Rubbish, perverted footballers in "racist" shock

I've spent a while in Thailand, to put it mildly. Although I live outside Bangkok  (most foreigners seem to think Thailand has only four locations: Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya and Chiang Mai) - I'm used to seeing tourists of all kind on a regular basis.Most of them are families or younger people on a gap year. Both types often fall in love with Thailand and return.

Then we have the sex tourist type, the sort that falls into the lure of what - and this is important - is a very small part of Bangkok and the bigger cities where the type of activity that these three Leicester players got involved in is possible. Sex tourists are usually not particularly nice people. Not just because of what they do but because they often start to believe their own delusions and actually manage to convince themselves they are David Beckham, just without the money, looks, charisma or talent.

That type of delusion is what leads them to behave the way these three young Leicester players did and yet what is so amazing is that nobody on either side seems to care. Of course the three females consented to do whatever they did in the hotel room, but I very much doubt they agreed to be abused about their appearance. For Thai women to be mocked, belittled and engage on video in what is - believe or not - technically still illegal in Thailand is apparently fine to overlook in the diverse and inclusive media of the UK. But make one stupid (and wrong) remark about "slit eyes", and your career is over.

That's right, the opening paragraphs in Sky News or the BBC did not read: "Players engage in private sex show"  or "Leicester reserves mock women's appearance on video". No, both openers included the word "racist" ahead of the word "abuse" or"sex tape"  in their description of the offence. Take note then, that what is important in the eyes of the moral guardians at the BBC is not that these women were verbally abused about their looks, etc. but that they were racially abused. Whichever player is found to have said 'slit eyes'- and rest assured, the BBC will find, name and shame the heretic - can see his career flushed away by his own poor eyesight. Thai people do not have 'slit eyes' , they are mostly rounded.

The good news of sorts for Leicester fans is that you need not worry about this damaging your support in Siam.The club shop is at the airport. I have never, ever seen a shirt being purchased there in all my times travelling in and out of Bangkok. I have never, ever seen a Thai person a Leicester shirt, either. Leicester are a club of loyal fans and a good footballing squad, but they have a long, long way to go before Newin, King Power and co. make inroads back home,

Open Letter to Mohammed Kozbar

Dear Muhammed Kozbar,

Kozbar (islingtontribune.com)

I read your article on the Yahoo UK News site. At first I honestly thought it was an article by a Guardian columnist. Then I saw it was written by you, a key member of the Finsbury Park Mosque, of which convicted kidnapper and terrorist supporter Abu Hamza was a cleric, so I was very much in the correct ballpark.

I try to avoid the tactic of fisking as I find it leads to animosity rather than quality debate or reading, but as I read your letter I saw so much lazy thinking and simply outrageous statements that I instantly realised fisking would be the only way to deal with it.  Forgive my abruptness as we dive in:

Every time the issue of young British Muslims going to Syria is raised, the same question is asked by both the media and the government: Why isn't the Muslim community doing more to stop these young people joining Islamic State (Isis)?                                                                             

But while the Muslim community should rightly shoulder some responsibility to address this problem, simply putting all the blame and responsibility at the doors of our community will only risk alienating, marginalising and criminalising a new generation of Muslim youth.

Fair enough so far, though it still sticks to the typical line of self-pity over responsibility. It's ultimately saying that being 'picked on' is a greater reason for joining ISIS than upbringing or education.

Impressionable young Muslims who are steered towards extremism are British citizens and our government is duty-bound to engage with both them and the leaders of the Muslim community. The solution is not to issue new counter terrorism bills, a strategy which has largely failed. 

No, impressionable young Muslims are joining ISIS from around the world. The only way to correct your sentence would be to add the demonym "British", which would make it a circular statement. This isn't a pedantic jab, I'm pointing it out because you've deliberately phrased it that way to reinforce your idea that a few Muslims in the UK join ISIS because they are alienated. If you focused on the worldwide picture the evidence would show that some Muslims from across the world are doing the same, making your stated motivation unsupported by evidence.

The fact is some young Muslims feel they are second-class citizens in Britain. Many face inequality and discrimination at work, anti-Muslim hatred and even physical attacks. 

Really? It happens to many Muslims? Evidence? Data? Eyewitness reports? Neutral testimonies? Or just your word? It may happen in a very small number of incidents, as does the opposite.

It is irresponsible for pundits, politicians and commentators to dismiss outright a link between British foreign policy and radicalisation.

Agreed, it is.

Young Muslims are often politicised and sometimes radicalised by daily news of fellow Muslims attacked, killed, oppressed and denied the freedom to lead their own lives.

