We can’t blame ‘Wahhabis’ for everything
In response to Boris Johnson’s article from 2007 on what he regarded as being ‘wrong’ with the Muslim world, and how Islam itself was to blame for it, the Guardian printed an article yesterday...
Category: Extremism
Shamima Begum: should she be allowed back?
In this morning’s Times there is an interview with Shamima Begum, one of three girls from east London who ran away from their families to join ISIS, or at least live in ISIS territory...
On the “Muslim Luther” fallacy that won’t die
Last night on BBC’s Newsnight, there was a two-minute slot by a Canadian journalist called Graeme Wood, who claimed that the rise of the “Islamic State” was equivalent to the Christian Reformation spearheaded by...
Review: Britain’s ISIS Supporters
ISIS: The British Women Supporters Unveiled from Channel 4 (available for 26 days as of this writing) On Monday night Channel 4 broadcast what purported to be an investigation into a group of British...
How France can really ‘protect all religions’
France ‘to protect all religions’ (BBC News) The French president, François Hollande, has announced that France “will protect all religions” and that Muslims are the “main victims of fanaticism” in a speech at the...
A rail geography lesson for jihadis and journos
Over the years I’ve noticed that a standard tactic of the dishonest journalist or columnist in the age of the Internet is to rely on the geographical ignorance of your overseas audience, most of...
Babar Ahmad should be freed now
Last night, BBC’s Newsnight interviewed Babar Ahmad, the man wanted for extradition to the USA on the grounds of receiving classified information and assisting mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan and Chechnya through his website, Azzam...
Baroness Warsi and Anjem Choudhary: takfir on demand
Lady Warsi: extremists forfeit their right to call themselves Muslim | Politics | The Guardian Baroness (Syeeda) Warsi recently said in an interview with the Guardian that Muslim extremists such as Anjem Choudhary, who...
Review: My Brother, the Islamist
My Brother, the Islamist is a documentary in which a film-maker I had never heard of, named Robb Leach (his home page, incidentally, has no biography or reference to any other work by him),...
Yes, the law DOES apply to middle-class White people
This past week or so, there have been two major news stories in the UK about men arrested for saying things on the Internet that made a strong suggestion of violence that may not...
Idiots insult troops and poppy
This image, by Willie Vass shows Celtic fans displaying a slogan insulting the poppy appeal and British troops over the centuries. While British troops have actually done a lot of bad things in Ireland,...
How much can we blame al-Awlaqi?
So, Roshonara Choudhary, the stupid woman who tried to murder the MP, Stephen Timms, has received a 15-to-life sentence. Today, the Guardian (and probably other papers) printed transcripts of her interviews with the police...
Who’s radicalising who?
Today it was revealed that a report commissioned by University College London, the college where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to bomb a plane from Amsterdam to the USA last December, concluded that he...
Andy versus Maajid
I just watched the online copy of last night’s “discussion” between Anjum “Andy” Choudhary of al-Muhajiroun (which will no doubt have a new name by the end of this week, as the government has...
Muslims versus Anjum Choudhary
Recently the “Muslim extremist” organisation currently trading as Islam4UK — really al-Muhajiroun — announced that they were planning a march through Wootton Bassett, the town just outside Swindon through which the motorcades bring the...
Anwar al-Awlaki: trauma and extremism
Recently we heard that the Yemeni-American Muslim preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki, may have died in air strikes in Yemen, although other reports said he was miles away from where the strikes happened and was safe....
Splitters!
Recently some of us have been debating on Facebook whether to take part in a forthcoming coutner-demo to an al-Muhajiroun front group demo, which was to take place on the 31st. The event was...
Yahya Birt: How not to deal with the Muhajiroun
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...
New Humanist on drawbacks of “Preventing Extremism”
Mills and minarets (New Humanist) A highly interesting piece (and not just interesting in the sense that it’s in this magazine and isn’t full of sneering at religious people) in the New Humanist, published...
Muhajiroun versus Luton white trash
I’ve never cared much for the MuhajiGoons, but seeing this display of “patriotism” by a wannabe lynch mob of Britain’s “finest” made me a bit more sympathetic. They did not seem to be saying...