Deccan Herald.
British Premier David Cameron has banned Conservative party Chair, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, from attending a major Islamic meet where a number of pro-al-Qaeda speakers are also due to appear, igniting a bitter internal row over how the government tackles Islamist extremism.
Warsi, Britain's first woman Muslim Cabinet Minister, was told by the Prime Minister to cancel her today's appearance at the Global Peace and Unity Event billed as the largest multicultural gathering in Europe, according to The Observer.
The London-based conference is aimed at improving community relations, yet critics have pointed out that a number of speakers who are due to appear have justified suicide attacks and promoted al-Qaeda, homophobia and terrorism.
An influential voice among the international Muslim community, Warsi believes that confronting extremists at public events is a more effective way to tackle fundamentalism than a refusal to engage with them.
The report quoted a government source saying: "She had hoped to attend, but there is a conflict of opinion on how extremists should be dealt with and the Prime Minister, supported by Home Secretary Theresa May, were adamant no Tories should attend."
According to the report, Andrew Stunell, the Liberal Democrat Communities Minister, will deliver an aggressive speech against those who espouse fundamentalism.
"He will make clear that the coalition government will not tolerate extremism, hatred and intolerance in any form," a spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government, said.
The conference has been organised by Britain's most popular Muslim television station, the Islam Channel, which earlier this year was accused by a Muslim think-tank, the Quilliam foundation, of promoting extremist groups.
Ok fair enough I can sort of see Camerons reasoning about this, after all Labour managed to seriously tar themselves with their love ins with various Islamic extremist speakers Ken Livingstone seemingly being a magnet for it, even with his support for Lutfer Rahman in Tower Hamlets and the extremist Islamic Forum of Europe. Supporting minorities is fine, however some minorities appear to be more than equal, this was a major failing of Labour. However as Churchill put it, Jaw Jaw is better than War War, at least talking to them will prevent the alienation they feel even if a lot of it is self inflicted. Though I suspect ordinary Muslims will ignore the event about as much as the ordinary UK citizen. Even more hysterical was the reaction of MPACUK (the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK) Now apart from wondering what the hell the MPACUK been smoking or popping, never in their wildest dream does the EDL have that kind of influence, they're also starkly apolitical unlike the MPACUK and from what I can gather comprise quite a mix of political opinions though focussed solely on preventing Sharia law ever being implemented in the UK. Which puts them at odds with the multiculturalists that haunt most political parties despite the fact its becoming increasingly obvious multiculturalism is an abysmal failure. Yet this obvious falsehood keeps stoking the tensions in our society, some Muslims will believe it and so the pressure and the alienation remain. As for the EDL, they just shrugged and laughed it off, they don't like Cameron at all, see him as just another Blair, which goes to show who are the more saner of the two groups. |
2 annotations:
The problem was that her attendance would be trumpeted as a PR gain for the event (and, by association, those others who were part of it, including the fundamentalists etc) and her contribution, whatever its natured, would have been ignored completely.
There is history of such things...
Of course it's wrong, but that's how it would have been manipulated, therefore Cameron's decision was correct. In a decent world with honest people, the Baroness could have gone and made a valuable contribution. In the real world of Planet Earth, that was never going to be possible in practice.
I don't like the woman, or have much time for Wuslimism. Would have been interesting to see if she fit in with this crew.
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