SIOE in London
Saturday, October 27, 2007 at 10:38PM 
In this morning's post about the attack on SIOE activists in Denmark, I mentioned that I had attended yesterday's SIOE demo in central London, and suggested that I might write more about that in the future. What follows is the promised report.
Perhaps my starting point for this report should be the article about the demo published by Indymedia UK, which was headed "15 Lonely Fascists Protest in Central London" (demanding the creation of a dating agency for fascists, perhaps?). Now, as one would expect from an organisation such as Indymedia, this headline is grossly inaccurate. Specifically, the claim that the demo consisted of "15 fascists" is, of course, misleading, since it grossly over-represents the number of fascists present. In point of fact there were absolutely no fascists - lonely or otherwise - present, with the possible exception of Indymedia's photographer.
However, there were some fifty or sixty people, drawn from across Europe and beyond. Despite the efforts of many on the 
left to characterise SIOE as thugs, Nazis, skinheads, and genocidal psychopaths, those present were entirely respectable, including among their numbers Christians, Jews, and Atheists, young and old, men and women, blacks and whites. Some had a history of political involvement, but there were others whose history of political activity extended no further than voting, and who had come down not really knowing what to expect. The thing that brought this disparate group of people together was a shared concern about the threat posed to European civilisation by Islam, and a determination to play their part in resisting it. ATW was represented by myself, Mr Smith, and occasional guest writer Paul Weston. I was also privileged to be introduced to Anders Gravers, the Danish organiser of SIOE, who so recently survived a murder attempt by far-left thugs, and to the blogger Aeneas, of the Center for Vigilant Freedom (CVF), and the blog Beer 'n Sandwiches. Others at the demonstration included Egyptian Coptic Christians, protesting against the widespread persecution to which the Egyptian government and Islamic groups subject them, and an Iranian Christian convert, whose brother had been murdered by Muslims.
As I wrote yesterday, the march passed off peacefully. Having spent close to an hour milling around in Whitehall Place, under the watchful eye (and, of course, the watchful video cameras) of several van-loads of police, we set off down the Victoria Embankment to Temple Place, where we heard speeches from SIOE's Stephen Gash and Rufus Greenbaum, after which some of us adjourned to a nearby pub, to partake of certain less-than-Halal beverages.
All in all, despite the comparatively low turnout, I felt that the event was a significant success. This was, after all, the first protest of its kind in the UK. That in itself has to be count for rather a lot, particularly given that certain Islamic and leftist groups were doing all they could to have the event banned, Thielemans-style. The task now for SIOE, and for all groups who oppose the creeping Islamification of Europe, is to build on yesterday's protest - to ensure that pre-event publicity, turnout, and the visibility of the event itself, are enhanced.
A further success lay in the fact that at least some people who had no previous knowledge of SIOE or its aims were drawn to take some notice of this issue. A number of passers-by in Temple Place stopped to listen to the speeches, and at least a couple of those were chatting to some of the event organisers as I left. Hopefully, a spark of awareness has been lit in at least some minds. The threat of Islamification, and the complete disunity of Islamic and Western attitudes, is something which concerns most people in Britain: organisations such as SIOE are at last providing a voice for these people, who are denied any sort of representation by the mainstream media, and by the craven cretins in parliament.
The photos used in this report are all taken from the blog, The Eternal Revolution, which has a number of other excellent images from the event, as well as a brief report. More photos can be found at the CVF blog. Finally, I leave you with this video, which contains brief footage of the march, together with the speech given by Rufus Greenbaum:
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Reader Comments (50)
Great to see the video, I'm glad someone got it. Europe is the front line at the moment, but America is not far behind. The West cannot sleep at this time!
I've also got some more pictures of the march. If you've got any use for them, let me know.
pax
Good for you and thanks for the first hand report and pics. I'm proud of you all for standing up.
