When the first video about the so-called Muslim Patrols in Whitechapel emerged on The Commentator website last week, I had, as the media began to latch on to it, the uncomfortable experience of for once tending to agree with Bob Pitt of Islamophobia Watch. His thrust was that it was being blown out of all proportion, something that would only serve to inflame the far right.
In criticising a MailOnline piece, he had this particularly nice line:
Their behaviour was no doubt upsetting for the people they targeted, and hopefully they will be identified and charged with harassment, but if a couple of prats pulling a single Candid Camera type stunt constitutes a serious attempt by Islamist extremists to “control London streets” then words have lost all meaning.
But then he went and blew it. In the same paragraph, he criticised the Mail for linking the “patrol” to Anjem Choudary:
Nor is there a “gang” harassing the citizens of Tower Hamlets over their alcohol drinking or way of dressing. As Richard Bartholomew has pointed out, the “patrol” appears to consist of just two individuals, one of whom is holding the mobile phone with which the video is taken. There is moreover no evidence that they are connected to Choudary’s minuscule band of nutters or indeed that they are part of any “extremist network” at all.
Well, there was: the video featured a “no alcohol” poster used by Anjem’s group. Bob Pitt likes to rant against journalists but maybe he should act like one sometimes. He could have contacted Anjem to ask if he was involved.
I did. I asked Anjem on Tuesday, after The Commentator published the second, homophobic video, whether he knew the group. Yes, he said, and then he willingly gave me the phone number for one of them. I called it but couldn’t get through. It may well have belonged to one of the pair arrested that day.
But then tonight, Sky News has been leading its bulletins on this story, so maybe Pitt was right after all. Is/was there a gang marauding Whitechapel as we’re being told? The police today published a photo of the man being taunted in the homophobic video. They’ve appealed for him to come forward. But it’s rare for them to do that: victims are normally protected from the public glare.
And also this evening, someone has alerted me to an article about all this on the Pink News website. It’s written by an old friend of mine…Wais Islam. He’s styled himself with his usual titles, harking back to his former glory days, ‘former’ being the operative word: “Former Labour councillor and the First Tower Hamlets Olympic Ambassador”. Quite why he feels the need to cite his former Olympic non-but-well-paid job in an article about religious tolerance is anyone’s guess. Delusions of grandeur perhaps?
And quite why the Pink News commissioned a piece from him on inflammatory and abusive language is also baffling. I suppose he does have some experience of it. I hope he’s not trying to weasel his way back into the Labour councillor fold. If so, it’s worth reminding everyone of his anti-Jewish take on my surname a couple of years ago. He said then he was taking a break from politics. Frankly, it should have been permanent.
Anyway, here’s his rather strange article in the Pink News (there’s not much in it about homophobia, I must say.)
In light of recent events in east London, Wais Islam, a former Tower Hamlets Labour councillor, says it’s important to remember the area belongs to people of all ethnicities, sexual orientations and religions.
As a British Muslim I strongly condemn the vigilante patrol group that has caused national outrage by making a video in which they harass non-Muslims with homophobic remarks and by forcing them to throw away their alcoholic drinks on the street as well as calling Whitechapel a Muslim area. I am against the idea of calling the group a Muslim patrol because they do not represent us in any form or with any approval. As a former Labour councillor for Whitechapel Ward and first Tower Hamlets Olympic Ambassador, I found the cowardly actions of these individuals to be totally against the principles of Islam as our Lord, Allah the Almighty says in the Qur’an “let there be no compulsion in religion”.
Such an extremely small minority of abusive youngsters who have no understanding of Islam are simply unrepresentative of the Muslim community. I grew up in Whitechapel and it belongs to people of all ethnicities, cultural orientations and religions. It has more alcohol outlets including bars, restaurants and pubs as well as off licenses than much of Kensington and Chelsea and three mosques only! Whilst there is a large Muslim population in the area living primarily in social housing the majority of residents are non-Muslims, especially with the influx of working people and students. This gentrification does not define it as a Muslim area.
These are anecdotal incidents that are not tolerated by Muslims in the UK and we urge the media not to sensationalise it by giving these vigilante groups too much publicity because their views are neither representative of Muslims in general or Islam which advocates peace and tolerance for the entire humanity. Muslims ruled Spain for over 700 years where Christians and Jews were allowed to live harmoniously side by side and flourish in society. British Muslims are active citizens in British society and condemn such harassment by any vigilante group in the name of Islam. Local religious institutions have condemned it too, not all are mentioned in the press.
What must happen now is that London councils should encourage greater community cohesion amongst disaffected young people of all ethnicities. Tower Hamlets council should demonstrate greater commitment to the One Tower Hamlets community theme. For that to happen, some sort of Youth Cohesion initiative should be launched for Muslim and non-Muslim youths (or Christian and non-Christian youths) to integrate or assimilate more through social and educational activities while preserving their cultural values. Equally, adults should be encouraged to socialise through, say, tea sessions with others from different ethnic backgrounds. Islam has no ethnic barriers so the indigenous white non-Muslims and Bangladeshis and Somalis should mix more in Tower Hamlets.
