LOCAL MUSLIMS OPPOSE WOOTTON BASSETT MARCH
Back in September 2001 we held a number of protest events in Swindon opposing the proposed attack on Afghanistan.
The very first event was an impromptu march organised by someone who had no connection with the left or peace movement, and was attended by about 100 people. There were three local Muslims there, Khan Nawaz, Azim Khan and Abdul Latif. The three of them later worked with me, and others on the left, to organise a series of lobbies of our two pro-war Labour MPs.
They have all been active supporters of the Stop the War Coalition, and I have also worked with Latif in a charity that provides advice for people who don’t speak English as their first language. Indeed Latif was due to come around to my house this morning to discuss some business connected to the charity, but we had to reschedule due to the snow.
So I was very interested to see Latif pictured and quoted in today’s Swindon Advertiser, the local paper that covers Wootton Bassett.
The Adver reports from yesterday’s repatriation ceremony that passed though Bassett: “Among the mourners were Muslim pensioners Abdul Lati 65, and his wife Samina, 52, who have lived in [Wootton Bassett] since 1995 and branded Islam4UK as “extremists”.
“Mr Latif said ‘I’ve been to these repatriations about 13 times now and we have great sympathy with the families who have lost their children at war. they are fighting for all of us, not just their religions but for all of us”
“We have great respect for everyone that passes through here. We sit here in peace and harmony while they fight for us. That is why we come here to show our respects. Although we believe in Islam we do not support Islam4UK. they are a minority of Muslims. they are extremists and we will not support them walking through Wootton Bassett”
On the same page in the newspaper, Farasat Latif, of the Call to Islam Centre in Luton , is quoted as saying he and other British Muslims would join a counter demonstration against Anjem Choudary if the Islam4UK march goes ahead. Farasat Latif said: “Islam is about peace and respect, neither of which will come from this action. this is Britain and British people have a right to grieve for their war dead without this insult. Yes, many in Afghanistan have died and we grieve for them but through prayer as is taught in Islam. this is a political statement and Wootton Bassett is not the town for political statements”
Firstly, congratulations to the Adver reporter Scott McPherson for a good story that helps to puncture the climate of anti-Muslim hysteria that is building up over Islam4UK’s proposed march.
But we also have to acknowledge that there is a very strong pressure building on British Muslims to keep quiet about opposition to the war in Afghanistan, a pressure that of course Anjem Choudrey is seeking to increase in order to polarise and inflame opinion still further.
But this also means that the left needs to urgently consider how to impose the issue of Afghanistan further up the mainstream political agenda. The government are currently having all the running in the media, despite the fact that a majority of the public oppose the war.
The convenient Mr Choudrey deserves an MI5 pay check for continually associating opposition to the war with his brand of moonbat extremism. Of course I have no evidence that actually he has an association with the security services, but “the labourer is worthy of his hire”, as the Bible says.
But the issue exposes a raw nerve, and the left needs to raise its game to help to give expression to the majority opposition to the war.
“The convenient Mr Choudrey has earned his MI5 pay check again by associating opposition to the war with his brand of moonbat extremism. ”
Are you saying that Mr. Choudrey is an MI5 plant to stir up religious and racial tension?
Comment by Boab — 6 January, 2010 @ 6:04 pm
the labourer is worthy of his hire
Comment by Andy Newman — 6 January, 2010 @ 6:12 pm
The BNP are really capitalising on this issue and the facebook group opposing the march which has been set up by wat looks like genuine people (over 500,000 members) has some really nasty racist comments on it, i was gonna join the group and comment but coments are left every 2 seconds on a regular basis so any messages will find themselves pages down within a very small space of time.
for islam4uk this is a mojor victory as this march has created a lot of publicity
military families against the war went to parliament just before xmas to hand in a petition, which was completely ignored by the media
yet this guy with a group of his mates get headline news for days
and he does reflect concerns around afghani lives being of less value that UK soldiers , so if anyones to blame for his dumb arse demo its the media giving him exactly wat he wants which is prime time media coverage
I wouldnt support a ban on the march but I also wouldnt encourage anyone to attend the march.
would be interested in seeing what discussions people have had at work, with mates etc over this issue
Comment by salman — 6 January, 2010 @ 6:16 pm
Top man Andy.
Thanks for that local news and keeping us all up to date on all things Wooton Bassett.
Everybody and everything in the known cosmos critical of British Government foreign policy over Afghanistan is deliberately ignored or distorted, except when it comes to a few offensive nutters, who can be deployed in order to induce highly emotional responses hopefully leading to irrational ones such as agreeing with the British Government policy over Afghanistan.
