LSE debate between covert extremists

Harry's Place, and David T in particular, have played an unequalled role in exposing the covert Islamist extremists of Hizb ut-Tahrir for what they are. As David T has put it:

[a]falangist far right political party: an outfit which disseminates racist material and which is pledged to establish a Caliphate, in which non-Muslims would be almost wholly politically disenfranchised, in which women would be constitutionally prevented from holding senior political office, and in which apostates and homosexuals would be executed.

Along with HP, Scott Burgess brought Hizb's methods of covert promotion of their views through the use of the liberal media to national and international attention when he exposed Dilpazier Aslam, a star Guardian trainee journalist, as an undeclared Hizb member who wrote articles promoting the Caliphate.

So it's surprising to find David T posting on HP a notice advertising a debate at LSE about the cartoon row between "a chap called Sajjad Khan" and Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas and the Revolutionary Communist Party

Sajjad Khan is a senior member of Hizb ut Tahrir, who has acted as their spokesman and led seminar groups at their HQ.

He's published an article on the Danish cartoons affair which includes subtly expressed hints that the Holocaust is open to doubt and that the responses to the cartoons by Islamist crowds are only to be expected:

Every society has its important symbols of reverence. In the United States it is the constitution, the founding fathers and the flag. In France it is the republic. Britain reveres the institution of parliament and the country's war heroes. For the Jewish people it is the Torah and perhaps the holocaust. Muslims revere God, the Qu'ran and the prophets. Each community feels a deep-rooted passion and strong emotional attachment to these symbols. Intelligent people of all civilisations usually understand this and are sensitive to these feelings, even when they disagree with the substance these symbols represent.

If courtesy can be restored, then we can move to the more productive arena of debating the real issues of difference that exist between Islam and secular societies. I know of no debating platform where the rules of civility are not a precursor, and where frank abuse would be tolerated. Isn't it a basic rule of setting ground-rules that all parties agree them together rather that those with power simply deciding for everyone and being satisfied with their implementation?

The reaction to these cartoons in the Muslim world makes it even harder to argue that western secular values can be successfully implemented there (an objective already reeling from the pernicious "war on terror"). The burning of embassies is regrettable, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the reaction is a surprise given the backdrop of invasion, occupation, desecration of holy books and the humiliation in Abu Ghraib and Guantànamo Bay. In Europe, moreover, there is severe prejudice against Islam in many countries (especially Denmark). It is as if the abuse meted out by gratuitously republishing the images across Europe was done in the expectation that they would only cause the "cartoon damage" that Bugs Bunny does to Daffy Duck. In real life you can't abuse people and expect them to just get up again and walk away.

New Civilisation is itself a covert Hizb publication, using its typical methods of sophisticated presentation, moderate sounding discourse and no reference whatsoever to its provenance. The "New Civilisation" referred to is of course the Caliphate. That's obvious from a reading of this article from Sajjad Khan, its editor. He predicts that the Caliphate is emerging in the Middle East:

Secondly it is increasingly likely that the Muslim world will eventually shift to a more Islamic model of governance, such as the Caliphate; this will have profound implications for Israel. Such a state will no longer be bound by the western consensus of the Roadmap which is overwhelmingly rejected by Muslims. Lastly it would consider itself duty bound to use all means within its disposal to alleviate the suffering of its co-religionists in Palestine and elsewhere.

The fascistic thinking behind Hizb's world view so clearly emerges in Sajjad Khan's contemptuous dismissal in that article of the variety and range of political debate in Israel as the sign of what he sees as its pathological condition

In conclusion, Israel has significant challenges in the years ahead, a crisis of demography, increasing threat of unity in the Muslim world and a proliferation of nuclear weapons amongst its adversaries. Yet despite these Israel faces a crisis of confidence internally, these differences transcend the stereotypes of a hawk dove split. A society where Ariel Sharon can be equally labelled a war criminal, a hero and an appeaser by large sections of the public is symptomatic of an increasingly schizophrenic society. Israelis are not just bitterly divided about the Gaza withdrawal or the Roadmap, these are mere emblems of more fundamental issues. No the chasms are far deeper and surround the very nature of what the Jewish state should be and how it can survive going forward

It's absolutely a marker of fascist and totalitarian thinking to see debate and a rich variety of political ideas competing as a sign of weakness and decay

So that's one extremist.

I hadn't realised that the other one, Claire Fox, was a leading light of the Revolutionary Communist Party till I read David T's post. What interests me most is how she has, like so many other members of this absolutely miniscule Trotskyist sect, managed to become a national media presence through being made one of the most regular panel members of BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze.

Who at the BBC decides who the panel members will be? Because as well as Claire Fox, one of the other most regular panellists is Professor Steven Rose, veteran Marxist and ardent advocate of boycott Israel campaigns. Yes, there's Melanie Phillips, often seen as a hard rightist, but a self declared liberal or neo-conservative. How is it that the BBC presents us with two hardline far left ideologues, often appearing simultaneously, as panel members of its most prestigious chat show on moral issues?

I see David T has now acknowledged that people have been emailing him about Sajjad Khan's membership of Hizb. And invited people to send in evidence.

So here you are

Comments

[Sunny]

Heh. I emailed David last night saying that I had a feeling it was a front for HuT because I'd read some of New Civilisation's literature and it sounded contrived from HuT propaganda. Funny that it actually turns out to be true.

[Benjamin]

I don't think you quite understand about the bizarre politics of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

It's members have moved on, and now do other things, and I would hardly describe Claire Fox as a "hardline far left ideologue".

[EU Serf]

It's absolutely a marker of fascist and totalitarian thinking to see debate and a rich variety of political ideas competing as a sign of weakness and decay

Its unfortunately a very powerful idea. It drives the European style of consensus politics and is behind the idea that "Punch & Judy" politics are bad.

In a free society, diversity of opinion is natural.

[David T]

Benji is quite right.

[Judy]

If you look at the links I've provided for the RCP and Claire Fox, it should be clear that I'm well aware of what the politics of the RCP are, and the strategy of their core members of nominally leaving and repositioning themselves within the media, but continuing to operate to their own absurd lines. The lines are put out through Spiked. It's weird but in some ways analoguous to the SWP embracing Islamicist fascism. In my view, that's one of the symptoms of a chunk of the far left in the UK today. I recognise some of the roots of it in my experience of being around culturalist-socialist feminists in the early 80s, when I was on the collective of Feminist Review.

[Benjamin]

I think its stretching it somewhat to think that Spike magazine is a "hard left" site.

Its simply isn't. That notion is very, very difficult to maintain.

The RCP's leading members may have been "hard left" at some point. They are not now.