Aussie TV documentary provides EDL’s Stephen Lennon with platform for anti-Muslim raving

Great Divide

The EDL were eagerly anticipating the broadcast of an Australian TV documentary on multiculturalism (entitled The Great Divide) in which their leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) was given a starring role. Overall, they must be pleased with the results. At any rate, they’ve posted the documentary on their website.

True, the EDL is described as “a far-right organisation” in the film (perhaps this was what prompted yesterday’s laughable EDL press release) and we are told that “Robinson has been condemned by many as a racist and a thug”. But that is the limit of the documentary’s criticisms of this gang of racists and their leader. Otherwise Lennon is allowed to perform his usual act – of indulging in foam-flecked right-wing rants about Islam while maintaining the pretence of being a normal working-class bloke – without the slightest challenge.

The voiceover announces: “Tommy dares to shout what others fear to say out loud – that multiculturalism has provided the perfect cover for Islamic extremists to infiltrate Britain and plot their deadly attacks against democracy.” And “Tommy” assures viewers: “We’re telling you what’s happening to our country. We’re living side by side with terrorists, Islamists, people who want to completely obliterate our way of life and our culture and convert this country into an Islamic state. They’re here.”

Accompanying the Australian film crew on a drive round a Muslim neighbourhood (or “Islamic ghetto”, as he describes it) in his home town of Luton, Lennon tells them: “This is a terrorist area. This is the hotbed, this is the heart of militant Islam. This is where the 7/7 bombers, they boarded a train in Luton.” And this entirely irrelevant point is repeated in the commentary. The reality of course is that not one of the 7/7 bombers came from Luton, and the town’s railway station simply provided a geographically convenient place for them to meet and park their cars before completing the final stage of their journey to London by train.

Prompted to express his opinion on “extreme Islam”, Lennon replies: “It is a cancer and it is embedded in every single Islamic community in this country. Every one of them, no matter what one you go to, there’s a percentage of that community who wish for sharia law, who are homophobic, who are anti-democratic, who are causing mayhem. All across the country.”

And who did the Australian film makers find to illustrate Lennon’s fantasy about “extreme Islam” sweeping the UK? Yes, you guessed it, the man they chose to interview was rent-a-moron Anjem Choudary. The disproportionate attention given elsewhere in the documentary to another unrepresentative nutter, one Ibrahim Siddiq Conlon of Islam4Australia, is at least counterbalanced by an interview with a more typical Australian Muslim who repudiates his views. But the sole British Muslim the documentary makers bothered to talk to was Choudary.

The Choudary interview is immediately followed by a characteristically paranoid declaration from the EDL leader – “it is a ticking time bomb” – and in response to a leading question from the Aussie TV reporter a pop-eyed Lennon claims: “There’s going to be a hundred thousand Anjem Choudarys.” Yeah right. This is the same Anjem Choudary who has difficulty mobilising more than a few dozen supporters to attend his stupid and provocative protests. Needless to say, the Australian documentary makers don’t think it relevant to mention that fact.

Just in case you might be inclined to dismiss Lennon’s views as the ravings of an ignorant and uneducated racist, the documentary introduces a “journalist and columnist who has long criticised British multicultural policy which allows half a million immigrants into the country every year”. Step forward Leo McKinstry of the Daily Express, who announces: “There’s been an evaporation of our national identity, social cohesion has broken down and there’s parts of Britain that just don’t feel like England any more.” (That would presumably include Scotland and Wales.)

If McKinstry had been used to illustrate how a hardline right-wing section of the British press feeds the EDL their line, that would be fair enough. But his role in this documentary is in fact to provide the EDL’s anti-Muslim racism with the appearance of legitimacy by showing that their views are not restricted to the far right.

