Did The Observer perform a useful service by devoting two full pages, plus narrow strips of continuing text on the next two pages, and four huge portraits by its photographer, to Anjem Choudary's extraordinary apologia for the primitive world view of the Islamic State?
Or should we admit, however reluctantly if we are fervent believers in the freedom of expression with only common sense limits, that the the time has come to deny such prominent platforms to champions of unmitigated evil?
Writing about the devastated family of Aqsa Mahmood, still in her teens when IS/ISIS/ISIL lured her from comfortable Glasgow family life to do her bit for jihad, I said this:
I have to admit that the need to write so much, so often about jihad, western jihadists, conflict, alienation from civilised values, stolen youth and broken families is profoundly depressing. I spend a lot of my working time looking for events, projects or people that present Islam in a positive light. I use my limited powers to fight racism, discrimination and hatred. If Aqsa's revolting glorification of IS barbarism does not diminish that effort, it makes life a lot more complicated.
Those are words I see no need to change. If I am genuinely uplifted by such stories as the heartwarming success of Myriam Bourhail, who put one in the eye of the obnoxious Front National (which happens to be in charge of her French town hall) by becoming France's top baccalauréat student, I feel entitled to despair at the dangerous and offensive ramblings of men like Choudary.
Choudary's heart belongs in the bosom of Taliban time travellers with an approach to the treatment of women, dissenting fellow-Muslims and westerners rooted firmly in the Middle Ages or before.
He aparently lives on British state benefits but despises the country of his birth and not only wishes to see it taken over by people sharing his warped outlook, but expects it to happen by 2050 (it was 2020, but has clearly been pushed back a little, perhaps to give hope to the living that they, or many of them, will be spared by mortality from the reality of its implementation).
But who is he, this fortysomething rabble-rouser, and what mandate does he possess?
Choudary, of Pakistani parentage, is a Kent-born solicitor-turned-activist who has been accused, not by far right neanderthals but by the anti-racist Hope not Hate group, of facilitating or encouraging hundreds of western Muslims to join fanatical, West-loathing extremists fighting the brutal Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad.
That is bad enough; it is a long time since anyone could keep a straight face while claiming to be fighting essentially the same cause as the anti-Assad West. Even before IS began to make its ugly presence felt, these militant groups were hardly promoting a fair, free and enlightened option to Assad. Democracy is just another example of wicked western ways. Zealous application of the most vicious aspects of sharia law, with no right to oppose it, is seen as the cure-all for society's ills.
Choudary chooses his words with care. Hope not Hate pointed out there was no evidence to link him to any terrorist conspiracy. The man himself says he has never even been charged with a crime related to such activity, closely as the British security services may monitor his words and deeds. So on that he entitled to be presumed innocent.
His past roles speak for themselves, however. He was a founder member of Al Muhajiroun and the spokesman of Islam4UK, both now banned. I must take Wikipedia's word for it since the supporting link now leads nowhere, but this is apparently how Islam4UK described itself and summarised its objectives on its own website:
... "established by sincere Muslims as a platform to propagate the supreme Islamic ideology within the United Kingdom as a divine alternative to man-made law" to "convince the British public about the superiority of Islam, thereby changing public opinion in favour of Islam in order to transfer the authority and power to the Muslims in order to implement the Sharia (in Britain)".
Reading The Observer interview, I found nothing in his quoted words to suggest he regards that as a vile misrepresentation of his aims.
Instead, he reportedly made the following points, if the newspaper's interviewer correctly quoted or interpreted him:
* the Islamic rule of his choice would tolerate no protest, no right to voice disagreement (as he enjoys now). "You see, we don't believe in the concepts of freedom and democracy. We believe sovereignty belongs to God."
* alcohol, music (except Islamic songs) banned along with concerts and theatre
* apostates and gays put to death
* males and females subjected to strict segregation and all women veiled
As for IS/ISIS/ISIL, he affects to reject allegations of the obscene atrocities notorious recruits like to brag about in social media. In the same breath, seeing no contradiction, he defends the use of crucifixion and allows for the preposterous possibility that James Foley, kidnapped and decapitated by the group in Syria, was the subject of a lawful execution. The Observer says he refuses to condemn such barbarism though, in turn, he will not say he supports it.
If journalists are, or may be, fair game in his eyes - "I don't know anything about these journalists, why they were there, whether they were spying or in fact part of the military" - what about aid workers, such as the unfortunate David Haines, also threatened with murder? He will not comment before checking "the truth", but insists
there is no need for the media or humanitarian workers to operate in Muslim countries in any case.
Most chillingly of all, he describes an IS-run society as "the kind I'd love to live in with my family". Far too much attention, he argues, is paid to medieval punishments and repression, not enough to the accompanying social and economic system. Though he doesn't disown the medieval punishments and repression.
Choudary, The Observer suggests, is seen as a joke figure, derided by many Muslims as having no significance. Yet the paper also states that a "motivated minority" of young western Muslims share his views.
On balance, the paper probably did a service by giving him the hangman's rope. It is important to know your enemy.
But it would cease to be a service if nothing were then done about that enemy. I am not sure what the answer is.
Internment of people who appear to condone terrorist atrocities, or who support groups self-evidently at war with Britian and its allies, would probably work no better than did internment in Northern Ireland. Expelling people born in the UK seems, on the face of it, wrong.
We may be stuck with the need to do little more than try to develop imaginative, compelling tools of opposing philosophies, using education and a more aggressive suppression of discrimination and prejudice.
But it should also be possible to devise civic obligations on which, say, the provision of state benefits and subsidised housing depended.
Is it too much to expect every citizen of the UK to sign up to an agreed set of values that parliament considers just? If Holocaust denial can be successfully prosecuted in France, Austria and Germany, is there scope for a specific offence of refusing to condemn acts defined as terrorism.
In extremis, the right to strip British citizenship from individuals would indeed be legitimate, subject to safeguards, though a lot less complicated in cases of dual nationality. I see a good case for making my proposed civic test renewable and - blow the extra layer of bureaucracy - as applicable to all as having to obtain a driving or television licence.
I hope I am exaggerating the threat, but fear I am not. I take no great comfort from the fact that I personally know no one remotely like Choudary but plenty of good, reasonable Muslims with whom I have enjoyed working or having some professional contact, playing sport and socialising. I worry that too many of those I don't know feel, as did Aqsa Mahmood in one of her rotten tweets, more inclined to mock Islamic virtues of peace and tolerance. Choudary's concept of Islam owes no allegiance to tolerance and a heavily qualified attachment to peace.
This is intended as a starting point for discussion. Within the bounds of legality and decency, I would publish any Choudary riposte (Andrew Anthony's piece in The Observer was so long that it ought to have included a great deal more by way of direct speech).And I will go on, in my own words, trying to find "events, projects or people that present Islam in a positive light" and "use my limited powers to fight racism, discrimination and hatred".
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