Each person on the panel is on the Intelligence files of the police and police intelligence are in the conference too. Today I’m at The Racial Justice and Human Rights Conference, Whose Terror Is it Anyway, particularly concerned with anti muslim racism in British Society. It’sat Bradford’s Film photography and Media Centre. Outside is the statue of JB Priestley where I once stood at the end of a radio documentary I made about the man.
The panel on stage with myself are Arun Kandani, author of Whose Terror is it
Anyway, Imran Khan a leading Human Rights and Criminal Lawyer and sat next
to me Moazzam Begg who was held in camp x ray in Guantanamo Bay by The USA for three years. His book Enemy Combatant is out now.
All three speakers deliver brilliant speeches which articulate the anti muslim racism
happening in this country on a day to day basis. Today five muslim men have had their houses raided in Birmingham. “Are we in a security state or a state of security” asks Imran Khan.
After hearing the dehumanising harassment of the Muslims here in the North of
England I wonder whether this was how the extermination of Jews begun. The harassment of Jews and the erosion of their human rights happened for years before they were incarcerated in concentration camps. It is happening to The Muslims now. To
dehumanise a whole group of people because of their race and religion is the first step towards genocide: it is part of the process of atrocity.
I am here to read poetry? A creative at such a conference is a dynamic intervention in the politics of change. While on stage I asked Moazzam Beg if he had a poem in his book. I was making the case that poems happen at times of great need. Moazzam said yes, I asked him if I could it, again he said yes. On BBC radio 4, midweek special, I met the last man out of the collapsed 9/11 twin towers, a fireman. He ahd written a book and it began with a poem. But it was with Moazzam’s poem that I ended.
anti-muslim???? no sorry i have to disagree with you and the rest of the people mentioned in this article here. i live in a town jam packed with muslims and i can tell you for a fact that the white people are not the racist ones. being chased down the street this morning at half past 7 with a group of asians behind me shouting “OI FU*KING WHITE BOY!!” is enough to make me believe that I (a white brit born and bred) am not the racist. the muslims are. I have never been racist in my life but it is getting to the point where i am beggining to hate muslims. what have i done wrong to them? i have never uttered a racist word in my life but i am forced to think that maybe if i voted for the BNP it would stop this happening. is this what martin king had in mind? “black men and white men together at the table of brotherhood” I am sat at the table waiting but alas i am the only ocupant.
Michael Tierney (that loon from hudds n leeds haha)
Hi Michael, I am sure it must have been scarey for you. Fear affects a person in many ways, for you it may be to join the BNP. For the people at the conference it was about talking with openess and honesty.
Hi Lemn,
I think you're analogy regarding the harassment of Muslims is very salient. As a nation we dehumanise in order to kill, to invade sovereign states, as in the “illeagal war” waged against Iraq. It frightens me the foreign policy of my country, Britain, and it sickens me what we have done to Iraq.
Killing millions of children under the age of 5 through sanctions, not to mention the countless grotesque deformities of babies born to mothers living in areas poisoned by the uranium tipped rockets fired from British tanks during the invasion of 1992.
Then the recent invasion and bombing to hell of Iraq, so degrading and appalling, how the hell can our government try to coerce the young and disenfranchised in the U.K into non-violence and dignity when our foreign policy is so barbaric?! It's like hearing a violent psychopath preaching that violence is not the way to get things done.
Personally I feel the invasion of Iraq to have deeply scarred us as a nation and for the younger generation it was an abysmal example en masse of the 'might over right attitude' total war, whereby politics has failed and brute force rules the day. So some children and youths in the inner cities are arming themselves and slaying one another, taking lives like it's nothing well isn't that what our government does to get things done abroad?
Michelle.
i am just a little fed up of racism being seen as a one way situation. I HAVE BEEN CHASED DOWN THE STREET BEING CALLED “FUCKING WHITE BOY” now excuse me if this sounds racist but my family hae been in england since like forever (never looked it up but at least a few hundred years) what gives a first or 2nd gen imigrant the right to come here and make me feel out of place? like i have said, i am not racist but, heres the thing, heres the truth! not to be racist, take it like that if you want but i know that i am not racist. i digress anyway heres the way it is. IF YOU DON'T LIKE ME BECAUSE I AM A WHITE MAN IN A WHITE COUNTRY THEN JUST FUCK THE HELL OFF!! thats it. not racist just true! ok?
my friend was hospitalised by a group of asian lads. the police did not treat it as a racial atack. even though they were calling him a f-ing whitie. if you have ever been to dewsbury in west yorkshire you will see that the muslim boys hang round in gangs looking for white people to beat up. do not be pulled into the whle boohoo woe is me the little poor muslim routine. they are nasty manipulative little people. do people forget who the terorists are here? who are the people that claim the dole but have £30,000 bmw's because they hang round outside schools selling drugs to kids? do not fall for it! they are the racist ones and they need to be stoped. revolution is coming so watch what side you are on!
D x
I'm afraid this isn't a white country.
I am afraid this is not a “white country” Michael.
well its sure as hell not multi cultural. if it were then we would get along and i would not be beaten up for being white. i get beaten up and i can't fight back, because that would be racist wouldnt it? you know it, i know it, everybody knows it. it is sick and disgusting that YOU could not be racist even if you tried
here's somethingto ponder if you think iam being racist this is my favourite quote.
“is there anything more ridiculous
than that a man has the right to kill me
because he lives on the other side of the water
and his leader has a quarel with mine
but i have none with him?”