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  • The campaign of terror organised by the BNP

    The campaign of terror organised by the BNP

    a4 •Incident linked to BNP, says community leader

    • Far-right Essex councillor denies members to blame

    Racist attackers abducted a Muslim community leader at knifepoint, bundled him into a car and threatened his life unless he stopped running prayer sessions in a community hall that has been the target of a British National party campaign.

    Police have confirmed they are treating the incident as a hate crime and are investigating links with an earlier firebomb attack on the same man’s home.

    Noor Ramjanally, 35, told the Guardian he had been the victim of a terror campaign which has also involved threats against his family after he began the Islamic prayer sessions in March. He said he fears for his life after the abduction at knifepoint, which happened at his home in Loughton, Essex, on Monday.

    A BNP campaign has been blamed for rising tensions in the area. The party has been leafleting the area warning of “Islamification” which it says flows from the weekly two-hour prayer session, which it claims is a prelude to a mosque being built.

    Ramjanally said he was abducted from his home in daylight by two white men who threatened him with a knife, bundled him into a car then drove him into woodland. They demanded he stop organising the Friday prayer sessions at Murray hall community centre. He said the words from his abductors matched the BNP propaganda opposing the Muslim prayers. The same demand was contained in hate mail he received last month threatening his wife and child, he said.

    Vikram Dodd describes the case Councillor Pat Richardson, leader of the BNP group on the local council, said her party was not behind the attacks on Ramjanally. “Firebombing is not a British method. A brick through the window is a British method, but firebombing is not a way of showing displeasure,” she said.

    Ramjanally said: “I believe the BNP campaign has inspired the violence.”

    He said he was snatched at around 12.15pm and feared he would be murdered during his ordeal. “I was at home and the door bell rang. I opened the door and they grabbed my wrists, pulling me out by force,” he said.

    “It was two white men. They put a knife upon my stomach, and said do what you’re told or you’ll get hurt.” He said he was then bundled into the boot of a 4 x 4 vehicle, with one of the men holding a knife to his chest.

    Ramjanally said he was driven for 10 minutes to nearby Epping Forest, walked around, and then threatened: “They said ‘We don’t want your Islamic group in Loughton.’ I was scared, I feared for my life. I was in a forest, a knife was held against me, how would you feel? They said, ‘If you don’t stop, we’ll come back.’”

    The attackers then left Ramjanally alone in the woods. Essex police said an investigation was under way into the incident and two earlier ones at Ramjanally’s home.

    “Police are treating the incidents as ‘hate crime’ and a possible motivation would appear to be a link to the use of the Murray hall, Loughton by the Muslim community for Friday prayers,” the force said.

    Superintendent Simon Williams of Essex police said: “We are treating these offences with the utmost seriousness and are putting considerable resources into the investigation.

    “While that investigation continues we will be working with the whole population of Loughton to ensure that all members of the community are free to practice their religion and beliefs safely and freely.”The prayer sessions at Murray hall began on 27 March, with nine people worshipping. Now up to 80 people attend.

    On 2 July, Ramjanally received an anonymous threatening letter telling him to stop using the hall for prayers and stating the author knew which school his child went to and which car he drove. The next day his flat was firebombed. The BNP has four councillors in the area and its leafleting campaign in late July has been attacked as inflammatory and divisive.

    Richardson said she had seen the leaflet before it was released last month. She was sceptical of Ramjanally’s claims of a terror campaign. “I told the police we want to object that fingers were being pointed in our direction,” she said.

    She also denied that BNP members were behind any violence. She believes that the weekly Muslim prayer meeting is a prelude to an attempt to encourage more Muslims to move into the area, and thus to vote out the BNP. “I was wondering whether it was a ploy to attract more Muslims to the area to try and vote out the BNP councillors,” she said.

    Richardson said the Muslim prayer meeting did not fit in with the area’s mainly white population: “It’s not really natural for the area because there are so few Muslims,” she said.

    At Murray hall yesterday there was little sign of the building being turned into a mosque. The hall’s caretaker said a children’s group was using the premises.