So McKinstry’s attack on multiculturalism – “we can’t go on with this policy of saying you can come and live here but you can cling completely to your own culture and the world you came from, you can treat women badly, you can have sharia law” – is followed by Lennon warning that “if nothing changes, you’re probably five years away from English lads wanting to blow themselves up, because people are so angry about what’s going on – so angry and so feel under threat and complete oppression to do with Islam”.

The documentary further assists the EDL’s efforts at legitimisation by joining a select group of their members at a pub in central London, where Lennon announces that “we need middle England to listen, to hear our voices, to help us”.

While the voiceover intones “we discover that they’re not just ranting football hooligans – the country’s comfortable middle class are signing up”, a picture of EDL joint leader and BNP candidate manqué Kevin Carroll appears on the screen. Another individual introduced as a representative of middle England is Roberta Moore, who was only recently brought back into the fold by the EDL leadership after being threatened with expulsion because of her links with a convicted terrorist. Of course, the documentary makers saw no need to check the backgrounds of these supposed paragons of middle-class respectability.

The basic aim of the The Great Divide is to present multiculturalism in Australia as generally a success while warning against the supposed nightmare of failed multiculturalism in the UK. The documentary makers presumably thought this made for good TV and presented a “balanced” view of the advantages and potential dangers of multiculturalism. But the result, through a combination of ignorance and irresponsibility, was that they swallowed the EDL’s own lying propaganda and provided a free platform for a repulsive gang of anti-Muslim racists.

EDL interviewed by Australian TV 2
“Tommy” introduces the EDL’s respectable, middle-class members – “And on the right, that’s our favourite Muslim-hating, terrorist-supporting Kahanist, Roberta Moore”

Empty your pockets please – Quilliam needs financial support

In response to the parliamentary debate on Tuesday where government minister Damian Green confirmed the news that the Home Office would cease funding them at the end of this financial year (i.e. next month), the Quilliam Foundation has circulated a begging letter – sorry, press release.

Quilliam point out that they have never enjoyed the sort of generous state funding that some have supposed: “Figures provided by the government during the debate showed Quilliam has received less government money than was regularly reported … since 2008, Quilliam has received a total of only £2.7 million from the British government for all its work in the UK, Pakistan and elsewhere – far less than the ‘million pounds a year’ that Quilliam’s detractors have frequently alleged.”

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Roberta Moore and Stephen Lennon kiss and make up

Roberta MooreYou may recall that a few weeks ago the English Defence League leadership had a bit of a falling out with the EDL Jewish division over the latter’s decision to ally itself with the far-right Jewish Task Force whose leader, Victor Vancier, served a five-year prison sentence in the US for a 1980s bombing campaign waged in protest against the treatment of Soviet Jews.

At that time the EDL – or more precisely Helen (“Muslims are total scum bags“) Gower, head of the EDL admin team – issued a stern warning to Jewish division leader Roberta Moore:

“A member of the Jewish Division this week decided to link herself with terrorist organisation JTF. This was the decision and wishes of one single individual within the EDL, and does not mean that the EDL is linked with this movement. If they continue with their plans to forge links with the terrorist JTF, the EDL will have no option but to sever its links with the Jewish division as we cannot support terrorist sympathisers.”

But hey, why let a minor matter like support for a convicted terrorist sour relations between the EDL and its Jewish division? Earlier today Roberta Moore reported on the Jewish division’s Facebook page that friendly co-operation has now been re-established with Tommy Robinson (Stephen Lennon) and Kevin Carroll, the joint leaders of the EDL:

“I went to a meeting with Tommy, Kevin and others of our counter-jihad group yesterday and it was great! We were filming a documentary for the Australian TV which will be shown on Sunday. After the filming we had a meeting to discuss our goals, tactics and the future of our country. I am very excited because the things we agreed last night were nothing like we have done before!”

And what of the EDL leaders’ statement threatening to break with the Jewish division over its terrorist links? According to the Jewish division, “some people ‘suggested’ it, but these were facebook admins and not the real leadership”. In any case, Moore adds, “the statements were removed over a month ago”. And she’s right, the EDL statements criticising the Jewish division have indeed disappeared.

