LENIN'S TOMB

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

EDL "founder member" among East End Gay Pride organisers posted by Richard Seymour

The LGBT Muslim group Imaan has done some background checks on the East End Gay Pride organisers. Turns out one of the organisers, Raymond Berry, is EDL:

We have now acquired evidence that Raymond Berry, the principal organiser of the event, faced a call for disciplinary measures (revocation of his membership) by officials of the RMT (Rail and Maritime Trades Union) because he was a public and vocal, leading member of the EDL (English Defence League) and promoted the EDL objectives and extremist politics.

In correspondence, in September 2010, with union officials, Mr. Berry claimed – in his own words – the following:

That he was a founder member of the English Defence League, but had decided to cease his involvement following disagreements over changes in the EDL leadership.
That in spite of this, he continued to hold firm beliefs with regard to Sharia law and the Islamification of Britain.
That he remained an active member “of such organisations as” S.I.O.E. (Stop the Islamification of Europe) and N.S.B. (No Sharia in Britain)
That he was working, with other disaffected members of the EDL to start new groups with similar objectives.

In October 2010, Mr Berry continued his correspondence with union officials making new assertions, some contradictory to his position in September:

That he would not voluntarily cancel his RMT membership on the grounds of his EDL membership
That he saw no reason why he should not hold membership of the RMT and of the EDL, in spite of his disagreement with some aspects of RMT politics – i.e. that he found the RMT to be more controversial than the EDL.

So we now understand that as of October 2010, Mr. Berry – a founder of the EDL – remained connected with the EDL and unrepentant. Indeed, he desires to start other groups with similar right-wing, anti-Muslim objectives as well as retaining active associations with existing right-wing, anti-Muslim groups (such as S.I.O.E.)

Update: Apparently the event has been cancelled. This is the statement from Rainbow Hamlets...

The organisers of the so-called East End Gay Pride event have today announced on their website that the event has been cancelled. They say that they have decided to do so because they have been subjected to personal attack by Rainbow Hamlets and OutEast.

While we reject any suggestions of a smear campaign on the part of Rainbow Hamlets and other organisations associated with us, we welcome the decision of the East End Gay Pride Team to cancel the event. We believe it was the correct decision in the face of the disclosure that Raymond Berry, who yesterday resigned from the EEGP team, was a founder member of the EDL and who, despite resigning from the EDL, still shared its ideals and values and was looking to organise other projects based on them.

That disclosure has completely undermined the credibility and integrity of the entire event. We maintain that if the event had taken place, no right thinking member of the LGBT community could have participated in it with pride because of the divisive and hate-filled agenda on which it was based. By its very nature it would have excluded approximately 40% of the community.

We look forward to announcing our own events programme in the near future and hope to be in a position to promote a Pride Event in which all members of the community can be proud to participate later in the year.

Thank you for your continued support.

Rebecca Shaw
Jack Gilbert
Co-chairs
Rainbow Hamlets

Labels: east end, east london, edl, gay pride, homophobia, islamophobia, lgbt rights, racism

Monday, February 28, 2011

Can we finally talk about Johann Hari's Muslim problem? posted by Richard Seymour

A cautionary note about polling and propaganda. In 2009, an independent poll was carried out in an area supposedly known as a 'no go' area for white people, to probe . It found, among other things, that 98% of Muslims in the area would accept their son or daughter if they came out as gay. The point of the poll was to underline just how much tabloid polling on Muslim social and political attitudes was designed to produce a response that could be used to demonise Muslims - and how a different set of questions asked in a different way would produce a very different picture. A typical scaremongering poll appeared in The Sunday Times in 2008. It dealt with Muslim students, and it alleged a series of nasty attitudes on their part. Among other things, it said: "Homophobia was rife, with 25% saying they had little or no respect for gays." What it meant to say, of course, was that acceptance of gays was rife, with 75% of Muslim students having some or much respect for gays. There was also a famously distorted study for the right-wing Policy Exchange in 2007, which claimed that only 30% of British Muslims disagreed with the claim that homosexuality is morally wrong and should be illegal.

In general, whether using manipulated polls or anecdotes, there has been a concerted effort to depict Muslims as overwhelmingly homophobic. Yet whenever there have been initiatives to help combat homophobia among Muslims, or when Muslim groups and mosques denounce homophobia, the same reactionaries who claim to care about the issue can barely contain their sneers. For what it's worth, I consider such tactics similar to those deployed by the Right (and, as it happens, the FBI) to divide black and Jewish groups in the United States by putting it about that black people are antisemitic - in an attempt to break up an historic coalition between oppressed groups. I raise all this because the burden of a recent attack article on British Muslims by Johann Hari involves the suggestion that Muslims just don't accept gays, and are in fact engaging in an escalating wave of violence against them. He writes:

The most detailed opinion survey of British Muslims was carried out by Gallup, who correctly predicted the result of the last general election. In their extensive polling, they found literally no British Muslims who would say homosexuality is "morally acceptable." Every one of the Muslims they polled objected to it. Even more worryingly, younger Muslims had more stridently anti-gay views than older Muslims. These attitudes have consequences - and they are worst of all for gay Muslims, who have to live a sham half-life of lies, or be shunned by their families.

