Andrew Gilligan and the Islamists in Whitehall

Andrew Gilligan  who was  the journalist at the heart of the ‘sexed up’  Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction furore has written a piece for the Daily Telegraph drawing attention to the way in which figures in Whitehall are promoting closer ties with ‘Islamism’  A ‘senior official’  whom Gilligan names as one Mohammed Abdul Aziz  has written a paper saying that the new Government should build closer ties with the East London Mosque which is ‘one of Britain’s most important Islamist –controlled organisations.’   Like other ‘senior officials and paid ministerial advisers’ Aziz is a sympathiser of Islamism. He is Gilligan reveals, an honorary trustee of the mosque.

No Suprises

No real surprise there then. This incident in which a Moslem with certain views appears to use his position to try to influence public policy in their direction is, one is confident in saying, only the tip of a very large iceberg. Once in positions of influence, are such people not going to use it, even or especially under cover of some other, seemingly beneficent motive?  Of course they are.

Gilligan and Islamism

Gilligan tells us that ‘Islamism is a revolutionary political doctrine, supported by a small minority of Moslems, whose aim is to overthrow secular, democratic government and replace it with Islamic government’. He quotes the words of Syed Mawdudi, its founder: ‘Wherever you are, in whichever country you live, you must strive to change the basis of government and seize all powers to rule and make laws from those who do not fear God.’

Gilligan gets Islam Wrong

Islamism is, says Gilligan, ‘not to be confused with Islam, which is a religion practised by millions of British citizens who have never sought to overthrow anything in their lives.’ Gilligan seems to be unaware of, or chooses to ignore the fact that Islam the religion teaches the overthrow of non-Moslems and their subjection into a state of submission. The Qur’an, the unalterable word of God, is full of such injunctions which are held to be valid by all the major schools of Islamic thought. There is no division of church and state in Islam. They are one and the same. As Bosnia's one-time President, Alija Izetbegovic said in his 'Islamic Declaration,' 'there can be no peace between Islam and other forms of of social and political organisation.'

A Comforting but False View

The comforting view of British moslems purveyed by Gilligan is false. The division between Islamism and Islam which he asks us to accept does not exist.  There is no division of belief about ultimate goals in most of the Moslem population. A much better view is that there is a spectrum of action, rather than a division between those who want to bring about a moslem state in a revolutionary way and those who prefer other means.  Those at one end of the spectrum, the aggressively active end, are the Islamists. Tailing away below them are the majority of Moslems in Britain who, while in line with Qur'anic teaching will the Islamic takeover of the state, prefer a quiet life.

However, even with these latter people, whose focus is on, say, earning a living and / or religious mysticism, the Qur’anic injunctions to resist non-Moslem domination are ever –present, there to rise up when circumstances and /or more active individuals encourage it, however quiescent they might be for the time being. In the middle of the spectrum are those who, in line with the Islamic denial of the validity of Democracy and the moral validity of deceit in the furthering of the aims of Islam, are more than willing to use non-violent methods to bring about Islamic domination. These range from  voting for New Labour and other 'Multiculturalists' to the corruption of the Democratic process - false names on the Electoral Roll and so forth,

Islamists, the IRA and Fish swimming in Water

Exactly the same kind of spectrum could be observed in the Nationalist Population in  Northern Ireland during the recent ’Troubles.’ There, a few activists, the IRA of whatever wing engaged in active struggle against the British administration. They could not have carried on though if they had not swum in the water of support of the Nationalist population. That population even when a large proportion of it was horror –stricken by the methods used by the IRA could like many ordinary muslims about  the London Bombings or 9/11 ‘understand’ why they used them and were ready enough accept what those methods brought politically. They might have disagreed with the IRA about some of its methods but they accepted their aims.

Gilligan finishes his article rightly condemning attitudes to Islamism which have actually encouraged Islamic Terrorism. But he does so by drawing a false and offensive analogy between Islamism and the BNP.

Slandering the BNP?

