Islam4UK, Bansturbation and the General Public

Perusing my account on the Face Book this evening, I was greeted by no less than six of my friends (as the Face Book calls the collection of exes, people you spoke to once at a party and people you never spoke to at school) having joined ‘groups’ either calling for the government to ‘ban’ or otherwise ‘stop’ the planned march of Islam4UK (you may remember them from such stories as ‘when we take over we’ll replace Nelson with an islamic clock’) through the town of Wootton Bassett. One even sent me to a Number 10 Petition (2,251 signatures at time of writing).

Let me get this out of the way first: I think their planned march is deplorable. In the same way (and for many of the same reasons) as I’d think a march by the Ku Klux Klan or Nazi groups deplorable, and I’d hope those marches would be allowed to go ahead (also for the same reasons). It says a lot about the British Public -and what they have become- that their first instinct when faced with something like this is to join a Facebook group calling on the State to ban it.

It says a lot, firstly that people are either so pathetic that they believe joining a Facebook group will have any effect, or are so apathetic that joining a Facebook group is the most they are prepared to do. Secondly, it says a lot because the Facebook groups are calling for the State’s monopoly of power to be used to stop something they don’t like. They are not joining groups to ‘lets all get together, go down there and beat the buggers up,’ or even (preferably) ‘lets all get down there and shout the buggers down.’ They are pleading for Big Daddy to Come And Make The Nasty People Stop.
The people of these blighted islands are so wedded to their telescreens and their Big State that no other course of action even occurs to them.

Of course, marches and demonstrations are an essential part of Free Speech, but most people do not understand this. They don’t understand that the Powers and Interior Ministry Forces that would be used to stop the islamists would be the very same Powers and Forces used to disrupt/attack/arrest/prevent THEIR marches or demonstrations, were anything finally to upset them enough to get them off their sofas and into the streets. You know, power cuts, food shortages, shariah law; those sorts of things.

One group of people who do seem to be willing to get out of their homes and onto the streets is the EDL. According to this Graun article:

A spokesman for rightwing group the English Defence League said if the march took place it would “descend” on the home address of Anjem Choudary and demonstrate outside two mosques he frequented.

Tom Robinson said the group had discussed organising a counter-march in Wootton Bassett but felt the best way to register its objections would be to protest outside addresses connected to Choudary. He said he did not believe the march would actually take place in Wootton Bassett.

They seem to have grown up a little. They do, perhaps, understand that a major confrontation and/or riot in Wootton Bassett would be a huge loss for them, and would indeed hasten the Forces of the Authorities to curteil THEIR right to protest. Hopefully, if the march does happen, no other groups will turn up and cause a riot. Islam4UK are in my opinion catspaws, as are their mates the Anti-Facist Facists. The choice of town seems to me to be finely calculated in its ability to mobilise public opinion to ask the State to step in, and its ability to encourage various aggrieved and emotional groups to descend on the town and cause chaos. Both courses of action play straight into establishment hands, and both should be avoided.