Andrew Gilligan’s latest diatribe is fast deteriorating into an anti-Muslim hate campaign built on deceptive language and a distortion of clear facts. Here are some of his quotes from his latest hate instalment in the Spectator, alongside our comments.
“The Islamic Forum of Europe is decried by most Muslims as vicious and unrepresentative, says Andrew Gilligan.”
So here “most Muslims” would equate to at least over 1million Muslims if we take a rough figure of 2 million Muslims in the UK – when did AG interview all these people or is he spewing lies again?
When did the IFE say they represent all Muslims? And why is it when ethnic minorities create organisations they have to ‘represent’ the entire community and prove their legitimacy? It’s probably the old colonial mentality kicking in where ‘white colonial master’ wants to only speak to the leader of the ‘uncivilised natives’. How many people does Gilligan represent?
“Over the past 12 months, the East London Mosque has hosted at least 18 hate, fundamentalist and extremist speakers, many of them more than once. Over the past few years, there have been dozens — all approved, and many explicitly endorsed, by the mosque authorities themselves”
ELM hires its premises out to a diverse group of people – this is what Gilligan, deceitfully, is not clarifying – that the ELM is not ‘hosting’ these events as in organising or being a part of these events– it simply hires its premises out to organisations. He is trying to cunningly give the impression that ELM supports, organises and promotes all these speakers or groups. Why didn’t Gilligan speak to the actual organisers of these events instead of portraying the ELM as the organiser? If any of these speakers have broken the law I’m confident that ELM will ban them as it has prevented other extremist groups from using their premises in the past.
“As for the charge of Islamophobia, 70 per cent of our interviewees — and all of the IFE’s severest critics — were Muslim”
70% ! Gosh! sounds like a huge majority. So what does that translate into Gilligan? A thousand? No. A few hundred ? No. Fifty ? No. Ten ? Oh come on how many? Four. Four interviewees ! What? such a hoo-ha on the back of four interviews? And three of them belong to the same organisation that has seen its power, influence and, more pertinently, grants dry up over the past fifteen years mainly because they haven’t done much for the community here apart from sit around and gossip about Bangladeshi politics. Hmm sounds like a case of sour grapes.
“The BBC’s real journalistic failing, however, was nothing to do with the film. It was allowing the mosque and the IFE to present themselves as mainstream, to peddle their grossly presumptuous claim that they speak for the Muslim population of Britain”
So according to Gilligan the IFE has taken over the local labour party, controls the council, decides who becomes the local MP, runs the East London Mosque, controls the Muslim Council of Britain (which has 500 member organisations), draws in millions of pounds of public money through ELM, BUT hold it – it’s still not mainstream!! Talk about contradictions. So what is mainstream? Do you have to be white to be mainstream or do you have to be a ‘liberal’ or ‘moderate’ or a Govt stooge Muslim that fits in with Gilligan’s condescending acceptable Muslim pigeonhole?
These are a just a few of AG’s blatantly dishonest and contradictory claims about IFE, East London Mosque and some of the leaders of one of the most dynamic and progressive Muslim communities in the UK. My advice to AG is to ask himself the following simple questions. The answers are clear enough to prove the hate promoting nonsense that he is passing off as investigative journalism is utterly baseless.
1. IF the IFE is such a viscous, extreme, fundamentalist, Jihad promoting group that wants to take over the UK, why has the IFE been working peacefully in the community for the past few decades without any member carrying out any acts of violence or terrorism?
2. Why have the IFE and ELM condemned 9/11, 7/7, the Madrid bombings and all acts of violence and terror against civilians repeatedly and publicly?
3. Why has the IFE and ELM been working tirelessly for social and educational improvement in the community in partnership with local and central government if it harbours a hatred for democracy and the government.
4. Why did Jim Fitzpatrick praise the work of the East London Mosque as recently as in it’s 2008 Annual Report saying its an organisation “with clear and admirable intention to promote tolerance and encourage inter-religious and inter-cultural understanding. We need this…”
5. Why does both the IFE and ELM continue to enjoy the support, particpation and trust of one of the largest Muslim communities in the UK?
Gilligan an outsider to this community has simply been sold a red herring by a panicky Jim Fitzpatrick MP in the run up to a general election. An election in which he fears losing his seat Oona King style. The underlying truth is that this hate campaign has more to do with politics than polemics.
Good Blog! Don’t forget that BIG reason why these people who he interviewed stopped getting funds……errrr anyone know? Money missing…failed their audit! AG did you know that before you made it out to look as if they are not getting money because the council doesn’t want to give them money.
Excellent blog.
Its like it has been said over and over again. Gilligan fell prey to the old cutting and pasting technique of report writing and a laughable statistical data collection.
