UK far right trouble

[Big Joe Corrigan]

I responded to you a couple of days ago too with an article that references some of the arrests and convictions.

Must have missed it mate, will have a look.

 

[KDB Fan]

The position that you have robustly staked out in this and other posts in this thread is perfectly respectable and I do understand your concerns.

So I am going to quote myself again here:

'In the case of free speech, the Victorian philosopher John Stuart Mill drew the line at incitement. He famously contrasted a newspaper article in which the author claimed that corn dealers were starvers of the poor, with the same view spoken (or communicated via a placard) right outside a corn dealer’s house. The first is a controversial opinion that should be allowed to enter the public debate, even if the view is false or immoral; the second is, in those circumstances, an act of incitement to violence and unacceptable.'

Times have changed since Mill was around. A lot now depends on whether a tweet on X or a Facebook post should be regarded as the equivalent of Mill's placard, given the speed at which modern social media operates.

The nature of incitement is also worth thinking about in this context. So let's take a look at a couple of tweets from 'resting' actor Laurence Fox. The first one was written in response to Bushra Shaikh.

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First of all, these tweets are quite typical. I see similar ones about Islam pretty much every day on X, posted by the likes of Fox, David Atherton, Darren Grimes, Mahyar Tousi, Kelvin Mackenzie, and others.

Secondly, their claims they make are almost invariably false. For example, there is actually a long queue of moderate Muslims lining up to condemn acts of terrorism, both online and in reputable, widely circulated publications. If I attempted to list and quote from these many sources, if I tried to summarise them, this reply would probably need to be about 10,000 words long.

Suffice it to say that, surprisingly, it is possible to find within Islam the equivalents of Gandhi, of Dr King, namely, prominent Muslim advocates of non-violence. It's just that most people won't have heard of figures like Abdul Ghaffar Khan (an ethnic Pashtun from the tribal regions of Pakistan whose 100,000 Muslim followers peacefully resisted British colonial rule in India), or be familiar with the blistering 600-pages long condemnation of suicide bombing authored by the influential Pakistani cleric Muhammad Tahrir ul-Qadri in 2010, simply because the relevant sources aren't written in English.

But that's another story. Let's get back to the subject of incitement.

Is there overt incitement here, like there was in the case of Wayne O'Rourke, Julie Sweeney, and Lucy Connolly?

Obviously not.

And should Islam be criticised in this manner?

Of course. After all, moderate Muslims do just the same thing in their books. Here are a couple of examples (taken from Tariq Ramadan's Pelican guide to Islam and Ziauddin Sardar's Reading the Qur'an):

"Muslims have waged wars of expansion, have established colonial-type regimes, enforced religious conversion, upheld slavery, manipulated religion and exploited their fellow human beings."

"There are very few places in the Muslim world where one is genuinely free to express oneself, where open criticism of power is actually tolerated, or where criticism of obnoxious religious practices is not seen simply as an attack on Islam itself."

Fair enough. But here's what is currently bothering me.

I think that the unspoken, perlocutionary intent of the above tweets is to incite, to provoke an animus against Muslims in general, including those who are as repulsed by Islamism and Salafi-Jihadism as the rest of us. Without specific instructions, these drip fed tweets direct emotions along a certain trajectory, leaving others to fill in the gaps, which the likes of O'Rourke, Sweeney and Connolly obviously have.

Given that Fox, Atherton, Grimes et al. are also 'blue tick wankers', and have acquired numerous followers on X, I have therefore been left wondering whether what they do is actually far worse than what O'Rourke, Sweeney and Connolly got up to.

To deploy an analogy from The Wire, they are the equivalents of Stringer Bell, of Avon Barksdale, whereas those presently languishing in jail are, with the exception of Yaxley-Lennon, like the low hanging fruit who reside on the corners of West Baltimore, the ones who do get arrested.

Of course, I can and do go on X to challenge their views. And my replies get read by almost nobody.

So what is to be done about this present state of affairs and these echo chambers with their pernicious effects?

In their book The Devil's Long Tail: Religious And Other Radicals In The Internet Marketplace, David Stevens and Kieron O'Hara favour regulating social media with the lightest possible touch in the interests of free speech. It would take too long to summarise and critique their argument here (mainly because I've completely forgotten most of it). But it's an excellent book and I do recall that they make their case very persuasively.