To avoid the danger of isolating Muslim children from mainstream society and future employment, some Muslim parents should also consider the impact of religious schools (and white parents those of the new free schools) in the borough and how they influence social exclusion for innocent children who should otherwise thrive in secular Britain in terms of economic and academic prosperity.
This incident calls for greater debate on things like whether employers in Canary Wharf are doing enough to recruit local unemployed youth many of whom happen to be Muslim and often feel deliberately ostracised by the glass ceilings created by bureaucracies also in the City of London. Perhaps it is a feeling of isolation that these homophobic, although anecdotal, incidents keep happening which is why it is important to engage Muslim youth in mainstream society. We all have a moral duty towards creating Britain a more multicultural and liberal society where individual orientations are respected by people of all ethnicities and religious and non-religious backgrounds.
As Christianity and Islam are arguably the only two religions in the world that share the same Amen after the Lord’s prayer or supplications for God’s acceptance there’s absolutely no reason why members of both communities cannot continue to live side by side simply because a couple of bigots insult people in East End streets like the EDL because of their perceived ethnic and religious backgrounds. Local residents are saying they want to see Tower Hamlets Enforcement Officers, THEOs, in the area, not ‘theos’!
Wais Islam is a former Tower Hamlets Labour councillor and 2012 Olympic Ambassador.
Trial by Jeory 
Wais makes good points.
Tea talking sessions? Seriously?
Hmm. Firstly I agree that this incident has been talked up Daily Mail style. However secondly, if you link this in a rational, non-paranoid way to the abuse in the public gallery of the council against [for example] Peter Golds, the picture becomes more murky.
That is, I don’t hear the Dear One and/or his followers speaking out loudly against any of this or acting. By not doing so, they allow [to a certain extent] the conditions that produce both of these actions to flourish.
As for the tea parties, that’s frankly ridiculous. For me, there are three keys to integration, actual desire to integrate, English language and ability to make some cultural compromise.
Before all the usual suspects jump on me, yes, I lived in a foreign country for twenty years, was often treated as second class or stupid [because of my limited language skills] and I had-to/decided-to make my way though those various difficulties. For example, LBTH is not, in my opinion ‘helping’ by translating everything, better to concentrate heavily on language skills.
Hugh Barnard1
Do you think that the 2008 homophobic attack on Oliver Hemsley was talked up “Daily Mail style”? A gang of muslims left him paralysed, stabbing him through the spine with a broken bottle. Do you think that 2007 course run by East London Mosque called “Spot The Fag” might have contributed to that attack, or should we just blame The Daily Mail for talking it up? Strange how The Daily Mail called that attack “a random knife crime”, yet when one of the 8 muslims involved was sent to prison for the attack, 30 muslims with baseball bats went directly to that gay bar and beat up the customers inside. How random. How strange the Daily Mail didn’t bother to talk that up too (the gay media suppressed that story too).
I guess you also think that the attacks by muslim gangs on gay bars and gay people in Tower Hamlets over the last 20 years have also been “talked up Daily Mail style”. Yet in 20 years, 90% of the gay bars and clubs in Tower Hamlets have closed down.
There are maps which show where the gay bars were in Tower Hamlets 20 years ago, and where they are now. The remaining gay bars are all on the periphery, where the concentration of muslims is lowest. http://4freedoms.ning.com/group/gays/forum/topics/gay-free-zone-the-ethnic
I’ve lived in this borough for 30 years, and have watched it happen. 15 years ago my street had 7 gay bars within 10 minutes walk; now there is 1. 15 years ago my street had 7 gay households out of 30; now there is 1. And it can’t be simply attributed to gay people not going to pubs anymore, as gay pubs in other areas of London (e.g. soho, vauxhall) have mushroomed in the last 20 years. Places like Camden or Clapham which only ever had 1 or 2 gay bars, still have 1 or 2 gay bars.
Every gay person I know has themselves or has friends who have been queer-bashed in Tower Hamlets. When the European Muslim Research Centre claimed that muslims were enduring “cultural terrorism”, Andrew Gilligan pointed out that there are far more homophobic attacks each year than there are attacks on all religious groups combined.
James I totally agree with you…
To summarise my experiances – one friend of mine got stabbed coming out of the Joiner’s Arms on Hackney Road (he survived physically but the mental trauma still affects him)…another guy as you mention was almost murdered for being gay whilst walking to the George & Dragon. This pub was also “stormed” by a group of Bengali young men who beat up the door man and then threw punches at everyone inside after the ringleader was jailed for that attack. The Black Horse on Commercial Road has closed… many people I know had cars driven at them as they came out of there. The Old Ship in Limehouse has also closed, similar story, it’s customers were targetted, as has The Globe. The White Horse still struggles on despite Rania Khan’s best efforts to have it shut down. The Victoria has also closed. There are more which I don’t know of. The census figures showed that non-Muslims are fleeing this borough and for a long time people have refused to acknowledge WHY. Well this is why.