Not to big a turn out from the video, and I'd like to take up with you a few points that came accross. First the no go areas in Bradford where the police would not be welcome. (BTW we had loads of those here in NI- and our host here was pretty critical ;-) but say no more!) It's difficult to imagine an area in Bradford which the police would not go into whether they are welcome or not. Doesn't law for Jewish people administered by Rabbis exsist in places like NY along side mainstream law, and isn't this more or less what they are seeking?
An independent Bradford? Surely he jests? I can see how the population in Bradford, where whites are a minority may embrace a form of sharia law, but in replacement of mainstream law? And would liberal Britain really be forced to accept it? Isn't that dis-uniting the kingdowm, yet they would get independence by simply requesting it, but the scots are still struggling and the welsh would like it, and 30o years of mayhem didn't achieve independence for us? How is that? Isn't there a little bit of hyperbole? Some scare mongering.
I didn't know public money was given to build mosques, is this correct?
30 years not 300, thats a typo.
Typhoo,
You ask Doesn't law for Jewish people administered by Rabbis exist in places like NY along side mainstream law? As a resident of New York, I can tell you, NO, there is no law except New York and US federal law administered in this state. Any religious group can have additional rules for their members, but they cannot violate the laws of the state and country.
Alan, I distinctly remember listening to a radio programme on the issue of sharia law in Britain, and they took a model from NY where religious courts (Jewish) can hear certain things and those who come before them are morally bound by the decisions. The argument was that these courts did not contradict mainstream law, and were accepted generally by the community they served and generally only dealt with very minor issues such as disputes among neighbours.
Typhoo:
I'm not sure whether he was actually implying that we would have an independent Islamic State of Bradford. I would agree that this is unlikely. However, if he was, as I suspect, discussing the possibility of Bradford, or parts of Bradford, achieving de facto independence from the rule of (British) law, then that is something I would regard as rather probable.
As for potential no-go areas in parts of England, consider the following:
"They go by the euphemistic term Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones, with the even more antiseptic acronym ZUS, and there are 751 of them as of last count. They are convienently listed on one long webpage, complete with street demarcations and map delineations.
What are they? Those places in France that the French state does not control. They range from two zones in the medieval town of Carcassone to twelve in the heavily Muslim town of Marseilles, with hardly a town in France lacking in its ZUS. The ZUS came into existence in late 1996 and according to a 2004 estimate, nearly 5 million people live in them.
Comment: A more precise name for these zones would be Dar al-Islam, the place where Muslims rule."
(http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/709)
Personally, I can quite imagine our modern, politically correct, police refusing to enforce the law, if doing so entailed using force against Muslims.
youve along way to go before you even get to fringe lunacy territory that i and a "few others" allegedly inhabit.
good luck.
Daytripper:
"youve along way to go before you even get to fringe lunacy territory that i and a "few others" allegedly inhabit."
53% of the British public see Islam as a threat. SIOE already represent majority opinion - they just need to get more of the majority out on the streets.
>>where religious courts (Jewish) can hear certain things and those who come before them are morally bound by the decisions.<<
Typhoo, you may as well compare a Catholic confession box to a court; the penitent (felon) is heard by the confessor (judge) and is morally bound by the penance (sentence) handed down.
Re. this demonstration. I dont want to comment on the aims or methods of this group (although I generally like to see people get off their butts and state their case, with few exceptions), but is a turnout of 15 or 50 not incredibly low, especially considering this is supposed to be a mainsteam issue, has been around for decades and went really big after 9-11 and 7-7, and the demonstration was announced weeks in advance.
I've seen more people waiting at a bus-stop in Dublin.
FR
I certainly know what you mean. I call them colonies for want of a better term. Some areas in Britain where it is possible to not see a white face. But I was unconvinced by the independent Bradford, and glad we agree that is unlikely.
As for not being bound by British law - we did have a similar situation here, but it took both sides to achieve the absence of the rule of law. The communities who did not want the police developed their own 'police' and the forces of law and order stayed away and left them to it. Whom do I hold more accountable, those who abandoned communities to their own 'police'.
