I Intend To Escape ......................And Come Back

The Tommy Robinson Show

Some comments on last nights Proud and Prejudiced documentary on Channel 4, which profiled local Islamist Sayful Islam, and English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, in their home town of Luton.

Whenever I want to know about events in Luton, I usually phone some of the old Class War members in the town. After the 2009 booing of the Royal Anglian Regiment by Al-Mujihiroun I was quickly told that shariah was not about to be declared in the town "its the same 20 idiots who have been giving out leaflets in Luton town centre for years".

The description of Tommy Robinson is also one that has stayed with me:

"The problem with Tommy Robinson is that you and me could do Tommy Robinson far better than he does Tommy Robinson" - in other words the act of merely being opposed to Islamist extremism is good, but not what it could be.

In last nights programme, he probably did Tommy Robinson as well as it ever could be done. At times his arguments were sophisticated - talking (albeit clumsily) about that must uncomfortable of subjects demographics for example. Claiming that multi-culturalism has not failed, it is just religion that has failed, outflanks at a stroke a whole series of political actors from David Cameron and Angela Merkel to Nick Griffin (who was grumbling away on Twitter about that very point)
The claim that multi-cultural society actually works pretty well save for areas like Bury Park is one with its adherents - all usually unrepresented by mainstream political discourse.  The difficulty is that including most EDL members in those with a broadly positive view of multi-culturalism is being generous.

Sayful Islam was interesting in that his focus was on his religion and obtaining shariah. We should be wary of those trying to style al-Mujihiroun and its successor groups as solely political actors - their goals and the core of their practice are religious, and they are just as much a part of British Islam as its nice, cuddly adherents that get invited inside the big political tent. Whether they remain a tiny minority remains to be seen - as on any issue it is all to play for in the future. 

There are plenty of criticisms to be made of Proud and Prejudiced. Whilst Robinson's racism eventually bubbled through the surface in his stupid comments about Anders Brevik or as he fled from to Limehouse to avoid arrest, the EDL's proposed hook up with those well know purveyors of multi-culturalism the British Freedom Party went unexplored. It is possible that may well be the death knoll for the EDL - social movements tend to lose some of their magic when they enter into the formal political arena.

Equally Tommy Robinson was allowed to make the curious claim he had been to a BNP meeting in 2004 but was unhappy at them not admitting black people (presumeably from Luton's football firm) yet the EDL's origins in those who provided security for Luton BNP meetings has been well discussed by the likes of Larry O'Hara in Notes From the Borderland magazine. Disappointingly Qadeer Baksh from Luton Islamic centre was styled as a 'moderate' - compared to how Sayful Islam presents himself he may be, but they could just as easily have been portrayed as  competing sides of the same Salafi coin. Indeed some of the deeply unpleasant views circulated from Luton Islamic centre are in the public domain.

I have long argued that the EDL are a distraction from what will become one of the big issues in British public life - the role - if any - for Islam in this society. Those debates will intensify - with or without Tommy Robinson.

 

The British Liberal and Religion: A Paradox

Battling through yesterdays Telegraph Review, I came across a two page feature on Lloyd Newson's "Can We Talk About This" a dance production scheduled to run at the National Theatre from March 9th to 28th.

Newson's work looks at the clash between Western values of freedom of expression and the rise of Islamism in the West, and covers the era from the Rushdie affair to the murder of Dutch artist Theo Van Gogh. What struck me about the article was how closely Newson's experiences matched some of my own, both around the British left and within academia. He states:

"A lot of my liberal friends are very happy to criticise Catholicism, Christianity and Judaism but when it comes to Islam, it feels as though all the same principles are disregarded."

And that is one of the great paradoxes of our age......

Still Looking Into The Shadows: Lobster Issue 62 – December 2011 Reviewed

I was a fanatical reader of Lobster, the UK’s first journal of parapolitics, which ran in print form from 1983 to summer 2009. 

Since that winter it has been available twice a year as a downloadable pdf, something that I must admit rather cooled my enthusiasm. You can’t read theory on line, indeed I would go as far as to venture that you cannot read seriously online.  A few articles, a newspaper piece, a blog update – yes, but anymore than that does not seem to work. If someone bought me a Kindle I would give it back, even though deep down I know that we will all, eventually, be bounced into buying them by certain titles only being made available in that format.

