Dan's Brother Angel, Part 4

We begin by examining the first two-thirds of Extremists behind anti-war protest driven off the streets by moderate Muslims, from May 30, 2009:

The Muslim community turned on extremists in their midst yesterday, telling them they were 'sick and tired' of their behaviour.

The angry confrontation came in Luton, where anti-Islamist protesters brandished England flags last Sunday, before clashing with police.

The latest violence erupted as arguments raged between fellow Muslims shortly after Friday morning prayers in the Bury Park area of the town.

Passing traffic ground to a halt as the large group of moderates confronted about a dozen extremists.

As the radical Muslims began to set up their stall, they were surrounded by a crowd shouting 'we don't want you here' and 'move on, move on'.

Angry words were exchanged and scuffles broke out between members of both groups, with the extremists shouting 'Shame on you' and 'Get back to your synagogue'.

The moderates chanted 'Out, Out, Out', and after an uneasy stand-off, police officers were able to persuade the extremist group to leave the area.

One police officer and two community support officers struggled to hold them apart until more officers arrived.

Buses and cars were unable to move as the crowd spilled into the road.

Farasat Latif, of the Islamic Centre in Luton, which was firebombed after the protest against the soldiers, said moderate members of his community took action because police had failed to move the group on.

During the protest against the homecoming parade of the Royal Anglian regiment in March, the extremists had shouted 'baby killers' and 'butchers of Basra' as well as brandishing placards against the Iraq war.

He said the extremists, who follow the militant group led by Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammed, had fuelled feelings against the Muslim community which led to a march last Sunday in Luton which was disrupted by white, right-wing extremists.

Notice the reference to Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammed. One of this guy's key disciples is Anjem Choudary, who (from The unholy past of the Muslim cleric demanding the Pope's execution, dated September 19, 2006), after moving to London in 1996

...met the cleric Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed at a mosque in Woolwich. Bakri, who is now banned from returning to Britain from Lebanon, had formed Al Muhajiroun, committed to the creation of a worldwide Islamic state, and Choudary quickly became a leading light in the group and its successor organisation, Al Ghurabaa.

This guy Anjem Choudary is the extremist who wants to institute sharia in the UK. From Sharia law in bid to conquer London, August 4, 2011:

Islamists are trying to enforce their severe Sharia law code of conduct in London, to drag "enveloped in sin" Britain to a sin-free society by any means - from abstention to amputation.

They've started a campaign to make certain areas of London and other cities Islamic law-controlled zones – starting with Walthamstow, East London. They do believe that Islam and Sharia are unstoppable in Europe.

"Muslims will be commanding good and forbidding evil, presenting Islam as an alternative, to the Muslim and non-Muslim community. Ultimately we believe that Muslims can live together, trade according to the Sharia, resolve their problems according to the Sharia, and even police themselves, to a large extent. Hopefully one day we will have Islamic Emirates which will have authority locally, security locally, and even provide welfare locally," day-dreams Anjem Choudary, spokesperson for Muslims Against the Crusades.

Choudary and his friends are fly-posting parts of London with a large Muslim population. They want to ban drinking, gambling, and playing music. And they say they’ve got bands of young men ready to patrol and enforce Sharia law, by any means.

The antics of Choudary's group have been going on for a few years now. From Muslims rally for Sharia law in UK, prompting nationalist protests from June 21, 2010:

Muslim protestors gathered in London on Sunday calling for aspects of Sharia law to be introduced in Britain. The rally turned into chaos, sparking a counter-demonstration by English right-wing nationalists.

"We find many of these people who call for human rights and one law," said Asad Ullah, member of the Muslims against the Crusades group. "They come and they say that they want equality. But what equality do you get when one man legislates over another? Is he not more superior than you? You are worshipping him by submitting to and obeying his laws... We will get oppression like this until we all submit to one law, and that is the law of God."

Ullah's comments are stupid, to say the least.

What this group seeks to do is replace laws made by popular consent with laws made by some "religious leader"; my question, what equality do you get when one mullah legislates over the people in the name of a guy who supposedly talked to God fourteen centuries ago?

This group seeks to bring totalitarianism cloaked in the piety of a religion.

A few meters away from Ullah, Maryam Namazie, spokesperson for One Law for All, a campaign that opposes the introduction of Sharia law, struggled to get her voice heard. She attended the rally along with a group of other moderate Muslims and non-Muslims who came to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, killed following last year’s Iranian election.

"The British government is making a huge mistake giving them access to bring Sharia law here," Namazie said. It thinks it can reduce terrorism by doing that. It doesn’t understand that this is the political wing of the terrorist movement and they are here to suppress people’s rights. And we’re not going to allow it."

This is the movement that Choudary is pushing.

However, Choudary himself has some credibility problems within the Muslim community. Apart from the 2009 incident mentioned at the opening of this blog, where Muslims that I might characterize as more mainstream tried to drive Choudary's kind off the streets of Luton, and apart from the incident mentioned immediately above, where more mainstream Muslims counterprotested, it seems his previous antics are credited within certain parts of the UK's Muslim community with helping to provoke a reaction.