No, Muslims are not the only homophobes among us. But the gap between them and the rest is startling. It's zero percent of British Muslims vs. 58 percent of other Brits who say we are "acceptable."

Hari isn't stupid. He knows perfectly well that this isn't a credible figure, that no one actually believes it. It is quite obviously a statistical freak. The results of previous polls, the existence of British Muslims who are gay, and the existence of British Muslims who are vocally supportive of gay rights, simply make it impossible that 0% of Muslims consider gays to be acceptable. If even the reactionary anti-Muslim wind-ups find at least 30% of Muslims who accept gays, then we can assume that this poll is an outlier. But this really doesn't need to be demonstrated - it's just common sense. Just as it's a common sense inference that almost 100% of Islamophobes in Britain are white.

Hari went on to claim:

"East London has seen the highest increase in homophobic attacks anywhere in Britain. Everybody knows why, and nobody wants to say it. It is because East London has the highest Muslim population in Britain, and we have allowed a fanatically intolerant attitude towards gay people to incubate there, in the name of 'tolerance'".

Ava Vidal was pissed off with this, and wrote to explain that Met crime figures actually showed a reduction in anti-gay attacks in those areas with the highest Muslim populations. Hari snorted that she was "extremely unintelligent". But Vidal was just underlining a point that had already been made to Hari by Patrick Lilley of UK Black Pride, and which he had ignored. The exploitation of homophobia to demonise East End Muslims is becoming urgent as Islamophobes with the support of EDL members try to organise what they're calling an 'East End Gay Pride' event, though the organisers apparently have nothing whatever to do with the East End. This actually raises the possibility that EDL members, who didn't dare march in the East End previously, will now be able to get in there under the pretext of opposing homophobia. It would seem rather important, therefore, not to make injudicious, disproportionate, inflammatory or just bigoted comments scapegoating British Muslims for the very real homophobia that exists in Britain. Unfortunately, Hari - who does know better, so it must be a self-serving, calculated provocation - has acted in such a way as to set back the ongoing efforts to overcome divisions between Muslim and gay groups with this disingenuous diatribe.

And yes, this is 2011, and we're still having these ridiculous arguments, even after a spate of anti-gay beatings and killings that have had nothing to do with Muslims.

Labels: bigotry, east london, homophobia, islamophobia, oppression, racism

Sunday, June 20, 2010

United East End demo posted by Richard Seymour

There were at least a few thousand people at today's United East End demonstration, an anti-racist gathering supported by the trade unions, religious organisations and local politicians. The crowd mainly comprised local people, kids from the housing estates, a few people from the mosques, churches and synagogues, and a rather small contingent of leftists. It's worth noting that some of those who had expressed opposition to holding the rally nonetheless spoke at it, including the council leader and Bethnal Green & Bow MP Rushanara Ali. It might be relevant to note that there's an East London mayoral election coming up. As far as I could make out, George Galloway received by far the strongest reception at the rally, which was held at Altab Ali park after the demonstration. In general, my impression was that the most popular speakers were well-known local left-wingers such as Rania Khan and Lutfa Begum, former Respect councillors now belonging to the Labour group.

Some, including a few senior Labourites such as Jim Fitzpatrick, had suggested that such a rally could only cause 'trouble'. The logic behind this assertion is obscure, but perhaps it says something about the way the authorities look upon the young Bengali men who turned out in large numbers. Further anecdotal evidence of a peculiar official attitude to said people can be gleaned from the police's provocative behaviour after the event had passed off without disturbance. This included, I am told, refusing to allow white people to walk up Whitechapel because they alleged that Bengalis were violently attacking whites at random. Socialist Worker's report doesn't go quite that far, but notes that police "advised white people not to walk along the road 'because of fears about their safety'", which is ridiculous, nasty, and divisive behaviour. Interesting is it not? When fascists riot, we are told that they are giving expression to "legitimate concerns". When anti-fascists hold peaceful, democratic rallies, we are told they are merely causing trouble. From what perspective, I ask you, can such assertions hold true?

Labels: anti-fascism, anti-racism, east london, english defence league, fascism, islamophobia, new labour, racism, uaf

Friday, June 18, 2010

The real eastenders posted by Richard Seymour

You probably didn't hear about this, but the other day some members of the English Defence League engaged in a sort kamikaze mission in Whitechapel, attacking members of the public and ripping the garments off Muslim women. They were rapidly outnumbered by the arrival of hundreds of locals, and police had to lock the EDL idiots in Whitechapel tube station for a few hours. This suicide attack, as it were, was probably the result of despair after the EDL leadership called off an equally suicidal march into the East End, purportedly against an Islamic conference that was to take place on 20th June (that's this Sunday). Now, even if there had been no political response to this, such a march would likely have provoked enormous opposition in this working class heartland.

