profile of a terrorists created by over 250 people convicted of terrorism-related offences in the UK since 2001 then it is a FACT that the people marching at an Al Quds rally fit the “terrorist” profile more closely than people attending the Last Night of the Proms or any citizen taking a stroll down Pall Mall on a Saturday afternoon.

Does that float it for you?

LUV it!

Wardytron. something tells me that ‘Ignorance is Bliss’, doesn’t celebrate Christmas.

Perhaps fasting for most of the day has made him light-headed due to low blood sugar.

Apologies for another post but “Independent on Sunday” points out

by groups called “Stop the Islamification of Europe” and “English Defence League”. They have succeeded in goading young Muslim men and far left groups into responding and sometimes into attacking the police. Plainly, ignorance about Islam is an underlying factor, but the causes of this conflict are a little more complicated than that.

I thought it was knowledge of Islamist Extremism that goaded EDL and SIOE. Why is is necessary to “understand” Islam? Why isn’t it Islam that misunderstands the Judaeo-Christian Ethic.

On the anti-Islam side, the ideologists of the BNP exploit ignorance of Islam and the cultures of British Muslims. Against all the evidence of the relatively peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Christians and post-Christians for centuries, they seek to present Islam as an intrinsically violent religion

Doh!

Suppose Islam WAS an intrinsically violent religion. That wouldn’t deny that many Muslims are in harmony and at peace with the West.

Suppose Islam was an intrinsically peaceful religion. It wouldn’t deny that a number of Muslims preach hate and violence and some will kill in the name of their religion and perceived injustices against it.

On the Muslim side, the ideologists of al-Qa’ida exploit the desire of some young men to fight back against racism……

At this point I bailed-out of the article because its such crap that I wonder what the agenda is that got it written.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-hatreds-that-need-exposing-1786418.html

How nice it would be if the left could take ownership of opposing at street level the Islamofascists…

Is there any point in pointing out that the BNP have forbidden its members to also be members of the EDL?

Is there any point in pointing out that in the EDL website it says:
“Watch the video below. (of) Anjem Choudary and his sort are who we oppose. Not Muslims, Jews, any race or religion, just Islamic Extremists, and Sharia. Is that so wrong?” ?

Why do I get the distinct feeling that the real objection is the EDL’s working class origins? Not really comfortable with the white products of the council estates, are we my university educated chums?

There are talkers and doers. And we know into which camp HP’s usual contributors fall, don’t we.

http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/index.html

David T- “In the 1930s the Jews of the East End could not count on the police to protect them from the fascists. That is hardly the case today.”

In what sense couldn’t the Jews of the East End not rely on the police to protect them? From what I can see, every illegal act where a suspect was caught was punished.

You mean that the police would not allow the ideological ancestors of these Islamic activists from stopping the BUF legally exercising their rights to free expression and to protest publicly?

I hope wardy is either pissed or simply hasn’t read the thread. So far as I can tell, all ‘Ignorance is bliss’ has done is call out some of our more reactionary commenters (albeit in less than Shakespearian language) who seem to be itching for a race war and/or have concluded that because they haven’t worked out what the EDL are about, none of us has.

Why do I get the distinct feeling that the real objection is the EDL’s working class origins? Not really comfortable with the white products of the council estates, are we my university educated chums?

Nice work, Fred. You’ve seen the EDL in action and concluded that its members must be working class and can’t possibly have been to university. Who’s the bigot?

The EDL are just proof positive that thick wankers can come in white and working class. Most genuinely working class people – who have to live amongst scum like the EDL boneheads – know this already. It’s chattering class numpties like Fred who feign empathy for the working class who are confused about this fact.

