Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam

Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: http://bit.ly/qukmCx writes @ShamikDas #Oslo #Utoya

Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: http://bit.ly/qukmCx writes @ShamikDas #Oslo #Utoya

Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: http://bit.ly/qukmCx writes @ShamikDas #Oslo #Utoya

RT @leftfootfwd: Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: http://t.co/y413mB2 writes @ShamikDas #Oslo #Utoya

Surely @ShamikDas of @leftfootfwd could not be one of @TomHarrisMP's relived lefties re. Norway's blond killer? http://t.co/pCIlrl0

Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: http://bit.ly/qukmCx writes @ShamikDas #Oslo #Utoya

Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: http://bit.ly/qukmCx writes @ShamikDas #Oslo #Utoya

Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: But, given that Breivik quoted extensively… http://bit.ly/qXXAUK

Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: http://bit.ly/qukmCx writes @ShamikDas #Oslo #Utoya

RT @leftfootfwd: Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: http://bit.ly/qukmCx writes @ShamikDas #Oslo #Utoya

Instinctively, to be fair to myself as a centre-right person I initially kept an open mind and then nodded in agreement when the Islamists had the finger pointed at them by the media. If I was wrong in some way I will apologise. Let’s be honest a decent bookie would of made it an odds on favourite. With such overwhelming evidence Breivik in my opinion should hang for his unspeakable crimes.

It is one thing I am trying to understand why the left is such an apologist for the extreme elements of Islamic fundamentalists. I find their attitudes to gays vile, with their views on sexual equality and freedom of speech outages seem to be strange bed fellows with you guys.

Is it the growing disconnect between the pseudo intellectual, armchair socialist, Oxbridge muddled thinkers reliant upon the state for their income and the true working class who work hard in private enterprise for much less reward and live daily with the consequences of multi-culturalism?

Have any of you regular readers done any of the following? Went to a Working Mens CIU club, outside London got on a bus, been to a holiday camp such as Butlins, or stayed overnight in a council house. As a working class Tory I tick all the boxes.

RT @leftfootfwd: Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam http://t.co/Q8w09l7

When the bomb went of it was natural for people to assume that the likelihood was that it was an islamist attack. This was natural because Islamist terror has been by far the most prevalent form of terrorism. While that was the first reaction of most people the press / media have a different responsibility – to report facts as facts and be clear when what they are saying is only supposition or guesswork. On that count some parts of the media and some commentators can certainly be criticized. We have hardly faced a wave of right wing terrorism on the scale of islamist terrorism yet though and until we do most people on hearing of a major terrorist attack will probably continue to rightly suspect that the odds are that it will be an islamist inspired attack.
Just as there should be no turning away from the reality that this was a right wing terrorist atrociity equally it does the truth no good to pretend that most major terrorist inciudents have indeed been Islamist inspired.

There was of course a very important NOT missing from the last sentence of my previous comment !

That the Left is an apologist for Islamic extremism is a myth. Just because the Left might at times say that Islamic extremists have a legitimate reason to fight back against Western Imperialism does not imply that they are apologists for Islamic extremism.

@Dave Atherton 1

“Have any of you regular readers done any of the following? Went to a Working Mens CIU club, outside London got on a bus, been to a holiday camp such as Butlins, or stayed overnight in a council house. As a working class Tory I tick all the boxes.”

Yes to all those except Butlins! And I go to Oxford and am a socialist! Got that wrong didn’t you.

Nothing like a blanket view of the left. Can’t speak for all of us ‘lefties’ myself, but my views are generally along the lines of ‘don’t like Islam much (in the same way as I don’t particularly like any religions), but I’m not averse to individual Muslims and certainly wouldn’t discriminate against them on the basis of their religion or their colour. And I hate terrorism’. What I also dislike, and what the piece above is getting at, is that people jump to conclusions, and in a lot of cases based on prejudice. You certainly make your own prejudices clear, Dave, and your last paragraph is beyond parody.