But the guy in the video comes accross as a little wacky and the crowd around him is not unlike what indymedia comically describes.
>>Whom do I hold more accountable, those who abandoned communities to their own 'police'<<
In fairness, Typhoo, they were driven out. They were being shot at and killed daily.
''In fairness, Typhoo, they were driven out. They were being shot at and killed daily.''
There are many sides Noel, but from the point of view of the people in those communities who did not want to be ruled by UDA warlords, or provo police, they were abandoned by the state to these unscrupulous people.
But lets not hijack FR's thread.
Typhoo
"...the crowd around him is not unlike what indymedia comically describes."
Indymedia called the demonstrators "fascists". Out of interest, what is it about their appearance that leads you to think that this might be accurate? Personally, I detect a distinct absence of skinheads, people wearing fascistic or other extremist insignia, or anything else that might suggest fascistic tendencies.
There was a man wearing a badge on his hat which stated "I like beer", however. A secret reference to his support for the Beer Hall Putsch, perhaps...?
No I retract that, they don't look like fascists, ordinary folk, I suspect it was the dating agency remark that made me laugh a bit. The photos were good, and some of the banners. Interestingly I was at a talk on unionism the other night and there was a section on the difference between protestant fundamentalism and islamic fundamentalism, which was most enlightening.
I'm not saying that the demo did not have a serious issue to raise, only that the turn out was small and that the chap in the video did use hyperbole and some scare mongering to get accross his message, which was in a way unnecessary as it looked like he was preaching to the converted.
I think you are right in the fact that you certainly have a job of work to do to get people off their backsides.
>Interestingly I was at a talk on unionism the other night and there was a section on the difference between protestant fundamentalism and islamic fundamentalism, which was most enlightening
Typhoo, that sounds interesting. Could you tell us more? Maybe in another thread.
orlando move to the UUP thread.
53% of the British public see Islam as a threat. SIOE already represent majority opinion - they just need to get more of the majority out on the streets.
islamism or islam?
I thought the same myself, DT. I would think, at least hope, it would be Islamism.
Charles and Daytripper,
It was apparently an online poll with no controls or margin of error. Kind of like the ones David runs here.
And, yes it says "Islam" not "Islamism" or "Islamofascism." Kind of like how we Americans felt about Mormons 150 years ago.
Alan Frost-McDonald:
As you say, it says "Islam", rather than anything else. And rightly so - Islamism may be the immediate danger, but the entire religion poses a more insidious long-term threat.
I'd add that while Yougov uses online polls, its findings have often been shown to be more accurate than those of the traditional polling organisations.
FR,
its findings have often been shown to be more accurate
Any evidence of this?
the entire religion poses a more insidious long-term threat.
well book your seat at Wansee. ill see you at nuremburg.
I agree that Islamism is a grave and pressing danger, but Islam has more to fear from democracy than democracy from Islam.
daytripper
If justice was your aim, you may want to see the Prophet Muhammad at Nuremberg. Have you read his works?
daytripper
a present for you. Please, no comments about the Crusades, as that's territory long trod, and comments like that are ridiculously easy to counter.
test
>>you may want to see the Prophet Muhammad at Nuremberg. Have you read his works?<<
Phantom, freedom of expression was a legal principle, even at Nuremberg.
>>Mohammed declared a holy war (Jihad) against infidels; Christ achieved a holy victory on Calvary's cross (Colossians 2:14-15)<<
Strange, can't recall this passage from the Bible. Was that a kind of prophesy, as Mohammed was not born until several hundred years after the NT was written?
Any what about: "Mohammed and his fellow warriors murdered thousands; Christ murdered none."
So, the actions of Mohammed's followers are laid at the door of Islam, but Christianity gets off scot free for the MILLIONS of murders committed by Christ's followers. How very convenient for you!
Look, if you are feeling so Christian this Sunday, ask yourself: what would Jesus have thought of your attempts to stir up religious hatred? Well?