Often when I see news of attacks on Muslims, it is by other Muslim states or militaries. While it may be true that western policy has not helped, the argument that this drives ISIS membership from UK citizens is equivalent to saying that young Christians could move to North Korea to launch military strikes against the labor camps that Christians are condemned to, or a rebel group in Somalia, in which Christians are terrorised. Instead most Christians support charities like Open Doors, which support peaceful, practical and helpful support for persecuted Christians as best they can. Your argument, Mister Kozbar, is actually at the level of a child screaming: "He started it". You also fail to see the irony of a UK citizen using their freedom of movement to join a group which seeks to annihilate the nation which they declare has denied them freedom.

Sadly British policy abroad has resulted in some of this, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Gaza. Young people see the hypocrisy of the West standing by dictators like Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who violently removed Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammad Morsi, and has sentenced to death hundreds of his supporters without fair trials. 

So just to be clear, the three 'Jihadi brides' left for Syria because of the British government support for Morsi. Not because one of them was fathered by a man who burned our flags and marched with Lee Rigby's killer, not because of your mosque taking in a Imam who was a kidnapper of innocent people and definitely not because of aggressive demonstrations against British soldiers. Instead they were calm, rational people who joined a violent, bloodthirsty, beheading, temple-burning, fire-executing group based on perceived hypocrisy in western foreign relations.

Did those "young people" also see the hypocrisy in citing western-backed dictatorship as a reason for ISIS support  when most Islamic states are undemocratic and clearly show the problems linking Islam and democracy?

Muslims are a fundamental part of British society and an important part of the makeup of this diverse nation. The Muslim community has at its core values that are truly British, values such as honesty, justice and equality, all intertwined in their faith and culture.
The vast majority of British Muslims are proud to be British and Muslim and see no contradiction between the two. A BBC survey in February found 95% of Muslims in Britain are against any violent acts and loyal to their country.

I've expressed my views on the BBC before but I like to think you are right with everything you said here. However, a more recent survey showed that thirty-nine percent of UK Muslims felt police were a factor in radicalisation. It also concluded that forty-four percent of British Muslims believed families were responsible for preventing young people heading to Syria, meaning well over half of those interviewed did not believe family played a role. How compatible is the total rejection of family responsibility with British values?

Unfortunately, a minority of extremists on both sides – the Muslim community and the far right – are trying to push the narrative that you cannot be a good Muslim and a British citizen.
A study by Islamophobia network research recently claimed $57m is spent on spreading hate against Muslims in America through the media and by politicians. I wonder how much has been spent here in the UK? We recently saw the case of the so-called Trojan horse scandal – where a "plot" was alleged by which extremist Muslims planned to infiltrate schools. It transpired that there never was a plot in the first place.

Any organisation that calls itself  "islamaphobia" - a totally bigoted, politicised and unverifiable piece of terminology in its own right - would strike me as one that is unlikely to conduct good, impartial scientific research without regards to its own income or justification for its existence. Do you have a more reputable, impartial survey to cite?

Key to challenging this is making young Muslims feel that they are part of the solution, not the problem.
We need to engage with young people in a positive way in mosques and universities. At Finsbury Park Mosque, we have worked hard to create a cohesive atmosphere out of one that was previously very hostile and we have managed to return the mosque back in the heart of the community despite the efforts of our detractors in the media and the far right.

Young Muslims could perhaps start by reading this book about Hamza and your mosque and decide if it is the right place to start looking for solutions.

But despite our best efforts, we are still subject to anti-Muslim hate attacks. We have had a pig's head hung on our gates; our mosque has been fire-bombed; white powder sent to our Imam; and we have received numerous death threats.

Your definition of "hate" appears similar to that of Stan Collymore. I don't dispute it's nasty and unpleasant to leave a pig's head outside your place of worship, but does it constitute "hate"? If so, is it an equal crime to that of beheading a person or watching them burn to death? I put it to you that you and many on your side deliberately exploit and overuse the word "hate" and "hate crime" for you own sympathy. I think you attempt to equalise the nasty but relatively petty offences against you and the horrific, sub-human acts committed by terrorists in the name of Islam.

Violence breeds violence and this cycle must stop. There is a desperate need for a dialogue and understanding of the real issues at play in order to find solutions to our problems and challenges. Scapegoating the Muslim community or trying to divide the community on nefarious grounds is not the solution. 

A very true and fair statement. On this we can agree.

Let us all start today by acknowledging that Muslims are part of British society and like all communities they need understanding and support, rather than hate and the criminalisation of their faith. 

A true statement in itself but carefully loaded to yet again play the "victim" card. There is absolutely no outlawing of the Muslim faith in Britain, the insufferable myth - and the liberal left's wet dream - of a backlash against Muslims never ceases to go away despite all the statistics and studies showing  it has not happened. Indeed, your name is the most popular name for a new baby boy in the UK.