Dave Atherton – I also do not understand the lefts appeasement of Islamic fundamentalism – just look at Ken Livingston and his willingness to associate with Islamic nutters.

For some reason the left believe it is acceptable to pay lip service to preachers of hate against homosexuality and women’s rights instead of steadfastly refusing to accept that unforgivable behaviour.

The fact is this guy is a brutal killer but to not realise that he had issues and grievances that society should have addressed in open debate is deliberately NOT learn lessons.

The political elites in this country need to start listening to us and act in the way Labour’s John Cruddas and Tessa Jowell have against the BNP.

The left in this country would do well to remember 9-11 and 7-7…

I am really shocked. This is ever first tragedy in Norway.. Me and my whole nation mourned for innocent ONE HUNDRED SOUL.I pray peace for their eternal soul.

Dave Atherton,

I completely agree.

This article is in many ways misconceived. “Right” and “far right” are not terms to be used interchangeably. In my view, “right” needn’t be authoritarian at all: libertarians fit comfortably on that side of the spectrum and are totally opposed to state control of the individual. “Far right” is usually used as a catch all for extremist parties which reveal themselves, through their manifestos (a term I use loosely…), to be anything but right-wing in an economic sense. For example, the BNP more resembles a motley-crue of fascist lefties from where I’m sat.

What happened in Norway is a tragedy and completely inexcusable. I’m appalled that anyone would try to rationalise the actions of this monster.

This doesn’t change the fact that I agree with Tom Harris and detected a strange relief from the left when Breivik’s identity was revealed. Why should that be? Can’t we all unite and condemn monsters, whatever they look like and whatever their cause?

Neither have you disproved the factual statements made by Delingpole. You might not like him or agree with him on almost anything, and that’s entirely your prerogative. Nonetheless, the atrocities he cited were carried out by militant Islamists. No amount of wriggling can get us away from that incontrovertible fact. It’s no surprise that many people assumed this massacre to be linked with Al-Qaeda, particularly given the reaction by extremists in that region to the cartoons a short while ago.

By the by, Charlie Brooker writes for The Guardian and was part of the ill-fated Channel 4 programme ’10 O’Clock Live’. He was at his best on Screenwipe, poking fun at TV cliches but, like all comedians, rubbish when he lets his half-baked politics get in the way.

‘Islamic extremists have a legitimate reason to fight back against Western Imperialism’

Repugnant. I don’t legitimise terrorists, who will always find some way to justify why they slaughter defenceless civilians.

Maybe just maybe people were “relieved” (if indeed that is the right word) it wasn’t an Islamist attack because there are plenty of people in this country who are far too happy to use an Islamist attack to have a go at ordinary Muslims? It’s only been a week since Mark Stroman was executed in America for responding to the 11th September attacks by shooting three people whose only crime was to be Asian in appearance (one was a Hindu, ffs).

Maybe people were glad that this wouldn’t cause a wave of mosque attacks, EDL marches and other inflamatory behaviour by people who will take any excuse to attack Muslims. You can cry and scream all you like about tutted comments, but the number of churches which will be burnt cos of this is zero, and number of blonde white people who will be beaten up in ‘revenge’ will be zero.

And once again, what is with the desperation to paint all leftists as friends of extremist Islam and argue that groups with nationalist agendas as leftwing? Seriously? My dad spent the 1970s and 80s stating calmly that he was a peaceful, anglophile Irish man, not denying that the IRA were Irish.

If I can add further fuel to the fire and accuse the left of more hypocrisy. During the Toxteth, Brixton, Broadwater Farm and other riots the liberal-left went out of its way to appease perpetrators of violent disorder, criminal damage and in the case of PC Blakelock, murder.

While NOTHING justifies in any shape or form Breivik’s actions of utter evil, when the UK’s white working classes want their grievances addressed on immigration and as the main recipients of multi culturalism they are howled down as swivel eyed racists and toothbrush mustachioed, Nazis. So much for a mature, open, democratic debate.

