Islamophobia

Right now Muslims are fair game. Have heard posts on here refer to them as ‘not like us’ or ‘not having the same values’ or ‘they are taking over the country/imposing sharia law on us’. Also there are the thinly veiled criticisms of Sadiq Khan, the ‘well he would say that wouldn’t be’ or ‘we all know what he stands for’.
If those things were said about any other group it would be game over.
This is a group of people who have been dehumanised and persecuted not only here but across Europe and in the US.
As someone who has Muslims in the family and Muslim friends I hear their fears, none of them go out late at night, or go to see sporting events, especially not football, they wait in the car to pick up their kids from school, and have ‘that conversation’ with their children about keeping their heads down, not rocking the boat because they will be picked on, staying away from any trouble and not saying that they are Muslim unless someone asks. The new generation are even giving their kids names that can be shortened to sound anglicised, and even adults shorten their names to sound more British.
Is a horrible state of affairs.

This article in itself is dangerous rhetoric.

Whitewavemark2

Allira

Perhaps all protests should be banned, then?
That should sort it, shouldn't it.
🤔

But you see that isn’t what the leader is saying is it?

What it is saying is that certain rhetoric heard at the rally was in fact actionable.

That if you replaced the word Muslim with any other minority, it would have ended certainly in arrest.

So - protest by all means - but within the law.

"Everyone who took part, even if simply by showing up and listening, was a bystander to hate; not free speech."

This is the problem.

If taken to a logical conclusion, everyone at an anti-Israel protest march is a bystander to hate thereby anti-semitic.

How many show disagreement?

I completely disagree. There are many reasons why people turn up at protests. Mostly supporters, of course, but that does not mean that they support hate speech.

henetha

"Everyone who took part, even if simply by showing up and listening, was a bystander to hate; not free speech."

This particularly part of the Observer quote is completely wrong, in my opinion.

I strongly agree with that statement.

Anyone turning up at any protest March will of course support what the March stands for.

They were bystanders to hate. They listened to the rhetoric - how many showed disagreement to the racist rhetoric?

That if you replaced the word Muslim with any other minority, it would have ended certainly in arrest

Exactly!

Those who are saying this is “free speech” should just try doing that in their own head - replace the word Muslim with Jew … how does that sit with you?

"Everyone who took part, even if simply by showing up and listening, was a bystander to hate; not free speech."

This particularly part of the Observer quote is completely wrong, in my opinion.

Allira

Perhaps all protests should be banned, then?
That should sort it, shouldn't it.
🤔

But you see that isn’t what the leader is saying is it?

What it is saying is that certain rhetoric heard at the rally was in fact actionable.

That if you replaced the word Muslim with any other minority, it would have ended certainly in arrest.

So - protest by all means - but within the law.

Oreo

TR and his associates are awful frankly, but don’t cast the thousands who turned up to the Unite The Kingdom protest as in the same mould.
The journalist and you are wrong whitewavemark2 it’s too simplistic and skewed a view.

I would respect your opinion more if you could expand and say why it is simplistic and skewed, and why Robinson should be supported.

I'm sure undercover researchers could find out. Isn't that how the story broke before?
It was big news at the time, and will the amount of islamophobia doing the rounds just now, it would be big news again. But there is nothing.

Perhaps all protests should be banned, then?
That should sort it, shouldn't it.
🤔

Whitewavemark2

Extracts from the The Observer Leader with which I entirely agree.

“Last weekend about 110000 people gathered in Whitehall to listen to Tommy Robinson and others spew hatred towards Muslims.

Their claims were baseless and their language abhorrent.

It was also actionable.

If the same rhetoric had been used about people who are black or Jewish there would have been arrests.

Whenever a community is dehumanised by racists it is dehumanised in the same way, with sweeping accusations of violence and menace with no regard for truth or the basic tenet of a just society that no one should be persecuted on the basis of their religion or race.

……………………
The Unite the Kingdom demonstration was a national disgrace.

Everyone who took part, even if simply by showing up and listening, was a bystander to hate; not free speech.

