(h/t:Razainc.)

France’s Le Pen battles Islamonazi occupation

by Belen Fernandez (AlJazeera English)

In a recent interview with Al Jazeera in which she expounds on the alleged threat France faces from radical Islam, Marine Le Pen – president of the far-right National Front party and member of the European Parliament – seeks international validation for her anti-immigrant views:

No country in the world… would accept to go through the fast and sizeable immigration of people who, without a doubt, have a different religion and culture.

It would seem, of course, that many places in the world have already gone through this very process – including, for example, certain former French colonial possessions, which were also treated to military invasions, widespread killing, torture and expropriation of resources.

Now the tables have turned, however, prompting right-wing hallucinations of an Islamic empire under construction in Europe.

According to prominent neo-conservative propaganda, the imperialist strategy rests on a number of subtle subversive manoeuvers such as “the demonisation of courageous opponents of Islamic imperialism”.

Though Le Pen refrains from referencing the empire, she does hint in her interview at possible additional tactics such as the surreptitious force-feeding of halal meat to non-Muslims:

[M]illions of French people eat halal food every day without realising it… [I]t’s a problem because it breaks our law on secularism. This is because making people who are not religious consume halal food is contributing, due to this consumption which lacks transparency, to financing a cult… If in a Muslim country[,] Muslims were made to eat consecrated bread, they would scream.

That the majority of the French population has not been screaming about the threat of unwitting ingestion of halalmeat was suggested in a March 2012 article in the British Guardian, which reported “surveys showing that [French] voters were less concerned about halal meat than they were about the weather and football”.

Undeterred, Le Pen reiterates France’s unique torment: “[T]here is no reason to ask the French to accept things that no other people in the world would accept.”

When in doubt, bring up the Nazis 

As if the halal plot weren’t bad enough, Muslims have also engaged in more visible assertions of control over French territory, prompting Le Pen’s December 2010 comparison of Muslim street prayers to the Nazi occupation of France.

Read the rest…

The White supremacist neo-Nazis are at it again.:

National Front plan Skegness demonstration against halal abattoir

A nationalist political organisation opposing multiculturalism and immigration has planned a demonstration against proposals for a halal abattoir in Skegness.

The National Front has invited its members to walk through the town distributing flyers and displaying banners opposing the Muslim practice of slaughter on Saturday, September 15.

Deputy chairman Kevin Bryan said: “We are against halal and kosher slaughterhouses full stop – it’s alien to this country and we don’t want to see it here. Islam is an alien religion to our shores and we don’t think we should have them in this country.”

The group insists it is not racist, claiming to oppose immigrants of all races, “to return this county to its genetic make-up of the 1940s.”

Skegness Standard, 31 August 2012

The White Supremacist National Front continues its campaign of targeting Mosques for protest.:

National Front targets another mosque

No doubt flushed with the “success” of its recent protest at the site of a proposed mosque in Sunderland, the National Front has belatedly latched on to the plan to convert a vacant building in Worcester Park in South London into an Islamic centre, which has already been the subject of local opposition.

The NF reports that fully seven of its supporters (probably almost the entire London membership) leafleted the area on Saturday in order to warn the non-Muslim population of Sutton of the fate that awaits them if the conversion goes ahead. The NF contingent was headed by veteran neo-Nazi Richard Edmonds (who, you may recall, has served as an inspiration to English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon).

In an accompanying video filmed in front of the mosque’s intended premises Edmonds declares: “The locals are absolutely correct to oppose this proposal. A mosque located here, close to the centre of the town, would change the character of Worcester Park irrevocably, and would be the thin edge of the alien wedge Enoch Powell warned us against.”

Click to read more …

(Via IslamophobiaToday.com)

National Front planning to protest ‘once a month’ at proposed Sunderland mosque

Members of the National Front are planning to protest once a month at the site of a proposed new city centre mosque, Sky Tyne and Wear has learned.

The right wing group demonstrated against the building of a mosque in St Mark’s Road in Sunderland on Saturday, August 11. Police were forced to separate the protesters and anti-fascist groups as tensions heightened in front of worried residents.

Following the protest, the North East National Front (NENF) Facebook page announced the group will protest every month. The posting, which has been forwarded to Northumbria Police and Sunderland City Council, claimed that the NF “won the day”.

Local NF activists were joined by others from across the country as they claim the mosque posed a threat to the community and the safety of local children.

Gary Duncan, 42, of Sunderland, speaking on behalf of the anti-fascists, said: “It doesn’t matter what they say is the reason they are against the mosque, it is all about racism and that is it. They are not complaining about the church down the road. We have come to stand in opposition to these people who have been bussed in from all over the country to poison Sunderland with their racism.”

Simon Biggs, the group’s North East regional organiser of the NF, said: “There are no British-born Muslims in my eyes. They don’t belong here and Islam is alien to us.”

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

French Muslims Protest in Gennevilliers against Islamophobia

Press TV reports from a demonstration in Gennevilliers against the sacking (since withdrawn) of four Muslims workers at a summer camp run by the local authority. They were dismissed on the grounds that their fasting for Ramadan supposedly made them unfit to carry out their duties and they represented a threat to the safety of the young people they were supervising.