This is the major disconnect from middle class socialism of Labour and the reality if you are working class and have tried to illustrate it with what real working class people do as a society and lifestyle.

I have lived in multi cultural societies for 25 years, Hackney, Leytonstone and Stratford and it does not bother me that much. However I can understand people who do.

@Hz What about this. I was attacked by 6 Asians in Bethnall Green East London on Christmas Eve 2003 for no other reason than I was not one of them. I had said nothing and done nothing. Also here are a couple of other recent incidents in Tower Hamlets, the latter quote is from the BBC, the first Daily Mail.

“A vicar was in hospital last night after being attacked in his churchyard by two youths in what is being treated as a ‘faith hate’ crime.”

“Four Muslim men who assaulted a religious education teacher because they did not approve of him teaching Muslim girls have been jailed.”

Hz – I have yet to see Labour supporting female commentators in the press criticise muslims at all for their repression of woman. Please outline when the Indy’s Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has ever condemned Islam. She’s afraid of retribution from Islamic fanatics.

On this very site a contributor called Kevin Meagher refuses to criticise the IRA and actually claims that terrorist atrocities committed by that organisation were “Guerrilla Warfare” and not terrorism despite Labour proscribing them as terrorists in 2000.

And he was an advisor to the then Labour Northern Ireland Secretary so that feeling is at the heart of the Labour project.

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/01/gerry-adams-david-cameron-departure-from-commons/index.html

Ken Livingston has associated with a horrible Islamic nutter called Yusuf al-Qaradawi who calls for homosexuals to be executed and claims husbands have the right to beat their wives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Livingstone#Meeting_with_Islamic_Cleric_Yusuf_al-Qaradawi

Your post sounds great but the FACTS speak for themselves I’m afraid….

“Repugnant. I don’t legitimise terrorists, who will always find some way to justify why they slaughter defenceless civilians. Comment by Ed’s Talking Balls on July 25, 2011 at 3:57 pm”

Neither do I. But the fact is, a lot of the people you call “Islamic extremists” are not “terrorists”. Like al-Qadrawi. or Raed Salah. And there are people on the Left who agree with these peoples opinion on a number of matters. This does not make them apologists for Islamic extremism – as I said, that is a myth. It just means they support many of the causes these so called Islamic extremists are fighting for.

And get off your high horse and stop pretending you care about defenceless civilians. When a drone fires a hellfire missile at a terrorist who is in their compound with their wife and children, killing all of them, do you cry out against that? No. Because you take the view that defenceless civilians being killed is justifiable as long as we kill a terrorist who might plan an attack that kills me or my family. So, to protect your own backside, you DO side with the killing of defenceless civilians.

It would be nice to be clear precisely which causes these extremists (I’ll omit the “so-called”) are fighting for. As I’ve said, terrorists frequently cite various causes to legitimise, in their minds and the minds of their followers, what would otherwise rightly be seen an wanton, utterly inexcusable violence.

Also, to the extent that I am on a moral high horse, there is a difference between defenceless civilians killed in office blocks by fanatics who have hijacked planes and defenceless civilians in the vicinity of known terrorists being sought by drones. At least in the latter case there is a legitimate target. Murdering innocent people deliberately is worlds away from the example you give.

Ahmed – It’s a mindset that would allow an individual to like yourself to suggest that just because you disagree with Ed’s Talking Balls position you immediately claim “Because you take the view that defenceless civilians being killed is justifiable”.

Where did he say it was right to kill civilians or are you just the usual smear merchant that frequents this fine blog?

And whilst you’re at it how about you condemn Islamic nutters who advocate violence against homosexuals and do not treat woman equally and insist they wear death shroud burqas when they are outside in hot weather like Saudi Arabia.

I won’t hold my breath Ahmed…

Shamik,

This is, I’m afraid, a most ill-conceived article, and it’s demonstrative of just the kind of double standards, labelling and stigmatisation that we are led to believe was its inspiration.

