The Henry Jackson Society Penetration of the Conservative Leadership Contest

Whilst the neocon/Blairite subversion of the Labour party leadership continues unabated with ever more contrived and adventurous ways being used by Blairites and pro-Israel activists to pressure Jeremy Corbyn to step down, the Conservative party leadership race has been overrun by neocons.

Four out of the five of the Conservative leader aspirants are linked to the anti-Muslim, hate-financed Henry Jackson Society.

It is important to understand that neoconservatism is a “persuasion” which believes in using “noble lies” to steer the “vulgar masses” towards a fascism-based closed society which serves the interests of the neocons such as obtaining and maintaining power.  This entails bludgeoning “principles” like the rule of law and human rights through their “prudence” unashamedly in name of these very “principles”.

Thus, we can fully expect an increased hardening of securitised policy and therefore an assault on the civil liberties of all.  We can also expect a continuation and possibly an increase in the political hostility against the Muslim minority and Islam as Britain’s identity is forcibly built against this minority as the Machiavellian enemy.

The Muslim Question (4): Trevor Phillips’ and the Forging of a Closed Society

A series of blogs analysing the recent Channel 4 documentary titled, “What British Muslims Really Think”

Part 1: An Orchestrated Attack on Islam

Part 2: Brief Profile of Trevor Phillips

Part 3: Trevor Phillips’ Propaganda and Normalisation of Muslim Minority Discrimination

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In the last article, we saw how Phillips used spin and dubious extrapolations to conclude, in an expressly discriminatory fashion, that the survey on Muslim opinion showed “a nation within the nation.”  What the implications are in specifically the Muslim context will be the subject of my next and final piece.  Here the focus will on the ramifications resulting from Phillips’ proclamations and accompanying neoconservative chorus.

Phillips, based off his exclusionary conclusion, moves to providing a (semi-final?) “solution” to this artificially constructed “Muslim problem” saturated in hypocrisy:

“It’s clear to me that we have to discourage the many Muslims who want to live a separate life according to values that are at odds with non-Muslim Britain.  But that’s not a responsibility for government, to stand a chance of success the whole of Britain may have to set aside the live and let live philosophy that’s paved the way for separate and reassert the liberal values that served our society for so long.”

Phillips then calls for “active integration” which is made up of the notion that there are some things “society” will not compromise on, and the strategy that liberal trends in all parts of society are to be supported. In order to achieve, this, the already anti-Muslim, draconian, and civil-liberties-eroding measures implemented by neocons and David Cameron “do not go far enough”. “We need”, we are instructed, “a much more muscular approach”.

Globalising CVE: The New Western Imperialism

“We could favour the birth of a new Islam, more inclined towards compromise and tolerance of Europe; to encourage the young generation of ulama who are working in that direction…” ~ French Colonialist, Edmond Douttee, [1] 1901

“It is the modernists whose vision matches our own.  Of all the groups, this one is the most congenial to the values and the spirit of modern democratic society.” ~ (Former) wife of US neocon Zalmay Khalilzad, Cheryl Bernard, 2003[2]

“We’re now going to actively encourage the reforming and moderate Muslim voices.” ~ British PM David Cameron, Speech on Extremism, 2015

Slogans based within particular parlance and values often provide the veil for an agenda of a different kind.  During the 1970s, the human rights industry was used as official US imperial policy.  Prior to this, the enlightened liberalism of the west was driving colonisation of the world to bring it out of “darkness” – a psychological projection of its own “dark” past.  Today, neoconservatives have taken much of the above, tweaked the rhetoric and driven a strategic policy which has now begun to gain international traction.  Today, the “cure” for “backward” and “violent” Muslims remains one grounded in the European, supremacist experience. However, this prescription is administered through the now pressing lens of security and specifically the counter-extremism agenda. In other words, neocons have successfully managed to securitise human rights, allowing them to foster closed societies domestically whilst pursing their doctrine of pre-emption objectives on a global scale through war – both physical and ideological.  The vehicle which provides the language set and values for this culturalist war is the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) agenda.

In a previous article, I noted how the underlying neoconservative “clash of civilisations” assumptions about Islam have premised the counter-extremism discourse.  In the British context, we now a have state-coerced effort to deconstruct Islam piece by piece in order to assimilate, as opposed to integrate, Muslims.  When we understand that Britain through its neocon “think-tanks” and pseudo-liberal “reformers” are at the centre of defining the counter-extremism ideology transnationally, we can appreciate, or rather, be perturbed by the extent of the influence of this dangerous thinking.