But there was an immediate response, which was to call a United East End march to oppose the EDL - supported by several trade unions, by UAF, Love Music Hate Racism, by the Muslim Council of Britain, and by the Islamic Forum of Europe. As I've said before, it's important that there is a political response to such attacks, because groups like the EDL and their BNP allies want to polarise the community along racist lines. 17 years ago, the BNP made a small step in this direction by getting their first councillor elected in Tower Hamlets. The council's decision to rehouse Bangladeshi families in Millwall properties that could not be sold was being treated as an act of positive discrimination by the Liberals, who attempted to exploit the issue to win a seat that had come up for bye-election. The BNP, which had been building some pockets of support in the East End in the early 1990s, took the seat and only lost it after an energetic local campaign. They were subsequently shut out of Tower Hamlets for a long time. They stand candidates in places like Millwall and Bow West, but have yet to make a real breakthrough.

Now mark the response of the local Labour leadership. Tower Hamlets council, in the persons of leader Helal Abbas and deputy leader Josh Peck, put tremendous pressure on the organisers of said Islamic conference to call it off, citing allegations of 'views attributed to some of the speakers'. The organisers, the Islamic Society of City University (Isoc), are hardly a threat to anyone, though they are constantly being witch-hunted by the usual dirt from the Centre for Social Cohesion, and subject to repeated baiting by the City Inquirer and the scum over at Harry's Place. The Isoc works in an institution where Muslims are under increasing scrutiny. For example, lecturer Rosie Waterhouse recently called for the banning of the niqab there on the pathetic grounds that she found such dress 'threatening'. Muslims were also attacked in a spate of racist assaults near City University last year, though perversely the university management has used this as an excuse to close the Muslim prayer room. At any rate, the EDL, aware of the allegations against Isoc, attempted to exploit them. And the council seems to have responded by treating Isoc, an entirely peaceful organisation, as an equivalent to the violent bampots of the EDL.

The council also applied pressure to the conference hosts, the Troxy, to cancel the event, saying that they might have to review their working relationship with the company otherwise. That's a pretty big club to bring to any negotiation. The Troxy complied, and the event is looking for another venue. The EDL leadership, admitting that they would have been hammered had they tried to enter Tower Hamlets, called off the demonstration, claiming a victory. The United East End march, intended to underline the refusal of local communities to be divided along racial lines, is still going ahead. It's important, because these racist provocateurs have proven that they are intent on continuing to try and polarise the situation. There are, of course, other activities planned. The EDL are still going to try and march on Wembley, where they are likely to receive just as hostile a reception.

But there is a background of Islamophobic baiting of Tower Hamlets council. This includes Andrew Gilligan's creepy tirade against the Islamic Forum of Europe, through which the media has attempted to attack municipal multiculturalism. The EDL are simply trying to capitalise on that, attempting to position themselves as the cutting edge of the Islamophobic wedge being driven through the East End. The council, as its lobbying of the Troxy shows, is inclined to give in to some of this pressure. The United East End march will be attended by Labour councillors, including Helal Abbas, but it is only fair to note that the East London papers report pressure on the anti-fascists from some local politicians. Predictably, Jim Fitzpatrick, who saw off George Galloway's challenge in the 2010 election by baiting Muslims, has attacked the anti-fascists. You can't expect better from someone like Fitzpatrick. Sadly, Rushanara Ali, who took Galloway's former constituency back for Labour, also called for the march to be called off. It may be of relevance that both local MPs are backing Oona King's bid for mayor against Ken Livingstone. Now Tower Hamlets council, symbolising its commitment to "community cohesion", is flying the England flag from the Town Hall for the duration of the World Cup. Such pointless, trivial gestures neither fulfil their anti-racist mandate nor placate the racist right.

I think this has to be contextualised in terms of the turn being taken by the Labour Party nationally. If the last decade was marked by a revival of neo-Powellite ideology on the Labour right, among the Blairites in particular, that ideological turn is now being aggressively expounded by Labour leadership contenders over, eg, immigration. In a self-serving gesture, they claim that such politics will enable Labour to make amends with "the white working class". This is a cynical move. I suspect that people like Balls believe that by conceding ground to racist hysteria, they can both capitalise on it and contain it. That is reckless, and foolish. Caving in to the racists just gives them more credibility, more armoury, and more space to build in. It benefits the right, in more ways than one. Is it not alarming to Labour members that David Cameron could actually attack Balls from the left over this, characterising the latter as Labour's Alf Garnett? The other context, of course, is the local collapse of Respect. It has one councillor left in Tower Hamlets and no MPs. This doesn't mean its support is negligible, or that it couldn't carry on as a viable local organisation, but its previous clout might have allowed it to resist some of this rightward lurch. I hope it will do well in the upcoming East London mayoral ballot. Because it is the Fitzpatricks of the East End, not the antifascists, who are pursuing genuinely divisive politics, setting working class communities against one another, and attacking the anti-racist consensus that had been established until recently, and giving ammunition to the racists.

Labels: anti-fascism, anti-racism, blairites, east london, islamophobia, multiculturalism, new labour, tower hamlets, uaf, working class