A news story caught my attention this morning. Wooton Bassett is where the coffins of British soldiers arrive from Afghanistan, and the people there have been lining the streets on a regular basis to greet them, and paying their respects. Now an Islamist group called "Al-Muhajiroun" have announced that they are going to protest at the town to engage the British public on: "the real reasons why their soldiers are returning home in body bags and the real cost of the war".
The response has been an outcry from the residents of Wootton Bassett and the Wiltshire Islamic Cultural Centre, who condemned the sect as "deviant".
Al-Muhajiroun claim that 500 people would march, even though The Times reports their membership as in the region of 50.
Alan Johnson (the Home Secretary) said he would have no hesitation in supporting a ban on the march if the council requested one.
Those are the facts. What to make of them?
Firstly, I am utterly opposed to people being prevented from demonstrating. That is disgraceful, and Mr Johnson ought to be ashamed that he has aimed to score cheap political points when the more unpopular (but ethically sound) route would have been to apply the principles of Freedom of Speech. If the group are not inciting hatred and want a peaceful protest, then that is their right, no matter how offended other people may be.
The only reason I can imagine for Mr Johnson's reaction is that it would offend the sensibilities of the people of Wootton Bassett and of the people who support the soliders and their families.
So what? It hurts the sensibilities of the BNP when counter-protests are allowed. It hurts the sensibilities of Government Ministers and their supporters when political rallies are held against them. It hurt the sensibilities of US Servicemen and their families when the first protests against Vietnam were held: protests which helped to change public opinion.
I very much doubt as if this (planned) protest would change public opinion, but they should have as much right to protest against what they see as wrong (as long as they do so within the law): whatever I or anyone else thinks of their views.
Protests are there precisely because they hurt somebody's sensibilities: that's the whole point. They are traditionally held in places which will generate the most publicity.
So yes, the protests should be allowed to go ahead.
But 500 Islamists having a march, and being confronted by much larger number of counter protestors would make a very different story. Al-Muhajiroun know this, and so probably will not follow through.
Especially since those protestors could make the very valid point that the "real reason" that soldiers are returning dead (from Afghanistan at least) is because a foreign state was run as a theocracy based on a right-wing and evil religion* which sponsored and actively promoted terrorism, along with facilitating the mass murder of innocent civilians in other countries.
Counter-demonstrators could even wear bikinis (assuming the protest was held at a slightly warmer time), in order to ram home the point that in this country, women are free - while at the same time managing to offend everyone at the other protest. Now there's an image that the media would lap up. Maybe a counter protest should go ahead, even if the originally planned protest does not? I'll bring me camera.
But the most interesting point on this whole news cycle is this: that the media picked it up at all. Why did they pick it up? A tiny group of people who haven't had a successful protest (as far as I can see from a quick google) announce another planned protest which may or may not happen. What is newsworth about that? Yet they now have coverage in every major newspaper, and
a Facebook group of nearly half a million people discussing them and their views.
That's the kind of publicity which a (planned) protest involving 500 people can't get you unless you're an Islamist and therefore (by default) newsworthy. If the media ignored them, they'd melt away (or at least we'd never hear about them, because 50 people don't make that much noise). But at the moment, this group of 50 people have the headlines at their command.
Interestingly, moderate Mulsims got 62 words in the printed Times article. They were not mentioned at all in The Sun. Their views, clearly, are not nearly as interesting.
* I refer not to Islam in general, but the specific sect of Islam to which the Taleban (and apparently Al-Muhajiroun) belong.
No comments:
Post a Comment