Tone down the shrill

The following message was sent out yesterday by Nick Lowles of HOPE Not Hate, an operation which is closely associated with the popular anti-fascist magazine Searchlight.

I have expressed my own reservations about Searchlight more than once. These are to a large extent based upon my personal experience as a former fascist with a story to tell, who still finds himself on the receiving end of Searchlight-inspired attacks in spite of my unconditional and unambiguous rejection of racism and the far-right over a period spanning nearly two decades.

My concerns that this behaviour suggests a political agenda beyond anti-fascism (in my case for organisational rather than ideological reasons I have traditionally found myself at loggerheads with the Labour Party in a strictly local context) are routinely pooh-poohed, but no other explanation for the group's remoteness and hostility has ever been forthcoming. So, as is my wont, I work alone.

Nevertheless the concerns expressed in the letter below are very real, and in my view deserve as much publicity and support as they can get:

"Last week Det Supt John Larkin, head of the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, told the BBC that the activities of the English Defence League were pushing young Muslims towards Islamic extremist groups. His words echoed my recent blog where I said that the EDL and Muslims Against Crusades needed each other to justify their own existence - they were two sides of the same coin. It is a position you agreed with. Over 1,100 of you filled in our survey last week and 96% agreed with my analysis. Only 2% disagreed.

"If extremism breeds extremism it is also important to identify those who are fuelling this hatred in the first place and 73% of you told us it was the media. As a result we are launching a campaign for responsible journalism and have identified the Daily Star as our first target.

"I have written a letter to the newspaper's editor Dawn Neesom and I want you to co-sign it with me.

"We have gone through back copies of the Daily Star since Dawn Neesom became editor in 2003 and found hundreds of articles that portray Muslims in a negative way and very few where they have been portrayed positively. Many of these articles over-exaggerate the importance of tiny Muslim extremist groups while ignoring more mainstream Muslim opinion and use the words of these extremists to smear an entire faith. On other occasions they print inaccurate or slanted articles that whip up fear and mistrust.

"I conclude my letter by saying: 'Freedom of speech is correctly the cornerstone of British society but with freedom comes responsibility and we fear that your reporting is actually encouraging a growth in Muslim extremism in this country'.

"Will you tell Dawn to tone down the shrill?

"Our message to Dawn is simple: by all means be critical, by all means condemn, but do so with responsibility. At the moment you are overstepping the mark and you are encouraging division and hatred. And, as Det Supt John Larkin points out, this hatred is breeding extremism.

"Join us in telling Dawn and the Daily Star to stop being part of the cycle of hate.

"Thanks, Nick"

Us (the British) and them (the Muslims)

Reproduced with acknowledgements to Minority Thought.


The front page and main story of today's Daily Express is a clear and unsubtle attempt at maintaining the "us and them" mentality which is so often levelled by that paper against Muslims:


The headline refers to the shouts from "a group of men" (according to the Mail) who were sitting in the public gallery during the trial of Roshonara Choudhry, the woman convicted of stabbing Stephen Timms MP earlier this year.

As the Express reports:

"JEERING Muslim fanatics turned an Old Bailey court into a battleground yesterday after an Al Qaeda follower was jailed for stabbing an MP.

"In unprecedented scenes the angry mob chanted 'British go to hell' as would-be assassin Roshonara Choudhry was handed a sentence of life with a minimum of 15 years."

Rather than leading with the story at hand, the sentencing of Choudhry to "life" imprisonment, the Express has chosen to focus on the deranged rantings of a few nutcases in a courtroom instead. (Both the Daily Mail and The Sun have also gone with this angle, but neither has chosen to put it across in as brazen a way as the Express.).

That there are Muslim extremists who say such things is beyond a doubt. However, the Express' decision to make this the key focus of the story, along with the deliberately ambiguous language used in the headline, is an attempt to imply that these shouts are in some way an expression of what every Muslim thinks about the British.

The Express sees Muslims as a homogeneous mass that is in complete agreement with the ramshackle fanatics at its fringes. The headline is a dog-whistle signal for the idea that "Muslims" disapprove of "us British".

Can you imagine, for example, what the Express would have done if the men who broke into shouts of "Go to hell, Britain" were Christians? Would the Express have replaced "Muslims" with "Christians" in the headline? Would they even have mentioned it so prominently in the first place?

I doubt it.

Continuing the theme of rampant hysteria, the Express' article states that:

"The gang, sitting in the public gallery, chanted 'Allahu akbar' or 'God is great' and another demonstration raged outside the court."

"Raged"? Gosh, that sounds dramatic, doesn't it?

Between the Express, the Daily Mail and The Sun, the "raging" demonstration seems to have comprised of at least three poor souls holding particularly unimaginative print-outs:



In their articles about yesterday's events, the BBC and the Telegraph make no mention of the men holding signs outside or of the shouting from the gallery, and the Guardian makes a passing reference only to

"a small demonstration... taking place outside the court."

An examination of The Sun's article reveals the following:

"Security men bundled the ranting bigots from Court Seven after the disgraceful scenes.

"But the three were allowed to continue their poison rants [sic] in the street - yelling 'British soldiers must die'."

According to this, the demonstration outside appears to have consisted of the same men who were shouting in the gallery. Therefore the Express' claim that "another demonstration raged outside the court" seems pretty baseless.

Nonetheless, expect the wearisome English Defence League to seize this stormy teacup with both of their grubby hands.

(Both Tabloid Watch and Enemies of Reason have written fantastic posts on this.)