The only problem is that it was published in 2015 and a lot has happened since. For example nowadays, under the stewardship of Musk, X arguably resembles an anarchic state of nature in need of a Hobbesian Leviathan. And there have also been instances of livestreamed acts of terror.

So in response to my own question, I really don't know. I wish I had Stevens and O'Hara's and your confidence about how to uphold free speech and where the line should be drawn in terms of what is and isn't acceptable. But at the moment I don't.

Lotsof points but do you genuinely think Lawrence Fox's criticism of Islam is an incitement of violence and should be punishable by law?

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

Lotsof points but do you genuinely think Lawrence Fox's criticism of Islam is an incitement of violence and should be punishable by law?

In answer to your first question, I would say that he is certainly seeking to arouse malice against Muslims. And he has since been at it again.



Leaving aside his usual false claims about Islam, you can’t surgically remove a belief system. That’s a physical action.

But you can physically remove people by deporting them.

So, again, I would suggest that - reading between the lines - he would prefer all Muslims to be deported. That’s what he is alluding to. And his followers will read between those lines.

This is the perlocutionary intent of his latest tweet, for my money.

Of course, that’s entirely my interpretation of it. But when you spend time with the X output of Fox, Atherton, Tousi, Grimes et al. you get the impression that this is what they are really about.

They never usually cross the line, though. They are far too conscious of where that line is.

As for your second question, the answer would be no because there’s no overt incitement.

What I would therefore prefer to do is level the playing field. But the only way to do that on X is to pay for a Blue Tick account as I think (though I haven’t checked) that your replies then achieve greater prominence.

Another approach is to reply with a sequence of tweets that respond to the specific claims that are made in depth, though the problem there is that there are no guarantees that they will be seen or read by that many people. Mine certainly aren’t.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

Lotsof points but do you genuinely think Lawrence Fox's criticism of Islam is an incitement of violence and should be punishable by law?

He doesn't seem to have a problem with the White British man on the list of nonces, that man raped a girl when she was 12 and 13.

Seems a weird thing to make a connection when all but one of those blokes seem to be of Pakistani heritage and not a cross section of Muslims. They are all historic offences, most would have been young men in there 20s and 30s and probably working in Taxis or Kebab shops.

Seems more of a cultural problem than a religious one.

Not sure it's necessary to deport every Muslim or Pakistani. Might be a better idea to have more stringent rules on Taxi drivers and police to disrupt nonces working in takeaway shops.

 

[KDB Fan]

In answer to your first question, I would say that he is certainly seeking to arouse malice against Muslims. And he has since been at it again.



Leaving aside his usual false claims about Islam, you can’t surgically remove a belief system. That’s a physical action.

But you can physically remove people by deporting them.

So, again, I would suggest that - reading between the lines - he would prefer all Muslims to be deported. That’s what he is alluding to. And his followers will read between those lines.

This is the perlocutionary intent of his latest tweet, for my money.

Of course, that’s entirely my interpretation of it. But when you spend time with the X output of Fox, Atherton, Tousi, Grimes et al. you get the impression that this is what they are really about.

They never usually cross the line, though. They are far too conscious of where that line is.

As for your second question, the answer would be no because there’s no overt incitement.

What I would therefore prefer to do is level the playing field. But the only way to do that on X is to pay for a Blue Tick account as I think (though I haven’t checked) that your replies then achieve greater prominence.

Another approach is to reply with a sequence of tweets that respond to the specific claims that are made in depth, though the problem there is that there are no guarantees that they will be seen or read by that many people. Mine certainly aren’t.

I totally agree he should be able to say that but he's lucky to not be arrested or imprisoned for it given how aggressively the state has cracked down on free speech.

I'd actually argue Fox's posts are more anti-Islam than the people who got years in prison for shouting "who the fuck is allah?" but our justice system is a global embarrassment at the moment so nothing surprises me.

 

[Koniec]

In answer to your first question, I would say that he is certainly seeking to arouse malice against Muslims. And he has since been at it again.



