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The English Defence League
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
What is your opinion of this relatively new organisation? As I understand, they initially formed last year in Luton some time after Anjem Choudary and his followers insulted British soldiers in their homecoming parade, and some guys thought "that's the last straw!" and they teamed up with some more geezers and they invented this EDL organisation.... and it went on from there.
They've done several protests around the UK, and wherever they go the UAF follow.
How do you form an opinion of the EDL exactly? What do you base your opinion on?
Do you base it on what they claim to represent on their website? What they publish on their leaflets? What some individuals say during their protests? (which the leaders of the EDL may or may not agree with).
I mean, I've heard England fans say racist things, but that doesn't mean that the England football team and the FA is a racist organisation.
Is it just a reality that although a movement like this is not racist, it will inevitably attract racists?
One of the leading EDL activists is Guramit Singh, a Sikh. I doubt highly doubt he'd support any "paki" insults which some individuals in their protests may spout. Or would he?
I've seen banners saying "Black and White unite!" and "No more Mosques!" and I've heard chants saying "Muslim bombers off our streets!"
I've also heard some individuals say things like "I hate pakis more than you!"
Discuss...
They've done several protests around the UK, and wherever they go the UAF follow.
How do you form an opinion of the EDL exactly? What do you base your opinion on?
Do you base it on what they claim to represent on their website? What they publish on their leaflets? What some individuals say during their protests? (which the leaders of the EDL may or may not agree with).
I mean, I've heard England fans say racist things, but that doesn't mean that the England football team and the FA is a racist organisation.
Is it just a reality that although a movement like this is not racist, it will inevitably attract racists?
One of the leading EDL activists is Guramit Singh, a Sikh. I doubt highly doubt he'd support any "paki" insults which some individuals in their protests may spout. Or would he?
I've seen banners saying "Black and White unite!" and "No more Mosques!" and I've heard chants saying "Muslim bombers off our streets!"
I've also heard some individuals say things like "I hate pakis more than you!"
Discuss...
0
Comments
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Don't some Indians dislike Pakistani people?
Sanitize, did you see this as a spectator or in the media?
I've only seen some clips of EDL demos on youtube and read about them in various newspapers. I haven't been near any of their demos (yet).
If I was I would stay clear of the EDL and the UAF. I have my own methods of countering Islamic nutters than draping myself in the St Georges flag and chanting "En-ger-land!!!".
As for the UAF, I don't like the way they operate either.
The ability of these groups (and other such as the BNP) to gather support and be as successful as they are is largely down to inaccurate reporting by our populist tabloid press and the complete failure of our politicians to address issues such as immigration and civil liberties up front and honestly.
The illegal invasion of Iraq and the crusade around the Middle East attempting to be the international police force has helped the nastier countries in that region to issue propaganda that suits them which has lead to huge numbers of people in those areas of the world being turned against the UK and wish to cause destruction and harm to our country.
The main stream political parties need to tackle these issues head-on in an open, honest and uprfont manner. To talk to the country in a way that people understand and the media need to become more responsible in their reporting. The popular tabloid press have a damning indictment to answer in my opinion and they need to shape up their act and report factually and sensibly without the sensationalist spin. Yes, people want the sensationalist spin, but when it is breeding hate, racism and thuggary then the press need to take a step back and fix a problem they have significantly contributed to.
The EDL does not have anything against ordinary muslims.
By the way the topic of the IRA came up because some people asked why the EDL did not campaign against the IRA claiming they were Catholic Christian extremists.
I replied that the IRA were not really christians because their campaign was an Irish nationalist struggle. They were fighting for a united Ireland NOT to promote the Catholic christian faith.
Very few of the IRA membership were practicing Catholics. The vast majority were simply Irish nationalists who wanted to end British influence in Ulster. That was why they enjoyed the support of athiest marxist anti-imperialist groups in Britain like the Socialist Workers Party, The Communist Party and Red Action.
You use that word almost as much as SG. It's really not becoming.
The EDL is a response to home grown British muslim extremists who abuse our democratic freedoms to promote extremism and to demand our country becomes an Islamic dictatorship like Iran.
At least they are making a stand against the Islamic extremists which more than the British left have done. I used to admire the British left but am now disgusted with them after their failure in not confronting extremist Islam and also of becoming apolaglists for it.
As for the UAF, I have noticed it is always them who kick off first NOT the EDL. They try to provoke the EDL by shouting "scum" and trying to physically attack them by forcing their way through police lines. It is interesting that the UAF are silent about Islamofascists though who preach their intention to impose harsh cruel sharia law on everyone.