If it’s any use to you, SMFS, my father lived in Nelson Street and my mother in Globe Road.They were both born in 1919. Their argument was that they never felt that they received protection from the police. Yesterday at the Whitechapel Gallery, Sam Lesser told us that Jews were continually taunted in the street with ‘Go back to fucking Palestine’. The specifics of ‘Cable Street’ was that the police tried to force a way through the East End so that Mosley and the Black Shirts could march down Cable Street. Why did Mosley want to do that? Because the western end of Cable Street was a largely Jewish area and all the streets close by to the north was a largely Jewish area too. It was a classic fascist tactic of provocation. Mosley wasn’t coming to say hello to the Jews. It was a political statement about who ‘owned’ the streets round there, and it was his intention to show East London and beyond that they belonged to the BUF. The police could have said that this constituted a threat to public order, but instead decided to assist clear the way for Mosley to march. In fact, several hundred thousand people came out to prevent this happening. So the police charged the crowd again and again for several hours until in the end the police withdrew and Mosley wasn’t able that day to march through.

For several hundreds years at least, groups have known that by marching through areas lived in by ‘the other’, you try to make a political statement at ‘the other’. The most obvious example is the Orange Marches through 100% Catholic areas. These are victory marches, celebrating the Battle of the Boyne. They are about humiliating the descendants of the defeated. Mosley knew exactly why he wanted to conduct a quasi-military march through the East End. It was to say to the Jews, that you shouldn’t be here. He was in the process of mounting an anti-semitic campaign against the Jews on several fronts, most notably the one against Jewish landlords. Again, he was defeated on that front by the rent strikes which showed that the issue about housing in the East End wasn’t who were the landlords (not all were Jews, of course), but how shitty the housing was, much of which (eg my father’s house) was lived in by Jews.

All this was in the context of the fantastic success of fascism in Europe: Italy, Germany and then Spain. This was a serious and frightening struggle and almost everything that the left predicted would happen with the rise and rise of fascism, came to pass. Even the link that was made at the time between the bombing of Guernica by the Luftwaffe (ie a blitzkrieg) and what ‘could happen here’, came to London in the form of the ‘Blitz’.

And remember Mosley didn’t just want to ‘legally exercise his freedom on expression’. He wanted to do to the Jews of Britain, at least what Hitler had done to the Jews, up to that point. Please note I’m not saying necessarily that he intended his own version of the Holocaust. The pattern at the time, as expemplified by Vichy France later (in admittedly different circumstances) was persecution, withdrawal of equal rights on all fronts – employment, housing, access to the professions, freedom to trade and so on.

Guardian,”For the past 27 years, a number of groups – both Muslim and non-Muslim – led by the Islamic Human Rights Commission have gathered to make a stand against oppression of all kinds.”

The IHRC been going for 27 years?

Worst kind of half baked journalism I have ever witnessed. All the press were interested were to give EDL coverage and hope for violence. None of the main papers explained the Iranian government organises the AlQods march and none were interested in the Iranian counter protesters who wanted to say Ahmadinejad who oppresses his own people will not liberate Palestine. Absolute disgraceful journalism

Mullah: Have you heard of Charles Darwin, or Richard Dawkins? If so, what’s your opinion of their work?

Oh yes, I have heard of Charles Darwin. I have his Origins of Species on my bookshelf. I haven’t read it yet though, I am sorry to say. I think I will do so soon as I have just finished Daniel Dennett’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Have you heard of Daniel Dennett?

As for Richard Dawkins, I find his idea of the extended phenotype interesting but not completely convincing. I think it is possible that it is stretched a little too far but I haven’t read The Extended Phenotype yet. I have read The Blind Watchmaker which I think is very good and The God Delusion which is average.

I can understand his frustration at being heckled by Christian fundamentalists in America. The intelligent design people must really get under his skin.

Is Charles Darwin still on the ten-pound note?

Perhaps fasting for most of the day has made him light-headed due to low blood sugar.

Bit snide. It seems there is a worrying amount of support for a bit of vigilante street thuggery on this thread.

niloofar is not so far off in the comments above. mathew Taylor in the guardian wrote under this title,”Far-right supporters confront pro-Palestinian protesters” A complete failure to analyse who the pro palestinian protesters are. What they stand for. The sorts of values they wish to uphold. The links to the Iranian regime. Has this reporter forgotten after a few weeks what just happened in Iran. It is beyond belief.
I was not there this year but in previous years the counter protesters were a disparate set of groups from the skinhead types to Iranian students and various lefties.