I would love to see the questions actually being answered. More so it would be wicked to see what Mr Fitzpatrick has to say about question 4?
As it has been said in the end of this blog, it is more so politics then anything else.
This is the best blog since everything here is the truth, unlike Andrew gilligan whos filled with lies, deception, being biased, contraicting his own self ect, his time will come when people will realise what a fool he was
Sheer brilliance!
6. Where’s your proof that the IFE is a sinister organisation that’s trying to infiltrate politics and take over England?
High time you stopped giving us descriptions of your silly nightmares, and gave us FACTS.
Well Folks, there’s nothing like a balanced debate, and this certainly is’nt! Nice comment Night Man, very Islamic, what exactly will happen when his “Time” comes? Stoning? Beheading? Your comments are divisive, intolerant, racist garbage. If this hateful nonsense is your attempt at discussion, then you’ve completely failed to uphold the basic tenets of your religion. Don’t suppose there’s any chance of this appearing on your board. I suppose as a liberal white kafir, I’d be the enemy then?
@Scott Hodgson
I don’t think you should be looking so deeply into what Night Man said as he’s merely saying his time will come when Gilligan’s lies will come out. Mr Gilligan was invited to a live discussion but failed to attend.
So Mr Hodgson don’t misinterpret other peoples comment, and your comment about being a liberal white Kafir. I don’t know why this word is so repulsive, Kafir means non-believer in Islam, it doesn’t mean, white racist islamaphobe, please don’t destroy words that have a simple meaning into derogetory terms, or someone might misinterpret your comments….
@Scott
A ‘balanced’ debate only works when there is sufficient grounds to debate both sides of the argument, and it is the absence of this which is the very point; Gilligan and his persistent smear campaigns are not sufficient grounds.
As Abu Muhammad said, if Gilligan wanted to debate this in a ‘balanced’ manner, he should have accepted an open platform where he could allow for this ‘balanced’ debate. Instead, he chose smear tactics of misquoting, cut-and-paste out-of-context methods, personal attacks, politically motivated attacks and so on, on both his dispatches sham as well as his blog WITHOUT giving his ‘victims’ any real say and hence SUPPRESSING any such ‘balanced’ debate.
I would therefore hope your condemnation is directed at Gilligan and crew as well…in the interests of balance of course.
And finally, if you refer to Abdullah Al-Hasan’s latest blog ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, you will note several symptoms of paranoia:
- preoccupied with unsupported doubts about friends or associates
- suspicious; unfounded suspicions; believes others are plotting against him/her
- reads negative meanings into innocuous remarks
You are unfortunately expressing all of these. How you jumped to the conclusion that Night Man’s comment referred to something so sinister is beyond me. It displays more about your prejudice and fear than anything else. Just so you feel reassured, no one here means you any harm, so you don’t have to worry about your…
A brilliant blog.
And Scott, please be so kind as to not put words in people’s mouths. You knew very well what Night Man meant. And if his saying ‘his time will come when people will realise what a fool he was’ counts as ‘divisive, intolerant, racist garbage,’ I’d love to know what your finely worded comment reflects.
Hi,
How do you make the lies run longer? Well my thought is that you try and make more lies to substantiate the lies you said in the first place. Problem is that you end up making more enemies than friends. The friends that you have will soon refuse to help you because they might just have to slit their own wrists (see: case of Kelly) once the brave journalist sells you out to the highest bidder or whiplasher.
Soon you have to start watching your own back, and I must say our dear friend is certainly brave because he brazenly walks into the lions lair on the 2nd Mar, goes to Wanstead on the 9th Mar (very unsociable hours might I add), Poplar on the 12th, and back to Brick Lane on the 15th (somosas were on Badrul), each time hoping to find an inventive way to back up the lies. Now I am not so brave and wouldn’t so much dare to go to places where I have kicked the natives in the teeth. But I will extend to helping those who may be in need, I mean to say
‘Gilly – I got your back!’
http://www.bladerunner.tv/index.php?ad=stab&gclid=CO705vr0wqACFQZslAodlT_9bA
Anyway – look forward to see you again soon!
Goodbye
Surely it is proof enough of sinister intentions that an extraordinary number people were shown to be joining the local Labour party in the recent past, an overwhelming majority of whom were of Asian names.
@ george
That well be the case – BUT that was the case since 2001 when the party went in to special measures due to huge ‘influx of members from the bengali community’ and one of those identified Labour members who was named was non other than Cllr Helal Abbas – so what has that to do with IFE?
Why can’t it be the case that the “Asians” in tower hamlets are just more politicaly aware and decided to join the labour party because they thought that this party best represents their views? Why does it have to be somthing sinister? Gosh it’s borderline racism I tell you.