Ishmahil asked me to do the Q and A with Mousah Brown and himself at Riverside Studios so I thought I'd try my newly fixed bike for a night ride. Right. Crawling down the Kings Rd it completely cut out in the middle of the road. The traffic was moving so slowly I didn't bother anyone so once I got it started again I left it running for a bit with the lights off to charge the battery.
I tried a few roads to find The Riverside and ended up having to wheel the bike down a cycle lane. Anyway this is dangerously turning into a bike blog isn't it. My bike blog thankfully has a home of its own now so I'll shut up.
I watched the film for the third time now with a mixture of nerves about answering questions afterwards and nerves about trying to get my bike home. Stomping to the front with my bike boots I was glad Mousah and Ishmahil were there. After the first few questions I thought I was going to get away without saying anything, but someone who later turned out to work for the Islam channel asked me if the guys at Finsbury thought I was a spy.
I thought Mousah answered some of the audience's worries about radical Islam really well and I also got to hear a lot more about Ishmahil's past which I would like to ask him more about. Afterwards I hung around with the guy from the Islam channel and his wife and a few of the Rice and Peas crew. It was the first time I have spoken to a woman wearing a veil. Quite a strange experience as I had just watched a film which covered the topic.
My motorised pessimism was extinguished as my bike came to life with a roar, but it soon turned into a splutter as I headed down through Putney and got totally lost. It seemed to sort itself when I realised where I was again around Brixton. I thought it was quite a successful night and I got home without having to ring the breakdown service. Anyway I am off armed with DVD to see what Hajj and the guys think of the film- and if he is annoyed about appearing in it!
UPDATE:
Well Hajj, who is going on to Hajj (to Mecca) in a few weeks liked it, the others thought that if Muslims are going to speak on film they should only talk referring to Koran and Sunnah and that they shouldn't give their opinions. I ended up in quite a long debate, the same debate as usual. We all agree about problems with the financial system and those few controlling it, and about the gross injustices in the world but there is no way we are going to unite as a majority and do something about it, which is why I have fairly much given up film making or any sort of optimism.
I'm glad Hajj liked the film anyway. That meant a lot to me. The only thing he critisized was one of the girls in the film coming out with the stuff about evil Jihadi recruiters convincing wayward and ignorant Muslims to become suicide bombers. I must admit I thought that was a bit weird too as none of the 7/7 guys fitted this description. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing.
Hajj himself was indirectly accused of "brainwashing kids" by some MI-5 guys who visited a friend of his at his work place recently. They gave the guy the message to pass on as an aside as they were leaving. He is a bit worried about going on Hajj as he has been warned there are thieves who prey on the visitors but he is confident Allah has already written down what is going to happen to him.
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Showing posts with label Mousa Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mousa Brown. Show all posts
October 01, 2010
October 24, 2008
MALUNG TV NEWS
I had three punctures today on two different bikes. Life is trying to tell me something important? Lets find out.
Before all that I cycled to Whitechapel to buy some dv tapes. You know, I thought- fuck it. Lets take up filming mad Muslims again. See what happens. This time, I am much calmer, much more certain of what I am doing and why I am doing it. Hamza and Atilla was a very painful, obsessive, emotionally draining experience. I've had a lot of time off, during which time I have become very good friends with Musa Ahmet. In five years I've had zero financial success, but I've got to know Musa, so I don't care. Its all been worth it.
A friend of mine asked me to pick up some tailors chalk. I knew a place a little further north of the river. I cycled up brick lane to pick up a breakfast from one of the famous bagel shops. As I cycled off I saw a face I recognized but couldn't put a name to. I sat and thought for a second, then turned round.
"Are you Mousa Brown?"
"Dave Bones!"
The last time I had seen this Mousa he was behind bullet proof glass at Woolwich crown court. It was good to see him as a free man, carrying on with his life. We talked for ages about the court case. I had missed his testimony, but the court reporter who I had become friends with told me he had made a good account of himself.
It sounded like I had missed the most interesting part of the trial.
"I made Farrel look like an idiot. He only asked me one question which actually related to the charge I was on."
He said the Police had suppressed tapes which would clear him, and distorted tapes in places so they appeared to say something else. He said at one point after he was charged a policeman came in to the interview room at Paddington green and said
"Salaam Aleikum! Don't worry, we know you are not a terrorist. I can help you."
He reckoned the whole trial was ridiculous. He was aware of the tensions between Atilla and Hamid from first hand in Belmarsh but didn't believe either were bad people.
"Run a terror organisation? Hamid couldn't run a bath."