I hope wardy is either pissed or simply hasn’t read the thread. – Brownie.

Hang on what? We’re supposed to be sober and read the thread now? Did I miss a meeting?

Worst kind of half baked journalism I have ever witnessed. All the press were interested were to give EDL coverage and hope for violence. None of the main papers explained the Iranian government organises the AlQods march and none were interested in the Iranian counter protesters who wanted to say Ahmadinejad who oppresses his own people will not liberate Palestine. Absolute disgraceful journalism

Absolutely agree.

Not one of the mainstream press journos took the trouble to explain i) that Iran sponsors these Al-Quds hate marches, and ii) that in past years these demonstrations have been a regular front for Hamas and Hezbollah extremists with anti-semitic and proto-fascist slogans.

I expect these distortions from al-Guardian but the Murdoch press and Telegraph were almost as bad.

Alternatively…

HP has been a haven for those of us who were concerned that (our) left formed common cause with theocratic fascists for short-sighted political gain.

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

Jeebus it’s been bad enough being forced to defend stupid bloody George Bush all these years, let’s not be friends with fascist thugs eh?

Michael Rosen – “Their argument was that they never felt that they received protection from the police. Yesterday at the Whitechapel Gallery, Sam Lesser told us that Jews were continually taunted in the street with ‘Go back to fucking Palestine’.”

That they felt that way doesn’t mean it is true. Nor do I see much of a crime in taunts. Words are words, not stones. Besides, Leftists want Jews to go to Palestine these days? Islamists?

“The specifics of ‘Cable Street’ was that the police tried to force a way through the East End so that Mosley and the Black Shirts could march down Cable Street. Why did Mosley want to do that? Because the western end of Cable Street was a largely Jewish area and all the streets close by to the north was a largely Jewish area too. It was a classic fascist tactic of provocation.”

Sure. We all know he was an arse out to do arse-ish things. But the fact is, it was he democratic right to march down any street he liked. It is a crime to prevent someone from doing so peacefully. Provocation is not a crime in British law. The police were right to protect his civil liberties.

“The police could have said that this constituted a threat to public order, but instead decided to assist clear the way for Mosley to march.”

They could have said a lot of things. The fact was it was not a threat to public order and it was right to clear the way even for Mosley to march. The rule of law does not mean imposing a political test to make sure we agree with the people we grant rights to.

“This was a serious and frightening struggle and almost everything that the left predicted would happen with the rise and rise of fascism, came to pass.”

Actually the Left, especially the Hard Left, had a massive problem with Fascism because Marx didn’t predict it. They had to invent a new theory on the fly. They were mostly wrong about it too. As can be seen, of course, in their refusal to go into a coalition with the Social Democrats, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact etc etc.

“And remember Mosley didn’t just want to ‘legally exercise his freedom on expression’. He wanted to do to the Jews of Britain, at least what Hitler had done to the Jews, up to that point.”

His legal rights do not depend on what you might think he wanted to do either. They depends on being a British subject under the rule of law. And that law said he had the right to walk down any street he liked. Stopping him was wrong. Remember those Orange Marches also take place in the Republic of Ireland. But no one cares.

What this protest was really about was trying to sell the Hard Left’s agenda to a specific ethnic community. Pretty much what the Socialist Workers’ Party has done with the Muslims. After all, the working class is mostly immune to the appeal of the Hard Left, but ethnic minorities are not. In that it was very successful – and the Muslim radicals are attempting to emulate it. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.

Provocation is not a crime in British law.

There are laws against incitement to racial and religious hatred/violence.

mullah – “There are laws against incitement to racial and religious hatred/violence.”

Not in 1936 there weren’t. Mosley was entirely within his rights.

Frankly this is an odd issue for HP. Many people here come from a Leftist but distinctly illiberal background. They have slowly shed much of the Hard Leftism, and would no doubt like to think of themselves as liberals, but they are not. The Battle of Cable street is an excellent example of this. Either the law protects everyone and everyone is entitled to their rights, or Britain is not a liberal country.