Online Lobster is perhaps a curious beast. Issue 62 opens without any contents page or opening comments from editor Robin Ramsay, although the titles of the articles are listed on the front cover. The large font size makes it easier to read on-line, but is less practical for someone who quickly wants to print an article, or the whole thing, out. Don’t try this at home, as the saying goes.

One of the characteristics with this issue of Lobster is how Political (with a capital P) it is. The first two articles – William Clark on what he terms the ‘Cuntocracy’ and Dr T.P Wilkinson on the Tottenham riots and the era of George Soros shout at you in a way the print Lobster rarely did. Throw enough darts and you do eventually hit the bullseye – Wilkinson’s second article, on the manufactured figure of President Ronald Reagan contains a marvellous aside about Barack Obama’s lack of any political history. To see Obama as a synthetic figure, mentioned in the same breath as Reagan, is long overdue. Of Obama’s Presidential campaign, Wilkinson talks of a man “whose entire campaign relied on the illusion that there was a mass movement to which he did not even belong” (p.21) – has anyone summed up Obama better?

Some articles are still pure Lobster. Take T.J Coles on how the RAF attempted to interfere with the weather, leading to suggestions the Lynmouth flood of 1952 was man-made. This leads into a much wider consideration of weather modification as a method of warfare, and the restrictions that have been placed upon it. Old stagers also remain – Corinne Souza appears to have been writing on spook PR since I was in short trousers – although by covering the arrival and departure of Gadaffi’s spymaster Moussa Koussa she brings back to our attention a murky period in recent MI6 history. 

It is still the case that the most cogent pieces in Lobster are those written by editor Robin Ramsay. His assessment of twenty plus years of the UK’s ever changing relations with Libya rather falls flat however  – it is too short and ends before it gets going. Better is his analysis of the economic crisis and the problem it presents the Labour Party, which for a good 25 years has accepted the City as a force for good, and manufacturing as so ‘last century’. I had long forgotten Labour’s Bryan Gould – Ramsay takes us back to 1987 and Gould’s analysis which called for tougher action against bankers, and a Labour economic strategy in support of the domestic economy as opposed to the international. Gould’s arguments fell and stony ground within Labour (even though he had the initial interest of Neil Kinnock) and he eventually took his bat and ball home to his native New Zealand. Perhaps it is time Gould himself, or someone close to him, re-released his analysis? Those on the Labour left, such as Owen Jones, who at least appear interested in thinking differently from new Labour orthodoxy, may wish to consider it.

 View From the Bridge remains Lobster’s highlight. Ramsay’s asides are often spot on politically, and as a source for stories you may have missed in the previous six months, there are few better. Importantly Ramsay is aware – on topics such as Carroll Quigley or the Bilderberg Group, that material can be ‘contaminated’ by conspiracy theorists, but that does not mean the issues themselves should be ignored permanently.

 Here there is – at last – critical comment on the passing of Prof Paul Wilkinson, the doyen of UK Terrorism Studies researchers. Ramsay may not always have the energy to pick through contemporary issues, but when stirred on past events is often exemplary – his recall of Wilkinson’s role in smearing army whistleblower Colin Wallace brings much needed balance to some of the hagiographic obituaries since Wilkinson’s death in 2011. That Wilkinson lost his role as terrorism analyst to ITN for trying to foist dodgy information about Wallace onto Channel 4 should not be forgotten. 

Elsewhere Tom Easton reminds us of the importance of alumni of the British American Project to not just the Labour party but the BBC, whilst the book reviews either make you want to go out and buy the book (Robert Green’s book on his aunt Hilda Murrell) or make you wonder if the reviewer could be bothered to read more than the introduction (Anthony Frewin on Mark Olden’s Murder In Notting Hill). John Newsinger’s analysis of former BP Chief Lord Browne saddens and infuriates at the same time. How many students, struggling to pay tuition fees, know the lineage of the man who headed the Committee employed to draft higher education reforms?