You don't realise how bloody ironic your attempts to yoke Jesus onto those hate-filled comments is.
If justice was your aim, you may want to see the Prophet Muhammad at Nuremberg. Have you read his works?
phantom im just reminding people that we have seen this sort of rhetoric before, throughout history.
a present for you. Please, no comments about the Crusades, as that's territory long trod, and comments like that are ridiculously easy to counter.
so what.
Noel and Daytripper. The acronym SIOE is Stop the Islamisation Of Europe and its aim is self-evident. You are clearly opposed to this aim of stopping the islamisation of Europe. Would you be good enough to state what is so good about islam and why it should become more powerful in Europe?
FR wrote
"Despite the efforts of many on the left to characterise SIOE as thugs, Nazis, skinheads, and genocidal psychopaths"
Well FR i rather think that is a moot point given the images of violence by the hard left that you posted here yesterday. The nasty elements that threatened to come along to the Brussels demo were spectacularly outdone by the hard left thugs. If the event was billed by some as highlighting anyone's intolerance it certainly did that and makes Indymedia look like a bunch of pr1cks.
Nice to read about the Egyptians and Iranian attendees, I liked their placards. Would have been nice to hear speeches/more from them.
Is next weeks meeting of this group still going to be held in a phonebooth or will the graduate to a volkswagon?
Typhoo - you are right there are some legal process recognized among the Jewish faith, but it is somewhat limited. It is more akin to an arbitration.
Mahons,
Please clarify the Jewish legal process issue for me. There is no way it can be enforced in the US/NY courts is there?
Yeah FR i hope the iranians and egyptians and similarly like minded swell your ranks in future also.
Alan: I think the rabbinical courts (which are purely voluntary) have heard cases and issue decisions sort of like a secular arbitrator. I have very little knowledge of the practice. Of course their laws can't conflict with the State or Feds, and it isn't an option that one party can go seek against the other.
In fairness, I do not see any 'fascist looking' people there.
Rufus might be the most boring orator I have ever heard. As for the content of his speech, all fine and well, but it was devoid of anything factual or evidential.
Thanks, Mahons. I have observed the growth of civil arbitration, particularly in the area of divorce, but all agreements must meet statutory requirements and pass judicial muster. It is not a substitute for the rule of law, just the rule of LAWYERS. :-)
Alan -good distinction. They actually showed one of the rabbinical courts on an episode of the television program Law & Order.
You are clearly opposed to this aim of stopping the islamisation of Europe.
if you support the wests current foriegn policy then you indirectly support islamism. the two main sources for ultra conservative islamism are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Both are also "allies" of the US & UK. Nothing will change until their influence is curbed.
And its certainly not blind ignorance that permits western governments to allow Islamism to spread and undermine progressive muslim thinking everywhere. its quite obviously an acceptable risk for higher goals than you or i have much understanding of.
if you read about islamisms history you will very quickly realise its been part of the wests foriegn policy toolkit for over a century.
'if you support the wests current foriegn policy then you indirectly support islamism. the two main sources for ultra conservative islamism are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Both are also "allies" of the US & UK.'
Excellent point DT. This is consistently and conveniently overlooked by the supporters of US driven policy.
Islamism? What exactly distinguishes islamism from islam other than the methods to be used for conquest? So-called islamism advocates direct violence against dar-ul-harb (effectively, in the lands of kufr - unbelievers) whereas islam 'only' advocates takeover of dar-ul-harb by demographics, massed immigration, political overthrow backed by the violence advocated by the koran.
But daytripper, you are absolutely right about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/57485
'if you support the wests current foriegn policy then you indirectly support islamism'.
DT: I like you and I really enjoy your comments. They make me think. But that one sentences makes me shudder.
Please try to understand one thing - Islamism also incorporates mysogyny, clerical fascism and well Islam, basically..a POX on it as a socio economic religion come lifestyle i say!