Someone said once about Jean Kirkpatrick that she was not really a conservative, she was a neo-Con – someone who was essentially a leftist but who did not like the Soviet Union and was determined to do something about it. Well, the Hard Left has left many people on HP behind as they embrace nutters, but the question is whether they want to come over to the Dark Side fully or not.

The laws on the incitement to racial hatred are offensive to decent people. Or should be. It is precisely the same sort of illiberal intolerance in Cable Street that has led to Muslims demanding the Satanic Verses should be banned, Brick Lane prevented from filming and the usual demands for religious vilification laws. I think the only reasonable position is to be uniformly opposed to all of them.

Perhaps fasting for most of the day has made him light-headed due to low blood sugar.

Bit snide. It seems there is a worrying amount of support for a bit of vigilante street thuggery on this thread.

Given “Ignorance is Bliss” tirade at me then its just a mild insult at him.

I don’t welcome any street violence or vigilantes. I merely observe what has been happening. I contrast the real and imagined violence of EDL versus that of Islamists. I contrast the words of hate of EDL versus Islamists.

I note that the hatred and violence (of the tongue and physical) , including killing on British soil has come from Islamist side. We see a common people backlash by votes for BNP. Its as if people are saying “Enough”. I see EDL picking up that baton and addressing themselves to Islamic Extremists. I see the Islamists mobilising ordinary Muslims under the banner “They are attacking Islam” thereby recruiting for violence. We can see that by the fact that in Harrow the police were attacked by the Muslim protestors not EDL.

There is an organisation of intimidation and violence and it didn’t start with EDL. It seems that EDL have drawn the Govt’s attention. Perhaps they will fix the problem before it turns into a race war. I want the govt. to fix it. If it means a bit more EDL before they take some action then how else will it come about because its a failed policy.

Comparisons to the Jews of Cable street don’t cut it. The Jews of the East End didn’t have amongst their community people who killed British people on our soil for idealogical and religious-based reasons. They didn’t have people who told the Brits how bad they were and were often in their faces through Judaic Extremists.

I note Al Quds march received very little coverage in mainstream press (that’ll upset them) except the Mail that carried a very minor report that EDL turned up and shouted at them. (or a group called “March For Britain”)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213142/Anti-Islamic-protest-fears-2-000-Palestinian-supporters-gather-London-rally.html

Note the Mail said “hundreds of marchers”. Al Quds organisers will probably tell you 5m people marched.

That “March for England” woman looks as if she could go ten rounds with Lindsey German!

Policing in the 1930s was a very different affair from today.

For a start, the law had no positive obligation to protect freedom of expression or assembly, as we do under the Human Rights Act 1998. Rather, the police had significantly unrestricted powers to close down marches or meetings which threatened public order. They used these powers liberally.

There was also considerable sympathy in the police for Mosley – a far cry from today when membership of the BNP will result in a police officer’s dismissal.

The EDL strike me as provocateurs and hooligans. This is not a counter-demo. It was a demonstration outside a place of worship on a prayer day. Accordingly, it would be experienced by ordinary worshippers – who may well not share the politics of the pro-Jamaati mosque leadership – as an attack on them, as Muslims. A more stupid or counter productive course of action would be hard to think of.

Nevertheless, unlike the Blackshirts who came to the East End to smash and intimidate, the EDL do seem to merely have been demonstrating.

In all ways, comparisons with the 1930s are mistaken.

CookieCutter – “Comparisons to the Jews of Cable street don’t cut it. The Jews of the East End didn’t have amongst their community people who killed British people on our soil for idealogical and religious-based reasons. They didn’t have people who told the Brits how bad they were and were often in their faces through Judaic Extremists.”

I agree that comparisons with the Cable street activists do not cut it. But don’t go too far in stressing the differences – the Far Left did use Cable Street and other similar incidents very well. They recruited heavily among British Jews. There can be few major British Communist Parties that did not have a strong Jewish presence among their cadres. You can see many people of that ilk writing for the Guardian to this day.

And whatever else you can say those Communists were engaged in telling British people how bad they were (to say the least!) and they were planning on killing a lot of British people on ideological grounds. The difference is that they were mainly planning and there was a very difficult relationship between those Jews and the rest. Just ask any British Jew whether Trotsky was a Jew, or if Chomsky is a Jew or even Eric Hobsbawm and you will get a wide variety of answers.