He said that in pre trial arrangements The judge had banned them from referring to an expert from the 21/7 trial who had said that what they were talking about was from the Koran. During his testimony he had tried to refer to the guy as someone who could help the jury a couple of times and the judge and prosecution had objected, leading the jury to smell a rat. One time when he dismissed the jury for lunch the judge had held Mousa back.
"I know very well what you are up to. What do you think you are playing at?" he asked.
"I am trying to defend myself." said Mousa.
He said that the Police had released his minibus and his sprinter van almost immediately after he had got out. His wife had declared them off the road for the 18 months he was inside. Within days a tow truck came to pick one of them up as untaxed. He suspected the Police had a hand in this.
"Inside I wouldn't talk to the screws. They suspected me of this and that. I don't hide what I think of people. I got arrested doing what I have always done for twenty years. I pray five times a day. I am a Muslim."
He said he wouldn't want to repeat the experience but he had learned from it.
"I bet you steer clear of Muslim groups now no? Have you been back to Speakers Corner?" I asked.
He said that he had a couple of times.
When I got back home I offered to help a friend down the road to pick up a couple of bags of tiling glue for his floor on our bikes. We cycled along the river. I had puncture number one near the millennium dome. The tube was so old I couldn't get the valve undone so I had to push the bike to B+Q to get some hacksaw blades. My friend carried a spare tube, but it was an ultra thin one for a racer. Luckily with 25kg of floor glue on the handlebars it went not too far from home.
A couple of hours later I borrowed a bike and headed up to east London at the invitation of Abu Waleed. As there is a bit of interest in what I am doing now my tourist camera no longer cuts it, so it is always a scrabble to find friends with professional cameras who are actually interested enough in what I do to lend a hand.
Funnily enough, the person who has always shown the most interest is a girl who is as facially pierced as I am. Obviously with Muslims strict rules of segregation this posses a problem. I had emailed Mr Walled earlier. He told me the room in which they met had a curtain down the middle and she would have to be on the other side.
We arrived to find the London School of Sharreah was under an east London railway arch. There were maybe 12 British Asian guys in their early twenties and through the curtain I think I could see two females in Muslim dress. My camera woman friend set up on the other side.
Abu Waleed talks very fast. He makes a lot of jokes, more than Hamza. He isn't angry like Hamza was some times and Atilla was most of the time in Finsbury park. He is happy to critisize other Muslim scholars by name, and does so a lot. Scholars he respects are Hamza, Bakri who he calls Sheik Omar, Al Faisal, and he also spoke well of a Palestinian sheik who he left his audience to guess. I would assume he is referring to Abu Qatada.
At no point did he remotely glorify terrorism, or encourage his audience in any acts of violence, but he would indulge in a lot of black humour about the situation Muslims find themselves in. I could see why he was charismatic to the group in front of him and how what he said and the way he said it would be relevant to their lives. I was bemused at how often I heard the unmistakable chuckle of my friend with the camera through the curtain. The atmosphere Waleed projects is very relaxed. People would duck out to answer their mobile phones and interupted whenever they liked, mostly to ask him to repeat his justifications from the Koran.
At the end of his talk he thought I was going to ask questions. I had made loads of notes after our phone conversation the other day but hadn't brought them as I knew we would need much more time to go through everything and I was too knackered to attempt questioning at 10 pm on a friday. I asked him to think of a place he would be comfortable to sit down for an afternoon to film properly.
On the way home we stopped in my favourite east end pakistani dinner.
"They believe things I would disagree with but they are OK really as people aren't they?" said my camerawoman.
"I think so. I think we are more extreme than they are" I agreed.
I had puncture number three on the way back.
I will put up some clips of what Abu Waleed had to say on youtube soon as.
Before all that I cycled to Whitechapel to buy some dv tapes. You know, I thought- fuck it. Lets take up filming mad Muslims again. See what happens. This time, I am much calmer, much more certain of what I am doing and why I am doing it. Hamza and Atilla was a very painful, obsessive, emotionally draining experience. I've had a lot of time off, during which time I have become very good friends with Musa Ahmet. In five years I've had zero financial success, but I've got to know Musa, so I don't care. Its all been worth it.
A friend of mine asked me to pick up some tailors chalk. I knew a place a little further north of the river. I cycled up brick lane to pick up a breakfast from one of the famous bagel shops. As I cycled off I saw a face I recognized but couldn't put a name to. I sat and thought for a second, then turned round.
"Are you Mousa Brown?"
"Dave Bones!"
