Tower Hamlets Community Stands up to Fight Fascism in all its Colours
anarchist in London | 18.06.2010 19:27
An amazing shown of progressive unity in East London against those that seek to dominate it - be they EDL, UAF or IFE
The entry of the English Defence League (EDL) into Tower Hamlets to protest against a meeting organized under the auspices of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) is a direct provocation to stir up racial tensions, foment dissent among faiths and attempt to bring disunity amongst the communities of the borough.
We condemn the fascist EDL whose sole objective is to act as storm troopers for the British National Party (BNP) and pick up the pieces for them after their miserable rout in the local and national elections in neighbouring Barking and Dagenham Council. Under the guise of being non-political and upholding “English” values they are propagating a virulent form of naked Islamophobia which is rejected by the communities of Tower Hamlets. We will do everything in our power to defend the peace in the borough, protect the lives of Muslims and ensure that the unity amongst all is maintained.
This borough has a rich tradition of successful challenge to fascist forces of the Blackshirts and the National Front. The Battle of Cable Street in the 30,s and the Struggle for Brick Lane following Altab Ali’s murder in the 70’s and the move to oust Derek Beackon in the 90’s is part of our common history. The values of universalism, anti-racism and no compromise with fascism inform our thinking and has become part of our existence. We will build on this rich tradition as we face Oswald Mosley’s grandchildren.
As we confront the fascist thugs of EDL we in the Bengali and the Muslim community are being asked to stand side by side with Islamic Forum in Europe (IFE). This we refuse to do. The IFE does not represent the Muslim community in Tower Hamlets. They do not uphold the glorious tradition of Cable Street, Altab Ali and the anti racist movement. Under the patronage of an exclusivist Islam emanating from Saudi Arabia they are attempting to impose it amongst the Bengalis in this borough.
Just as the EDL takes the guise of being ordinary English citizen to hide their true identity of fronting the fascist BNP so do IFE act as the sole representatives of ordinary Muslims but are in fact operating under the direction of their parent organisation Jamaat-e- Islami in Bangladesh. It is Jamaat that was party to the massacre of innocent Bangladeshis in the 1971 war of independence that establish the independent state of Bangladesh. A war Tribunal has been established in Bangladesh to try leaders of Jaamat-e- Islam who are IFE’s real ideological and organisational gurus. In other words IFE represent a virulent form of political Islam that is fascistic in nature like Jaamat Islam and verges on the anti-Semitic and is very exclusivist and undemocratic.
In defending the people of Tower Hamlets and especially the ordinary Muslims we do not have to defend IFE. EDL is attacking the Muslims of this borough and we must protect them. IFE must not be allowed to use this occasion to propagate their very reactionary version of political Islam.
We must also alert the entire community about the opportunist and divisive politics of IFE. Using this latest EDL threat to the local community, it is clear to us that the IFE brigade is trying to terrify the most vulnerable in our community – the Bangladeshi women and children into joining their ranks under the banner of ‘defending the Ummah’. It has come to our knowledge that IFE and its operatives have sent out mass e-mails, text messages and visited members of the community including young children in primary schools ask them to join forces and defend Muslims and East London Mosque from imminent threat of destruction.
All progressive forces must realize that the gut reaction to EDL is to defend everybody including IFE because they might be accused of being Islamophobic. But we boldly proclaim that it is not Islamophobic to have no trucks with the heirs of Fascist Jaamat. It is not Islamophobic to denounce the anti democratic credentials of IFE and their Saudi patrons. It is not Islamophobic to show solidarity with the Muslims of Tower Hamlets and their diverse representative organisations without marching under the leadership of IFE. We cannot be consistent in fighting the fascist EDL if we elect the “fascist” IFE as our Imam. In line with the best in the Islamic and Bengali tradition we reject the siren calls of IFE as we prepare to organise against EDL.