I have personally come under attack both when in the company of other men and with women… several times around Chicksand Street and Greatorex Street E1 and this is why I never go to these places any more because of the vicious gangs motivated by political Islam, resentment and bigotry. In these instances large groups targeted the small group I was in because we were either “in Bangladesh” or “there’s no need to be gay” (direct quotes) and violently attacked us using missiles and fists. One gay friend almost beat down my door after being chased by two young thugs with knives along Hanbury Street. And then there was the night in 2003 when the Pride of Spitalfields (a straight pub) had a petrol bomb thrown into it mid-session because it was selling alcohol in a “Muslim area” and deemed “haram”.
I think people need to know that Wais Islam means well. His heart is in the right place but his comments are naive and ill-considered to say the least. He seems to be saying that extremism is happening because young Bangaldeshis are not given plum jobs at Canary Wharf and all this can be sorted out with a cup of tea…which is utterly ridiculous. The reaction on Pink News shows the extremely poor reception his letter has had.
The main issue is the principle that “both communities” need to work to live together harmoniously. Now call me a liar but I have not seen gangs of gay men going around attacking Muslims. I have not seen groups of young women out for a drink threatening conservative looking men with beards.I have not seen any outward intolerance towards the Bangladeshi Muslims in all the 15 years I have lived here. Yes, granted, many people do not like them (but there reasons why) and yes there were nasty, sometimes murderous, attacks orchestrated by the National Front in the 1970’s and 1980’s but in the thirty years since then the ball has been quite firmly on the other foot. The violence, hatred and intolerance of non-Muslims has been aided and abetted by idiotic do-gooders within Labour who in some sort of Orwellian prism where “brown legs = good / white legs = bad” have done their level best to either pretend it isn’t happen, divert attention or try to justify it ever since by either saying it’s “because they are poor” or “the gays/slags were provoking it”.
I will be deliberately mix the words RACIST/HOMOPHOBIC because in my view the homophobic attacks are actually a manifestation of vicious racism. The way these groups target every aspect of “white” culture they despise is evidence of this. Simply put, it doesn’t matter if you are gay or not just for being non-Muslim there is probably something you are doing or wearing which “radicals” or rather “Muslim Nazis” disagree with and will make you a target. Gay men are just the easiest target and reduces the number of people in the Muslim community prepared to defend them.
Which brings me to Our Beloved Mayor. His deafening silence on this is DESPICABLE. He should be on TV right now slamming these assaults as vociferously as he slammed the possibility of the Banglatown name change! Where is he? Where are the councillors?? Where is Eric Pickles.
The downright LIES coming from the ELM are infuriating, outrageous and worthless. How can they condemn people who do this when they invite the same people to speak at that mosque and promote it?? What about the IFE which wants to train people to enforce islamic law (their words) and which are literally given office space by the ELM and train people to be intolerant? What about the interconnected Osmani Trust which is training ex gang leaders to do what the IFE plans, currently Abjol Miah can be seen on their website proudly training presumably ex-thugs to be better fighters with sticks. And where does the money come from for all this? It has all come from Our Beloved Mayor out of the pockets of council tax papers. And the police? They are told by the mayor to remove alcohol from people in places like Whitechapel where there are hardly any pubs…this is “creeping sharia” and it must stop.
In my view the two guys who have been arrested are “fall guys” and not the people behind this. They have handed themselves into divert attention from the big fish. In my view Andrew Gilligan has been right all along. In my view this investigation will not even have begun until the day the police are seen carrying out computers from the homes and offices of the mayor and the leaders of the IFE/LMC/ELM and Osmani Trusts.
The LMC/ELM should kick out the IFE from their borough and the good, moderate Muslims we keep hearing so much about should rise up, force Anjem Choudary out of the borough and change the management of the ELM.LMC. An out, gay, male muslim should be appointed by that organisation and given an office in the same building. His security and existence would act like a ‘mining canary’ to warn others of extremism at that mosque and help Bangladeshis having trouble acclimatising to western society get used to it.
Only then we will be getting somewhere.
I am sorry for the long post on this Ted but these recent attacks have been happening on my street and this sort of extremism has touched my life on numerous times before.
Thanks, I was referring to the current incident and not the whole history of attacks, that you highlight. Actually, if you look elsewhere on the web, you’ll find that I refer to Tower Hamlets as a ‘central point for gay bashing’, not something a London borough would normally be proud of. But this is not a ‘normal’ London borough.
However, the way through is not by attacking me [and others] here, it’s by electing enlightened, courageous and even-handed councillors [though I’m not sure where we’d find them, not amongst TH Liebour, for example and, no I’m not a Tory voter, thanks for asking] and, in my opinion, abandoning the idea of ‘mayor’ until the borough has reached some kind of democratic honesty and maturity. I personally believe we need some independents as a way out of the morass that we jokingly call ‘politics’ here.