    Passing by was lifelong Loughton resident Paul Luton, 57, who said: “Who says [the hall] can’t be used for different things. A community is a community. If there’s a local community of Muslims, they’re local people.”

    Mohammad Fahim runs the nearest mosque to Loughton which was firebombed in 2000. He said racists have used the fears of new mosques in the area to stoke racial and anti-Muslim tensions.

    The BNP describes Fahim’s mosque, in south Woodford, four miles from Loughton, as “notorious” and claims it has incited violence. In fact, Fahim works as a chaplain for the Metropolitan police.Loughton, which borders the eastern fringe of London, is affluent in parts, with a number of houses on its millionaire’s row, called Alderton Hill, owned by British Hindu families. It is also a road, said Fahim, where women wearing headscarves are racially abused by passing white motorists. He advised one Muslim woman to remove her headscarf to avoid being a victim of hate crime. According to the 2001 census, just over 1%of the area’s residents describe themselves as Muslim.

    One owner of a takeaway, who said he would fear for his safety if either he or his shop were named, said he often faced racist abuse: “This area is rubbish. So many times there is trouble.”

    Last year a 20-strong white gang attacked his shop, leaving one Asian employee with head wounds.

    He said often the abuse and violence happened when people were drunk. “Tonight they call you Paki and tomorrow they come in for food.”

    Abdurahman Jafar, chair of the Muslim Safety Forum, which advises the police, said: “The campaign of terror has followed a campaign organised by the BNP whereby they delivered hate literature to locals citing the small Friday prayer sessions as evidence of how ‘the Islamification process is almost complete’.” Recent months have seen a sharp rise in religiously motivated attacks against the Muslim community including attacks on outwardly Muslim appearing individuals, mosques and pogroms directed against the Muslim Community.”

    Guardian

  • ‘Obama Is Certainly A European’, Prof Ash

    ‘Obama Is Certainly A European’, Prof Ash

    Interview: ‘Obama Is Certainly A European’

    freeinternetpress

    Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash discusses the demise of Europe’s social democrats, threats to the European Union posed by populist nationalists, the imminent change of government in Great Britain and America’s rapid slide to the left.

    SPIEGEL: Professor Garton Ash, in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression voters have turned away from the social democrats and socialists in European elections. Isn’t this paradoxical?

    Timothy Garton Ash: I think there’s an explanation for it. First, voters apparently feel that the conservatives and liberals are more competent when it comes to economic policy. Second, we are witnessing a return to nationalism as a reaction to the great crisis. And when that happens, voters tend to move to the right rather than to the left, in some cases quite far to the right.

    SPIEGEL: It would seem that leftists, the critics of capitalism, would stand to benefit from a crisis of capitalism.

    Garton Ash: In essence, you have two social democratic parties in Germany, just as we do in Great Britain – with some minor differences. David Cameron’s Conservatives are taking (former Prime Minister) Tony Blair’s approach, except when it comes to European policy. And there is no decisive difference between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats in Germany, at least not by the standards of the last century.

    SPIEGEL: In other words, we lack ideological differences, and we are all social democrats?

    Garton Ash: I think so. We are not talking about capitalism as such, but about the question of which form of capitalism works best in our country. And then there is the question of competency. Our governments are behaving more and more like managers. After 10 years, voters are dissatisfied with the current management, and along comes a new one.

    SPIEGEL: The left lost its identity as a result of politicians like Tony Blair and (former German Chancellor) Gerhard Schroder, who believed in the free market and abandoned old social democratic principals. Isn’t that the reason for their defeat throughout Europe?

    Garton Ash: I don’t think so. In each case, the voter is voting for a version of European social liberal democracy. Perhaps a party that calls itself conservative can provide him with the better social democracy.

    SPIEGEL: At least 15 percent of the new European parliament will consist of right-wing extremists, protest parties and joke parties. What does this mean for Europe’s future?

    Garton Ash: If I remember correctly, Bertolt Brecht said: “The womb is fertile still, which bore this fruit.” We are deluding ourselves if we believe that the temptation of xenophobia and national populism no longer exists, and we shouldn’t be surprised to see these forces being strengthened in the course of a major economic crisis. We must make the social market economy credible again as the central solution for the middle class.