On behalf of:
Harmuz Ali (Bangladesh Welfare Association - BWA), Sajjadur Rahman (Brick Lane Mosque), Shamsuddin Shams (Altab Ali Memorial Foundation), Badrul Islam (Centre for Citizenship and Development (CCD), Akikur Rahman (Bangladesh Youth Association), Rajonuddin Jalal (London Bangladeshi Association), Ansar Ahmed Ullah (Nirmul Committee), Mahmoud Rauf (Brick Lane Business Association), Abdus Subhan Gedu (Banglatown Restaurant Association), Ethnic Minority Enterprise Project (EMEP), Abdul Ali Rauf (Chicksand Citizen’s Forum), Collective of Bangladeshi School Governors, Tower Hamlets Parents Centre, Tower Hamlets Parents Association, APASENTH, BYM, Nurul Islam (Kendrio Shaheed Minar Committee), Sundar Miah (Tarling Tenants & Residents Association), Nooruddin Ahmed (Bangladesh Youth League), Ruhul Amin (Progressive Youth Organisation), Taimus Ali (Bangladesh Youth Front), Shahab Uddin Ahmed Belal (Human Rights Secretary, Awami League), Cathy Forrester, Claire Murphy, Phil Maxwell, Terry Fitzpatrick (Blair Peach Project), Syed Sad Ahmed, Fanu Miah (Golden Moon Youth Project), Julie Begum (Swadhinata Trust), Amina Ali (international Forum for Secular Bangladesh), Sujit Sen (Liberation), Gita Sahgal, Subir Sinha, Alice Sielle (St. Barnabas church Bethnal Green), Imtiar Shamim (Muktangon: Nirman Blog), Rayhan Rashid (War Crimes Strategy Forum), Saikat Acharjee (WCSF), Nowrin Tamanna (University of Reading), Anisur Rahman Anis ( Bangladesh Human Rights Council UK), James Swapan Peris ( Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council- European committee), Whitechapel Anarchist Group, Ansarul Haque, Tower Hamlets Muslim Council & Jim Fitzpatrick MP Poplar and Limehouse.
Contact for further details:
Mr. Nurul Islam – 07984 610199 / 07836 332262
On behalf of UNITY PLATFORM AGAINST RACISM AND FASCISM
C/O Bangladesh Welfare Association, 39 Fournier Street, London E1 6QL
We condemn the fascist EDL whose sole objective is to act as storm troopers for the British National Party (BNP) and pick up the pieces for them after their miserable rout in the local and national elections in neighbouring Barking and Dagenham Council. Under the guise of being non-political and upholding “English” values they are propagating a virulent form of naked Islamophobia which is rejected by the communities of Tower Hamlets. We will do everything in our power to defend the peace in the borough, protect the lives of Muslims and ensure that the unity amongst all is maintained.
This borough has a rich tradition of successful challenge to fascist forces of the Blackshirts and the National Front. The Battle of Cable Street in the 30,s and the Struggle for Brick Lane following Altab Ali’s murder in the 70’s and the move to oust Derek Beackon in the 90’s is part of our common history. The values of universalism, anti-racism and no compromise with fascism inform our thinking and has become part of our existence. We will build on this rich tradition as we face Oswald Mosley’s grandchildren.
As we confront the fascist thugs of EDL we in the Bengali and the Muslim community are being asked to stand side by side with Islamic Forum in Europe (IFE). This we refuse to do. The IFE does not represent the Muslim community in Tower Hamlets. They do not uphold the glorious tradition of Cable Street, Altab Ali and the anti racist movement. Under the patronage of an exclusivist Islam emanating from Saudi Arabia they are attempting to impose it amongst the Bengalis in this borough.
Just as the EDL takes the guise of being ordinary English citizen to hide their true identity of fronting the fascist BNP so do IFE act as the sole representatives of ordinary Muslims but are in fact operating under the direction of their parent organisation Jamaat-e- Islami in Bangladesh. It is Jamaat that was party to the massacre of innocent Bangladeshis in the 1971 war of independence that establish the independent state of Bangladesh. A war Tribunal has been established in Bangladesh to try leaders of Jaamat-e- Islam who are IFE’s real ideological and organisational gurus. In other words IFE represent a virulent form of political Islam that is fascistic in nature like Jaamat Islam and verges on the anti-Semitic and is very exclusivist and undemocratic.
In defending the people of Tower Hamlets and especially the ordinary Muslims we do not have to defend IFE. EDL is attacking the Muslims of this borough and we must protect them. IFE must not be allowed to use this occasion to propagate their very reactionary version of political Islam.
We must also alert the entire community about the opportunist and divisive politics of IFE. Using this latest EDL threat to the local community, it is clear to us that the IFE brigade is trying to terrify the most vulnerable in our community – the Bangladeshi women and children into joining their ranks under the banner of ‘defending the Ummah’. It has come to our knowledge that IFE and its operatives have sent out mass e-mails, text messages and visited members of the community including young children in primary schools ask them to join forces and defend Muslims and East London Mosque from imminent threat of destruction.