What next? Will the EDL be rescinding its decision to sever connections with the English Nationalist Alliance? If the Jewish division is allowed to continue its assocation with a convicted terrorist, it is difficult to see why the ENA’s “links with Nazi groups like Combat 18 and Redwatch” should be an obstacle to further co-operation with the EDL. Particularly so, given that Moore herself is a founding committee member of the ENA and so far as we know still holds the post of “Co Chairperson, Political Liaison” in that organisation.

Update:  See also “The EDL has closer links to terrorism than 99.999% of British Muslims”, Exposing the English Defence League, 16 March 2011

Quilliam supporters demand more taxpayers’ money to keep Maajid Nawaz in sharp suits

When the news that the Quilliam Foundation was about to lose most of its state funding broke last December, some of us felt this was the best Christmas present we could have wished for. But ENGAGE reports that Quilliam does have its admirers, and they have been trying to persuade the government to lavish more public money on this disruptive and divisive gang of witch-hunters. Who are these deluded individuals? Denis MacShane, Robert Halfon, Nick Cohen and Martin Bright, since you ask. Says it all, really.

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Ken Livingstone defends Muslim hate cleric Qaradawi

Well, that’s the headline in the Pink Paper.

Meanwhile, over at his Torygraph blog Andrew Gilligan has resumed his lying about Qaradawi, once again accusing him of defending rape and the targeting of non-combatants by Palestinian suicide bombers. These two accusations have already been demolished here. Gilligan also cites Qaradawi’s 1960 book The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam as evidence that Qaradawi advocates wife-beating and has “called for gay people to be killed”. Those charges are refuted here.

One of Gilligan’s claims is, however, true. Qaradawi does regard homosexuality as a sin. As indeed do the Pope and the Chief Rabbi, among others. There is of course an ultra-secularist minority who adopt the consistent if misguided position that all faith leaders who hold the view that homosexuality is immoral should be boycotted. But somehow I doubt Gilligan is one of them.

EDL leadership finally dissociates itself from English Nationalist Alliance

Bill Baker with EDL in Brighton
Bill Baker with the EDL at an ENA protest in Brighton, August 2010

The English Defence League has finally broken links with Bill Baker and his organisation. According to an EDL statement released yesterday: “The English Nationalist Alliance, and their leader ‘Bill Baker’, have, in no uncertain terms, been told to take their party politics elsewhere. Bill Baker is not welcome at any EDL event.”

You might wonder why it has taken the EDL so long to get round to this. The ENA and EDL have held a number of anti-Muslim protests together – in London last July, in Brighton in August and in Dagenham earlier this month – without any complaint from the EDL leadership. The sudden announcement that Bill Baker is persona non grata in the EDL would appear to be a panic reaction to a detailed exposé of Baker posted on the Exposing the English Defence League blog – and to Baker’s response, which has been to threaten violence against the authors.

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Dutch broadcaster removes anti-Wilders cartoon after threats to staff

Wilders as Nazi

The website of a left-leaning public broadcaster has removed a cartoon depicting a plan by the far-right PVV party as a Nazi death camp following serious threats to its staff.

The cartoon, by Adriaan Soeterbroek and posted on the VARA’s Joop.nl site, ridiculed a PVV plan to create “hooligan villages”, likening them to a Nazi concentration camp with PVV leader Geert Wilders showing the inmates into a shower. Millions of people, mostly Jews and Roma gypsies, were killed in Nazi gas chambers masquerading as showers.

The VARA says it removed the cartoon after careful consideration, saying that while freedom of expression is a key right some of its staff felt too threatened to continue working. The broadcaster has reported the incident to the police.

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EDL threatens to break with Jewish division over ‘terrorist’ links – JTF leader blames ‘elements in the EDL who desperately want to be accepted by the leftwing establishment’

Roberta Moore with Jonathan HoffmanThe leadership of the English Defence League has distanced itself from the group’s Jewish Division, because of its partnership with the far-right American group Jewish Task Force.

