Civilised Muslim demo in London
Another weekend, another Muslim demonstration in London regarding those wretched cartoons. What with rioting in Libya and now Nigeria and a KFC getting burned out in Pakistan, some people might not have expected a Muslim demonstration at which 10,000 people turned up to be as civilised as the one I attended this afternoon. The demo started in Trafalgar Square and finished at Hyde Park where the coaches awaited the demonstrators to take them back to their home towns. Unusually, the speeches were given first, at Trafalgar Square, and not at a rally in Hyde Park, as there wasn't one. (More: IslamicPolitik.)
When I saw a report on the BBC's website that there was to be another demo in London, I thought it must be a mistake. Another one? I thought we'd had the big demo last Saturday, the one rubbished by Darcus Howe in the New Statesman this week thus:
The opportunists also emerged – the goody two-shoes from within the Muslim community. Their rally was advertised locally and nationally, on the radio and in the papers. They paraded their denunciation of "extremists" just about everywhere. The press speculated that 10,000 would attended; those behind the march predicted 30,000. In the end, a puny 4,000 turned up.
Well, I'm not sure how the numbers of attendees are calculated; do they take some sort of calculation of how many people are in the square at the peak of the demo? In which case, it does not take into account the fact that some people arrive early and leave early, or arrive late. I attended part of last Saturday's demo and arrived late for this one, breaking off after the crush on the way from Trafalgar Square to Pall Mall and rejoining in Picadilly, following a trip to the loo in Waterstone's there. The real figure may well be somewhere in between the official estimate and the organisers' estimate; however, Trafalgar Square's capacity is reduced by the two huge fountains.
The BBC reported on the event and the reader will notice the picture of the guy in the "Soldier of Allah" jacket above the caption "The aim was to highlight mainstream Muslim opinion". Thanks, guys.
The demo actually highlighted mainstream opinion rather better than last week's demo, and certainly better than that one guy. I saw him too, and I don't remember seeing anyone else with such a slogan on his clothing. Last week's demo was organised by the London-based groups (Muslim Council, Muslim Association etc) and had GLA involvement; this week's was by an unknown group, the "Muslim Action Committee", described as "an umbrella body for mosques and community groups", and was an overwhelmingly Pakistani affair. Nobody who was there could fail to notice the preponderance of light brown faces, beards, topies and turbans. The BBC also mentioned that not a single arrest was made.
I got speaking to one attendee who came from Coventry; he told me that some nine coaches had come down from Coventry alone. I was told a far higher number had come from Birmingham. The square was packed. It wasn't like last week, when I was easily able to reach the front (although I got there before the demo had really started, and they were playing nasheed over the PA system; later on, this wasn't possible). This time, I couldn't get close to the stage. The "belly" of the square was a sea of people – or rather of men. The ladies, and there were many of them, were on the raised bit outside the National Gallery.
Contrary to the impression given by the "Soldier of Allah" guy, this definitely wasn't an extremist event. I know this because I know the slogans which were chanted. It was the Pakistani "Nara'i Takbeer, Nara'i Risala" sequence, answered by "Allahu akbar" and "Ya Rasoolallah". The last means "oh messenger of Allah" (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) and the sort of people who turned up two weeks ago with the obscene banners and the "al-Qa'ida-loving toddlers" woudl likely not consider anyone who would address the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) from a distance to be anywhere near the right path, or in some cases, inside the fold of Islam at all. Among the speakers, if I remember rightly, were Ghulam Rabbani (of Minhaj al-Qur'an) and at least two of the sons of Abdul-Wahhab Siddiqi, a well-known Bareilawi shaikh who founded the Hijaz College in Warwickshire.
Anyway, I took a few pictures of the event, and may post a few more, insha Allah, in the near future. I've been going through them all and shrinking down those worth posting so that people won't eat up my whole month's bandwidth on these photos insha Allah.
(1) The TV Screen: showing one of the imams speaking. I could not see the stage anything like as clearly as I could see the screen.
(2) Nara'i Takbeer!: all hands (and banners) raised.
(3) Be Careful With Mohammad (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam): a picture of the podium, the message and the people on it. Not a politician in sight.
(4) From the steps: the square is pretty densely packed! Even the police said attendance was about 10,000, which is credible.
(5) Held up in Cockspur Street: we were held up ages on the way from Trafalgar Square to Pall Mall. The barriers seem to have bottle-necked the demo as you could see from this picture; I have no idea why this was so. As often happens, the crush ended once the demo reached Pall Mall.
(6) Diversity: I said it was a mostly Pakistani affair, but there were quite a few black brothers and Arabs too. Fewer than I've seen at other demos, though, probably because they had less chance to hear about this than about previous demos.
(7)Aashiq-e-Rasool: these brothers are from Oldham, and for the record are not the nasheed group of the same name.
(8)Dark clouds: these clouds look threatening, and may or may not have persuaded the organisers to call off anything they intended to do in Hyde Park. In the event, they marched us down Park Lane, not through the park as has been the case before. In the event, though, the rain didn't pour down as these clouds seem to threaten.
(More photos here.