‘the pity is that there is a highly successful model for quarantining extremism, sealing it off from respectable society. No civil servant would dream of talking to the BNP, or protesting if one of its speakers was denied an entry visa, or as treating it as legitimate representative of white people. Nobody would even think of funding BNP schools. At the recent elections, the racists were routed. Islamism is the Muslim equivalent of the BNP.  Like them it shouldn’t be banned or persecuted - just utterly shunned. Thank God our politicians seem to understand this.’

Gilligan is wrong on a number of counts in this piece of Liberal Fascism:-

1) Unlike Islamists, the BNP is a democratic party which does not nor has it ever advocated the violent overthrow of the  state.

2) The BNP is not ‘extreme’. In fact, it represents a large body of opinion in this country, even among those who vote for other parties, and has done so for years. For example, a Sky  News Poll of April 2005 showed  ‘Widespread public support for many BNP policies  - but less backing for the Party itself.’ Thus :-

a) 6 out of 10 of those questioned supported the halting all further immigration.

b) More than 50%  of those questioned wanted to deny all immigrants the right to bring further members of their family into the country.

3) In an opinion Poll commissioned by the Daily Telegraph in October 2009, more than half of British voters (and that means a much larger proportion of white British voters) said that the ‘BNP has a point in wanting to speak up for the interests of the indigenous white British people… which successive governments  have done far too little to protect.’

4) Even though Nick Griffin’s appearance on ‘Question Time’ was deliberately staged to destroy him, a poll afterwards conducted by the BBC’s Daily Politics show which ‘sparked anger’ suggested that 22% of the population would consider voting for the BNP.

The BNP - a Party with Mainstream Views

All this hardly suggests a party with ‘extreme’ views, if that means the views of small minority on the fringes of a spectrum of views. On the contrary, it suggests a party whose views are mainstream in the country at large, if not among the Political Class. The BNP is indeed ‘a legitimate representative of white people’, just as much as are the 'main' parties and in some respects much more so, whatever Gilligan says. 

But although large numbers of people agree with the BNP many of them don’t vote for it - yet. Why not?

The answer of course is that the Political Class whose views on matters of race, immigration and the desirability of multiculturalism are themselves in a minority in the country but who control Propaganda outlets such as the BBC and the Newspapers, have successfully stigmatised the purveyor of majority opinion, the BNP, as 'extreme.' 

Many vote for New Labour out of habit, because their family always has done so, because they are immigrants and /or out of self-interest because New Labour has bought their votes with benefits. Others vote for the Tories for similar reasons; reasons of habit, self-interest and of snobbery. In our democratic system which favours monopoly. many think that the BNP is a wasted vote, especially in a general election.

The BNP 'Baggage'

Then there is the baggage that some of its supporters bring with them.  But other parties have their baggage and do well.  No, it isn’t so much the baggage or the Policies, it's what’s made of them by Liberal Fascists in the media and elsewhere like Gilligan, who think that the squeezing out of public life of a  Party whose policies enjoy widespread support is the right thing to do.

New Labour for example, is full of Marxists of  various stamps, such as the Stalin- loving Jack Straw whose ideology demands or accepts  violent revolution.  Why do Gilligan, the BBC and the rest of the media not sqeeze  these genuine anti-democrats out of public life?  Answer: Because the Political Class is sympathetic to the aims of Marxism.

5) And there is another point. As noted above, like it or not, Islamists in their objectives if not their methods do represent  Moslem opinion. Even their methods have support. Contrary to what Gilligan suggests, a Daily Telegraph poll showed that 6% of British Moslems supported the July 2005 bombings and that 20% of British muslims admitted to having ‘sympathy for the feelings and motives’ of those who carried out the attacks.  Gilligan’s claim that Islamists are ‘unrepresentative’ is false.

What sort of 'Democracy' ‘contains,’ ‘shuns’ and demonises a party whose policies enjoy widespread public support as do those of the BNP? And a true Democracy must also allow the representation of  the 20% of muslims (the tip of the iceberg, one feels) who say they sympathise with the motives of the July 2005 terrorists. That is the price the country must pay for importing these people.

Otherwise we are living in a fascist state.