Then and now
by Scoop Shachtman, 1 February 2008
In the light of the pleas of guilty over the planned abduction and decapitation in Birmingham, here’s what some people were saying last year:
I strongly favour homicidal fanatics being caught, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for long periods. So do most residents of Sparkbrook and Sparkhill, districts of Birmingham that I used to represent in parliament. But I fear that the events of last week - arrests without charge and off-the-record briefings about abduction and decapitation - will make them less enthusiastic about seeing all forms of extremism stamped out. Press has combined with police to make them feel that the whole Islamic community is under suspicion. And they resent it. Although very few of them will ever feel any sympathy for suicide bombers, their alienation from the forces of law and order creates a hinterland of sorts. The terrorists will shelter in the emotional comfort that comes from seeing the gulf widened between Muslims and the criminal justice system.
Roy Hattersley 5th of February 2007
Note that the “West Midlands police held a public relations exercise in the area, distributing thousands of leaflets reassuring Muslims that they were not targeting communities or faiths, but suspected criminals”.
I have met with the family of one of the suspects - whom I know [There’s a surprise]. We all believe firmly that his innocence will manifest itself in due course.
Iraq-style beheadings, with hostages dressed in Guantánamo-style orange suits, may have been planned on British soil - if we are to believe the reports. It is after seeing images of the British hostage in Iraq, Norman Kember, that I recalled my own time in an orange suit and pleaded for his life to be spared and for his release. The irony is that one of the men now held by the police in Coventry police station is the same man who encouraged me to make the plea.
Moazzam Begg February 1st 2007.
“This unfortunate country is moving towards a police state - the laws being passed are wrong and against the traditions of this country,”
Dr Mohammad Naseem February 2007.
Friday 1 February 2008 at 4:05
No suprise from Dr Naseem, given his Islamic Party of Britain’s claim that 7/7 was organised by a cabal of Jews and MI5 security servicemen, or from Mr Comment-is-worthless Begg, whose Maktabah bookshop sold reams of material on how to build theocratic police states.
As Dr Taj Hargey of MECO [ http://www.meco.org.uk/ ] argues, living in denial has become a way of life for such people. West Midlands Police share some of the blame for assuming that Muslims have to be represented by clerical “community leaders” from the biggest mosques: men who therefore must be shielded from criticism, in spite of the fact that their chief interest usually involves maintaining and extending their personal power base. WMP would do far better consulting with Gina Khan:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=287
Friday 1 February 2008 at 10:18
The police are just reproducing the government’s silly and harmful strategy of going through the gateway of “community leaders”. The government seem to feel that “communities” are voting blocks that can be bought from such leaders. I don’t know what the police’s excuse is.
Both need to stop it.
Friday 1 February 2008 at 22:52
I agree that it is detrimental for the police to allow these spokesmen to act as gatekeepers. But I think the communities involved see it as an advantage to have a buffer zone beteen themselves and the police, and this has happened largely at their insistence.
It is the refusal to integrate, and be answerable and responsible as an individual citizen, which has caused the problem. This is one of the aspects which makes the muslims appear to be acting as a state within a state, in which they demand some sort of de-facto diplomatic immunity.