All progressive forces must realize that the gut reaction to EDL is to defend everybody including IFE because they might be accused of being Islamophobic. But we boldly proclaim that it is not Islamophobic to have no trucks with the heirs of Fascist Jaamat. It is not Islamophobic to denounce the anti democratic credentials of IFE and their Saudi patrons. It is not Islamophobic to show solidarity with the Muslims of Tower Hamlets and their diverse representative organisations without marching under the leadership of IFE. We cannot be consistent in fighting the fascist EDL if we elect the “fascist” IFE as our Imam. In line with the best in the Islamic and Bengali tradition we reject the siren calls of IFE as we prepare to organise against EDL.
On behalf of:
Harmuz Ali (Bangladesh Welfare Association - BWA), Sajjadur Rahman (Brick Lane Mosque), Shamsuddin Shams (Altab Ali Memorial Foundation), Badrul Islam (Centre for Citizenship and Development (CCD), Akikur Rahman (Bangladesh Youth Association), Rajonuddin Jalal (London Bangladeshi Association), Ansar Ahmed Ullah (Nirmul Committee), Mahmoud Rauf (Brick Lane Business Association), Abdus Subhan Gedu (Banglatown Restaurant Association), Ethnic Minority Enterprise Project (EMEP), Abdul Ali Rauf (Chicksand Citizen’s Forum), Collective of Bangladeshi School Governors, Tower Hamlets Parents Centre, Tower Hamlets Parents Association, APASENTH, BYM, Nurul Islam (Kendrio Shaheed Minar Committee), Sundar Miah (Tarling Tenants & Residents Association), Nooruddin Ahmed (Bangladesh Youth League), Ruhul Amin (Progressive Youth Organisation), Taimus Ali (Bangladesh Youth Front), Shahab Uddin Ahmed Belal (Human Rights Secretary, Awami League), Cathy Forrester, Claire Murphy, Phil Maxwell, Terry Fitzpatrick (Blair Peach Project), Syed Sad Ahmed, Fanu Miah (Golden Moon Youth Project), Julie Begum (Swadhinata Trust), Amina Ali (international Forum for Secular Bangladesh), Sujit Sen (Liberation), Gita Sahgal, Subir Sinha, Alice Sielle (St. Barnabas church Bethnal Green), Imtiar Shamim (Muktangon: Nirman Blog), Rayhan Rashid (War Crimes Strategy Forum), Saikat Acharjee (WCSF), Nowrin Tamanna (University of Reading), Anisur Rahman Anis ( Bangladesh Human Rights Council UK), James Swapan Peris ( Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council- European committee), Whitechapel Anarchist Group, Ansarul Haque, Tower Hamlets Muslim Council & Jim Fitzpatrick MP Poplar and Limehouse.
Contact for further details:
Mr. Nurul Islam – 07984 610199 / 07836 332262
On behalf of UNITY PLATFORM AGAINST RACISM AND FASCISM
C/O Bangladesh Welfare Association, 39 Fournier Street, London E1 6QL
anarchist in London
Comments
Hide the following 13 comments
Did Whitechapel Anarchists Group write this?
18.06.2010 20:40
anon
Re : "We in the Bengali and Muslim community" signed by an anarchist.
18.06.2010 20:42
anon
IFE & IC-UK speakers spoke on stage at London Muslim Center & had support there.
18.06.2010 20:57
The people from the East London Mosque and Muslim Center in Tower Hamlets will defend themselves as they see fit and have produced joint leaflets with the IFE and UAF.
So my question is, to Mr Anarchist, what are you on about?
Who is the Muslim who wrote this article and signed themselves as "anarchist"? Most Muslims would start an article "Asalaam Alaikum brothers and sisters" if addressing the Ummah. A Muslim would be likely to sign off with a Muslim name..not "anarchist in London".
anon
Workers Liberty? A Trot group.
18.06.2010 21:06
anon
the letter is not from an anarchist
18.06.2010 22:08
it is obviously from, if you only would read it, a large list of Tower Hamlets people/groups, mostly Bangaldeshi.
anonymous2
Psychological warfare
19.06.2010 08:05
The state poured millions into the East London Mosque. It got support from government ministers and the Prince of Wales. What came out of it is the IFE. Why has the government not rethought its supposed policies about community cohesion if it in fact created 'IFE' extremism?
The EDL are not merely the BNP in drag. Someone organised and well-financed force is behind them. The people involved are paid or blackmailed through a prison sentence. Any 'ordinary' person who formed it would work out that he/she would come under the surveillance of MI5, the police and their employers. Most ordinary people would not risk the impact on their lives just for the sake of shouting at Muslims. It beggars belief that the EDL came about from the bottom up.