    SPIEGEL: How?

    Garton Ash: There are two major domestic policy challenges for the European Union. First: Creating meaningful work for the majority of society. And second: the integration of fellow citizens of non-European descent. These are two sides of the same coin. After all, what are the populists and xenophobes saying, from Latvia to Portugal, and from Finland to Greece? They are saying: We’re in bad shape, and the others are at fault. Both parts of that sentence must be addressed politically.

    SPIEGEL: In Great Britain, the racist British National Party has won two seats for the first time.

    Garton Ash: The same thing also happened in Romania, Finland and Hungary. There are comparable developments everywhere. Until now, the Conservatives in Great Britain have always managed to neutralize the extreme right, just as the CDU/CSU has done in Germany. This time, not only has the BNP won its first two seats, but the anti-European U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) has even won more votes than Labor. Now that’s unsettling.

    SPIEGEL: Do the successes of right-wing extremists and the defeat of the left also indicate a decline in solidarity among voters?

    Garton Ash: Solidarity is certainly a European value, but our willingness to display solidarity also has narrow limits, especially toward the poor, and even more so when they are of non-European origin. This stems partly from the fact that we have developed social welfare states that are difficult to sustain, especially in global competition. The integration of immigrants in the United States is easier, because there is no social welfare state there.

    SPIEGEL: While Europe slips to the right, the United States, under Barack Obama, is discovering the social market economy – and is slipping to the left.

    Garton Ash: Soon they’ll be more European than we are.

    SPIEGEL: How do you explain that?

    Garton Ash: Six years ago, we had the manifesto of Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida in connection with the discussion of the Iraq crisis, pitting Europe, with its socially progressive values against the United States. In that respect Obama, in terms of his system of values, is certainly a European. This is because the middle class in the United States has experienced the brutality and injustice of the unbridled Anglo-Saxon free market economy firsthand – in the healthcare system, for example.

    ‘The True European Elections Will Take Place in Germany in September’

    SPIEGEL: The election was a European election, and yet Europe wasn’t really the issue at all. Instead, the election was about national politics. Does this demonstrate that Europe is not united at all, but in fact divided?

    Garton Ash: I like to say that the true European elections will take place in Germany at the end of September. The German parliamentary election is certainly more important for the future of the European Union.

    SPIEGEL: Why?

    Garton Ash: At issue is the behavior of the most important member of the European Union, which is obvious. The competencies of the European Parliament have certainly grown, and I believe that voters underestimate its true influence. Nevertheless, the European Union is no direct democracy, nor will it become one anytime soon. I believe that voters sense this, and in this regard their behavior is completely rational.

    SPIEGEL: The competencies of the European Parliament have been expanded, partly in the hope that this would increase voter turnout, and yet it was lower than ever this year.

    Garton Ash: I believe that voter turnout will not improve in the foreseeable future, at least not as long as we are not prepared to take the big step toward a United States of Europe, and toward direct democracy. Almost nowhere in Europe are we prepared to do this. The parliament will remain a part of the European system, but the decisive elements will continue to be the European Council, the council of ministers and the cooperation among democratically elected governments.

    SPIEGEL: Doesn’t the voters’ lack of interest show that political Europe has disengaged itself from its citizens?

    Garton Ash: I believe that the European project is a victim of its own success. In each country, the pro-European argument, all national differences aside, took the same form: We were doing poorly, but thanks to Europe our lot will improve. But then comes the moment when we take Europe for granted, which raises the question: What is the purpose of this Europe?

    SPIEGEL: And what is it?

    Garton Ash: We need, for example, a common European foreign policy, so that we can defend our interest in an increasingly non-European world.

    SPIEGEL: Are the words of Henry Kissinger still applicable …?

    Garton Ash: … who was searching for a phone number for Europe? I believe, by the way, that he never said that. We did a lot of research at this university and were unable to find a source for the quote. In the end, I wrote to Henry Kissinger myself, and asked: Where did you say this? His response was wonderful. He wrote: I think I must have said it. I just don’t remember when and where. Of course, there is a kernel of truth to the remark. From Washington’s standpoint, or from Beijing’s or Moscow’s, Europe does not exist as a foreign policy player. And we must begin to exist.