Secondly, the police in the borough need to act rather than produce smiley celebrating-diversity pamphlets, racing up and down and skulking [except in daylight hours] in their offices. I was mugged last year and found that there were 12 other similar offences in the same small area, perpetrators still uncaught. The only ‘method’ used was looking at feeds from private CCTV cameras. So, actual community level policing, the failed promise of neighbourhood policing would help to bring the threat level down.
Incidentally, I’m not sure personally that we need more bars, either gay or straight, there seems to be enough for the whole of the East End in Shoreditch and now in Dalston. Not too far to go.
Hugh Barnard1
“Incidentally, I’m not sure personally that we need more bars, either gay or straight, there seems to be enough for the whole of the East End in Shoreditch and now in Dalston. Not too far to go.”
So, you are defending the de-gaying of Tower Hamlets. The reason 90% of the gay people in Tower Hamlets have left in the last 20 years, is because it wasn’t safe for them to walk to their local bars. Then the bars started to get attacked too. If you’ve ever seen the 1961 film “Victim” and remember the scared, closeted pub sequences, then that is what gay life in Tower Hamlets has become. The bars that have become gay in the last few years do not have any sign to indicate it, they do not advertise in the gay media that they are gay bars. The customers sit inside looking shifty and not a little scared. One of my gay friends used to catch a bus outside such a bar in Tower Hamlets for years. Until I told him it was gay, he had no idea. When we went there one night for a drink, he told me that the last time he’d been in a bar like that, it was in a profoundly religious and homophobic country, where homosexuality was illegal and had been so for hundreds of years.
You are apparently quite happy with Tower Hamlets becoming entirely governed by sharia law. Muslim groups like Hizb ut Tahrir (who have their conference every year in Tower Hamlets) say that when muslims are in control, sharia law will apply to all, including non-muslims. Looks like you are quite happy with gays being driven out of the sharia-compliant Gay Free Zone. Looks like you are quite happy with people having alcohol taken off them by muslim vigilantes.
Presumably you are not a hypocrite, and you think that this principle should apply to mosques also. Would you condemn the people of Hackney or Southwark if they opposed the conversion of a community centre into being a mosque, with them telling muslims: “go to Tower Hamlets if you want to pray in public”? And if muslims then proceeded to demand and get mosques in Hackney and Southwark, and muslims leaving those mosques were then attacked and left for dead, would you say they had that coming? Would you justify the media covering up such attacks? Or are you a hypocrite?
It is staggering how people are prepared to extend rights to muslims that they will deny to non-muslims. That kind of thing has existed before. It was called apartheid.
Various thoughts on this;
– If it any coincidence that those ‘Muslim Patrollers’ were taunting a single guy out on his own? The word ‘cowards’ springs to mind remarkably quickly and I think they chose their victim with some care that they should have got off so lightly.
– Wais Islam’s piece seems to start well but falls back on the oft-repeated refrain of “it’s not our fault”. It’s interesting that, immediately after commenting on muslim hatred for the white homosexual community, he should start suggesting that Canary Wharf employers should employ more local muslim young people and the local white community should have tea more often with bangaldeshis and somalis. Those communities have, for the last three or four decades, locked themselves away from the local people, forming their own enclaves and ghettos from which behaviour such as that in the video emerges. The Islamic era in Spain to which he refers was an unhappy enough time for the indiginous Spanish people but those invaders were significantly more integrated into society than the UK muslim population we see today, and more tolerant of people who didn’t conform to their ‘norm’.
Attitudes such as Waif islam’s are those that lead to harrassment of homosexuals, and have been allowed to flourish for far too long.
Tim.
>>those invaders were significantly more integrated into society than the UK muslim population we see today
How are you measuring that?
” those invaders were significantly more integrated into society than the UK muslim population we see today, and more tolerant of people who didn’t conform to their ‘norm’.”
What a deluded comment. When the armies of the muslim empire invaded Spain/Portugal, it took them 300 years of brutal suppression of the indigenous people before there was what has become known as “the islamic Golden Age of tolerance”. It perfectly exemplified the islamic idea of peace i.e. there is peace when the enemy is totally subjugated.
And as for the myth of the tolerance of this Golden Age… The first pogroms against jews in Europe were in muslim Andalusia. And the perpetrators of these pogroms were muslims, not christians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom#Medieval Notice how even that Wikipedia article has to contradict itself in that section, blaming Christians for starting the pogroms, when the historical details the article provides shows it was muslims who started the pogroms. The Golden Age of Tolerant Andalusia is a myth. Some jews even state that it was started by 19th century jews as a way to manipulate christian europe into feeling guilty about the way jews were treated in that century (e.g. Bat Ye’or).
Wais Islam conveniently omits Judaism as a religion which uses “Amen”. Unsurprising in view of his past anti-semitic statements.