“Hard-right haters”? Are we to take seriously, Shamik, your application of this label to James Dellingpole? You may take issue with his views (many do, but he is respected by a good many others), and you may even dislike him as a person. But which facts demonstrated on your supposedly “evidence-based” blog do you feel permit you to besmirch him by seeking to count him among the likes of the EDL and BNP? Where has he been shown to be “hard-right” or express hatred for anyone?

Your happy confusion of right-wing’ (i.e anything that is NOT ‘progressive’) with extremism is frankly pathetic, and such “we have a monopoly on tolerance” sanctimony says a great deal more about you than anyone else.

You are guilty, also, of wilfully conflating Islam with Islamism.
This is a distinction many take great care to make. I’m sure you know the difference. Without further explanation from you, this appears on the face of it to be borne simply of a desire to portray those who criticise the latter as foes of the former. This is wholly disingenuous.

Why do so many Westerners believe so readily that they are under threat from Islamists? The simple fact is that Islamist rhetoric states this to be the case. And since such threats have been shown to be far from idle, it can hardly be surprising that people jump to unfortunate conclusions when they are the subject of terrorist outrages. Experience might well have told them that 90% of the time they’d be right. But this does not at all amount to hatred of Muslims (whom, most Westerners of all religions and political persuasions are well-aware, are by far the most populous of victims of Islamist terror).

Rather than racing to the lowest common denominator, LFF would do well to rise above such cynicism (regardless of whoever else you feel is guilty of it) and consider whether mud-slinging is quite the most appropriate response to a tragedy that has befallen scores of innocent victims and their families.

Hz – Sorry the link to Kevin Meagher’s posts refusing to call the IRA terrorists is here:

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/02/tory-run-hammersmith-council-community-funding-cuts/

ALL Extremeism, as typified on this site by Mouse and 13eastie, is the enemy, not any singular ideology. They are the cancer which should be rejected from polite society, and told to sit down, the responsible adults are talking.

Leon Wolfson – So instead of answering any of the points people have made, are we to assume you believe it is OK for Islamic nutters to call for homosexuals to be executed and for woman to be treated unequally to men?

There is no middle ground in a Western democracy. It is either right or wrong.

And please refrain from using terms such as cancer to describe fellow human beings – the singular ideology of Islamic terrorists have murdered innocent people around the world on a massive scale and apologists afraid to confront it like yourself, exemplify the very problem outlined by the first response to this article.

So come on let’s see you condemn the mistreatment of woman and homosexuals…

Of course Mouse believes that calling for tolerance is calling for the sort of things he dislikes (as opposed to the things he’s fine with, like bashing the poor and immigrants) to be accepted.

Back in the real world, tolerance means a respect for everyone’s rights, not a selected group, as Mouse’s kind holds out for. Mouse’s EDL friends (again, this wasn’t hard to find, really!) are most certainly a cancer which should be shunned by civilised Humans, which is one of the things which Mouse is most certainly not.

@ 22. Leon Wolfson

Don’t invite the trolls into “the real world”! I live here! They know perfectly well that socialists don’t agree with terrorism as a method of political change and that socialists are in the vanguard of anti-discrimination action. The latter is one reason they don’t like us – we believe that workers of all faiths and none, and workers of whatever ethnic or national origin, have more in common with each other than they have with the trolls’ and their masters.

Leon “Trotsky” Wolfson and “Gorgeous” George McLean you really sum up the cheap ad hominem, ‘anyone-who-disagrees-must-a-fascist’ routine which denigrates and besmirches modern day socialists. Don’t bother playing the ball when the man is far easier.

Why do you think as someone with a working class background has contempt for the modern day Labour Party and its neurotic, authoritarian followers. I think you people don’t need a credo you need a psychiatrist.

