Background Note:

Salma Yaqoob is the head of the Birmingham Stop the War Coalition and a spokesperson for Birmingham Central Mosque. She is the national vice-chair of Respect, a left-wing political party. Respect is an acronymn for Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community, and Trade Unionism. Respect is against privatization of the railroad, national health and education. It is for increasing income tax of the rich to close the income gap. It is a coalition of Muslims, Socialists and Communists. Members across the board of course consider Israel and Zionism illegitimate; and they all reject fighting a war against Muslim regimes. However, ideological differences on gay and women's rights have occasioned argument between leftist secular Socialist members and fundamentalist Muslim members. About half of Respect's money comes from Dr. Mohammed Naseem, who is also a leader of the Islamic Party of Britain. Respect's best-known public figure is George Galloway.

Salma Yaqoob. Third woman from the right.

'Hype' about Terrorism?

When Yaqoob says that there is 'hype around terror alerts', what exactly does she mean? I get the feeling that the very fact that the press, or that abstract platonic entity, 'the Media' (which far leftists always rant on about), reports them at all is 'Islamophobia' enough for her. 9/11, Madrid, Bali (which occurred almost while she was writing this), etc. were quite big things, Ms Yaqoob. That's why people are interested and concerned about these issues. And let's not forget the many foiled and averted terror attacks that have not been successful. Just as is the case in Israel — where Israeli deaths would far outnumber Palestinian deaths if every Hamas and Hezbollah rocket and bomb had found its target.

So what kind of 'hype' are we talking about? The far-leftist hype about the Palestinians or Guantanamo Bay? That is true hype!

Demonisation?

Muslims are very rarely 'demonised'. This is just a buzz word Trots and IslamoTrots fixate upon. They copy it from other Trots and IslamoTrots. That's why they all sound like wind-up versions of each other. Such is the case with the other buzz words like 'bigot', 'racist bigot', 'Israeli crimes' and so on.

In any case, Yaqoob practises her own brand of demonisation. Everyone who disagrees with her infantile IslamoTrotskyism is classed as 'the enemy'. She uses this term about everybody who is not in her tiny IslamoTrot club. She uses that word four times in her article in Socialist Work Online called "They say all Muslims are terrorists." And we all know what should be done with 'enemies' — they should be shot.

Before the London bombings (2005), Muslims were virtually never demonised. Asians qua Asians, or brown people qua brown people, were indeed the victims of racism. But very few people suffered because they were Muslim. This might have changed a bit in recent years. And perhaps it is a good thing that people now can make a distinction between Muslim and other Asians. Even the media does not 'demonise' Muslims qua Muslims. They demonise Choudary, Hizb ut-Tahrir and other loonies. Does Yaqoob think that not even these Muslims should be demonised? The public are against you, Ms Yaqoob. Especially the 'working people' that you claim — or pretend — to represent.

Again, Trots, Islamists and IslamoTrots are the masters of demonisation. They demonise everyone who is not far leftist, Islamist or Muslim. They began by demonising the BNP. Then they demonised the EDL. If the climate is right, then they will get on to the right wing of the Tory Party. Then the centre of the Conservative Party. Then all of the Tory Party. Then it'll be on to New Labour. And the worst cases of IslamoTrot demonisation are when they demonise other competing far-left groups, whom they despise more than they despise the 'neo-cons' and 'Zionists'. This is a big fat bag of demonisations. So don't talk to us about 'Muslims being demonised', when the far left demonises just about everyone, not just a single group.

And Yaqoob has the nerve to talk about the Nazi 'demonisation of the Jews'. What nauseating audacity! Are there any groups in the world that are more responsible for the recent rise in anti-Semitism (Judeophobia), which is far worse than 'Islamophobia', than the Islamist and IslamoTrot groups which Yaqoob supports? Most of her Islamist friends will be Holocaust deniers. Some of her far leftist friends are also Holocaust deniers. After all, Chomsky says that Holocaust denial is not anti-Semitic.

Not only all that, but think about what all that propaganda about Israel, 'the Occupation', 'Nakba', and all the other shit has done to increase anti-Semitism in recent years. The rise in anti-Semitic attacks in the UK and Europe as a whole occurred while Yaqoob was out on the Birmingham streets marching and shouting about 'Israeli crimes against the Palestinians'. That constant demonisation of the Israelis — the Jews — has had its desired effect and it has tapped into the already-existing and fanatical anti-Semitism that has been part of Islam for over one thousand years — ever since the Jews stuck their fingers up to the Prophet Mohammed and said that they would never follow him and his new religion.