All Wais is trying to do is burry all the internet search history of him having a foul mouth and a track record of making anti semitic comments. All that on top of his threatening and abusive emails to councillors and members of the Labour Party. It seems to be working. If you google ‘Wais islam’ he’s morphed into the pillar of respectability no sign of anti-Semitism or a potty mouth anywhere.
“Wais makes good points.”
Really? I suggest you read the comments from gay people. Metropolitan gays are probably the social group who best exemplify liberal tolerance (except when they are directly attacked).
Two years ago when muslims declared Tower Hamlets a Gay Free Zone, the left (like Bob PItt) leapt to say “it is all an EDL scam, the EDL did it”.
Even when it was clear that it was muslims who put up the modern-day “Juden Heraus” stickers, the gay community was very tolerant. Go and read the comments on Pink News from the associated articles 2 years ago. They were as hostile to EDL as they were to muslims (even though some of the commenters reveal that they were at a meeting with the police where the “gay leaders” and the police colluded to suppress the informatio about CCTV showing that it was a group of men who left East London Mosque with the Gay Free Zone stickers, thus directly implicating the mosque).
Compare the comments from 2 years ago with the comments from the articles on PInk News last week. You’ll now see barely a criticism of EDL and you’ll even see support for EDL. One of those gay commenters who now expresses hostility towards muslims was among the staunchest defenders of muslims two years ago. In fact, there are people in those comments calling for the deportation of muslims. Some of the comments calling for moderation come from gay people from the EDL.
In 30 years as a gay man in London, I’ve never seen such levels of hostility towards musilms from gay people before. It would seem we have have passed a landmark in this country. The Independent had two articles last week shilling for islam. Even on that liberal/left newspaper, the comments are almost universally hostile to islam and to muslims.
We see non-muslims protesting against aggression and/or discrimination against muslims, but we never see muslims protesting against aggression and/or discrimination against gay people. There is now widespread recognition that none of the post-hoc murmurings about tolerance from muslims are to be taken with any degree of sincerity.
James – don’t forget the harassment is not just of gay people. It is also of white people in general, young men carrying a can of alcohol, unmarried couples told to “move away from Masjid” and young women on their own called “naked animals”… gay men is only one aspect of this and it would be wrong to make it seem that these fascistic incidents are only homophobic when they are actually downright racist.
Grave Maurice, I’m not forgetting the attacks on white people. My mixed-race household was subjected to a vicious racist attack, by muslims who had come out of a mosque. The police were not interested in even coming round to see the damage. I have been very active in the community and have been appalled by the open racism I’ve heard from educated, religious muslims. They are so confident of their control of this borough that they don’t even need to hide their preparedness for racist violence. I’ve heard from different people in the borough (some Daily Mail readers, others Guardian readers) of muslim gangs having closed off public parks of their own accord, and them telling the indigenous population (who can trace their family’s presence in this borough back generations): you can’t come into this park, it’s for muslims only.
I have muslims in my family, I have black people and chinese people in my family, the love of my life was a muslim. I spent all my life working for a tolerant, anti-racist, multi-cultural society, but to see how Tower Hamlets has become a mono-cultural islamic ghetto has made me want to leave and go and live in a white-only area. I see a very dark time ahead, and I don’t want to be living where I will get hostility from the local community and no support from the police. And the saddest thing of all, I don’t think Tower Hamlets is the worst part of London, nor the worst part of England. People who live in ghettoes/enclaves have a very mistaken idea of their own power, and I am certain they are in for a very nasty shock.
The politically-correct have got a lot to answer for. And it disgusts me that the gay media and gay “community leaders” have put concern for the aggressors above the interests of their own people, the real victims in all of this. It’s unbelievable treachery.
Thank you for confirming my views (my few remaining gay friends in the borough confirm them too, but it is nice to have the confirmed by a complete stranger). I love this part of London, but I will be glad to leave it. Even the police advised me to leave.
James makes some valid and salient points. I’d just like to add that the way Peter Tatchell was treated by the Islamic element of protest against the EDL was disgraceful.
His crime? Having a banner that said “Gays and Muslims Unite! Stop the EDL!”
Full story here: http://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/religion/tatchell-gets-muslim-hostility-support-anti-edl-demo
I notice that Tatchell remarks that he could see other people around him who he knew to be gay but they were too scared to let others know. That is what has happened under the weight of islamic-facism. There are a few gay bars in Tower Hamlets that the surrounding population do not know are gay. These bars have returned to being covert, like they were in the 1960s when homosexuality was a crime. They have no sign they are gay, they are not listed in any gay magazine or website, and inside the staff and clientele act as if it was a straight pub. That’s the tolerant, diverse, multi-cultural city we live in? It has gone back 50 years in the last 10 years.
Fifteen or 20 years ago, we would see people on the streets who were (to us) obviously gay. We never see anyone any more who we can identify as gay, even in the coded way in which gay people sometimes recognise eachother. The fear of homophobic violence is so strong that most gays have left east London, and those who remain have gone into hiding.
