US 'anti-Islam' bloggers banned from entering UK

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Two prominent US bloggers have been banned from entering the UK, the Home Office has said.
Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer co-founded anti-Muslim group Stop Islamization of America.
They were due to speak at an English Defence League march in Woolwich, where Drummer Lee Rigby was killed.
A government spokesman said individuals whose presence "is not conducive to the public good" could be excluded by the home secretary.
He added: "We condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form."

Ms Geller, of the Atlas Shrugs blog, and Mr Spencer, of Jihad Watch, are also co-founders of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, best known for a pro-Israel "Defeat Jihad" poster campaign on the New York subway.
On both of their blogs the pair called their bans from entering the UK "a striking blow against freedom" and said the "the nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead".
They were due to attend a march planned by the far-right EDL to mark Armed Forces Day on 29 June, ending in Woolwich, south east London, where soldier Drummer Rigby was murdered last month.

(BBC News)

[CriticalJames]

As a general rule, I wouldn't agree with restricting people's travel rights
based on a few blogs, but in this case I can certainly understand why the
Home Office made the decision it did. These people were clearly planning
to come over here and start inciting hatred and
nothing good would have come out of them joining in on the EDL bandwaggon.

The Woolwich murders have been squeezed so much by tabloid papers and the
British media in general; we certainly don't need independent anti-muslim groups
feeding from this.

[ind_com]

Islamophobes are racist scum.

[Quail]

It's all well and good that racists have their movement restricted, but this

A government spokesman said individuals whose presence "is not conducive to the public good" could be excluded by the home secretary.
He added: "We condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form."
could very easily be applied to anarchists or communists. I don't think racists/fascists should be given a platform to speak, but I think it should be people in the community who prevent them from speaking, not the government. Anything the government uses against the far right can equally be used against the far left.

[MarxArchist]

On both of their blogs the pair called their bans from entering the UK "a striking blow against freedom" and said the "the nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead".


(BBC News)

Magna Carta isn't dead yet but we're working on it.



Magna Carta was the first document forced onto a King of England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs) by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_feudal_barony), in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges.

[Red Nightmare]

Islamophobes are racist scum.

Islam is not a race there are white, black, and Asian Muslims.

[Nevsky]

Islam is not a race there are white, black, and Asian Muslims.

That's exactly why islamophobes are ignorant and stupid. Islamophobes are like antisemites, they target a religion but treat it like a "race". Most islamophobes picture a muslim person in a stereotype, race related way similar to how the nazis pictured the jews. ind_com pointed out that islamophobes are racist, not that Islam is a race.

[Red Flag Waver]

Islam is not a race there are white, black, and Asian Muslims.
Anti-Islam Westerners hate Muslims because they have brown skin, funny names and stinky food. Islamophobes are racist.

[Paul Pott]

Whether or not Muslims constitute a race is besides the point. "Islamophobia" (it's a shitty term that doesn't capture the issue, just like "anti-Semitism", but it's the only one there is, so...) is always pushed in the service of one or more of these three things in the west:

1. Marginalization of immigrants, with close links to white supremacism and nationalism.

2. Imperialism in the Muslim world, closely linked to 3 but very much existing outside of it.

3. Zionism and apology for Zionism.


Every now and then you see a shitty piece of work like Geller that supports all three.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Islam is not a race there are white, black, and Asian Muslims.

Islamophobia isn't simply criticism of Islam, though - Islamophobia is a sensationalist criticism of Islam that relies on overgeneralisation to induce moral panic against immigrants from areas that are perceived as Muslim, and that tries to portray Islam as somehow uniquely offensive (most Islamic ideology is pretty bad, of course, but then again so is most Judaic and Christian ideology). Its victims are not necessarily Muslims, they simply need to be perceived as Muslim, or "foreign" - many Palestinians are Christians or atheists, and many Bosniaks are completely irreligious. It also panders to the basest, vilest impulses in the modern "westerner" - to the conservative it screams about how Muhammad was a pedofile!!! while to the "progressive" it weeps that Muslim women are oppressed!!! (so we should bomb them nice and good). Basically, the liberalism of the fools.