However the main issue here is the application of an ideological test to allow or disallow opinions and the free expression of them because we don’t like them. Muslim extremists would not be trying it if they had not seen it work in the past for other communities. When they say that Holocaust denial is banned so defaming Muhammed should be, I can see their point. But of course neither should be banned. Which is why this website is so interesting – it has left the Hard Left behind, and yet it is not conservative, but then it is not liberal in the classical sense either.

Please post this

Neturei Karta Rabbi Al Quds Day London Demo Sept 13 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXfIVKGIEw8

Fred Kite

“Why do I get the distinct feeling that the real objection is the EDL’s working class origins? Not really comfortable with the white products of the council estates, are we my university educated chums?”

Spot on Fred. The EDL may have racists, football hooligans and BNP supporters among their number, but there is no denying that their official line is that they’re not racist. It’s actually rather sweet how some of them hold badly scrawled banners with “f*ck the BNP” and “f*ck the NF” at their demo’s. These are people, traumatized by a staggering level of cultural ‘enrichment’ of their communities and schools. A group who have not benefited one bit from the uncontrolled immigration and staggering demographic change of the last few decades. They could very easily have embraced unconstrained racism. But they haven’t. They’re trying not to.

But hey, they’re not very articulate. They’re not clever enough to hide behind blogs or write letters to the Guardian. And in any case, no one would listen to them.

So they’re out demonstrating. Demonstrating against Islamic extremism. Demonstrating against what they perceive as the Islamification of their world.

The liberal establishment repeats ad-nauseam that we mustn’t accuse all Muslims of being violent, intolerant, homophobic, anti-woman, anti Jew and anti democracy, just because many of them probably are.

Therefore why is it acceptable to pre-judge every member of the EDL or SIOE, even when they appear to go to great lengths to stress otherwise?

Fred’s got the answer. Middle-class liberals have a real loathing of the white working class. You hear their bigotry constantly. How our wonderful immigrants are so much better and harder working than lazy, drunken, stupid white chavs. How there is “no such thing as English culture”, except of course getting drunk and screwing around on council estates.

This immigrant understands their pain. Shame on those who don’t!

the Far Left did use Cable Street and other similar incidents very well. They recruited heavily among British Jews.

Indeed they did.

1. That was a HUGE failure of democratic politics. It is one we should be at pains not to repeat

2. In the 1930s, Communism seemed to be a movement with a bright future. Now it is a movement with a dismal past and no future to speak of. The beneficiaries of today’s politics are Islamist groups, whose key concerns mirror those of Mosley’s Blackshirts.

Therefore why is it acceptable to pre-judge every member of the EDL or SIOE, even when they appear to go to great lengths to stress otherwise?

They evidently do go to lengths to stress otherwise. However, that still seems to have resulted in people turning up to their demos and giving straight armed salutes.

You have to be dead careful here – and at best, the EDL isn’t

Al-Quds is a march against ‘oppression’. But what is oppression in an Islamic context? – Fitna or shirk, associating partners with Allah.

Koran 2:217 ‘Oppression is worse than killing’

Oppression in this context is fitna and shirk (associating partners with Allah – this can be adherence to any non-Islamic system).

So here we find one of the many Koranic justifications for waging violent jihad to further the utlimate Islamic project of total world domination.

Suddenly the stated Al-Quds aim of ‘fighting oppression’, while its generality probably resonates with many leftists, takes on an altogether different meaning when heard by an Islamic audience.

I hope wardy is either pissed or simply hasn’t read the thread.

None of the above. Well maybe the second one. But the point is, almost any obstacle to the Al Quds day march is fine by me. There didn’t use to be one. That was fine as well.

Spot on Reza V. I can’t imagine why you immigrated to Britain when so many of us have shipped out. You’ve no idea how pleasant it is to live in a country (just about any other country than the UK, and perhaps France) where you really are judged on the content of your character rather than your clothes, education, speech, house, occupation and whether you are from the ‘provinces’. I’ve lived in several countries and while none are perfect they have all been free from this petty, snobby superciliousness that emanates from the middle-class and the capital. I think the real reason is that the middle-class British, by and large, are poorly educated, insular and have few real prospects. Hence the desperate need to look down others. Sorry for airing my own prejudices but they do bring out the worst in most people.