Unless you think it is unfair to describe members of the EDL so.
I'm not saying, right now, that's what the EDL is doing, but you can accept that just because an organisations says it isn't racist doesn't automatically mean it isn't racist?
However, I would add that the opinions of Anjem "Andy" Choudary really should not be taken seriously. Here is the man who believes drunkenness should be punished by 40 lashes getting pissed in his youth. Presumably he has punished himself for this?
He should also stone himself to death. Why? Because several friends from his student days claimed he had sex with many women whilst at university. Sex outside marriage is forbidden under Sharia law and punishable, under his interpretation of it, by death.
If this is true, why is he still wasting oxygen?
UPDATE: Mr Eugenides wrote this on his blog about the man in January. I think it sums things up well: "Anjem Choudary may be a cunt of quite galactic proportions - was there ever, I wonder, a man who more richly deserved that term? - but he is also, essentially, a cartoon. There still lurks in my mind the nagging possibility that he may in fact be some sort of performance artist masquerading as a bearded cunt, or perhaps a BNP sleeper who wakes up every morning and stains his skin with the juice of betel nuts, dons a joke-shop beard, and spends the rest of his day pretending to be a cunt. He's not a threat; he's a punchline. To paraphrase the classic Billy Connolly line, banning's too good for the bastard; it's a good kick in the balls he needs."
No, just that it becomes tedious given the frequency with which you use it. Meh, personal opinion I guess.
And SG, I won't say anything to defend the industry in which I work. Some people are very culpable. However, what does get my goat is the generalising, populist grandstanding against "bankers" like every single person who works in financial services sits round a bit table and debate how best to fuck the world and everyone in it. Sadly reasoned debate and genuine knowledge of the subject is quickly displaced by vitriolic and unhelpful rhetoric merely to appear popular. Rant over.
But I am wearing navy pinstripe
Yeah man. :yes:
You are quite correct of course, this poster is clearly only aimed at extremists
The IRA came up because you raised a bombing in London as justification for EDL actions against muslims. My point was that more people were killed by the IRA in London yet the founder of EDL didn't seem too concerned about those white christians committing such acts.
I was wrong to describe them as Christians. I have already said that.
At some point you need to admit that EDL are racist.
It'd be nice if you could bear in mind that you're using this service to discuss issues with other people with different opinions to your own. There's no need to descend back into the playground because people disagree with you.
To be fair Jim, IME they use much stronger words in the playgrounds these days
Never mind by Aladdin and Stargalaxy...
And as Sanitize has mentioned, please do stay around the main topic - mentioning other religions relationship to terrorism is relevant to some degree but it'd probably be best to have a separate thread if people want to discuss relationship of the Troubles to religion
Bullshit. It has been shown time and time again on here that the EDL is actively anti-muslim, not anti Islamic extremism. You just choose to ignore that evidence and refuse to address it, just choosing to spout the same crap again and again like you work for the fucking EDL PR department.
There are plenty of things on their website that would fit in with the mission of wanting to highlight the influence of Islamic extremism in this country. However, there are plenty of others that then give away their true motives. Why, for example, would they have an issue with KFC restaurants in areas with large numbers of muslims having halal meat? They of course come up with some mealy-mouthed bullshit about caring for animal welfare.......in KFC for God's sake. If you have even the slightest concern for animal welfare, you'd avoid KFC like the plague, yet suddenly these people are massively concerned when the particular method of cruelty happens to be a muslim one. It's like the same transparent complaints that happened in France. This is the country that gave the world foie gras ffs, and suddenly they're concerned about the ethical issues of halal meat? Give me a fucking break. There are plenty of legitimate concerns about halal and kosher (funny how the EDL doesn't seem to run stories about kosher stuff, isn't it?) but don't pretend that you care when really you're just using it as an excuse to bash muslims.
Or maybe we should look at the international news they consider relevant enough to their cause to link to on their website? This is a lovely little story about a school being burned down in Sweden. How does this link to islamic extremism, you might ask? Well it's obvious, isn't it?
:rolleyes: Jesus fucking christ! If you can't see the xenophobia seeping out of every pore of these people, you're either blind or one of them. No mention of Islam in the entire story. No evidence that immigrant communities were responsible, yet obviously in line with the EDL's policies.
Or how about their opinion of Turkey joining the EU?