The last time I had seen this Mousa he was behind bullet proof glass at Woolwich crown court. It was good to see him as a free man, carrying on with his life. We talked for ages about the court case. I had missed his testimony, but the court reporter who I had become friends with told me he had made a good account of himself.
It sounded like I had missed the most interesting part of the trial.
"I made Farrel look like an idiot. He only asked me one question which actually related to the charge I was on."
He said the Police had suppressed tapes which would clear him, and distorted tapes in places so they appeared to say something else. He said at one point after he was charged a policeman came in to the interview room at Paddington green and said
"Salaam Aleikum! Don't worry, we know you are not a terrorist. I can help you."
He reckoned the whole trial was ridiculous. He was aware of the tensions between Atilla and Hamid from first hand in Belmarsh but didn't believe either were bad people.
"Run a terror organisation? Hamid couldn't run a bath."
He said that in pre trial arrangements The judge had banned them from referring to an expert from the 21/7 trial who had said that what they were talking about was from the Koran. During his testimony he had tried to refer to the guy as someone who could help the jury a couple of times and the judge and prosecution had objected, leading the jury to smell a rat. One time when he dismissed the jury for lunch the judge had held Mousa back.
"I know very well what you are up to. What do you think you are playing at?" he asked.
"I am trying to defend myself." said Mousa.
He said that the Police had released his minibus and his sprinter van almost immediately after he had got out. His wife had declared them off the road for the 18 months he was inside. Within days a tow truck came to pick one of them up as untaxed. He suspected the Police had a hand in this.
"Inside I wouldn't talk to the screws. They suspected me of this and that. I don't hide what I think of people. I got arrested doing what I have always done for twenty years. I pray five times a day. I am a Muslim."
He said he wouldn't want to repeat the experience but he had learned from it.
"I bet you steer clear of Muslim groups now no? Have you been back to Speakers Corner?" I asked.
He said that he had a couple of times.
When I got back home I offered to help a friend down the road to pick up a couple of bags of tiling glue for his floor on our bikes. We cycled along the river. I had puncture number one near the millennium dome. The tube was so old I couldn't get the valve undone so I had to push the bike to B+Q to get some hacksaw blades. My friend carried a spare tube, but it was an ultra thin one for a racer. Luckily with 25kg of floor glue on the handlebars it went not too far from home.
A couple of hours later I borrowed a bike and headed up to east London at the invitation of Abu Waleed. As there is a bit of interest in what I am doing now my tourist camera no longer cuts it, so it is always a scrabble to find friends with professional cameras who are actually interested enough in what I do to lend a hand.
Funnily enough, the person who has always shown the most interest is a girl who is as facially pierced as I am. Obviously with Muslims strict rules of segregation this posses a problem. I had emailed Mr Walled earlier. He told me the room in which they met had a curtain down the middle and she would have to be on the other side.
We arrived to find the London School of Sharreah was under an east London railway arch. There were maybe 12 British Asian guys in their early twenties and through the curtain I think I could see two females in Muslim dress. My camera woman friend set up on the other side.
Abu Waleed talks very fast. He makes a lot of jokes, more than Hamza. He isn't angry like Hamza was some times and Atilla was most of the time in Finsbury park. He is happy to critisize other Muslim scholars by name, and does so a lot. Scholars he respects are Hamza, Bakri who he calls Sheik Omar, Al Faisal, and he also spoke well of a Palestinian sheik who he left his audience to guess. I would assume he is referring to Abu Qatada.
At no point did he remotely glorify terrorism, or encourage his audience in any acts of violence, but he would indulge in a lot of black humour about the situation Muslims find themselves in. I could see why he was charismatic to the group in front of him and how what he said and the way he said it would be relevant to their lives. I was bemused at how often I heard the unmistakable chuckle of my friend with the camera through the curtain. The atmosphere Waleed projects is very relaxed. People would duck out to answer their mobile phones and interupted whenever they liked, mostly to ask him to repeat his justifications from the Koran.
At the end of his talk he thought I was going to ask questions. I had made loads of notes after our phone conversation the other day but hadn't brought them as I knew we would need much more time to go through everything and I was too knackered to attempt questioning at 10 pm on a friday. I asked him to think of a place he would be comfortable to sit down for an afternoon to film properly.
On the way home we stopped in my favourite east end pakistani dinner.
"They believe things I would disagree with but they are OK really as people aren't they?" said my camerawoman.
"I think so. I think we are more extreme than they are" I agreed.
I had puncture number three on the way back.
I will put up some clips of what Abu Waleed had to say on youtube soon as.
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