I can’t tell whether Reza and Expat are intentional parodies. But it seems to me the only bigoted comment in this thread is that from Fred Kite where he seems to imply that you can tell EDF members are both working class and haven’t been to university (nice touch of mutual exclusivity, there) just by looking at them.

Perhaps Reza’s and my opinions were a response not merely to the comments on this thread but the opinions expressed day in, day out in every media outlet, from just about every British newspaper to just about every British blog. Maybe you have to be an immigrant or British and domiciled abroad just to see how ugly and impoverished these stereotyped attitudes are. Chav, scum, monkey, prole, underclass – I have NEVER heard anyone in other countries use such phrases to describe their compatriots. The venomous divisiveness of labelling and stereotyping everyone into identity groups to be belittled and sneered at seems to be the norm only in Britain.

As for intentional parodies – pot, kettle, black.

The venomous divisiveness of labelling and stereotyping everyone into identity groups to be belittled and sneered at seems to be the norm only in Britain.

So I take it you dissent from Fred Kite’s view that you can tell your average EDF member hasn’t been to university?

You find scum in all the social strata. Assuming the EDF are the well-intentioned, representative lot some commenters are claiming them to be, then chances are that some members will be middle-class and some will have had a university education. I make no claim to the contrary. But I find it illuminating that having referred to the EDF as “scum”, I’m accused of making an observation about the social status and educational achievements of EDF members when of course the only people doing this are those who seek to defend EDF by invoking assumed working class roots.

Being working-class is no protection against being scum, by the way. Just ask any genuinely working-class person. You’ll find your average working-class man and woman is considerably more trenchant in their condemnation of “scum” than chattering-class liberals who live a safe distance from such scum and never have to interact with such scum….at least, they only have to interact with a decidedly better class of scum.

Perhaps you’ve lost your grasp on all this since you’ve been living in Monaco?

@Expat

“Maybe you have to be an immigrant or British and domiciled abroad just to see how ugly and impoverished these stereotyped attitudes are.”

Being an immigrant certainly makes me more sensitive to the default anti-white position of naive white liberals and some non-white members of our ‘victim group communities’ who proudly harbour a massive chip on their shoulders.

And my background certainly helps me appreciate the stupidity of white liberals who assume that white people have a monopoly on bigotry and racism.

The irony is that their attitudes are so unbelievably racist on so many levels.

Who here hasn’t heard white lefties coo about how wonderful hard-working immigrants are so much better than the lazy, drunken ‘chavs’ of our council estates?

Or how ‘young’ and ‘vibrant’ immigrant communities are culturally ‘enriching’ Britain’s bland, indefinable and worthless indigenous culture.

Bloody racists!

“The difference is that they were mainly planning and there was a very difficult relationship between those Jews and the rest. Just ask any British Jew whether Trotsky was a Jew, or if Chomsky is a Jew or even Eric Hobsbawm and you will get a wide variety of answers.”

I’ve never met a ‘hard left’ person, Jewish or otherwise, who doesn’t , if asked, describe Trotsky, Chomsky and Hobsbawm as Jews. There are people here and elsewhere (not of the ‘hard left’) who would describe them in all sorts of different ways. I, for one, ‘can’t be Jewish’ according to some posters here and indeed according to one, I must be ‘an animal’. In actual fact, for the last hundred years there have been thousands of Jews like Trotsky, Chomsky and Hobsbawm. Maybe in the next hundred years there will be many fewer and it was a transitional stage between one kind of Jew and a disappearance of some sort, but in that transitional stage, lasting as I say a hundred years, there have been thousands of people of very similar background (ie people of Germany, Austria, France, Poland, Russia and all the countries of eastern Europe with Jewish parents) roughly behaving and believing the things that Trotsky or Chomsky or Hobsbawm have believed in. The argument about this keeps getting hung up on whether such people were ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. That’s interesting but has very little to do with whether they are/were Jews or not.