They are helping to spread fear amongst fellow citizens who happen to be Muslim.

Not seeing it that way is no excuse”

You only have to replace the word Muslim to Jewish to understand just how dangerous the rhetoric was.

This should never be allowed to happen again.

Far too simplistic a view ....I can't agree with you

TR and his associates are awful frankly, but don’t cast the thousands who turned up to the Unite The Kingdom protest as in the same mould.
The journalist and you are wrong whitewavemark2 it’s too simplistic and skewed a view.

Maremia

I think some of those hate speech Muslim leaders have been arrested, and one at least deported to the US. Didn't he have a hook for a hand?
Not sure if this sort of racist rhetoric still goes on.

Unless you attend various mosques you will never know.

I think some of those hate speech Muslim leaders have been arrested, and one at least deported to the US. Didn't he have a hook for a hand?
Not sure if this sort of racist rhetoric still goes on.

Yes- hate speech is definitely not confined to one religion. Or one race. It is across the board and singling out one particular race or creed isn’t helpful. I think the UK is better than most countries, not nearly as ‘rascist’ as many Asian countries. They can be and are horrific ( and I am not talking about racism to wards Caucasian born people,either.)

I don't like TR I think he's a racist thug and a shit stirrer.

I would point out however, at times there has been two sides to hate speech, there have been plenty of hate preachers in Mosques who spew out bile, admittedly they won't have the reach that TR has but imagine if other clerics were to influence their congregation in a way that represents a tidal wave of hatred against certain groups.

Recorded by Hansard "Racial Hatred: "Undercover Mosque"
apropos of Channel 4 Dispatches broadcast some years ago.

Lord Thomas of Gresford addressing the HOL:

My Lords, on 15 January 2007, Channel 4 broadcast an episode of its current affairs series "Dispatches" entitled "Undercover Mosque" The programme made by Hard Cash Productions was the result of nine months' of undercover investigations of a number of mosques in London, Birmingham and Derby, where recordings were made of various preachers in action. Copies of DVDs and handouts of their speeches and sermons which were freely available at these venues were also considered.

I shall give a flavour of the nature of this material. The programme included the following At the Sparkbrook Mosque, a visiting preacher was captured on film praising the Taliban. In response to the news that a British Muslim soldier had been killed fighting the Taliban and had been hailed in the press as a hero the speaker declared:

"The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders".

In a Green Lane Mosque internet broadcast, another said of women:

"Allah has created the woman - even if she gets a PHD -deficient. Her intellect is incomplete, deficient"

On gay rights, another recommended the Islamic punishment
"Take the homosexual and throw him off the mountain"

Democratic government was not in favour either. A speaker at the mosque:

"Muslims cannot accept the rule of the kaffir" Kaffir of course is a pejorative name for non Muslims"

"We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule others"

The programme's message was that extreme, anti democratic and unpalatable views were being preached in a number of mainstream mosques and Islamic organisations that claim to be committed to inter faith dialogue.

I remember the programme at the time and found it pretty shocking that there could be such a proliferation of hate speech in a place of worship, surely if similar hateful rhetoric was heard in a Christian church for example, I imagine one of the congregation would have dobbed the Priest in question in. Both the Catholic church and the COE have their fierce critics, and rightly so, the law should apply to religion too. Of course there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then in many respects, but at the time there was a consensus that there were SOME Mosques under a veneer of respectability covertly spewed out this sort of reprehensible rhetoric, whether or not it still goes on, who knows. I've no doubt this would have been one of the issues, along with grooming gangs that TR and his ilk would have capitalised on and whilst I agree Islamophobia exists conversely within SOME sectors of Muslims in the west, I think a Westernaphobia could apply to them.

In summary, I think TR has exploited a lot of disquiet about real issues that haven't always been addressed, not only not addressed but swept under the carpet, because the powers in authority, have tended to put social cohesion above law breaking, and hate speeches/ sermons that denigrate other groups out side the Islamic faith, such as the extracts illustrated above.

That said, I agree that TR whips up fear and hatred and as such, I think he is a dangerous person.