Yahya Birt has posted an article on the incident earlier this week at Conway Hall, London, in which the “Centre for Social Cohesion” (run by Douglas Murray; a Civitas offshoot run out of the same building as the Tory think-tank, Policy Exchange) were to debate the al-Muhajiroun front group, the “Global Issues Society”:
How not to deal with al-Muhajiroun
As he points out, some basic research on the GIS would have resulted in it becoming obvious that they were an al-Muhajiroun front, because among other things, all their previous events had involved al-Muhajiroun representatives. I would agree that a ban would give Anjum Choudary’s gang more credibility than they really deserve, but more importantly, it would not stop their activities, as their antics since 2005 have demonstrated, and Choudary’s relentless media appearances. As for the CSC, more important to them than highlighting the case for a new ban on al-Muhajiroun is to give the hostile elements in the Muslim community a higher profile so as to make Islam itself look more hostile.
Yahya invites suggestions as to how to deal with this problem.
Possibly Related Posts:
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Only a handful come to their demonstrations but they get full media coverage. I sometime think the media have other agenda’s when they give full coverage of their demonstration, programs are made looking at this, they get invited to speak on live television..etc
I see Douglas Murray is milking it over at Cif, getting fawning attention as usual by the commenters
I was there at the cancelled Sharia v UK law debatea and wonder who the extremists really are.
I was there and would have preferred the debate to have gone ahead rather than having it stopped on the spurious grounds of infringing the rule of non-segregation.
If only someone had the presence of mind to ask those who were against and for segregation to raise their hands as well as those who didn’t care, and resolved the matter by a democratic vote, even if it meant that the segregationists would have had the day, since they were in the majority.
Not being an extremist trying to make a point, I was actually happy where I was.
It was a trumped-up reason to stop the meeting, and an opportunity was missed to have these Muslims explain to us how and why their version of Sharia is so perfect and beautiful, and for Douglas Murray and anyone else to challenge this.
If they were hiring and paying for the hall, it behoves those who wished to attend what was after all a free meeting to abide by their rules.
To do otherwise would have been an abuse of hospitality.
If invited to someone’s house and asked to remove my shoes before crossing the threshold, I would do so without hesitation and with good grace, even if it were my custom to sleep in my boots in my own home.
It is after all only good manners.
“If invited to someone’s house and asked to remove my shoes before crossing the threshold, I would do so without hesitation and with good grace,”
Actually, al-Muhajiroun had gone into someone else’s house under false pretences and tried to impose their own rules. The democratic response would actually be to divide the hall into three sections: one part for men who want to be segregated, one part for women who wnat to be segregated and one part for people who don’t care.