Lets not excuse it. Its perfectly possible to support muslim democrats in the ME whatever your view of the war and reject the basic tenets of islamism. Angry young men get pissed off enough to resort to violence all the time . The reasons dont excuse them, their violence or make them freedom fighters - to hell with that. Neither does it excuse any of the other underlying contributory factors above. We have to be able to criticize Islam as the crummiest religion aswell. That doesnt extend to all muslims, no. But there is a tendancy at the moment to excuse Islam and make it racial and off limits. In so doing i think if you dont stand up to that then *you also* indirectly support Islamism.
It sounds good your comment and I agree about the Saudis - but you put yourself on a moral level that excuses a lack, a total lack, of critique on a religion - 30 or 40 years ago and you would have been all over supporting secularism. I cant help but think youve sold out somewhat too. Ask yourselves why these Egyptians and Iranian dissidents find themselves at this demo. What else have they got and who else is supporting them? Ironic!
Recommend the Islamist by Ed Hussein if you havent already read it.
Sharia law may already be implemented in England for civil cases but not criminal cases.
Indymedia is a joke so any ridicule from that source of misimformation is as water off a duck's back.
I was irritated that hardly any of the persecuted minority groups showed up, although I invited them.
Mr. Gash,
If Sharia law may already be implemented in England for civil cases, is it enforced by English courts if it is in conflict with English laws?
What exactly distinguishes islamism from islam
alan, the freedom to choose.
Islamism also incorporates mysogyny, clerical fascism
no arguments here. i find it a repugnant ideology.
islam on the other hand may have its faults but like any other religion it has its good and its bad. i personally dont hold any religion in high esteem, but i defend everyones right to practice whatever they want.
Lets not excuse it. Its perfectly possible to support muslim democrats in the ME whatever your view of the war and reject the basic tenets of islamism.
i dont excuse it. but i think a very valid historic point is continually missed. islamism has been a useful tool to the west for undermining genuine change in the ME. and i think they are willing to accept the risks come what may. as with anywhere in the cold war the west sought out the militant far right to crush the communism and the left in general. the Middle East was, and still, is no exception.
In so doing i think if you dont stand up to that then *you also* indirectly support Islamism.
i dont "support" either. i just wont let blatant scapegoating go unchecked.
you put yourself on a moral level that excuses a lack, a total lack, of critique on a religion - 30 or 40 years ago and you would have been all over supporting secularism.
i dont think so. i just wont accept double standards from so call christians. and i dont belive in total secularism. just keep it out of politics and education. belive in what you want just dont try ramming it down my throat. that goes for christianity or islam. both are irrelevant to me.
Ask yourselves why these Egyptians and Iranian dissidents find themselves at this demo. What else have they got and who else is supporting them? Ironic!
they are free to associate with who ever they want. judging by the numbers id say they choose the wrong group.
Recommend the Islamist by Ed Hussein if you havent already read it.
its on my list.
i would recommend Devils Game by Dreyfus
Daytripper
Im only interested in helping women and others cut themselves free of clerical fascism. Im not interested in defending a 'repugnant ideology' and leaving it unchecked and excusing it for nearly any reason.
Id say they chose the only group, not the wrong group - The issues arent 'irrelevant' to them either though i imagine whose to blame is, right now. I was surprised they showed up - But thats as much a sad and damning inditement of the Left as anyone else.
Im only interested in helping women and others cut themselves free of clerical fascism. Im not interested in defending a 'repugnant ideology' and leaving it unchecked and excusing it for nearly any reason.
i wasnt directing my comments at you. apologies if they come out like that. as an engineer im all for root cause solutions. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the root causes of Islamism.
What exactly distinguishes islamism from islam
alan, the freedom to choose.
That was by Daytripper and it would appear that he still doesn't know what the penalty for apostasy is for any muslim and as laid down by all 'clerical scholars' within islam.
For the benefit of daytripper and any other apologists for islam, the penalty is death.