Why is some of this shit even a concern to anyone other than a bigot? So there's more demand for halal food? So what? There'd be more mosques? So what? You don't have to eat it. You don't have to go to it. Why at any point would this be a concern to you? I don't buy lactose free milk. I don't buy organic yoghurt. I don't buy caffeine-free cola. These products exist for other people. I feel in no way threatened by the fact that other people buy them. I feel the same way about mosques as I do about churches. I wish there was less of them because I think a less religious population is beneficial. But there has to be less of them because people don't want them, not because bigots think they have the right to demand that religious groups don't organise in a building to practice their religion, which is what the EDL appears to want, by opposing the building of mosques. I'd support any application for a mosque to open near me, and I'd also support any application for a strip club to open opposite it. If people don't want them, they'll close down. If they do, then it's none of yours or anyone else's business (obviously there may be genuine concerns about certain establishments, such as noise, but I don't consider what is done inside to be one of them). But the idea that Turkey being more modern makes them more of a risk to our way of life is absolutely hilarious. Turkey has always been a thorn in the side to idiots like the EDL, because it's a relatively decent example of Islam's place in society being relatively similar to Christianity's in Western Europe. Still too much influence imo, but clearly compatible with a modern, secular state. The large number of Turks in Germany also make idiots of the EDL, with their views on all sorts of issues being depressingly identical to non-muslim Germans, and Germany not having succumbed to sharia law yet.
This is why I support the EDL see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI4ctfQ-aYg
I want to do my bit to stop another Islamic terrorist atrocity on our shores. I don't give a damn about what people believe or what race people are. I am a Christian for example but would just as readily join a protest against christian extremists like the God Hates Fags group as join a protest against Islamic extremists. I know many muslims who hate extremists within their religon too.
People like the EDL are the people who make islamic extremists want to bomb us.
So, because some scumbags killed some innocents, you support a right wing racist organisation (NB The BNP argue they aren't racist too)? How do you reconcile the fact that it was extremists that carried out those attacks with the EDL memberships declaration of "No More Mosques"?
David Copeland is known as the London Nail Bomber, his bombs killed three people (one of whom was pregnant) and he was convicted of their murder. He was known to have links with the BNP.
Can I assume therefore that you also support all of the groups that are anti-BNP?
We've already covered the fact that the IRA bombed the hell out of London in the past. They still exist. I assume that you will happily march against them?
So, please explain in simple terms, how supporting the EDL will help to stop another terrorist atrocity and why, specifically, that applies to Islamic terrorism and not any other? Why, do you suppose, that the EDL has singled out Islamic terrorism over any other?
Islamic extremists want to bomb us because they're right and we're wrong. Even if we were as tolerant as we like to think we are we would have to deal with terroism. Maybe the EDL and similar organisations are the reason for many moderate muslims seeming slightly sympathetic towards islamic extremists, bceause islamic extremists are slightly less of a threat to them.
I don't think groups like the EDL will ever be able to agree on an opinion, such as whether they're against muslims or muslim extremists, so I think there probably are a lot of members who aren't racist. They didn't have to form a clear, united opinion, becuase they haven't been taken seriously enough for anyone to question them.
I'm sure in a lot of ways this group could do a lot of damage, but I'm kind of happy that they exist. A few months ago when they protested against a mosque in Dudley, it gave people a chance to talk about how important multi culturalism is to the region, and to make it clear that muslims and their rights are respected, not just tolerated.
Maybe having extremists on boths sides allows people with more moderate views to see how much they have in common?
There's a lot more to Islamic extremism than just terrorism.
Anjem Choudary hasn't committed any terrorist attacks, but are you telling me there aren't a lot more things to dispise him for?
"Extreme" is pretty clear clue though about where their viewpoint lies on the spectrum. Just as the EDL are an "extreme".
The EDL, as their chanting and slogan prove, don't just aim at that extreme though, do they?
Halal meat has to be slaughtered and prepared by Muslims in order for it to be considered halal, and it should therefore be supplied by companies owned by Muslims. You could almost say that halal meat is racist meat.
Also, it should be noted that Sikhs are not allowed to eat halal meat as per their religion, so you can understand if a Sikh gets upset if his local KFC turns halal.
Little things like this just add up and people begin to get fed up of Islam being shoved in their faces. The reason why there isn't as much resentment towards kosher meat is simple. There is much much much more halal meat out there than kosher.
But, of course, it might be that I can eat at home and have whatever the hell I want