By contrast, instead of giving all the air-time to nobodies such as Islam4uk, some could be given to reasoned responses informed by intellect and experience which would be the case if George Galloway, Salma Yaqoob, Tariq Ali, Socialist Unity bloggers etc were deployed by corporate journalism.
It stands to reason this is why Islam4uk (Islam4MI5) exists - to induce pavlovian responses rather than intellectual-moral ones.
It’s easy to tell when the majority opinion of British public is hard for the British Establishment to ignore. They ignore it and highlight opinions nobody supports.
ps
#1
The convenient Mr Choudrey has earned his MI5 pay check again by associating opposition to the war with his brand of moonbat extremism. ”
Are you saying that Mr. Choudrey is an MI5 plant to stir up religious and racial tension?
- SU should just provide Harry’s Place dimwits with a proforma standard comment response to save them going to all he trouble of re-formulating what has already been said, except putting it into a question format, and demanding people waste their time by confirming this is actually what they’ve already said.
Comment by joe90 kane — 6 January, 2010 @ 7:30 pm
Thanks Andy for this excellent posting.
Comment by Roy — 6 January, 2010 @ 10:38 pm
I heard someone with a very nice English accent from Wootton Bassett say ( in a short interview broadcast on NPR) ‘Our soldiers are out there defending our freedom.’
But it seems the freedom doesn’t go as far letting Muslims march through a little English village.
Comment by Peter Hine — 6 January, 2010 @ 10:59 pm
Is Anjem Choudhrey an MI5 agent? Is he any kind of state asset?
That is an astonishingly serious accusation to make. Just because MI5 has proved itself more than capable of running agent provocateurs in the past and just because Choudrey’s antics are ‘convenient’ to elements of the state, it doesn’t even begin to prove the allegation.
Please, Andy, offer us some evidence - and not of the ‘it makes sense’ variety. You can’t just go around throwing mud like that.
Otherwise people might conclude that you’re saying it because it would be incredibly ‘convenient’ to your politics if Choudrey WAS an MI5 agent.
Comment by Colin — 7 January, 2010 @ 11:38 am
I didn’t say he was an MI5 agant, I said that he had earned to be paid as one.
Comment by Andy Newman — 7 January, 2010 @ 11:57 am
6.
I heard someone with a very nice English accent from Wootton Bassett say ( in a short interview broadcast on NPR) ‘Our soldiers are out there defending our freedom.’
But it seems the freedom doesn’t go as far letting Muslims march through a little English village.
Just because a town has a double barrelled name, it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily posh, Wootten Bassett may have some people with ‘nice English accents’ but the vast majority of its population are ordinary working class men and women. It is certainly not a ‘little English villlage’ it has a population of over 11,000.
Of course Muslims have the right to march through Wootten Bassett, and socialists should oppose any suggestion that the Choudrey’s march should be suppressed by the state, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have the right (indeed the duty) to oppose both the reactionary racist and communalist ideology of the EDL and its mirror image, in the form of Islam4UK.
Comment by paulm — 7 January, 2010 @ 12:34 pm
If MI5 have got Choudary on the payroll, then they must be really strapped for good agents. The only “association” anyone in their right mind would make with him is the circus, complete with squirty flowers, outsize shoes and car that falls apart in a comical fashion.
So I rather doubt it!
Comment by Voltaire's Priest — 7 January, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
#10 What you leave out of your rigorous analysis is the tremendous damage that he is capable of doing to the anti-war cause and to the Muslim community in Britain.
Who he is or is not in the pay of I have no way of knowing.
#9 Absolutely right re WB, which I know through having family who live near there.
Comment by Armchair — 7 January, 2010 @ 12:44 pm
#11 Well, he isn’t a supporter of the anti-war movement anyway, is he? From what I can recall, he and his chums spent an awful lot of time actively telling people not to go on demos, etc. Secondly, anyone who’d confuse him and his 20 goons with “the Muslim Community”, is not likely to be predisposed well towards people from those communities anyway.
I’m not merely trying to make light of this, however the man is an utter fool. Treating him as a “major threat” merely stokes what little credibility he has, and also his undoubtedly vast ego.
Comment by Voltaire's Priest — 7 January, 2010 @ 12:48 pm
#12 There are unfortunately rather a lot of people in this country not inclined to be well disposed to the Muslim community, and I suspect that, outside of places like where I live where his ilk actively campaigned against Muslims getting involved in the anti-war movement, he will be associated in the minds of large numbers of people with the movement because he is opposed to the war.