Oxbridge News: Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: Is it the growing disconnec… http://bit.ly/pC8eRw

RT @leftfootfwd: Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam http://t.co/AJ5uWbz

RT @leftfootfwd: Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam http://t.co/vE9D4Nf

Leon Wolfson – So as I suspected you are also too weak an individual to stand up for what is right and woman and homosexuals having equality is something you can’t bring yourself to support.

Because of individuals like you, matthew fox and George McLean people in faraway countries will continue to be oppressed in a medieval way by Islamic nutters and zealots.

Well done Leon Wolfson. Because of your attitude Labour will continue to be seen as a nasty, smearing and unelectable party which will suit me fine.

( Any more missions with the secret services you’d like to tell us about Wolfy? )

George McLean – With your views you do the word “Socialist” an extreme disservice.

The men who founded the Labour Party will be turning in their graves but at least the Gordon Brown / Ed Miliband / Derek Draper / Charlie Wheelan / Damian McBride side of the party will be pleased.

Well done George McLean.

Anon E said : “It’s a mindset that would allow an individual to like yourself to suggest that just because you disagree with Ed’s Talking Balls position you immediately claim” … and then later on in his message, he says he will not hold his breath waiting for me to condemn Islamic nutters.

So my message to Anon E is : “It’s a mindset that would allow an individual like yourself to suggest that just because you disagree with my position you immediately claim that I do not condemn Islamic nutters”.

Oh, don’t you just LOVE irony?

Ahmed – Good reply.

But you won’t condemn them will you? And when a human being is flogged then strung up by his neck in public in Iran and his only crime is to born with a different sexual orientation than his tormentors I’ll take no lectures from you with your silly Western Empire rubbish.

You are doing exactly what Leon Wolfson and everyone else does which is not shouting at the unfairness in Islamic countries and by not doing so, even from the safety of a Western democracy, you allow tyranny to continue by your inaction.

Thank goodness there are millions of decent muslims involved in the Arab spring who don’t feel the way you do and want freedom and decency for their people irrespective of the religion they follow.

And like I said you use semantics and lawyerly talk but won’t condemn Islamic unfairness because you’re afraid.

Those muslims fighting for freedom in the Middle East show a bravery in stark contrast to your cowardice Ahmed…

FYI, I am very vociferous against regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran, The Taliban. That is because I do not see the world in black and white as you do. Unfortunately, people like you do. So if someone agrees with a certain preacher on certain things which are not in line with your views, they suddenly become a Lefty who does not condemn Islamic extremism. Are you sure you’re not from Harry’s Place?

As for the old argument “you live in a democracy that allows you to speak your mind so you should never question your country if it is committing crimes against a country that does not allow freedom of speech” is so old and tiring, I do not think it is even worth my time responding to.

Ahmed – You are correct that I do see the world in less shades of grey than the average Labour supporter which would hardly be hard.

I certainly agree on the war in Iraq which I supported but that was because I’m old fashioned and trusted the Prime Minister I had voted for (three times) to tell the truth. I would say though that your description is just nonsense of Western Imperialism.

The US runs the world without doing anything – I have yet to see a dictator or people worldwide without the modern American trappings like the internet, cell phones, jeans, baseball caps and whose kids watch Disney films and eat McDonalds and smoke Marlboro’s. We have neither the inclination nor the money.

On the black and white I see it as right and wrong. If something is wrong it’s wrong and I do not use Labour smearing to emphasise a point.

No response required sir…..

Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam: http://bit.ly/qukmCx writes @ShamikDas #Oslo #Utoya

@ 24 Dave Atherton

And you’re accusing me of ad hominem attacks? Take a stress pill.

Norway tragedy: The hard-right haters are still going on about Islam http://t.co/x7oJnlH

Maybe now Right-wing terrorism will be taken a little more seriously by the media. Since the BNP London nailbomber Copeland there have been numerous arrests of right-wing nutters for terror related offences. Possession of explosives, detonators, hand-grenades under the bed, attempts to make the deadly poison ricin, firebomb attacks… Each one makes page 6 for a day and is then forgotten. Now we know what might happen if the police do not get there in time.