Gennevilliers has a Communist mayor, Jacques Bourgoin, who initially supported the sackings, and his position was strongly supported by the far-right Front National who stated: ”Those who oppose this wise decision are making a mockery of the principles of safety and secularism.”

Press TV inteviews Marwan Muhammad of the Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France who explains: “We have a hardcore anti-religion front in France. So we have of course on the right wing your traditional racism, anti-Arab anti-Muslim hate, which clearly says that Muslims and Islam don’t belong here. But you also have on the left-wing side of the political game an anti-Muslim front that is coming from a different angle. It is coming from the angle of secularism.”

As the statement by the FN spokesperson indicates, Marine Le Pen’s party is increasingly hiding its ugly racism behind a secularist rhetoric previously associated with the left. A large section of the French left, meanwhile, has been led by its narrow and dogmatic interpretation of secularism to justify the sort of discrimination against the Muslim minority that wins them the applause of the far right.

Marwan adds: “This type of discrimination is happening in every sort of situation, in the working environment, at school, at universities, in restaurants and cities. So Islamophobia as a phenomenon is not stopping because the mayor changed his decision, and that’s why we’re here today.”

Stephen Lennon (aka. Tommy Robinson) set to join the BFP (Image credit to Hopenothate.uk)

(Readers, please welcome Haddock, a new contributor to LoonWatch.)

Co-founder of the English Defence League, Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) is to be appointed “deputy leader” of the British Freedom Party come May 5th, 2012, just a few short hours before an EDL demonstration in Luton, according to EDL News.

The BFP, which came about due to a split within the British National Party (which itself came about due to a split within the National Front organization), has increasingly focused their bigotry onto Muslims in an attempt to make racism more “acceptable” in the eyes of a segment of the public who may find some of the “old guard” racism (Blacks, Jews, etc.) problematic.

The two organizations decided to form an alliance in November, 2011 after agreeing that they had a better chance at “helping the Cause” if they worked together. The intended platform for the new alliance is typical fodder for anti-Muslim racists; calls to “ban the Burka,” forbid the establishment of new mosques, “madrassas” (by that they mean any Islamic schools) and “Sharia law” in “all forms”, including “Sharia finance.”

Another strategy they have decided on is to “Focus” on the “non-Islamic” population, in order to convince “useful idiots” of all colors and creeds to set themselves upon the Muslim population; all the while still holding onto their “regular” racist beliefs.

I find it hard, for example, to picture them hanging out with their fellow Black, Jewish, and Hindu Islamophobic cohorts as “buddies,” after everything is said and done.

Some of their other loving policy suggestions include the following vignettes,

“End to mass immigration, except for vital (highly qualified positions). Immigrants must undergo health check, have a sponsor, have sufficient funds to support them and their families and must be able to speak/write English.”

“Have a system in place to regulate all mosques & madrassas”

“Leave the European Union.”

“Promote Christian values.”

The BFP has also decided to be extremely creative and change their name to simply British Freedom, so that people won’t confuse them with the BNP. In a strange twist of irony, the parent organization of the BNP, the National Front, is beginning to see a comeback after jumping on the anti-Muslim bandwagon. The organization was popular among the far-right in the 1970’s, when it was more socially acceptable to advocate “roots” racism. According to Islamophobia-Watch,

“At next month’s London Assembly, local council and mayoral elections it  [National Front] is putting up 35 candidates – the highest number it has fielded for 30 years. Among its hopefuls is a businessman once convicted of assaulting an anti-racism campaigner who hopes to be the first directly elected mayor of Liverpool; a former BNP supporter arrested for burning a copy of the Koran; and Derek Beackon, the notorious far-right councillor.”

Classy folks.

This just demonstrates the power of Islamophobia. The fact that a nearly defunct organization that had its heyday in the late 70’s, is able to momentarily drag itself out of bed while in a drunken stupor proves that the anti-Muslim niche works. The same is true for the BNP, who has in recent years hopped onto the “it’s the Muslims vs. the rest of us” bandwagon, despite the fact that its members still hold onto their other racialist beliefs. But hey, “the enemy of my enemy, is my friend”, right?

If there is any silver lining in all of this, it is this; most British people simply don’t like thugs who resort to violence to make their points. This is why the EDL is viewed as an embarrassment (at least publicly) even to some racists; they reveal what racism is truly about, and reality face to face makes most people uncomfortable.

That’s bad publicity for people trying to impose an agenda onto others. Recall that Hitler eventually abolished the SA because he realized that his street thugs were making a bad impression on his so-called “noble Cause.” Bob Pitt of Islamophobia-Watch says it better than me:

“Some have suggested that the EDL-BFP lash-up is an example of the classic fascist strategy of building a movement with a physical force and an electoral wing. The theory behind the strategy is that by showing you control the streets and can intimidate your opponents you win admiration as a powerful movement that will be able to impose order on society and this translates into increased votes.

But this strategy is based on the successes of Mussolini and Hitler in situations of extreme economic, social and political crisis, where large numbers of people turned to the leadership of the far right out of sheer desperation. No crisis of such proportions has occurred in Britain and despite the current economic problems there is no sign of it doing so any time soon. Consequently when the far right takes to the streets of the UK with a mob of racist thugs this doesn’t impress people with the strength of the organisation and boost electoral support. Quite the opposite – voters are repelled by a movement whose public face is that of a gang of violent hooligans.”