August 10, 2007

THE GUY WITH THE FLIP CHART

via Craig Murray

...Who and what is the "Sufi Muslim Council"? They seem to have emerged from nowhere – suddenly their spokesman is interviewed on Radio 4 and Newsnight and a Channel 4 documentary gives their views some weight. They have a new website and a new magazine. But hardly anyone knows who they are or what they stand for?

We wanted to know the answer to these questions so we set about doing some basic research. We have uncovered very worrying links between this new council and the neocons in Washington...


...The most prominent person since its establishment is a guy called Haras Rafiq who originates from Rochdale in Lancashire.

Some may have noticed that the previously unheard of Rafiq has suddenly been giving interviews, claiming to speak for the "silent majority" of Muslims in Britain.


Haras Rafiq has said, "The prime minister and others have on many occasions rightly called for moderate Muslims to stand up and be counted. In response to this call, and following extensive consultations within the Muslim community, we have decided to establish the Sufi Muslim Council."


In most of his interviews, Haras Rafiq, talks a lot about representing 'apolitical' Sufis. However, from our investigations, the majority of Sufis in the UK had never heard of him. In an interview on Radio 4, when asked who supported the SMC, he did however say that they were supported by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

3 comments:

the all seeing eye said...

yeah , I saw these guys on tv and they seemed kind of a made up wishful thinking group. with a magazine like "womens own" for muslims...
muslims don't want to be political. why can't they be docile sponges like their other fellow citizens?

purpleXed said...

Why individuals like Haras Rafiq and Ed Harris are lately bestowed frequent media spotlight rather generously?

A review article in Australian Age speculates that not because such elements are "gifted writers but because their tell-all tales of Muslim woe capture the imaginations of morally outraged outsiders who have always suspected something was rotten with Islam but feel better hearing it from a purported insider."

This also explains why Newsnight's report leant heavily on views offered by Ed Hussain.

Individuals like Raras Rafiq and Ed Hussain are all about capitalizing with a hiss-and-sell approach as these days literary success is guaranteed for whistle-blowing or outright alarmist Muslims.

Hussian is happy to reinforce sterotypes and justifies this by saying he knows what inspires terrorists - the likely inference being that his book is an educational tool. Husain provides no new answers and no fresh information, and is criticised for being opportunistic and profiteering from the current climate of fear and anxiety.
notes Riazat Butt in The Guardian and asks why persons like Ed Hussain are being greeted with an adulation that is both embarrassing and unwarranted?

I hope Haras Rafiq has some clear reasons for singing chorus lines written by Douglas Murray, the author of Neo-Conservatism: Why We Need It. Murray has been strongly criticising Ken Livingstone for promoting multi-culturalism in U.K.

At London's World Civilizations: Dialogue or Clash Conference in January 2007, Murray speaking as co-panelist for Daniel Pipes claimed that the majority of Muslims were on the wrong side of civilization and "Multiculturalism has been a disaster." Full text is at
[london.gov.uk/mayor/equalities/docs/clash-transcript-murray.pdf]

One wonders who would be more appropriate to talk about "social" and "cohesion" on BBC? None could be farther from these ideals than Douglas Murray who in fact exemplifies an exact opposite of those terms. For Murray's open neo-conservatist biases see his speech at Hudson Institute:
[westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2007/07/douglas-murray-.html]

Later at follow-up studio discussion, one could not get what makes Patrick Mercer relevent or qualified enough for analyzing the influence of extremist books on young minds.

Let's suppose that the libraries of the Tower Hamlets council take off all those books that M/S Watson, Murray and Mercer find 'objectionable'. Let's replace them with equal number of copies of 'alternate' works, would it really keep fringe youth safe from extremist influences?

DAVE BONES said...

Probably not as they have their own libraries which I should imagine they hide under the floorboards or host on shady web servers.