The secret state knows that an economic crisis is upon us. They deliberately created the crisis. The aim is to transfer wealth from the public to the elite. Yet, they fear the public turning their anger against the elite. They avoid this by creating divisions among the public and get them to fight one another. This is why the EDL is not focused on extremists but the community at large but the only people the secret state can encourage to get active are people they pay and criminals they use.
But the public is easily duped. They don't realise that the hand of the secret state are behind these things. They don't see the wood for the trees: Saudi Arabia, the West's best allay, finance Al Qaida; Pakistan military intelligence, which works closely with the CIA, support the Taliban. The 'riots' in Kyrgyzstan are planned and organised. We are being manipulated.
insidejob
anarcho kaffir?
19.06.2010 10:39
no imans no priests no vicars no bullshit
@handjob
20.06.2010 00:50
No we arn't. You're a spoon.
insidemyass
I'm right then
20.06.2010 08:31
20.06.2010 00:50
>>>> But the public is easily duped. They don't realise that the hand of the secret state are behind these things. They don't see the wood for the trees: Saudi Arabia, the West's best allay, finance Al Qaida; Pakistan military intelligence, which works closely with the CIA, support the Taliban. The 'riots' in Kyrgyzstan are planned and organised. We are being manipulated.
No we arn't. You're a spoon.
insidemyass
thanks again from the Pentagon. I'd be shocked if some grunt didn't try on an insult in response to comments like mine. Note how fact-less and argument-less insidemyass' comment is and how it is all dependent on insult. Note what time the comment is. In fact, I'm not sure whether he is saying EDL/IFE is state organised or not.
The problem with these insults is that Pentagon wouldn't bother if they were off the mark:
SOUTH ASIA, 29 Oct 2009
Helicopter rumors refuse to die
By Ahmad Kawoosh
MAZAR-E-SHARIF - Persistent accounts of Western forces in Afghanistan using their helicopters to ferry Taliban fighters, strongly denied by the military, is feeding mistrust of the forces that are supposed to be bringing order to the country.
One such tale came from a soldier from the 209th Shahin Corps of the Afghan National Army, fighting against the growing insurgency in Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan. Over several months, he had taken part in several pitched battles against the armed opposition.
insidejob
@ Inside Job
20.06.2010 15:17
Aye but
Work it out
20.06.2010 17:09
@ Inside Job
20.06.2010 15:17
The State does not need to be "behind" the EDL; the gardener is not "behind" the potato.
Aye but
Aye but
Work it out for yourself. But you have to use your brains first. Having some helps.
Islamic radicals 'infiltrate' the Labour Party
IFE activists boasted to the undercover reporters that they had already “consolidated … a lot of influence and power” over Tower Hamlets, a London borough council with a £1 billion budget.
…We have established that the group and its allies were awarded more than £10 million of taxpayers’ money, much of it from government funds designed to “prevent violent extremism”. IFE leaders were recorded expressing opposition to democracy, support for sharia law or mocking black people. The IFE organised meetings with extremists, including Taliban allies, a man named by the US government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and a man under investigation by the FBI for his links to the September 11 attacks…
We need a compact with Muslim Middle England
2nd June 2010 ANDREW GILLIGAN
Even now, despite their humiliation by the voters, Islamist sympathisers in Whitehall are working to shape the policies of the new administration. Inside the Department of Communities and Local Government there is a paid ministerial adviser called Mohammed Abdul Aziz, who is also an honorary trustee of the East London Mosque
Why does the BBC air Islamist propaganda?
ANDREW GILLIGAN
WEDNESDAY, 10TH MARCH 2010
…But what listeners were not told, and would not have known, is that the IFE is the organisation which runs the East London Mosque…
Recruited by MI5: the name's Mussolini. Benito Mussolini
History remembers Benito Mussolini as a founder member of the original Axis of Evil, the Italian dictator who ruled his country with fear and forged a disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany. But a previously unknown area of Il Duce's CV has come to light: his brief career as a British agent.
Archived documents have revealed that Mussolini got his start in politics in 1917 with the help of a £100 weekly wage from MI5.
For the British intelligence agency, it must have seemed like a good investment. Mussolini, then a 34-year-old journalist, was not just willing to ensure Italy continued to fight alongside the allies in the first world war by publishing propaganda in his paper. He was also willing to send in the boys to "persuade'' peace protesters to stay at home.
insidejob
Most of the signatures on the press release were faked.
27.06.2010 04:30
anon
"racism and fascism in all it's colours". ??
27.06.2010 22:12
anon