By Joe Priestley — The Sunday Times this weekend (17/1/10) interviewed Anjem Choudary, leader of the recently banned ‘Islam4UK’ group, a label that says a great deal about the mentality of those that designed it. The questions were asked by Camilla Long.
It was a highly predictable piece. Typical Times: I was left wondering whether its purpose was to tell us about Choudary or to have us think about Islam and Muslims in the way that the establishment would have us think of them.
Ms Long didn’t so much skate over the issues as skate round them. My suspicion is that she was too conscious of the dictates of political correctness to go anywhere near the nitty-gritty of what constitutes Mr Choudary and that that he represents.
Curiously, throughout the interview, Choudary called Camilla Long ‘Audrey’ – even though he’d checked her press card and knew that that wasn’t her name. What was his point? I was surprised and a bit disappointed that Ms Long didn’t delve into this; why didn’t she want to know why Choudary was deliberately getting her name wrong. But then again in this interview she didn’t really delve into anything.
Initially I wondered whether he was taunting the attractive and obviously posh Camilla Long with a name that today one would associate with an older working class woman. Or maybe he was trying to offend her by drawing a parallel with the soap character that goes by the name. Or maybe he was merely trying to irritate her. Whatever he was doing he wasn’t doing it out of the goodness in his heart.
“I’m not Audrey,” she said, “I’m Camilla.”
“What does that mean?” asks Choudary.
What an odd question. Since when did Muslim clerics show an interest in the etymology of Christian names? Of course the issue doesn’t register with Ms Long. She took Choudary at face value in a typically liberal fashion and answered without a thought, “It’s Latin for slave girl.”
I don’t know about you but Choudary’s question had me investigating the meaning of Audrey – I read that at one time it was unpopular because of its association with the word tawdry. I wonder if Choudary read this.
Ms Long opens her piece with a forthright “Obviously I was never going to see eye to eye with the benefit-clogging Muslim hate cleric…” I say, steady on old girl. She continues, “…but I didn’t realise how many of his own community think he’s dreadful too.” That’s more like it.
What, she ‘didn’t realise’ that the vast majority of Muslims are moderates? Pull the other one Camilla love. It’s a necessary requirement for inclusion into the ranks of the main stream media to realise, without a shadow of doubt, just how moderate the majority of Muslims are – and to shout it if not from the rooftops then from the headlines. Islam is the religion of peace, don’t forget. How can she not realise it? Does she not read her own newspaper or any of its stable mates? Does she not watch the telly? It’s the message they all do their best to send us. In fact it’s the message Ms Long is sending in her own article.
She quotes a waiter in the ‘halaal diner’ that housed the interview, “Is that the coffin man?” he asked of Choudary, “I can’t bear him.”
What! Another ‘moderate Muslim’ speaking against him – it just goes to show how moderate these Muslims are, eh Camilla? Wink, wink. And as if to emphasise his total opposition to Choudary, the waiter adds, “I don’t see much difference between him and Nick Griffin.”
Right on cue. I was beginning to wonder when Nick Griffin or the BNP would make an appearance. Of course Ms Long didn’t ask the waiter what he meant – presumably she assumed we’d all know what he was talking about. I was left wondering in what sense Nick Griffin and Anjem Choudary are supposedly alike other than perhaps in their opposition to the liberal mindset.
This interview is a microcosm of the relationship of Western-liberalism to Islam. Camilla Long bent over backwards to accommodate Choudary just as Western Liberals bend over backwards to accommodate Muslims. She refused to take his threats seriously in the same way that the liberal establishment refuses to address the threat that Islam poses to our way of life. The subtext of the whole exercise was the moderateness of the Muslim community; even Choudary’s supposed extremism was made to serve that interest.
In sharp contrast Anjem Choudary showed his host absolutely no respect. He made no effort at all to hide his contempt for her liberal weakness and saw it merely as something to be taken advantage of. Such is his disregard for Ms Long and indeed for the British state and its people Choudary felt perfectly at liberty to threaten one and all.
He made no bones about it. His aim is the “imposition” of sharia law, and he talks quite openly of a military coup as a means of creating an Islamic state in Britain. His companions, “…a noisy rabble of bearded young men,” tell of conversions to Islam and of trips to the Middle East. Choudary boasts of advocating “…no cooperation with the police in the fight against terrorism.”
In response Ms Long feigns amusement: “But the funniest thing…”
It’s the same old story – the establishment doesn’t want to take these fanatics seriously because it fears the consequences for its madhouse utopia the multiracial multicultural society. So instead, when they’re not kowtowing to them, they say we should laugh at them.
And what was it that Camilla Long found so amusing about Anjem Choudary? Apparently she split her sides on learning that his undergraduate days were “…spent downing pints, smoking dope, ogling porn…”
Why is that funny? Is she not convinced by his conversion from decadent Western student to strident Muslim? And if not, why not? On the evidence contained in this interview Choudary’s conversion is a lot more convincing than Young’s amusement which I suspect was nothing more than a liberal’s nervous giggle.