The head of the EDL’s Jewish division, Roberta Moore [pictured, with Jonathan Hoffman], previously announced that the group was working with the JTF, whose leader Victor Vancier has been imprisoned for terrorism offences.

This week the EDL’s leadership issued a statement saying that if the Jewish Division continued relations with the JTF, they would sever ties with her. It said: “A member of the Jewish Division this week decided to link herself with terrorist organisation JTF. This was the decision and wishes of one single individual within the EDL, and does not mean that the EDL is linked with this movement.

“If they [the Jewish EDL] continue with their plans to forge links with the terrorist JTF, the EDL will have no option but to sever its links with the Jewish division as we cannot support terrorist sympathisers.”

But Ms Moore said she was determined to continue the affiliation. She said the EDL leadership who had released the statement were “complete idiots,” adding: “I have put my foot down; I am the one in contact with the JTF. If some people don’t like it, then screw them. There are lots of Jewish people very upset that the EDL put out that statement – and I haven’t received any personal messages telling me to cut off contact with Victor.”

However, the EDL made it clear that they and Ms Moore were at odds on the matter. A spokesman said: “The EDL never has and never will have any affiliations with the Jewish Task Force. Unfortunately Ms Moore has caused a great deal of trouble and unrest within the EDL because of her gung-ho attitude.”

Victor Vancier spent five years in prison from 1987 for 18 bomb attacks against Soviet targets in the US to protest against the treatment of Soviet Jews.

He posted on the JTF forum: “There are elements in the EDL who desperately want to be accepted by the leftwing establishment and the media. These elements have no principles or courage. Roberta Moore and the Jewish Division represent courageous and noble elements. If the EDL is not willing to work with JTF, then they are rejecting all rightwing Jews, evangelical Christians and others who believe in the right of the Jewish people to the entire land of Israel.”

Jewish Chronicle, 25 February 2011

So, the EDL leadership announced a week ago that the organisation “will have no option but to sever its links with the Jewish division” if the latter continues its connection with the JTF – and Roberta Moore says “screw them”. Well, has the EDL severed its links with its Jewish division, or even with Moore as an individual? No sign of it so far.

See also Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 19 February 2011

And Exposing the English Defence League, 17 February 2011

Update:  The EDL leadership has issued a further statement in which they directly address Roberta Moore: “we don’t approve of your discussions with the JTF. We hope that this was just an error in judgement”. Well, that’s cracking down hard on Moore, isn’t it? Clearly we can rely on the EDL leadership to take a firm stand against any of their members who are found to have links with terrorists.

‘European free speech under attack’ claims Wilders

EDL Wilders posterThe Wall Street Journal has provided Geert Wilders with a platform to re-run his “lights are going out all over Europe” spiel, though suitably toned down in order to present a more respectable image toWSJ readers.

According to Wilders, “Islam is primarily a totalitarian ideology aiming for world domination” and “the Koran orders Muslims to establish the realm of Allah in this world, if necessary by force”, but he indignantly denies that he has anything against Muslims as people.

The fact that he, along with fellow anti-Muslim racists like Lars Hedegaard and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, has been prosecuted for inciting hatred against Muslims represents a major threat to freedom of expression, Wilders claims:

“When I stand before my judges I do so in defense of free speech and human liberty. Freedom is the source of human creativity and development. People and nations wither away without the freedom to question what is presented to them as the truth. There is reason for concern if the erosion of our freedom of speech is the price we must pay to accommodate Islam. There is reason for concern if those who deny that Islam is a problem do not grant us the right to debate the issue. I want to be able to make my case without needing to fear criminal prosecution.”