The comments at Pink News are replete with stories from people who have suffered homophobic abuse and violence in Tower Hamlets. Clegg has just given £214k to a muslim group to generate (supposedly) unreported hate-crimes against muslims. http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/nick-clegg-lets-end-abhorrent-696644 Why aren’t the LibDems doing the same thing for gay people?
(previous version had a typo, please use this one)
@Grave Maurice
That’s utterly, utterly bananas – and not surprising at all that you use the language (“creeping sharia”) of the racist English Defence League: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/16/twitter-users-turned-on-english-defence-league
Obviously any homophobic attacks are disgusting. It is incumbent on Imams, and indeed all faith leaders and everybody in public life, to steer young people away from hatred and discrimination.
That you call ‘The White Swan ‘The White Horse’ suggests you’re not familiar with the area. Indeed, you probably get all your local knowledge from Gilligan’s blog.
Rania Khan hasn’t tried to close the Swan down. It isn’t under threat of closure. It never has been. I fully expect the place to remain open, including the amateur strip night which the issue actually concerned, for years to come.
At last week’s Council meeting, the Mayor used the strongest of language to condemn the homophobic thuggery that took place in Whitechapel.
And none of the culprits are actually from the borough. The police have announced as much. They’re probably ‘reformed’ shoplifters/drug addicts taken under the wing of Al-Muhajiroun (a tiny organisation of about 100 activists, run by Anjem Choudary, that is regularly proscribed and then reinvests itself under a new name).
AM have more in common with America’s Westboro Baptist Church, made famous by Louis Theroux’s investigation – now there’s a proper investigative journalist (and I mean in comparison to Gilligan, not to you, Ted – in that he actually does the research before writing the story rather than the other way around) – in that their lifeblood takes the form of tasteless stunts, loud ranting, unpleasant pickets and offensive placards. They love this stuff for the same reason that Westboro do – it propels them to national coverage and publicity that far outstrips any following, credibility or support they enjoy. And you, my friend, have bought it hook, line and sinker.
Your understanding of the Muslim community and related organisations clearly needs some polishing. The IFE/East London Mosque have nothing to do with Al-Muhajiroun. In fact, Al-Muhajiroun despise the IFE/ELM, and consider them to be apostates, un-Islamic, because they encourage people to participate in democracy.
Homophobia’s not confined to Muslims. It’s (shamefully) quite a British attitude, in fact. Lest we forget that as recently as a decade ago we had homophobic legislation on our statute books.
And your point about police is laughable. If they’re taking alcohol off people it’s to stop drunken, white, non-Muslim thugs beating people up. Camden Town’s a controlled drinking zone. So’s Victoria. Are they part of your “creeping sharia” too?
“And none of the culprits are actually from the borough. The police have announced as much. They’re probably ‘reformed’ shoplifters/drug addicts taken under the wing of Al-Muhajiroun (a tiny organisation of about 100 activists, run by Anjem Choudary, that is regularly proscribed and then reinvests itself under a new name).”
You are making excuses for them. You have no idea of how many people were really involved in this, nor where they grew up, nor where they live. Yet you rush to try to exonerate muslims in Tower Hamlets for it.
That some of these people involved in this current bout of islamo-fascism were not (currently) resident in Tower Hamlets says nothing about the problems gay people in Tower Hamlets have faced for 20 or more years.
The gang who brutally attacked Oliver Hemsley and left him for dead outside a gay bar on Hackney Road were from the other side of the borough (unless you are a racist and you are going to claim they were really from Bengladesh). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8010629.stm Shock! Horror! They were able to travel by car within the borough to carry out their violent assaults.
The people who did the Gay Free Zone were from the borough. Or at least, the only one who the police/muslim community decided should be convicted, was from the borough. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9260207/Extremist-behind-gay-free-zone-posters-jailed-for-possessing-al-Qaeda-literature.html
The muslim man who sprayed homophobic & racist graffiti in Tower Hamlets was from the borough. http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/court-crime/man_jailed_for_homophobic_and_racist_graffiti_in_shadwell_block_of_floats_1_1207710
The muslims who attacked me in my home were consistently in Tower Hamlets whether or not they were from the borough. The stories that Grave Maurice reports are all around Tower Hamlets, yet you want to act as if the people doing these things are coming in from outside.
The muslims who were imprisoned for saying that gay people are to be killed were from Derbyshire. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/20/three-muslims-convicted-gay-hate-leaflets Are you going to say that they too travelled from Walthamstow to Derby to do that?
There are “sharia patrols” taking place in Walthamstow too. It means nothing that some of the current group arrested for what happened in Whitechapel are not currently from the borough. They are attracted here to places like Whitechapel and Walthamstow to do these things, because we have serious problems with islamic fanatics in these areas.
