The BNP's arguments should be used against them
Both the BNP and Islamist ideologies thrive on creating divisions. Their arguments need to be robustly and openly challenged, writes Lucy James of the Quilliam Foundation.
The response of the British security services to what is said would have been Britain’s 9/11, the airline plot , appears to have been both effective and courageous. Unfortunately, certain sections of wider society will no doubt use the incident to attack British Muslim communities as a whole — certain sections being, namely, the BNP and their supporters.
Resorting to crude racism is a staple response of the BNP. Since around 2005, the BNP’s rhetoric has become more virulently anti-Muslim; manipulating the fears and suspicions surrounding Muslims post 7/7. In the wake of the London Bombings, the BNP issued a leaflet with the image of the exploded bus in Tavistock Square. Below the picture, in language intentionally indicative of a cosmic battle between Christianity and Islam, the leaflet called on people to ‘help the BNP Crusade’.
At the time of writing, the BNP have yet to respond to the airline bomb plot. No doubt that it will be used to further the BNP’s own racist agenda and the faces of the three convicted terrorists will become commonplace on BNP leafleting campaigns. So how should the British media and politicians react to such dangerously racist rhetoric?
In the last few days this issue has become embroiled in the escalating row over giving the BNP a public platform on the BBC’s flagship political show Question Time. Whether we like it or not, the BNP are a legitimate political party with two representatives in the European parliament and the support of 6.2 per cent of the British electorate. As such, they are legitimately — though regrettably —entitled to a platform on mainstream media channels funded by the taxpayer. To refuse them would be to undermine our democratic principles and question our commitment to freedom of speech.
Moreover, by simply dismissing them outright, we fail to confront and undermine their ideas which are dangerous and divisive. I recently authored a paper entitled In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda in which I established that Nick Griffin and his party’s demonisation of British Muslims is based on factual inaccuracies and an ignorance of history. As such, their accusations are not difficult to refute. Beyond issues surrounding British Muslims, other hate-filled aspects of their ideology also need to be questioned and exposed.
British politicians, rather than shying away, need to arm themselves intellectually against the BNP and publicly challenge their ideology. If our politicians really believe that Griffin is wrong, they should have the courage to publicly challenge his views.
This is an approach that my own organisation, Quilliam, has been using to challenge Islamism over the past year – the ideology that would have contributed towards the creation of the violent mindset of the airline bombers.
Whilst Islamism and far-right extremism are ideologies that are significantly different, their use of sweeping generalizations and willful misrepresentations to conjure ‘us versus them’ mentalities means that the systematic deconstruction of their arguments is necessary to challenge them both.
It is the eighth anniversary of 9/11 on Friday. Unfortunately, we are facing a potential race-riot in Harrow as we did in Birmingham last weekend. We cannot allow extremism to breed extremism. British politicians need to lead the way by challenging extremism through ideas, not through no-platform policies, nor through allowing it to fall to the fists of protestors.
Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...inst-them.html
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