I agree with plenty of Hope not Hate’s blogs and campaigns, but have some reservations about their latest report on the UK’s counter-jihadist movement and a planned exhibition of Mohammed cartoons in London this September.
The first thing to note is the cover. This depicts red ink splattering from a pen nib, and thus conflates those who draw the Prophet Mohammed with those who react violently to such drawings. People will have different views about the various Mohammed cartoons but neither they nor their creators are responsible for others’ violent reactions.
This choice of image reflects the main thrust of the report – the claim that the organisers of the planned exhibition are concealing a sinister agenda behind the banner of free speech – a wish to provoke violence, even ‘civil war’ (p. 2).
It’s possible that some of the organisers and their allies may both want to provoke some kind of reaction and genuinely care about free speech. I don’t agree with the counter-jihadists’ analysis or strategy, but that doesn’t mean their concerns aren’t sincerely held. I can imagine some of those backing the exhibition might welcome a clearly illiberal and intolerant demonstration against it as that would help prove their point and attract more supporters. But that’s very different from actively wanting to spark violence and civil war.
However the report alleges that just this scenario was discussed earlier this year by Anne Marie Waters, Alan Lake and Tommy Robinson. Yet the only source for this claim is the decidedly dubious Knights Templar blog (p. 6 and p. 20) The views of Anne Marie Waters are certainly increasingly vehement, but I’d want to see more evidence to support such a serious claim.
Although I agree with much of the analysis of individual counter-jihadists contained in this report, there is a tendency to downplay the threat posed by Islamism and focus almost all criticism on the counter-jihadists. One example of this is the account given of the attempted murderous attacks against Pamela Geller (pp. 10-11). Another problem is the failure to consistently discriminate between those on different parts of the counter-jihadist spectrum. The report’s executive summary ends by asserting that the counter-jihadists are as dangerous as their Islamist foes and that they want to bring society to its knees (p. 2). This is a pretty sweeping claim. Some – including, as far as I know, Waters and Klendjian – are prepared to accept secularist Muslim allies, for example.
It is not always easy to tell which counter-jihadists are implicated in the report’s various claims – such as the assertion that some want to see genocide. There is no evidence that all counter-jihadists want to see any such thing, though they may be bigoted or blinkered. Yet on p. 25 it is claimed that ‘they’ all have as apocalyptic a view of the world as jihadists and are willing to use equally violent means to achieve them. This claim is distractingly hyperbolic (certainly with regards to some of the people featured in this report) and draws attention away from the serious problems with counter-jihadism, with the completely appalling views of Fjordman for example (p. 26), rather as the counter-jihadists themselves distractingly overegg the very real problem with Islamism and often fail to distinguish between liberal and extremist Muslims.
I completely agree that, assuming the exhibition goes ahead, the best response will be to ignore it, and not to engage in direct counter protest (p. 28). But I don’t agree that it would be wise or right to ‘change the narrative from free speech to incitement’ (p. 28) in order to get the exhibition banned. ‘Incitement’ really isn’t the right word in this context, whatever one thinks of the exhibition and the motives behind it. And to ban the exhibition would be just the step to play into the hands of any counter-jihadists who do want to stir things up as it will prove their case perfectly.
However, if Hope not Hate haven’t quite got their line and length right here, neither – although I do agree with some of his points – has Raheem Kassam writing (twice) in Breitbart. Hope not Hate is hardly ‘hard-left’, and this is a very misleading summary of the report:
Hope not Hate … has come out against free speech, mocking the counter-jihadist claim that Islamism “is a supremacist and expansionist ideology”, despite recent evidence at home, and abroad, through groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, and ISIS.
Nick Lowles very clearly (and accurately) states that the counter-jihadists think that Islam, not Islamism, is a supremacist and expansionist ideology (p. 3). In sharp contrast with UAF, Hope not Hate has helped draw attention to some Islamist groups and individuals – and come under attack from the usual suspects for doing so.
habibi adds: have a look at this from Hope not Hate’s key source:
In the context of the cartoon plot, however, ISIS and Al Qaeda are merely bystanders. The biggest beneficiaries would – unsurprisingly – be the group directly behind the proposed operation. And, while HopeNotHate are unwilling to use the Z-word, it is a simple fact that the common denominator in every single one of the plotters is that they either are themselves hardcore Likud extreme nationalists or are funded by ultra Likud Zionists.