Britain has come a very long way with regards to homophobia in the last 70 years. And in Tower Hamlets in the last 10 years we are seeing that things have gone downhill drastically. 90% of the gay bars have closed here in the last 20 years. That does not seem to concern you. If the attacks on gay bars had been against mosques, left-wing extremists like UAF would have been having demos across the borough. In 2005 Tatchell and some gay muslims demanded that the UAF stop glorifying homophobic muslims. The UAF not only ignored him, they have appointed a man who praises the terrorist al-Awlaki as the chair of the UAF. http://www.petertatchell.net/politics/sacranie.htm
@Oldford1
I am not going to answer you at length but I will answer you.
it is not fair to associate me with the EDL just for recounting the long list of either racist or homophobic incidents which I have witnessed over the decade and a half that i have lived in E1. That is not fair and it is a slur. I was actually quite unaware that the term “creeping sharia” was a trademark of the EDL but I will take your word for it. I just thought it was a good description for the way licensing and policing priorities had been gradually changed since our nightmayor came to power, in particular the curious coming together of proposals to close all the adult venues in the borough (e.g. the White Swan) with the institutionalised harassment of people consuming alcohol outdoors.
Yes I made a mistake accidentally calling the ‘White Swan’ the ‘White Horse’ shortly after mentioning the nearby ‘Black Horse’… yes that was a mistake caused by typing rather too fast and not checking what I had written. I can only assure you that I am extremely familiar with both venues (as well as many other pubs and clubs both straight and gay in my local area) and I don’t feel the need to go into great detail to tell you how/why – I cannot prove I do in quite the same you cannot prove to me that your name’s not ‘Patsy’ so you will just have to take my word for it.
Rania Khan was the face of the “anti smut” campaign which wanted to force the White SWAN to end their “amateur strip” night. The owners of the White SWAN asserted that this was their most profitable event and it may force them to close. You are bein very disingenous by pretending you don’t know that.
Rania Khan’t – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15558334
You seem a little bit too sure that “none” of culprits are from this borough? How do you know this? The point I was making that gay people and people accused of being gay have often been the victims of hate crime in this borough. Do you remember the “gay free zone” stickers? Well the youth prosecuted for putting them up was from POPLAR which unless I am mistaken is in Tower Hamlets.
Mohammed Hasnath – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9260207/Extremist-behind-gay-free-zone-posters-jailed-for-possessing-al-Qaeda-literature.html
I did’t say that IFE/ELM was “anything to do” with Al-Muhajiroun. What I said was that the IFE and Al-Muhajiroun are both Islamist organisations who share aims in common with each other; e.g. the imposition of sharia law in the UK. How they go about doing that, I accept, is different. I think you would agree that the way Harold Shipman and Fred West went about doing things was different as well…
Yes I accept that homophobia is something that exists in most societies but you are stretching that analogy to that absolute limits by suggesting that homophobia in maintstream British society is as virulent or as tolerated as it is in radical Islam of the type propagated in some venues in London. There is nobody in mainstream (non-Muslim) British society saying that homosexuals should be killed. Such views are frequently aired in Islamic society. Sorry, but that is true.
I urge you to watch this video where the editor of Despatches makes his case quite succinctly – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anq7LjMVQwo
I appreciate the considered and thoughtful tone you have taken in responding.
I saw that video a long time ago, I was unconvinced then and I remain so now.
I’m happy to give you the benefit of the doubt over the EDL slogan. But you can see why that stirred me up, I hope. But on your point about licensing policy – you do realise that licensing is one of the two areas (the other being planning) the Mayor has no control over, and control rests rather with the majority Labour group?
I know Rania fronted the anti sexploitation stuff. I don’t expect the White Swan to be affected by that. Only time will tell.
None of the five people arrested over shouting homophobic abuse etc in the street were from the borough. The police have told us that.
You say the IFE “wants to train people to enforce islamic law” and that that is “their words”. Really? I don’t think that’s true. Where have they ever said that? I think those are not their words. I looked them up, to check if I’d been wrong and found this: http://www.islamicforumeurope.com/images_uploaded/2008/12/img3027.pdf
It may well be that you feel that their mission statement is disingenuous, and they are secretly campaigning to have a sharia state in Britain, or even that they are secretly training people to enforce sharia. But that is another matter – these are suppositions, and allegations – very different to Al-Muhajiroun who clearly do want that.
I am also happy to accept your word about local knowledge. You can hopefully see why I get frustrated when people who know nothing about this borough start slating poor racial and religious minorities who live here, based on hysterical smears on Gilligan’s blog. I actually think it’s quite good that we have a Mayor who commands the respect and support of the large Muslim community, and is not afraid to condemn disgusting attacks like these in the strongest of terms (as he did with the offensive and criminal gay free zone posters) – and speak up for LGBT communities too. (http://mayorlutfurrahman.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/east-london-gay-pride/)
@Oldford1 – thanks for your reply. You raised one issue which I will elaborate a little on. You said:
“You say the IFE “wants to train people to enforce islamic law” and that that is “their words”. Really? I don’t think that’s true. Where have they ever said that?”
