A few post Hamza stories,
How to beat the preachers of hate
By Ghaffar Hussain from
Quilliam is coming with the Quilliam idea of engaging extremists in debate on twat and in chatrooms. Fuck knows, it might work.
...Extremist narratives only lose their appeal when they are undermined and thoroughly discredited; when the debate is opened up and won by their opponents, rather than being shut down and lost.
We need to enter the realm of ideas and pitch more positive and enlightened values against extreme and regressive arguments....
Maybe if we had engaged extremists in suits thousands of Iraqis wouldn't now be dead. Again fuck knows. You can engage people cant you. I suppose.
Another article enthusiastically titled
Abu Hamza embodies Britain’s self-destructive madness. Read it yourself, it contains a long forgotten video of long forgotten times when everyone could preach Jihad eh
After studying Hamza, his posse and all the subsequent court cases I attended for so many years I am a bit surprised I haven't really got a post Hamza story myself. I am glad the jury got to see the unreported truth that Mr Hamza spoke very clearly against terrorism outside the mosque because it is the truth. I didn't expect it to do any good.
When I read about the things he was saying and how he over ruled his own
defence in a letter to the judge demanding to testify the emotions I
felt a long time ago welled up and I frantically sent stuff to his
lawyers. I still have no idea if he is guilty of any or all of this, but I saw enough that I will always be concerned at the difference between Hamza in soundbites and Hamza week in week out on the street. I have as much idea as anyone else about what Hamza may or may not have done behind closed doors, but on the street I was very worried that we might be losing someone who was actually putting the brakes on terrorism.
I was talking to
Raff Pantucci about this the other day who has taken a much more professional interest in all this than I have and over some beer my doubts crystalised as follows.
Hamza either had an unburstable ego or an unshakable faith. Only when charges first came from the FBI was he visibly shaken which I have on film. I just think if Hamza was in favour of terr-ism he would have bloody well said so. Plenty of others were saying so at the time and have said so since.
Some of Hamza's mates used to say to me "Bakri's posse speak in favour of terrorism, we don't yet we get all the hassle from the media". They speculated that maybe Bakri's posse were working for MI-5. Another of Hamza's friends said Mr H "was concerned because the kids weren't calling him anymore" meaning that he was worried they were becoming terr-ists,
I am cool these days with people believing whatever they want about Hamza, even the Sun who stole my video. People have their opinion and I have mine and the people who know either aren't saying or are saying in exchange for cash and freedom.
Fuck knows.
This sort of thing is obviously more sobering.
I think people should pay for their crimes, I just have the feeling in terms of a wider non existant "peace process" we might have lost someone in Hamza. The only Mad Muslim to suggest a "peace process" was Moaazam Begg and now we lost him too.
(Update: Moazaam has since been freed)
Meanwhile in Finsbury Park Mosque
.
..Ensuring young worshippers cannot become potential recruits to a jihadist agenda, Mr Kozbar advocates working with youth groups, counteracting the kind of ostracising that helps breed hatred.
“We take [young people] away from the street, from gangs, from drugs and from extremism, as well as creating an atmosphere where they can debate and play table tennis and snooker in a relaxed atmosphere.”..
PS
I just found Raff in an excellent debate about Jihadi Brits going to Syria on
BBC Newsnight here
...