The review of Ken Livingstone’s memoir prompts the (probably accurate) assessment that he will leave no real legacy, something Simon Matthews explains – at least in part – to the political commitment Livingstone and others have had to regionalism, as opposed to a civil service/Treasury Home Counties domination of our politics. Matthews has the basis of a good future article in that very argument, yet it is worth noting that new Labour tried regionalism, with a referendum on a North East regional parliament – and it was soundly defeated.

In conclusion, if you can cope with reading a download rather than an actual bit of paper, Lobster remains important, with food for thought on (most) of its pages. I would still prefer a magazine though…..

 

Everyone Was Kung Fu Fighting

I was too young for the Kung Fu craze which swept the UK following the release of Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon in 1973. 

I was probably 30 when I first saw the film, and was amazed how good it actually was - there is a plot, there is politics, and there is action. On Radio 4 at 1100 on Weds 22 February Jolyon Jenkins looks at how popular Kung Fu briefly became in Britain, although it seems in most cases this was not neccesarily a search for enlightenment............

Anti-Fascism In Nazi Germany

Of all the anti-fascists to make a stand, perhaps the bravest are those who did so in Nazi Germany.

Jean Julich was one of the Edelweiss Pirates, teenagers who rebelled against Nazi society, and physically fought the Hitler Youth, at great cost to themselves. Jean died in October last year aged 82, but I have only just come across this excellent obituary from the Telegraph of 7 February 2012. It is a tremendous testament to the ability to resist.

The 'Independent' Police Complaints Commission: An Apology of an Organisation

The quote below is a couple of weeks old, but nothing sums up the IPCC more than its practice.

As an entity, it should not have survived the De Menezes affair in 2005. It then proved itself incapable of dealing with the killing of Ian Tomlinson in 2009. Come the shooting of Mark Duggan by the Metropolitan Police in August 2011 - hey what a surprise, the IPCC was in over its head. To know why, we should perhaps consider the quote below, from Andy Halliday, the team manager of the GB Men's Hockey team. Halliday was formerly a public order training and firearms training instructor with the Metropolitan Police, and was part of the team of officers who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station in 2005.

Profiled in The Sunday Times on 22 January 2012, Halliday said this:

"It seems extraordinary, looking back, that I had my interview with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), where I expected a grilling for a number of hours on the Menezes case, on the same day in 2005 as I had my interview for the England hockey under-21 manager. I was in with the IPCC for about five minutes and I was with hockey for about an hour and a half thoroughly grilled by the performance director. "

So the IPCC spoke for just five minutes to an officer who entered the tube train where De Menezes were shot, and he faced tougher grilling for a job teaching jolly hockey sticks.

The IPCC should be abolished.

Ziauddin Sardar and Hajj Diplomacy

I spent an excellent afternoon yesterday at the British Museum's exhibition "Hajj: Journey To The Heart of Islam".

Going at half-term was possibly a mistake - the event was clearly at maximum capacity, but I just about got to see everything. If you go, I would recommend getting the exhibition's book, edited by Venetia Porter. Coming in a at a whopping £25 in the museum bookshop, it is a more agreeable £16.32 on Amazon, and contains pretty much everything in terms of pictures, artwork and analysis that you see as you go round.

Amongst the chapters we have British Muslim intellectual Ziauddin Sardar weighting in with the "Hajj After 1950". This period sees the rapid expansion of pilgrimage, as factors such as the development of the jet engine and coach travel, the Islamic resurgence and Saudi oil money dramatically alter both supply and demand.
Anyone who has read Sardar's excellent "Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim" will be aware of his work at the Hajj Research Centre, carrying out analysis on the effects of millions of pilgrims travelling to Saudi Arabia. The work of these British exiles briefly brought them into conflict with construction company the Bin Laden Group “as zealous in its development work as it was in its religious outlook” (p.133) In time Sardar was to be repelled by the commercialisation and over-development at the country’s religious sites.

As might be expected from an exhibition sponsored by (amongst others) the King Abdulaziz Public library in Riyadh, there is no mention of the Bin Laden group's sterling work on re-developing Mecca. And whilst Sardar's chapter tells us much about concern for the environment, or new extensions and development work to the Kingdom's religious sites, and even the Saudi Princes overseeing such work, there is diplomatically no mention whatsoever of the company who actually did that work.