Islam is Not the Problem, Neoconservatism is.

A report commissioned by 5Pillarsuk.com reveals some interesting insights into the beliefs and views of Muslims in Britain.  One hundred and fifty “influential” Muslim respondents across the Islamic spectrum were queried. The results demonstrate a problematic curve ball for neoconservatives and their endless efforts to target Islam and Muslims.

The questions revolved around normative Islamic beliefs, and across the board a generally high level of agreement with these beliefs was achieved. Participants rebutted dominant propaganda against Islam and Muslims. For instance, 100% agreed or strongly agreed that forced marriages are forbidden, and 100% agreed or strongly agreed that British Muslims are an “integral part of the UK”. It also established a high rate of agreement upon those beliefs and practices which are typically attacked by politicians in concert with the media, analysts and commentators:

• Segregation of men and women in closed public, or religious settings – over 80% agreed or strongly agreed
• There is no compulsion in Islam, no one can be forced to become Muslim – over 95% agreed/strongly agreed
• Hijab is an obligation in Islam – over 95% agreed or strongly agreed
• Niqab is a legitimate piece of Islamic clothing – over 90% agreed or strongly agreed (chart 16 is somewhat unclear)
• Islam is a holistic comprehensive way of life – over 97% agreed or strongly agreed
• Jihad as is mandated in the Qur’an is used to maintain or restore order, peace and security or to remove oppression and injustice – over 95% agreed or strongly agreed.

Muslim Prison Chaplains and the Neoconservative Attack on Islam

A couple of years ago, I noted that the substantive content in the campaign of attacks against Shaykh Haytham al-Haddad designed to smear him as “extremist” were in fact normative Islamic beliefs which cut across the theological spectrum. Shaykh al-Haddad was the proxy for the attack on Islam.

Since then, David Cameron himself has interfered with religion, attacking Islamic beliefs and practices, promoting deformists as the face of Islam, all the while employing doublespeak and urging the Muslim minority to shun the “conspiracy theories” that Islam is under attack. Looking from the colonialist, Eurocentric lens, all manner of denigration has been hurled at Islam, as “mutual tolerance” and “respect” is simultaneously preached to the Muslim community.

Sisi’s UK visit exposes lie about ‘British values’

See also an earlier blog: What is the link between David Cameron’s Government and the Despotic Sisi Regime?

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Crosspost: Myriam Francois-Cerrah

The imminent arrival of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s president, on an official visit to the UK has been shrouded in secrecy. Even the exact date was until recently undisclosed, in no small part in an attempt to limit a tide of opposition to the arrival of a man with a track record on human rights that the NGO Human Rights Watch has described as involving “probable crimes against humanity”.

From a lack of accountability for the killing of protesters by security forces to mass detentions, military trials of civilians, hundreds of death sentences and the forced eviction of thousands of families in the Sinai Peninsula, the list of abuses has come to exemplify the repressive rule of a man who has succeeded in making his dictatorial predecessor appear like a political moderate.

Despite the British government’s seeming blind spot, the crackdown on everyone from political activists to the media, NGOs and now essentially the entire fabric of civil society, as well as the passing of intrusive surveillance legislation has been widely catalogued.

In May this year, Mohamed Zaree, programme director at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, was quoted as saying: “There are very clear attempts by the government to eliminate human rights work in Egypt at a time of some of the worst human rights violations.” Meanwhile, a report last month by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) found that rape and sexual violence perpetrated by Egyptian security forces had surged under Sisi’s watch, in a campaign to “eliminate public protest“.

So why would the British prime minister, a man who recently defined British values as support for democracy and human rights – invite the leader of a widely condemned military dictatorship to 10 Downing Street? And isn’t this a contradiction between those British values and actual British actions?

Neoconservatism: Why We Don’t Need It and Why it Must be Exposed

Over the last year and half, I have explicated in detail the views and propensities propagated by neoconservatism and its proponents (see here, here, this series, this series, here, here, and here). What has happened in the US and what has been articulated by the neoconservative thinkers has been keenly followed and articulated through narratives here in the UK. From the blueprints of the policies we are experiencing today, such as Michael Gove’s Celsius 7/7 and Douglas Murray’s Neoconservatism: Why We Need it, to the actual laws and policies which have been instituted, neoconservatism is pulsating through the underlying philosophy and assumptions which are shaping the policies affecting every person in Britain, and sadly, in the Middle East.