Leaving aside his usual false claims about Islam, you can’t surgically remove a belief system. That’s a physical action.

But you can physically remove people by deporting them.

So, again, I would suggest that - reading between the lines - he would prefer all Muslims to be deported. That’s what he is alluding to. And his followers will read between those lines.

This is the perlocutionary intent of his latest tweet, for my money.

Of course, that’s entirely my interpretation of it. But when you spend time with the X output of Fox, Atherton, Tousi, Grimes et al. you get the impression that this is what they are really about.

They never usually cross the line, though. They are far too conscious of where that line is.

As for your second question, the answer would be no because there’s no overt incitement.

What I would therefore prefer to do is level the playing field. But the only way to do that on X is to pay for a Blue Tick account as I think (though I haven’t checked) that your replies then achieve greater prominence.

Another approach is to reply with a sequence of tweets that respond to the specific claims that are made in depth, though the problem there is that there are no guarantees that they will be seen or read by that many people. Mine certainly aren’t.

Has Mr Fox heard about the Catholic Church? A world wide grooming organisation. Or does he only concern himself with darker skinned groomers.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

In answer to your first question, I would say that he is certainly seeking to arouse malice against Muslims. And he has since been at it again.



Leaving aside his usual false claims about Islam, you can’t surgically remove a belief system. That’s a physical action.

But you can physically remove people by deporting them.

So, again, I would suggest that - reading between the lines - he would prefer all Muslims to be deported. That’s what he is alluding to. And his followers will read between those lines.

This is the perlocutionary intent of his latest tweet, for my money.

Of course, that’s entirely my interpretation of it. But when you spend time with the X output of Fox, Atherton, Tousi, Grimes et al. you get the impression that this is what they are really about.

They never usually cross the line, though. They are far too conscious of where that line is.

As for your second question, the answer would be no because there’s no overt incitement.

What I would therefore prefer to do is level the playing field. But the only way to do that on X is to pay for a Blue Tick account as I think (though I haven’t checked) that your replies then achieve greater prominence.

Another approach is to reply with a sequence of tweets that respond to the specific claims that are made in depth, though the problem there is that there are no guarantees that they will be seen or read by that many people. Mine certainly aren’t.

Or you could just ditch twitter as it is and always has been a playground for idiots.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

He doesn't seem to have a problem with the White British man on the list of nonces, that man raped a girl when she was 12 and 13.

Seems a weird thing to make a connection when all but one of those blokes seem to be of Pakistani heritage and not a cross section of Muslims. They are all historic offences, most would have been young men in there 20s and 30s and probably working in Taxis or Kebab shops.

Seems more of a cultural problem than a religious one.

Not sure it's necessary to deport every Muslim or Pakistani. Might be a better idea to have more stringent rules on Taxi drivers and police to disrupt nonces working in takeaway shops.

The mother of one of the victims, Elizabeth McDonnell, would agree. Here is a remark by James Fergusson, author of Al-Britannia My Country: A Journey Through Muslim Britain who interviewed her:

"McDonnell didn't think that Islam, as such, had anything to do with the creation of groomers. The men who tormented her daughter were about as godless as they came, far beyond the reach and influence of the mosques."

It's also worth noting that it wasn't just white English girls that were targeted by these horrendous gangs. Asian girls were too.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

I totally agree he should be able to say that but he's lucky to not be arrested or imprisoned for it given how aggressively the state has cracked down on free speech.

I'd actually argue Fox's posts are more anti-Islam than the people who got years in prison for shouting "who the fuck is allah?" but our justice system is a global embarrassment at the moment so nothing surprises me.

Spring was done for violent disorder, wasn't he?

As it happens, I did answer his question on X.

 

[BrianW]

Has Mr Fox heard about the Catholic Church? A world wide grooming organisation. Or does he only concern himself with darker skinned groomers.

I suspect people like this are more concerned about 'racial pollution' than about girls/women being raped per se.

Indeed, I doubt these RW types give a flying fuck for the rights of women and girls. They seem to think it's OK for them to be raped, as long as it's by a 'manly' white guy. This is one of the hallmarks of a ****. After all, their heroes include the likes of Trump and that revolting p.o.s. Andrew Tate.