ISLAM 4 QUAKERS

The Islam4UK meeting reported in some papers as cancelled, was moved from The Hilton hotel round the corner to the Quaker meeting house. The Quakers are quite well known for letting anyone hire a room. I was once told by a Quaker part of what sounded like a huge untold story about the importance of their meeting house in Belfast during "The Troubles".

As usual we were accomodated to film really politely without fuss. As usual also when I seem to film these things interesting things happen after the batteries run out.

A few speakers, most of whom I have seen before outlined the conditions for Muslims who spoke out being tortured around the world and languishing in British jails. They also told us Islam was going to take over, whether we liked it or not. Mr Choudhary is convinced that Muslims who stick out in the media are the ones who are going in the right direction. He reasons that the Koran isn't written about Muslims who kept quiet.

He finnished his talk putting straight the recent stories about him in the media, which we unfortunately missed filming. His relationships with journalists as they cast him on the border of acceptable free speech is one of the main things that interests me. Afterwards a happy looking Somali stood up to question, stating that he was proud to be British. He didn't have very good English and started telling more of a story than asking a question, but it was obvious he was a Muslim trying to challenge the platforms concept of Islam.

Afterwards he came over to me and took my phone number with an idea of using my tapes, and further explained his disatisfaction with how Islam was being presented by these people. I didn't really say anything as it isn't my religion and my problems would probably extend as much to his version of Islam as these guys. People often ask to use my tapes for this or that, I have had people approach me- people from the National Front, the BBC, various Islamic film makers all of whom I have had to turn down. It would be useless for me to spend such a long time gaining peoples confidence just to give my footage to a stranger to say what they like with.

I try and film what is. They certainly preach controversial things, yet they also preach clearly against terrorism, usually toward the end every time I have been to these meetings. Islam is coming. It is going to dominate whether we like it or not. Maybe it will come through violence. We don't know but the flag of Islam will fly over Downing street. This is a sort of Islamic revival meeting.

Afterwards journalists of all description ask futher questions, everyone conducts themselves in a calm manner and food is served. There was a very minimal Police presence outside at the beginning and when I left. They were obviously aware of what was going on but didn't want to be seen to be taking too much of an interest.

The day after I got a call from the Somali guy, claiming he had been spoken to in a bit of a hostile manner by some of the gathered Muslims, telling him not to come back.

This is unsurprising in environments which split the sexes, I saw this sort of thing in Finsbury but nevertheless I do find it dissapointing in that if Mr Choudhary makes a point of saying how The Quilliam Foundation had turned down his challenge to a debate in this country of free speech, I would hope he would welcome challenges to his own position within his meeting and allow those challengers to move unmolested.

I'd like to see how much control he has over his people, if he encourages this sort of thing or if he can nip it in the bud. It is this sort of thing which has the media and the Police comparing these controversial Muslim groups to paler groups of the far right. As I have said, everyone treats me OK. Lets see what happens. There were sobber looking real journalists there in the room so if they didn't go around screaming I am fucked if I am going to.

They talk about wanting to dominate but I can't imagine anyone in the room walking out dead set to dominate England tomorow. As far as a threat I feel much more threatened out on a typical saturday night often by people I would call my personal friends so work that one out. On our planet we have these people called news editors who cherry pick words from a distance and are paid to present these words to millions of people. I have some more film which will be up on my Youtube site soon as.

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