The Bin Laden group is placed, for western public consumption at least, firmly behind the scenes.

 

Fighting Back: Race and British Boxing

Clare Balding is on Radio 4 at 1345 on Wednesday 15 February presenting Fighting Back - an examination of the relationship between race and boxing in the UK.

There is much to discuss - how many people know that as late as the 1930s the British Boxing Board of Control sometimes operated a colour bar?

An Anti-Fascist Archive

A new blog to check out is Anti-Fascist Archive, which looks to bring together historical documents from the militant anti-fascist tradition in the UK.

Posted at the moment is a video promoting the Anti-Fascist Action book Beating The Fascists, the old BBC2 documentary on Anti-Fascist Action from 1992, local anti-fascist bulletins from Manchester and Leeds, several issues of the Manchester United fanzine Red Attitude and a full set of Fighting Talk, the journal of Anti-Fascist Action.

I have most issues of Red Action from when it became a magazine, but only two or three copies of Red Action the newspaper. Whilst the small font on the centre pages used to give me a headache, I would like to read some old RA papers. Lets hope they follow!

Of Greens, Deep Greens and Terrorism

In the 1990s, the UK, very briefly, enjoyed a unique period in its modern history.

For a little while at least, Britain appeared to lack an enemy. Communism had been defeated, collapsing in on itself. The Irish peace process, whilst experiencing fluctuations was at making the possibility of a world without Northern Ireland terrorism possible. No one had heard of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and few, outside of Foreign Office Arabists or his London associates, of Osama Bin Laden.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some began to look rather crititically at the police Special Branches, and in particular at the domestic security service, MI5, and the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Who were these guys? What did they get up to? And how did they manage to spend so much of our money doing it? Whether related to such questions or not, these actors suddenly began to branch out, offering their expertise in other areas. The danger of emerging Russian organised crime (to take just one example) was presented as a mortal threat to our communities, and MI5 began to target alleged British gangsters such as Paul Massey in Salford. 

Suddenly we were being told in the media that the UK was awash was the potential threat of domestic terrorism. Be it from the far-right (who remembers Combat 18?) from the Animal Liberation Front, to deep greens and environmentalists. There was even a nasty World In Action hit piece on anti-fascists, never mind the usual scare stories about Anarchists. One of the few people to really research all this at the time, certainly in book form, was Larry O'Hara in his 1994 "Turning Up The Heat: Mi5 After the Cold War" - others, at some stage will no doubt follow. I certainly intend to.

Many of 'green terrorist' scares in the UK came courtesy of the Sunday Times. Eventually sustained police action followed the media, leading to the failed prosecution of the Green Anarchist group in the Gandalf Trial. I am not as familiar with the environmental movement in the United States, so do not know if the US political fringe experienced a similar odysessy in the early to mid 1990s. What did happen in the United States is a much more substantive radical environmentalist movement emerged, for example in the shape of the Earth Liberation Front.

On Monday 13 February at 10pm BBC4 is showing Marshall Curry's documentary "If A Tree Falls - A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" which covers the ELF, its actions and the states response to it. This is part of BBC2's Storyville series.

In teaching Terrorism Studies, one of the tools I have used in recent years has been to get students to consider groups like the Animal Liberation Front or SHAC and ask - is this terrorism? Is there a line where political violence is crossed,  and terrorism begins?
This attempts to circumvent the rather sterile formula of students struggling with the countless definitions of terrorism and going round and round in circles chipping at them, as it allows the discussion of actual recent cases. Marshall Curry's documentary takes a similar path - it focuses on ELF activist Daniel McGowan and the arson attacks he was accused of.

Over to you. Is this terrorism?

Matt Salusbury on Spooks and Sinners

Last week Her Majesties Inspectorate of Constabulary published a review of the police 'domestic extremism' intelligence gathering units.

The best assessment I have read of this so far comes from freelance journalist Matt Salusbury, who deserves a more serious location for his writing than his own blog, and the odd outing in Fortean Times. I am not sure that this blog provides such a platform, but I do encourage my readers to consider his analysis.

Go Go Fabio

If Fabio Capello feels so strongly about the Football Association stripping John Terry of the England captaincy, there is always one particular option open to him.

He can resign.