In Wilders’ world-view, of course, freedom of speech doesn’t extend to Muslims. This is, after all, the man who wants to ban the Qur’an. It doesn’t extend to his leftist opponents either. A spoof anti-Wilders website parodying the official PVV website that was set up by a Dutch anti-fascist group has now been taken offline after threats of legal action by Wilders.

OnIslam interviews Yusuf al-Qaradawi

Qaradawi at Tahrir Square rally

Under government pressures, Egypt’s state television has scrapped plans for hosting prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi following his Friday prayers sermon from Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

“Some government officials considered the Friday sermon too strong,” Qaradawi, the president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), told OnIslam.net in exclusive statements. “They would not bear a second powerful speech.”

Qaradawi delivered the weekly sermon on Friday, February 18 from Tahrir Square, where nearly five million Egyptians gathered to celebrate the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The sermon was broadcast by the state television, Qaradawi’s first appearance on the Egyptian TV in decades.

During the sermon, the prominent scholar called on Egyptians, both Muslims and Christians, to be proud of their country after ousting Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for 30 years. He also praised the armed forces’ position on protecting the revolution, calling on them to open Rafah border with Gaza strip.

After the sermon, Qaradawi, an Egyptian, was invited to appear on the Egyptian television on Sunday on the prime-time program “Egypt Today”. But shortly, the prominent scholar received a phone call from the program’s anchor apologizing for not shooting the program.

“I don’t know who was exactly behind banning Sheikh Qaradawi from appearing on the state television,” a source close to the prominent scholar said. A source in “Egypt Today” program cited “procedural reasons” for banning Qaradawi’s appearance.

Qaradawi dismissed accusations that his weekly sermon aimed at establishing a religious state in Egypt. “On the contrary, my speech supported establishing a civil state with a religious background,” he has told Al-Ahram newspaper. “I am totally against theocracy. We are not a state for mullahs.”

Some critics compared the return of Qaradawi, who has been living in Qatar, to Egypt as Ayatollah Ruhollah Ghomeini to Iran from France after the 1979 revolution. “I only came to celebrate the revolution,” said Qaradawi.

Qaradawi dismissed claims that he was still a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. “I’ve totally defected from the Muslim Brotherhood and have rejected many calls to be appointed as the group’s general guide,” he said. “I hope to serve as a guide for the whole nation and not for a certain group.”

The prominent scholar denied reports that his “guards” had prevented Google executive and activist Wael Ghonim from taking the podium in Tahrir Square. “I have no guards, I only brought my sons with me,” Qaradawi said. “I rejected many requests by scholars to send guards to protect me. Allah is my guard.”

Media reports claimed that Ghonim, who emerged as a leading youth figure in the Egyptian revolution, had been prevented by Qaradawi’s guards from speaking to the celebrators. Qaradawi said he neither organize the celebration nor prevent anyone from going on stage.

“I was surrounded by youth who cordoned me to protect me from the huge crowds,” he said. “I would have been glad if I met this young man [Ghonim] who initiated the 25 January revolution. I have praised him in a TV program when he was released from the prison. So how can I prevent him? I was only a guest in the celebrations.”

OnIslam, 22 February 2011


Meanwhile, over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer is outraged that Qaradawi has called on the Libyan armed forces to turn their guns on Gaddafi rather than the Libyan people.

Update:  Spencer has a piece on Qaradawi at Human Events (“Egypt’s Islamic supremacist is man of the hour”). The depth of Spencer’s knowledge of Qaradawi can be gauged by the reference to “his website IslamOnline.com (which publishes many of his fatwas)”. It has apparently escaped the attention of this self-styled expert on all things Islamic that last year a strike and sit-in took place at the IslamOnline offices in Cairo. Qaradawi intervened on the side of the strikers and as a result the Qatari government removed him from his position as chairman of the Al-Balagh Cultural Society which owns the website. The IslamOnline strikers subsequently launched the OnIslam website (“From the creators of IslamOnline”) which is where the above interview with Qaradawi was published. Qaradawi now has no links with IslamOnline.