Fringe Festival

I've been trying to sort out how I feel about A) the JDL-EDL hook-up and B) the way the newfound alliance is being decried by Offical Jewry of the leftish persuasion. Were I to go solely by what I see on the EDL website, I'd have to say that I don't see anything there that I wouldn't see on, say, JihadWatch or SteynOnline (sites which Islamists and their apologists/leftist allies may try to smear as "Islamophobic," but which are on the front line of resisting the Islamization of the West). That said, I don't know enough about the EDL and those in charge of it to judge whether or not it's a group I, as someone who loves liberty but who has no desire to crawl between the sheets with fascists, should link arms with.

For insight I haved turned to smart cookie Melanie Phillips, who knows the lay of the land in Old Blighty far better than I do. In a 2009 article, Phillips warned that mush-brained multiculturalism, a social doctrine that does not allow any criticism of any aspect of Islam because it considers Muslims to be a victim group (and which sees leftist Official Jews going to inordinate lengths to identify with the "plight" of Muslims, and to try to "make friends" with Muslim officials, victim to victim) is leading to a most worrisome scenario: the middle being squeezed out as the civilizational battle is waged almost exclusively by "extremists":

To those at the bottom, who live outside the bubbles of wealth or ideology, the face of intolerance is all too easy to recognise. They can see the churches of Britain being steadily replaced by mosques, can no longer find a local butcher selling pork, or are being regularly intimidated by local youths declaring ‘this is a Muslim area’. They are in no doubt that they are watching the takeover of their country and civilisation.

Stories that attract little attention in the press loom large in the concerns of the BNP target voters. The priests in east London being beaten up by Muslim youths who shout racial and religious abuse. The councils that tear up the planning laws to accommodate the expansion of mosques or madrassas. These are the issues all but ignored by mainstream media and politicians.

As a result, the debate is allowed to descend into a clash of extremists. Last March, for example, Islamists demonstrated against a parade in Luton of Royal Anglian Regiment soldiers returning from Afghanistan.

The jihadis were protected by the police, while the only people arrested that day were locals protesting at this provocation. That event led in turn to a demonstration in Birmingham last August by the self-styled anti-Islamists of the so-called English Defence League (EDL) and other groups.

The cycle continued. The EDL provoked a counter-protest organised by Unite Against Fascism and a day of violent disorder. Similar clashes have subsequently occurred in Luton, Birmingham and in Harrow — brawls invariably characterised in the media as between the ‘far right’ and ‘anti-fascists’.

This is where it gets messy. The so-called ‘anti-fascists’ include a number of Islamic fascists, not to mention far-left boot-boys. As for the ‘far right’, the EDL furiously protests that it has no connections with the BNP and stands against them.

But one or two individuals in the EDL have been associated with the BNP in some form or other. Most tellingly of all, EDL leaders have admitted that it is opposed not only to Islamist extremism but to ‘all devout Muslims’ — a BNP-style pitch.

To our progressive elite, however, the credentials of such groups are irrelevant. In any street altercation like this, the anti-Islamist demonstrators must be aggressors and those who confront them must be either their victims or heroic anti-fascists.

The left has a blind spot when it comes to defining ‘fascism’. In its Manichaean way, it views everything that is not ‘left’ as ‘right-wing’, everything that is ‘right-wing’ as evil and everything that is evil as ‘right-wing’.

Fascists, therefore, are inescapably ‘the far right’. The left rest their own claim to moral virtue on their imagined historic role in fighting fascism. So they jump at any chance to wrap themselves in that heroic mantle.

Thus the Communities Secretary John Denham compared the EDL to Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts, who in 1936 were repulsed in the battle of Cable Street when they tried to take over London’s East End. ‘The tactic of trying to provoke a response in the hope of causing wider violence and mayhem is long established on the far right and among extremist groups,’ he said. This was as absurd as it was offensive.

The most alarming point was that Denham ignored the Islamist protests which inspired the EDL in the first place. This is the same John Denham who told a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference that there was a need for ‘critical engagement’ with lawful groups with whom one disagreed.

Would Denham ‘critically engage’ with the BNP or EDL? Hardly. He’s apparently still fighting them at Cable Street.

But he would, it appears, engage with jihadis who endorse the Islamisation of Britain, death to gays and apostates, the destruction of Israel and the second-class status of women. It is this kind of cravenness and moral inversion that makes people despair of mainstream politicians and sends them towards the BNP.

Worse still, the label of the ‘far right’ toxifies everything it touches. There is now a real danger than anyone who opposes Islamic supremacism will find themselves vilified not only as ‘Islamophobes’ but also as BNP fellow-travellers.

Such an intellectual atmosphere would leave liberals reluctant to speak out against Islamism. This would be the surest way to ensure that [BNP leader] Nick Griffin is given access to a far greater audience than the million-odd voters he has so far attracted...

What Phillips is saying, in effect, is that you can thank the John Denhams (and the Bernie Farbers) at least in part for the current state of affairs. Were they, in their official capacities, as quick to wade in and condemn the soft jihad and multicultural sophistries as they are to condemn the BNP, EDL and JDL--that is, were they not such clueless, lefty squishes adrift in a muliticulti haze--regular people who wanted to stop shariafication would be able to find less "extreme" allies. And we in the West would have a far greater chance of preserving our way of life (along with our lives).