In an article entitled Who are the EDL? by Muhammad Amin, December 12, 2010, the author points to an incident which he says was formative for the English Defence League; as British troops returned to the UK from overseas, those who would go on to form the EDL were in attendance. They were not the only ones; notice this description of radical cleric Anjem Choudhary and his supporters:

Other visitors to Luton that day included a group of bearded busy bodies bumbling about. They were circled by Police, who defended them, as they waved placards insulting the soldiers and the army, in a manner similar to going up to a lion and saying 'you're a big smelly man-eater and I don't like it'. The natives grew restless, and the Police had to act as a buffer between supporters and protestors, letting them make a hasty exit before an increasingly angry mob. These bearded men were known as Islam4UK, and were led by Anjem Choudhary, who had been instrumental in an outlawed and outrageous group called Al-Muhajiroun. Choudhary seems to place himself at some self-conceived forefront of a struggle to bring Shariah Law to Britain, and yet has been shown in the Daily Mail to have had, in the past, a predilection for alcohol and cigarettes, and with his thumbs up beside a person displaying Mayfair magazine. He has been a leading member of groups apart from Al-Muhajiroun and Islam 4 UK, and now fronts a group known as Muslims Against Crusades. The media frenzy around this individual because of his outrageous and intransigent remarks.

Part of the reason Choudary has a credibility problem is that his "outrageous and intransigent remarks" are perceived to have helped contribute to the rise of so-called right-wing reactionary groups.

Choudary has even earned himself a bad reputation among Muslims on this side of the Atlantic. From Anjem Choudary part of the Muslim Lunatic Fringe - updated 7/14/11:

Choudary is the British nutcase from Al-Muhajirun and Muslims4UK that many Muslims have warned about (see list of articles below). You can find many more responses to these sorts of individuals and groups here. This "Imam" from Britain has in the past sent letters to the grieving families of fallen British soldiers, telling them he has "no sympathy whatsoever" for their plight, urging them instead to become Muslims to "save" themselves "from the hellfire". With this disgusting stunt he placed himself squarely in the same league as the "Reverend" Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church.

In 2008 Choudary launched his sickest rant yet as he branded Christmas "evil". The Muslim fanatic shocked Christians and even those of his own faith by slamming the festival as "the pathway to hellfire". And the hardline nut, 41, who recently praised the Mumbai terror massacre, urged all Muslims to reject traditional yuletide fun.

Muslims in Britain are totally fed up with Choudary and his organizations: Muslim communities around the country have shunned al-Muhajiroun and its various entities for years and refused to give them a platform. Instead, they have to work through front organisations, hire private halls, set up high-street stalls or leaflet people with their poisonous little tracts. They are utterly marginal but are still able to generate huge coverage through provocation. Their recent barracking of British troops returning from Iraq and a counter mini-riot in Luton has poisoned relations in the town. The Muslim community of Luton, which had already chased them out of the mosques, has taken to chasing them off the streets too in a desperate bid to signal their utter disgust and consternation. Anjem Choudary's latest wheeze to incite the ire of the national press and to irritate the hell out of Britain's Muslims as well as everyone else is to use a legal loophole to relaunch al-Muhajiroun this week, which had been disbanded in 2004. Only its successor groups, al-Ghurabaa and the Saviour Sect, were banned in 2006 under terrorism legislation. It seems fairly clear that Choudary expects, and indeed makes the calculation, that the reformed al-Muhajiroun will be banned pretty quickly to generate the notoriety and street-cred that he wants to sustain. As they play a propagandistic role, they will continue to find ways to dodge past legal restrictions by using coded language or forming new entities. The law is obviously a blunt and ineffectual tool. Yahya Birt

But, that's not all.

Aside from the fact that Choudary seeks to impose his will on the people of the UK, with his useful dupes like Ullah saying that to support the current UK government is worshipping a man (and, of course, letting Choudary tell you what to do in the name of his prophet is not), the rest of the Muslim community wonders under what authority Choudary sets himself up as an expert.

From Is Anjem Choudhary (The Partisan Follower of Omar Bakri Muhammad Fustuq al-Mudallis) a Qualified Islamic Judge of a Sharee'ah Court in the UK?! dated March, 2008:

So we ask Choudary: at which Islamic institute did you study for you to be bestowed with the honour of becoming a "judge at a Shariah Court in the UK" and a "Principal Lecturer"? Not only is the so-called 'London School of Shariah' nothing but a re-hash of Omar Bakri's blind followers but there is no premise to this place and no actual location!? Furthermore, Choudhary has no knowledge of the Arabic language! Hardly an endorsement therefore of him being any sort of "judge"!

So, Choudary is disavowed by various, more mainstream, Muslim groups.

But, is that all?

Returning to The unholy past of the Muslim cleric demanding the Pope's execution, a little above the previously cited quote from this source:

It's a long way from his days as a medical student at Southampton University, where, friends say, he drank, indulged in casual sex, smoked cannabis and even took LSD. He called himself 'Andy' and was famed for his ability to drink a pint of cider in a few seconds.

One former acquaintance said: "At parties, like the rest of us, he was rarely without a joint. The morning after one party, I can remember him getting all the roaches (butts) from the spliffs we had smoked the night before out of the ashtrays, cutting them up and making a new one out of the leftovers.

"He would say he was a Muslim and was proud of his Pakistani heritage, but he did-n't seem to attend any of the mosques in Southampton, and I only knew of him having white girlfriends. He certainly shared a bed with them."

On one occasion, 'Andy' and a friend took LSD together. The friend said: "We took far too much and were hallucinating for 20 hours."

The only sign of religious fervour came in flashes of anger over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. A friend from that time said: "You didn't want to get him started on that. He would go on and on about the fatwa and he supported calls for the book to be banned. But he would have a glass of cider in his hand when he was carrying on about it."

I wonder if his past as a recreational user is his Choudary's only connection to the UK drug scene?

Stay tuned for Part 5.