Neoconservatives believe that a society faced by an impending threat is the ideal society because it allows for a people to willingly hand over rights, become collectivist in their dispositions, and sets the scene for the emergence of a new “governing philosophy”. This is shaped by fascist principles and a neo-Platonic view which designates the majority of the people as “vulgar masses”, whom are required to be subjected to (philosophically Machiavellian) social engineering and a set of fixed principles which do not bind the “guiding elite”. This elite “guide” the masses, and this “guidance” is often coerced through lies and deception in the name of ideas they seldom believe in (such as liberalism, human rights, and democratic principles). Neocons and their intellectual influences know best, in other words, whilst the masses are simply incapable of comprehending the true decisions which are being made for them.

What is the Link between David Cameron’s Government and the Despotic Sisi Regime?

David Cameron, it seems, is on a mission to prove to the world that Britain is rapidly losing its humanity. And I am not just referring to Cameron’s frankly abhorrent reluctance in responding to the mounting refugee crisis to which Britain has a hand in due its unethical and ill-conceived foreign policy.

Cameron, who is hypocritically jostling “British values” like human rights and democracy down the throats of Muslims, is also set to host the racist Benjamin Netanyahu for talks this month. A petition which has already reached 100,000 seeks his arrest for war crimes due to the Gaza massacre of 2014.

The Neoconservatism in Michael Gove and Celsius 7/7 (4) – Terraforming Britain into a “Closed Society”

In this series, we will delve deeper into the views held by our new Justice Secretary, Michael Gove as articulated in his book, Celsius 7/7, with additional commentary explaining the neoconservativism underpinning the statements where appropriate, and the impact it has thus far had on the good Britons of this country.

Click here to read Part 1.

Click here to read Part 2.

Click here to read Part 3.

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Why Such an Offensive Foreign Policy?

Gove leads us to believe that democracy is the best “solvent yet devised for Islamism”, or rather, Islamic self-determination. Hence the benevolent West should bestow this loving gift through bombs and arms primarily in the resource rich Middle East.  This fantasy justification has been rebutted by history itself, be it through the hypocritical stance taken on the death sentence of the first democratically elected President of Egypt, or the outgrowth of the ever belligerent ISIS from the ruins of neocon foreign policy.  The argument that democracy means a safer world is untrue; the US “democracy” has been overthrowing other democracies for decades.

No, the real reason is alluded to through shrewd wording.  Gove writes that the importance of the spread of democracy is firstly “a matter of simple, prudent statecraft.”^[1] While Gove goes on to extol the hypothetical virtues of a “proper” democratic Iran, a trackback is needed and these words carefully analysed.

“Prudence” and “statecraft” have very particular meanings amongst neoconservatives. And as the citation of Allan Bloom and reference to Kristol and Kagan’s “moral clarity” in the book shows, Gove is not unfamiliar with American neoconservative works.

WHY CAGE WILL KEEP RATTLING THE “WHITE SAVIOUR INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX”

Crosspost By: Dr Adnan Siddiqui

Following CAGE questioning the role the security services played in radicalising Mohammed Emwazi, individuals at CAGE came under attack and CAGE as an organisation sustained backlash for merely calling for accountability. In this piece, Dr Adnan Siddiqui (a CAGE board member) discusses that by countering the War on Terror narrative, CAGE are attempting to move from a “politics of pity” that maintains an unjust Western superiority, to the politics of real justice, in order to really advance human rights. 

(CC image courtesy of Jeremy Schultz on Flickr)

I am proud of being a director of CAGE. It has made me a better doctor, a better human and a better Muslim.” These were my words at a CAGE event a week after our press conference on the revelations about the identity of Mohammad Emwazi.

After all the uproar and accusations laid against us, surely this should prompt questions over my fitness to practise as a GP in the NHS. Surely I should be struck off? Being a bearded Muslim GP, it would be easy to demonise and caricature me as the latest folkloric devil, an “Islamist” Harold Shipman.

But the past two weeks and preceding 12 years as a CAGE director has taught me to ignore stereotypes and treat the patient in front of me irrespective of who they are and, more pertinently, irrespective of what they believe.

Contrary to popular belief, doctors do not swear the Hippocratic Oath on qualification, but all our codes of practice are very clear: “We must not unfairly discriminate against patients or colleagues by allowing our personal views to affect our professional relationships or the treatment you will provide or arrange”.