Jumping The Queue
I was irritated to see the images of John Reid's speech on the news last night, but for once, it wasn't the Home Secretary who was the main target of my ire. The two Islamic gentlemen (I use the term guardedly) who decided that their views were so important that they had to be heard in the middle of John Reid's speech were the ones who raised my blood pressure. Just like the Greenpeace protestors who climbed on to John Prescott's roof, these men seem to think that they can jump the queue; that simply by shouting the loudest they will prevail. It is a worrying trend, and one that should be put a stop to.That won't happen, though, while the actions of our media remain the same. I listened to Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show this lunchtime, where a man named Anjem Choudury was arguing very angrily with a young Muslim female, and Mr Vine to boot. It wasn't until I turned to Laban Tall's blog this evening, however, that I realised that Mr Choudury was one of the men who had jumped up to shout abuse at the Home Secretary.
This really surprised me, because when anyone tried to interrupt him on the show today, he complained that his "freedom of speech" was being denied. Never mind the fact that he didn't feel he was imposing on the freedom of speech of the Home Secretary yesterday. Nor did the irony of his statement that "the Home Secretary should be free to talk anywhere in this country" strike him, when yesterday his chum had shouted "how dare you come to a Muslim area?" The man, quite simply, is a hypocrite and a boor, and the BBC shouldn't be giving him the time of day.
At heart, the political ideology espoused by this man is poisonous. He admitted that he considered his loyalty to fellow Muslims to be stronger than that to the law of this country - so that if bomb plots were being hatched, and he knew about it, he wouldn't go to the police. He attacked the woman who had been put on the show alongside him, saying that she was obviously non-practising because she hadn't covered herself, and had come on to the show "half-naked". The point was swiftly rebuked by Vine as well as the panellist, but that didn't seem to stop Choudhury labelling the woman a "sinner".
These men, quite simply, are scum. They espouse political views that are totally abhorrent to what we believe in a free society. They claim the mantle of democracy and freedom of speech when it suits them, but their words and their actions show that they don't actually believe anything of the sort. They're not prepared to face up to community responsibilities - they believe only in the imposition of sharia law, and they will take on any mantle they can to further that aim. They claim to believe in human rights, such as the freedom to spread bile left, right, and centre, but when it comes to, say, allowing women to wear what they want, then their strength of feeling dissipates.
As much as it pains me to agree with John Reid, he was absolutely right when he asked parents to keep an eye on the activities of their children. The fact of the matter is simple - the terrorist threat is one of Islamic fundamentalism. When you get the vox pops with people asking questions like "why aren't they saying the same things to Christians, to Jews, to Hindus?" people seem too scared to give the simple retort. Only Muslims are blowing themselves and countless others up. And if the Muslim community isn't prepared to play its part in stopping that, there are serious, serious problems ahead.
posted by Ken @ 11:10 PM
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