    SPIEGEL: Do you really believe that Germany or France would give up its own foreign policy? Don’t national interests always trump European interests?

    Garton Ash: Why always? Why should something that was true in the past continue to apply in the future? The deutsche mark was the epitome of German identity, and yet the Germans gave it up. The history of the European Union over the last 50 years is a history of impossible things that happened, after all.

    SPIEGEL: And how do we arrive at a common foreign policy?

    Garton Ash: We don’t need a United States of Europe for that. What we need, most of all, is the political will of a strategic coalition of member states. It must include Germany, France and Great Britain, but others, as well. When that happens, it will be possible to pursue a common foreign policy.

    SPIEGEL: But there is a big difference between giving up a currency and giving up one’s own foreign policy. Economically speaking, the Union is accepted as a success story, but political Europe is criticized. In Great Britain and Eastern Europe, skeptics of the European Union are calling for a return to a purely economic union.

    Garton Ash: We already have a common foreign policy in the E.U. today – with regard to Tehran’s nuclear program, for example. And it is also accepted by the public. Now it is time to explain why it makes sense to pursue a common Russia policy, or a China policy, and why we are stronger together than individually.

    SPIEGEL: Isn’t it a vote of no confidence against Europe when voters elect someone like the Romanian Paris Hilton, the president’s daughter, Elena Basescu, to the parliament, as well as Sweden’s Pirate Party, and jokesters and odd characters like Austrian populist Hans-Peter Martin?

    Garton Ash: This is an indication of two things. First, voters are saying to themselves that the European Parliament isn’t all that important, so we can afford to elect a couple of pirates. Second – and this is something we see everywhere in Europe – there is a growing, deep dissatisfaction with the political class, to the point of a pre-revolutionary mood. The scandal over the expense accounts of British politicians we are currently experiencing is only one example among many.

    SPIEGEL: What is the source of this deep dissatisfaction?

    Garton Ash: I keep hearing the same thing from a wide range of people throughout Europe: The parliament is a self-service shop, and the political class is merely there to pursue its own interests.

    SPIEGEL: But that view is borne out by the scandal surrounding British members of parliament who used government funds to buy plasma TVs and porn films.

    Garton Ash: It’s really more complicated than that. The reason for this scandal is that politicians, almost 30 years ago, lacked the courage to approve better pay for members of parliament. That’s why they created this absurd system of so-called expenses, which were in fact allowances. As a result, all MPs became expense knights. And some of them were even real knights, right?

    SPIEGEL: At the moment, it looks as though David Cameron will be the next British prime minister.

    Garton Ash: Indeed.

    SPIEGEL: Cameron is threatening to hold a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty. That would be a declaration of war on Europe. Do you think he’ll do it?

    Garton Ash: If you were to inject a truth serum into David Cameron, he would probably have to confess to his secret hope that the treaty will be ratified by then. Then the referendum would no longer be necessary. I believe that, deep in his heart, he is not a euro-skeptic when it comes to Europe. The majority of his MPs and his foreign policy spokesman, William Hague, are euro-skeptics out of conviction. He has to use this rhetoric, especially because the UKIP did so well in the European election. And that’s why it is important for the European Union that the end of the Gordon Brown administration be drawn out for as long as possible.

    SPIEGEL: Cameron is now trying to forge an alliance with Polish and Czech opponents of Europe in the European Parliament.

    Garton Ash: Farce begets farce. Unfortunately, the man carelessly stated a position on the question of the European Parliament in 2005, when he was fighting for the leadership of the Conservatives. Aside from that, though, he learned an important lesson from Blair: Never commit to anything. But that’s why he must now remain true to himself, and is thereby compromising the British Conservatives. Suddenly they’re in bed with Latvian friends of the Waffen SS, Polish homophobes and Czech deniers of climate change.

    SPIEGEL: Is Gordon Brown truly, as they say, the worst British prime minister since Neville Chamberlain?