There is very little genuine 'Islamophobia' either. Tariq Ramadan coined that term as a useful blunt instrument to knock all critics of Islam, the Koran and Muslims. And my God it has been useful and very effective. Even different far left groups accuse each other of being 'Islamophobic'. Thus we had the Respect Party accusing the SWP of being 'Islamophobic'. We had groups within the SWP accusing each other of being 'Islamophobic'. We had Ger Francis accusing everyone in the world apart from himself of being 'Islamophobic'. Thus the word has lost all of its efficacy because no one takes such accusations seriously anymore.

The Vanguard and the Neo...whatevers

How can Yaqoob speak for British 'working people', as she often does? She is far from being working class. Though she does work. So I suppose she is working class. By the same token, Richard Branson or the 'neo-cons' work, so they are working class as well.

As always with the far left, Yaqoob is a middle class former student professional who speaks for 'working people'. Leftists have a word for this. She sees herself as part of the 'vanguard' of the working class. The vanguard is always full of middle-class professionals who have had a university education. That's precisely why they see themselves as vanguard material. They don't think that the working class is clever enough to be its own vanguard. Thus IslamoTrots like Yaqoob have to indoctrinate and then 'lead' the working class. But no one really listens to her or to the other members of the vanguard. That why the far left now only appeals to young Muslims, students and middle-class professionals. It a neat little club full of condescending bastards.

In any case, who are these 'neo-liberals'? Only far leftists use that term. That's how you know that Yaqoob is only talking to other far leftists, IslamoTrots and students because only they use this term. Welcome to their tiny vanguard club, in which the words 'neo-liberal', 'neo-con', 'neo-Zionist', 'Neopolitan' and 'Neomi Campbell' are on everyone's lips. Be sure to drop these words into every conversation otherwise you will never be accepted into this Vanguard of the Working Class...sorry, of Muslims.

Yaqoob also says that the 'neo-liberals' are 'attacking our basic rights in every area of life, from birth to death'. Very dramatic! What rights have Trots, IslamoTrots and other far leftists ever won for us? Leftist and Islamic regimes stamp on rights. What rights would the Islamists give us? The right to submit to Allah and his earthly representatives? So don't talk to us about rights when you and your kind would be the first to trample on them. As I said, you started on the BNP first. Then you moved on to the EDL. Then to the 'neo-cons' and the 'neo-liberals' (whoever they are).Then on to plain conservatives. Then on to the New Labourites. And then on and on and on until there's no one left but the Vanguard of the Working Class and a few Muslims.

The Hijab

Yaqoob tries to sound fair and moderate by saying that 'it is wrong to enforce the wearing of veils in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, [but] similarly it is wrong to enforce the removal of the veil in France.'

So both are cases of enforcement? Cliterodectomy is also enforced in northern Africa. Is it also wrong to enforce a ban on cliterodectomy in France or elsewhere? Some Muslim men have fifty wives or more in Muslim countries. Is it also wrong to enforce laws against such examples of polygamy? Freedom to wear the veil. Freedom to practice polygamy and cliterodectomy. What's the difference? So Yaqoob's neat little piece of symmetry doesn't really work, does it.

What is the veil or hijab anyway? Is it really all about female 'modesty'? Sometimes; maybe. But it's more often than not all about very immodest female Islamists sticking two fingers up at infidel society and all the vices they think it stands for. The wearing of the veil and burkha is a political act, not an act of 'modesty'. It is a visible display of Islamism. It is a cheer for the Islamist cause. And sometimes it is even a display of support for Islamoterrorists.

Which Oppressed?

Yaqoob says that '[w]e must stand with those who are oppressed'. Yes! You're right:

i) Let's stand with the oppressed women who are the victims of the Taliban's psychotic attitudes towards women and sex.

ii) Let's stand with the oppressed students of Iran who are standing up to that 'revolutionary' Islamic and totalitarian regime.

iii) Let's stand by the oppressed Kurds who are standing against the imperialist desires of Muslim Turkey, Muslim Syria, Muslim Iran and Muslim Iraq.

iv) Let's stand with the oppressed Copts in Egypt and the Christians of Pakistan who are the victims of Muslim bigotry.

v) Lets stand with the oppressed black Christians and animists in southern Sudan who are the victims of the Islamist janjaweed and who have seen hundreds of thousands of their folk murdered — infinitely more than the number of Palestinians killed by the Israelis.

vi) Let's stand with the southern Thai Buddhists who are the victims of the Thai Islamist killers. And so on and so on.

No. Never a peep from Yaqoob's lips about these oppressed peoples. They are the wrong kind of oppressed peoples. And why is that? Because they are oppressed by Muslims, not by the UK, or the US, or by 'neo-cons', or by 'neo-liberals'. Yaqoob's palpable hypocrisy is staggering and nauseating. We don't hear much about the oppressed of China, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. either.

I wonder why that is?
 

Paul Austin Murphy writes about Islam on his blog:
http://islamthefarleftandmisc.blogspot.com/ He lives in Birmingham, England. This article was published February 27, 2010 on Murphy's website.

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