Ah Brownie, I don’t give a toss about Fred Kite, or the EDF, or the saintliness of the working classes and I’m not accusing you of anything. I am making a general comment about the appalling class snobbery that permeates every aspect of British society. It comes across in this blog a fair bit but no more than anywhere else and many of your commenters, though not the actual bloggers, pull people up on it. As Reza did, for which I showed my appreciation. Call my comment distinctly off-topic if you will.

I have nothing in common with anyone on this blog but some limited sense of shared nationality. I follow it because I think most people here are generally intelligent and well-intentioned and have interesting things to say. The frightening thing is the blind spot about snobbery. Everybody is up in arms about racism, homophobia, sexism but call someone chavscum or a dirty northern monkey and you get a free pass. I despise it, not because I’m a liberal but because I got it all the time when I lived there and still tend to sympathise with people on the receiving end – even the less worthy ones. Is this so hard to understand? I’m sure you’d understand if I said I was a black professor, who never got racist comments, but got infuriated when he heard poorer blacks copping that kind of crap.

Monaco? The only European country I lived in was Ireland – never heard the Irish maul each other the way the British do – and I like them much more than the British as a result. Off to bed now, night, night. Try to be less defensive, not every comment is personal ;-)

The EDL on parade not being “careful” (these discussions are beyond parody).

http://current.com/items/90919637_far-right-group-return-to-birmingham.htm

Good for you Reza, for stating much more intelligently, coherently and succinctly everything I tried to say in the above rambling post! As I said, many people here are intelligent, well-intentioned and have interesting things to say, so I continue to check the blog out, despite my lack of conformity with its ethos and social demographic :) It is a shame perhaps that I can only see the ugliness of modern British society but the class thing is so mean and spiteful that it tends to obliterate any virtues that may still exist therein.

SMFS, you said|: “What this protest was really about was trying to sell the Hard Left’s agenda to a specific ethnic community.”

That specific ethnic community, or as we should say, many but not all of the Jews of the East End felt under threat from Nazi Germany in particular, but also the rise of fascism in Italy and what was starting to happen in Spain. Just prior to ‘Cable Street’ the CP had actually called a demo on that day at that time for Trafalgar Square about the Spanish Civil War – so mcu for it all being about suckering in an ethnic community. It was only the activity of a small group of people on the ground, most of whom were Jews themselves, that pulled out the organisational stops of the CP to call for a demo at Gardiner’s Corner to stop Mosley.

My parents were quite clear over and over again explaining to me and my brother and to the various anarchist, trotskyist, apolitical, liberal, rightwing friends who trooped through our house that in 1936, when they were 17, they felt desperate. They were both being attacked on the streets and the news felt that the rise of fascism abroad was getting nearer and nearer. You can’t defy that or defend yourself against that on your own. The choice they made was to go with the Communist Party for the specific reason that they were the only group which seemed to them at the time to be taking that seriously. What’s more, they wanted to find solutions to the poverty and deprivation (that’s a more modern word) to what was happening all over the world but also right there to everyone in the east end, and in the major industrial centres of Britain. Again, they asked, who had some kind of global analysis for all people (not just Jews) that seemed at that time, in that context to make sense.

Now, as it happens, as they would say over and over again, (they left the CP in 1957) it turned out to be wrong in some respects ie their loyalty and belief in Stalin and the Soviet Union was entirely misplaced. This was a matter of anger and regret equally mixed for them. (They visited the GDR in 1957). But the idea that there was something ‘outside’ about the hard left (ie the CP) and they were ‘inside’ as the ‘ethnic community’ completly misreads and misrepresents the situation. From the earliest formulation of ideas of liberal, socialist, anarchist and communist thought, Jews of very many differnt kinds have been involved – posh assimilated Jews, religious Jews, nationalistic Jews, poverty stricken Jews, Western, eastern, southern jews and so on. These Jews were intrinsic to the ideas of the left, part of the blend of peasant ideas of communalism, industrial workers’ ideas of co-operation, religious ideas of brotherhood and the community of poverty etc etc, not some mass waiting to be converted like gullible sheep. Jews offered those strands of left ideas that I’ve mentioned another set of ideas, some philosophical/theoretical and empirical (eg Marx) but also some to do with oppression, racism, persecution and therefore liberation.