Comment by Armchair — 7 January, 2010 @ 1:03 pm
#8
I didn’t say he was an MI5 agant, I said that he had earned to be paid as one.
- Light humour and irony are lost on the ‘Harry’s Place’ dimwits - any opportunity to preach, pontificate and be outraged isn’t.
Who cares if Islam4MI5 is or isn’t in the pay of whoever - for all the good these sorts do, they might as well earn a few quid on the side while they are doing exactly what the likes of MI5 need them to do for MI5 to justify its existence. The two were made for each other - unrepresentative anti-demoratic morons.
Comment by joe90 kane — 7 January, 2010 @ 9:19 pm
Thanks for your comment #9 paulm, I absolutely agree with.
Comment by Peter Hine — 7 January, 2010 @ 9:59 pm
“The BNP are really capitalising on this issue and the facebook group opposing the march which has been set up by wat looks like genuine people (over 500,000 members) has some really nasty racist comments on it, i was gonna join the group and comment but coments are left every 2 seconds on a regular basis so any messages will find themselves pages down within a very small space of time.”
And indeed, if you post anything anti-BNP, or linking the group to the BNP, you will find your posts deleted by the admins in seconds. Most of the admins are Facebook friends with Simon Bennett, the BNP’s webmaster, including the group’s creator who has appeared in the media giving this fascist front a respectable gloss. In fact she seems to have the most obviously BNP and EDL people in her friends list. Two of the admins are known BNP activists and there is a link to the group on the BNP’s website.
Comment by Facebook Sherlock Holmes — 8 January, 2010 @ 1:22 am
Andy Newman.
I didn’t say he was an MI5 agant, I said that he had earned to be paid as one.
No, you did not. You said:
“The convenient Mr Choudrey has earned his MI5 pay check again by associating opposition to the war with his brand of moonbat extremism. ”
which you then denied saying, and then changed the text to:
“The convenient Mr Choudrey deserves an MI5 pay check for continually associating opposition to the war with his brand of moonbat extremism.”
A cached version is here
http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:3dRZXh8L0W0J:www.socialistunity.com/%3Fp%3D5082+%22LOCAL+MUSLIMS+OPPOSE+WOOTTON+BASSETT+MARCH%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
Live, real time revisionism from SU. Nice.
Comment by Boab — 8 January, 2010 @ 8:02 am
boab
fuck off
I was clearly being facetious originally, but in light of people making a fuss I edited it.
So what?
if you really have nothing better to do with your sorry inadequate life than check on whether I edit humnour on my blog then you need to get out more.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 January, 2010 @ 8:25 am
Boab really is a sad wee man. He sits in his room trawling the comments on this blog looking for a ‘gotcha’ moment to make him feel a sense of victory in his otherwise and obviously sad little life.
I imagine he loves seeing people getting parking tickets and wishes he could be a police officer if only he were tall enough.
Big Issue sellers all the way along Leith Walk are no doubt regularly regaled by him with a lecture in how their predicament is their own fault and nobody else’s.
The bitterness he projects is a classic case of a man who wanders through life alone. His is an epic tale of onanism gone mad.
Comment by John — 8 January, 2010 @ 8:37 am
No Andy, you said that he was an MI5 employee. This is the sort of shit that feeds conspiracy theories.
And thank you for the psycho-analysis John. Is this expertise from your years as a night club bouncer or from your more recent career as a male model?
PS How’s the constipation?
Comment by Boab — 8 January, 2010 @ 8:51 am
John- if you’re saying he is a wanker, then I second your comment entirely, particularly as I think Andy was right both to edit his post and to tell Boab to f**k off.
However, Onan was not guilty of masturbation but of practicing withdrawal as a form of contraception. Sorry to be pedantic.
Comment by Armchair — 8 January, 2010 @ 8:52 am
#21
There, there Boab just let all that poison out. You’ll feel much better.
I think what you really need is a hug. Perhaps we should institute a variation on hug a hoody with hug a sad c…t. Your place in the queue is assured.
Comment by John — 8 January, 2010 @ 8:57 am
fuck reds scum
Comment by Anonymous — 10 January, 2010 @ 3:16 pm
Surely that should be ‘Fuck red scum’, you really ought to get the syntax sorted, it makes for a far more lucid insult.
We shall have to mark that one, ‘Tries hard, could do better’
Comment by Richard Searle — 10 January, 2010 @ 3:20 pm