It is in their words. I am referring to the leaked, secret internal IFE documents as shown to camera by A.Gilligan in Despatches “Britain’s Islamic Republic” which revealed the goals of the IFE, namely, to help create a global caliphate and train true believers to enforce Islamic law, presumably, in Europe.
I have faith in Despatches as a reputable investigative programme. i do not believe they invented or created these documents themselves and then made out they were IFE documents. if this was found out Channel 4 could land in exceedingly hot water…OfCom have also upheld the programme’s contents. I urge you and others to read this transcript which goes into great detail and cites various primary sources on the IFE:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100060409/britains-islamic-republic-full-transcript-of-channel-4-dispatches-programme-on-lutfur-rahman-the-ife-and-tower-hamlets-the-full-transcript/
Muslims are being attacked and demonised across the country for simply following teachings of the Abrahamic faiths (which is allowed in this so-called ‘Christian’ country). Abroad, Muslims are being murdered in their millions for our greed and over reliance on oil. Muslims are the real victims in the UK.
“Muslims are being attacked and demonised across the country”. Really? Let’s see your evidence. At the moment, you are simply an apologist for homophobic violence by muslims.
Whilst we all know about the deplorable Stephen Lawrence case, these murders of white men by racist muslims are as bad (if not worse) and yet most people in Britain know nothing about them.
Ross Parker – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Ross_Parker
Kris Donald – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kriss_Donald
Gavin Hopley – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-100826/Police-fear-new-riots-white-youth-dies-fight.html
William McKeeney – http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-laborer-murdered-in-racial-attack-by-two-young-Asian-men-in-Glasgow—VIDEO-172866211.html
Considering that muslims are only 1/20th of the population, you ought to be able to come up with 19 comparable racist murders of muslims for each of these murders of white men by gangs of racist muslims. I’ll bet you can’t get anywhere close to that.
Every one of those white men should be remembered in the same way that Stephen Lawrence is remembered. But instead, we have politically-correct idiots insisting that only muslims are victims, in the very week when The Met are warning gay men and women to expect more muslim vigilante attacks in Tower Hamlets. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9830281/Muslim-vigilante-gang-attacks-could-escalate-police-warn.html
The millions of innocent mothers, fathers and children murdered in Iraq and Afghanistan so that you have the liberty to buy (stolen) crude oil and travel into town to have a night out, drinking and laughing with your mates – that statistic is i n c o m p a r a b l e .
Note: killing another human being (unless possibly in self defense) is wrong in all the major faiths, so you branding them ‘Muslim/ Jew/ Christian’ is wrong.
“The millions of innocent mothers, fathers and children murdered in Iraq and Afghanistan so that you have the liberty to buy (stolen) crude oil and travel into town to have a night out, drinking and laughing with your mates – that statistic is i n c o m p a r a b l e . ”
I see. So gay people are to be sacrificed over British foreign policy. Even when the muslims attacking us make no reference to Iraq? Thank you for proving you are a callous monster who will do anything to defend the most atrocious behaviour by muslims. And what have British muslims got to do with Iraq? Are you some kind of racist, who thinks all muslims are one entity? We keep being told they are diverse. Yet here you are saying: an evil served on one muslim can exonerate muslims elsewhere for the evil they do. And that they can take their revenge out on gay men who may even have been opposed to the war in Iraq!
You are a monster. Are you saying that we non-muslims should be allowed to kill muslims in Britain, because muslims in Nigeria are killing christians, and muslims in Thailand are killing buddhists? Or do you only offer this to muslims?
Saddam must be chuckling in hell, knowing he has the support of a useful idiot like you. He used chemical weapons to gas other muslims, don’t you know. And the only person to speak out about that in 1990, was the Tory Emma Nicholson. Yet you would rather he was still in power.
“Note: killing another human being (unless possibly in self defense) is wrong in all the major faiths, so you branding them ‘Muslim/ Jew/ Christian’ is wrong.”
Considering the gay people hanged in Iran, the women stoned in Somalia, and those beheaded in Saudi Arabia, I’d say that you have some fantasy version of islam. I suggest you read the koran. Surah 9:5 says “kill the unbelievers wherever you find them”. Manuals of sharia law are very clear: they say that homosexuals are to be stoned to death.
Your fantasy view of the world has a tangential relationship with reality.
Ha! That comment is so deluded it amused me!
Please keep going Lolita. We need some more comedians ’round here.
Tim.
You’re so Islamophobic, it’s unbelievable. I didn’t make any reference to what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, so as long as they are not paedophiles or perverts.
I notice you failed to provide 19 instances of gangs of white men involved in racist murders of muslims for each of the instances I provided of the opposite.
You can lecture me on “islamophobia” after you’ve shown that there has been far more racist violence perpetrated on muslim men than on white men.