Choudary’s role was much more significant, however, than simply that of a self-appointed provocateur: such was his radicalising influence that Choudary has been linked to 15 terrorist plots since 2000. His followers included Khuram Butt, who was part of the attack on London Bridge that killed eight people last year, and Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby.[...]
Yet while Choudary has been in prison, Robinson has experienced a fresh rush of celebrity among the alt-right in the US, for whom he has recently become something of a cause celebre. After Robinson was tried and convicted of contempt of court in May (he already had a conviction for the same offence from 2017) Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former advisor, later called him a “solid guy” and “the backbone of this country”. Bannon recently described Robinson “a movement in and of himself now. He represents the working class and channels a lot of the frustration of everyday, blue-collar Britons.” For Robinson’s defenders, his brushes with the law are explained away by an excess of passion in opposition to Islam – although Robinson often shifts his criticism, without apparent distinction, between Islamism, Islam and Muslims in general. [...]
If the intricacies of the UK justice system don’t much concern Robinson, the same goes for his US supporters, who include not just Bannon but Donald Trump Jr. Beyond Robinson and his anti-Islam stunts and rhetoric, too, there is an ominous rise in far Right terrorist activity: Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, said last July that “the threat from extreme Right-wing terrorism is growing” with four extreme Right-wing plots disrupted since May 2017. The tiny but deeply nasty neo-Nazi organisation National Action has now been proscribed in the UK. [...]
The tone of public debate is now one of permanent rancour: as it grows fiercer and more vituperative, many reasonable people are shrinking from open participation. It becomes harder, not easier, for British Muslims publicly to criticise aspects of Islamic fundamentalism, or for British Jews to criticise Israeli government policy – although they may do so privately – when those communities increasingly feel under broader attack from the Right or the Left. In such circumstances, voicing reservations about wrongs within the community is often seen as siding with the outsiders who are insulting the community: that is precisely what occurred over so many decades in Northern Ireland, with courageous exceptions.
No comments:
Post a Comment