I think David T has sorted you out on your ‘freedom to go anywhere’ business. We’re not all free to go anywhere anytime and shout anything at anyone any time. If I go and stand outside the Hassidim’s houses in Stamford Hill and scream at them, fuck off to Israel (let’s say) the police will take me away and say that I am trying to cause a disorder or that I’m provoking people etc. The legislation about creating situations that are likely to cause disorder has been around in various forms for hundreds of years. What’s important is that neither the Home Office nor the police in September/October 1936 decided that a quasi-military march of people whose mission was to say that the Jews of the east end had no right to be there, could or should be stopped.

You misundertand the difference between marches in the south and and the north of Ireland. The reason why they’re different is that in the north, the Protestants created a Protestant state which excluded Catholics, while the ascendancy Protestants have always done very well in the Republic. In the north, the marches were marches that celebrated the defeat and ongoing discrimination against Catholics. They said, ‘you lost, and we’re going to make sure you stay defeated.’ That doesn’t apply in the south.

More shite at MPAC UK. Is it now parody? “Far-Right and Zionist Thugs Unite Against Palestinians” http://www.mpacuk.org/story/130909/far-right-and-zionist-thugs-unite-against-palestinian-rights.html

Once again the far-right and Zionists allied against Muslims. This time it was the annual al-Quds march in support of the oppressed Palestinians. The EDL thugs united with Zionists in support of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and the oppression of Palestinians. MPACUK welcomes the revelation of the alliance between the two fascist groupings. Together they chanted “We hate Muslims” while waving Israeli flags when the Muslim marchers walked by with banners stating; ‘Justice for the murdered children of Gaza’, ‘We are all Palestinians’, ‘Boycott Israel’ and ‘Judaism rejects the Zionist state’.

“Together eh?”. “Zionists” probably write all the MPAC UK articles to make MPAC UK appear stupid(er)

The facts on Sunday. This protest was March for England,EDL and U.B.A. On ariving we met Potkin and his group of Iranial exiles. I have met Potkin on several ocasions and he joined us for a wreath laying in Tavistock Sq on the 7/7th to remember all who died on that day regardless of race or religion.
No group there on the day is racist or is anti Muslim. We where there to protest at Hizb-ut-Tahrir being on the march and to show our disgust at them being allowed along with Hezbollah to march on our streets. If you study the photos of the day you will see we had people from all walks of life there .
Racist and far right? Neither of the three groups Mfe,EDL or UBA has links to any political party. The simple way to clear up the racist tag is look who is on the protests all colours all religions. Look over our web site gallery. would a racist group have ex gurkhas on there march? These are facts not the lies and smears the press print. The gallery is at http://www.marchforengland.co.uk.
When our Goverment act to get the preachers of hate and terror groups baned then the protests will stop. But dont hold your breath for Brown to act he has just released 40 convicted terrorist early.

The facts on Sunday. This protest was March for England,EDL and U.B.A. On ariving we met Potkin and his group of Iranial exiles. I have met Potkin on several ocasions and he joined us for a wreath laying in Tavistock Sq on the 7/7th to remember all who died on that day regardless of race or religion.
No group there on the day is racist or is anti Muslim. We where there to protest at Hizb-ut-Tahrir being on the march and to show our disgust at them being allowed along with Hezbollah to march on our streets. If you study the photos of the day you will see we had people from all walks of life there .
Racist and far right? Neither of the three groups Mfe,EDL or UBA has links to any political party. The simple way to clear up the racist tag is look who is on the protests all colours all religions. Look over our web site gallery. would a racist group have ex gurkhas on there march? These are facts not the lies and smears the press print. The gallery is at http://www.marchforengland.co.uk.
When our Goverment act to get the preachers of hate and terror groups baned then the protests will stop. But dont hold your breath for Brown to act he has just released 40 convicted terrorist early.