    Garton Ash: By no means. He isn’t a bad prime minister, as far as the content of his policies is concerned. I don’t know if the inexperienced David Cameron would have handled this major crisis more effectively. But as a personality, Brown is undoubtedly one of the weakest politicians. He makes one mistake after the next. He lacks the talent to sell his policies. He looks ridiculous when he tries in vain on YouTube, where he looks like a grandfather, to sell the people a solution to the expenses affair. He is hampered by the machinery of politics.

    SPIEGEL: Does he lack the charisma?

    Garton Ash: He lacks it completely. He hasn’t even managed to simply come across as a direct and upright character, which is something Angela Merkel has mastered. He could have been the Scottish Mr. Merkel. But he’s too Blairist for that. He wants to manipulate public opinion, and perhaps the worst thing is to try and fail in that endeavor.

    SPIEGEL: Who is responsible for the demise of New Labor? Tony Blair or Gordon Brown?

    Garton Ash: If this is its death, then it certainly had a nice life. In fact, it was quite successful: three legislative periods in a row, which is something Labor didn’t manage in 100 years. Besides, the Labor government is leaving behind a fairly substantial legacy – including Conservatives, who for the better part have adopted New Labor’s approach.

    SPIEGEL: Couldn’t Labor be successful again, after all, perhaps with Alan Johnson as a new party leader?

    Garton Ash: As a historian, I know that everything is possible in history, except cheating death. But I would bet a bottle of champagne that even the best Labor leader in the world will not win the next election.

    SPIEGEL: What kind of a bottle?

    Garton Ash: A magnum bottle, I would say.

    You can read this Spiegel interview with Historian Timothy Garton Ash in context here:

    www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,631359,00.html

    This interview was in German, it was translated from the German for Spiegel by Christopher Sultan.

    Source: www.reeinternetpress.com, 21.06.2009

  • Nazi sticker on Blackburn BNP man’s car

    Nazi sticker on Blackburn BNP man’s car

    By Tom Moseley »

    A BRITISH National Party activist drives around with the word “Nazi” written on the back of his car, it has been revealed.

    Robin Evans, the BNP’s Blackburn organiser, said he had not tried to remove the word as he did not find it offensive.

    The former councillor for Mill Hill in Blackburn, who now lives in Darwen, said he did not know who had stuck the letters on his metallic green Volkswagen Golf, but thought it was “quite funny”, adding: “It doesn’t bother me”

    Blackburn MP Jack Straw said the sticker “exposed the true colours of the BNP”.

    Party leader Nick Griffin, who was recently elected as a Euro MP for the North West, advised Mr Evans to remove the term.

    When asked about it by the Lancashire Telegraph Mr Evans, who stood for the BNP at this month’s Darwen Town Council elections, said: “You know what people are like. Everyone calls me a Nazi.

    “Someone put it on there 12 months ago. It was in silver letters. What you see there is the wreckage. I haven’t a clue who tried to take it off but I couldn’t be bothered.

    “To be honest I thought it was quite funny. It’s better than them putting my windows through or smashing bottles on my head which I’ve had before.

    “The car is on its last legs. I would rather be driving around in a big Porsche. But my car and whatever it looks like does its job and I am OK with it.”

    Asked whether he found the term ‘Nazi’ offensive, Mr Evans added: “Everyone is individual. My personal interpretation, not the BNP’s, is that it means a nationalist, which is where the word has come from. If someone’s in the street screaming ‘Nazi, Nazi’, that is offensive. It is not offensive against other people.”

    Mr Straw, the Justice Secretary, said: “It’s very offensive, especially to people who are Jewish, but also to virtually everyone else in society.

    “This exposes the BNP’s true colours.”

    Coun Tony Melia, the leader of the For Darwen Party leader and deputy council leader, said: “If someone put that on my car I would have it taken down instantly. It is absolutely tasteless.”

    Mr Griffin said: “I would advise him to take it off. It was obviously put there by some crank. He may be putting a brave face on it.”

    Asked whether he found the term offensive, he added: “I don’t know if it’s offensive per se, you see all sorts of swastikas on news stands and history books.

    “But used against us it is highly offensive, because we believe in British values like free speech.”

    Source: www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk, 17th June 2009