To my surprise Mister Kozbar, I actually find myself in agreement with your content and, at times, your tone. What I find extraordinary is that you can be so absolvent of the role your mosque has played in radicalisation. In addition, the spellbinding ignorance of the hypocrisy in your "British foreign policy"' excuses and the use of your British freedoms to complain about Muslims losing their freedoms would be comical, were it not so serious. I also note  you never once justified your headline tag of "racism".

You are absolutely right though, we need dialogue, we need understanding and we need to acknowledge the role of different communities. What we also need is responsibility, honesty, clarification of priorities and unification. I can't see that you, your mosque or your line of logic and argument can offer any of these solutions.

Archive 12 - Simon Danczuk MP – Well spun, sir, well spun!

The Pakistan flag (upside down)

As lefties go, you
are were definitely one of the best.  Up until now you didn’t play the “racist” card every time someone voiced concern over immigration, you drank with Nigel Farage without condemning him to the bottom layer of hell, you even stood up to the deafening silence over the Cyril Smith child abuse scandal and pushed for more investigation. You were also a fellow enthusiast of education. It pains me to say it, but you really were OK.

Until this last fortnight or so, that is.

First of all you were caught favouring porn on Twitter.  In a display of your political prowess you actually managed to at least partially turn that into a win, claiming that you are a man of the world  and your wife “loves it” (after all ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is so big right now) and even The Telegraph backed you up. It almost made you appear a man of integrity and honesty.  Of course, it would’ve helped if you had not at first denied it and hilariously claimed your iphone was faulty but still, it’s the best Twitter spin I’ve seen since John Denham MP explained to me why he used poor grammar.

And then came the flag incident. You joined in “Pakistan Day” and raised the flag upside down with the rest of the local Cheshire cats.  A minor Twitter storm followed. Now on one hand, it’s perfectly reasonable to raise a flag and show “cohesion” within a community. On the other though, Simon, let’s look at the bigger picture and I don’t mean your expenses . You have acknowledged yourself how much concern there is over immigration in the UK and especially your constituency of Rochdale. You have quite rightly promised to consider those fears. That’s all in addition to your local grooming cases that are so disturbing, the politicos work hard to avoid exposure of them. Knowing this, can you at least understand why the British public at large may see this flag incident as a faux pax? Can you fathom the traces of anger and disapproval?  We never see the English flag raised by smiling politicians in Pakistan, I personally have never seen you beaming with pride as the English flag is raised. Let’s remember a Labour colleague of yours viewed a display of the English flag with such snideness that she tweeted a photo of it in the belief others would join her in sneering. That’s how out of touch your party is with its working class roots, yet there you stand with a flag of a foreign country.

But in all honesty this still isn’t the rub. That came when someone called Katie Hopkins got a little over-exasperated and sent some silly tweets your way. This is when you choose to play politics again and project the focus onto her. In an astonishing waste of police time you followed the example of Stan Collymore and made a police complaint. How did you justify that waste of  tax money? With the one and only word you knew you could use without being laughed at: racism. Yep, you spat on all your talk of “community cohesion” , “understanding concerns” and the other political babble you once believably spouted  and played the laziest, most ignorant and exploited card you could.

Only one problem Simon: a guy called Richard Dawkins (you may have heard of him, he’s smarter than you or me) once said: “If you say it’s racist to insult Islam, you are saying Islam is a race. If you say Islam is a race,you are a racist.”

Now just substitute “Pakistan” for “Islam” in that quote and you’ve just been exposed for the hypocrite you are. Pakistan – the nation you profess so much “cohesion” with – is not made up of one “race”, not even close. Yet you committed the sin you accuse the right wing of and made an ignorant, sweeping claim about different ethnic groups that populate one state. By the same token you have implied that a nation is analogous to a single ethnic identity. Care to clarify that, MP Danscyuk? How does it apply to England?

In seeking to defend the indefensible, you put your foot in it with the mother of all “put your foot in it” quotes. You authored an article with the phrase “I’m a strong champion of free speech, BUT…….” followed by a pathetic, cowardly set of excuses for wasting police time. Not your finest moment. You followed it with one last barrel scrape – a tweet lecturing the world about freedom of speech.

For the record, free speech is not an unassailable right. It’s a privilege to be treated with care

— Simon Danczuk (@SimonDanczuk) March 31, 2015

You’re a smart man, you probably knew this was wrong already. It raises the question of why you would do it. Could you, by any chance, have one eye on re-election and another long spell of tax-payer funded hotel visits? I’d love an answer to that question, spin free.