[Sea]

More often, islamophobes do the things that they complain about than actual Muslims do.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

More often, islamophobes do the things that they complain about than actual Muslims do.

Well, yes, you can't have Muslims abusing women in civilised society, that's the job of straight Christian males from the dominant nationality.

[Beeth]

It's all well and good that racists have their movement restricted, but this

could very easily be applied to anarchists or communists. I don't think racists/fascists should be given a platform to speak, but I think it should be people in the community who prevent them from speaking, not the government. Anything the government uses against the far right can equally be used against the far left.

if it is applied against us, then let us protest. Until then, let us be happy that fascists are being targeted. Police are not our friends either, but at least for practicality's sake we depend on them (if we are being attacked by a mob, or something got stolen, etc). Not everything is reduced to ideology - we also have to consider practical necessities.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Yeah, you aren't going to get a whole lot of sympathy from me.

Pam Geller is......well, the woman is a first class nut. I think the people at the Southern Poverty Law Center summed it up best:

Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She's relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as that President Obama is the "love child" of Malcolm X. She makes no pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps. She has taken a strong pro-Israel stance to the point of being sharply critical of Jewish liberals.

She also just LOVES to start shit up for the starting-shit's sake. Her infamous billboard campaigns in New York is just a small taste of her generally misanthropic behavior.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Now can we ban these fools from the planet?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Islamophobes are by far some of the most moronic people to argue with.

Destroy their shitty nationalist arguments (e.g. demonstrating that most of the victims of islamist cells ARE muslims), and the dickwads just get all high and mighty, and start slandering you with shit like 'jihadi lover' or 'turbanator'.

Don't get me wrong - I hate islam as a religion, as with every abrahamic religion - but the disgusting and often racially-connected (muslims=arabs=TERRORISTS=9/11 crap) bullshit that most moderate muslims are shoved into is systematic, degrading and should be stood up to.

Someone came up to me recently and asked me this: "A muslim just killed a British soldier in England with a machete, What say you now, hm!?!". My simple response was that the guy had no connection with the mosques filled with your everyday muslim set on fire by pigs after the murder, and that if I said that all Christians are evil and their churches should be burned because a Texan-nazi killed his homosexual son in the name of god, you'd think that I was insane. Why then use this grouping logic with followers of islam?

That shut him up.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

More often, islamophobes do the things that they complain about than actual Muslims do.

I love this. I've met people who've wanted to deport conservative muslims but not white-supremacists because they're 'a part of the culture'. Wads of excrement.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Since this is being done by a bourgeois government for bourgeois reasons, I'm not seeing any reason to celebrate.

[Beeth]

Since this is being done by a bourgeois government for bourgeois reasons, I'm not seeing any reason to celebrate.

Then don't go to college, don't enjoy movies/video games, don't go to pubs during weekends, don't go shopping, etc. etc. - cuz all these are managed by bourgeois businessmen for bourgeois reasons.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Then don't go to college, don't enjoy movies/video games, don't go to pubs during weekends, don't go shopping, etc. etc. - cuz all these are managed by bourgeois businessmen for bourgeois reasons.

What utter rot. None of that has any bearing on the ability of radical leftists to do their thing.

However, if a bourgeois government uses their powers to restrict the movement of the far-right, what makes you think those exact same powers won't be used against the left?

[Beeth]

What utter rot. None of that has any bearing on the ability of radical leftists to do their thing.

However, if a bourgeois government uses their powers to restrict the movement of the far-right, what makes you think those exact same powers won't be used against the left?

Are you going to protest against the govt.'s decision, then?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Are you going to protest against the govt.'s decision, then?

What would be the point of that?

[hatzel]

This could perhaps even prove detrimental...

The event itself is going ahead. In such case it doesn't really matter which mouths speak the words that will be spoken, and the government clearly doesn't care that those words are spoken, because they are perfectly happy to allow anybody except these two speak them. Banning entry for this pair - a wholly symbolic act - will not lessen the impact of the event. In fact it could intensify it. These are people, remember, who peddle ideas of Eurabia, that the European political elite is in bed with Islamism, that it is willing to sell us out before daring to break from the shackles of political correctness and speak a word to criticise Islam. This will be used as 'proof' of this, and will probably encourage some of those leaning towards the far-right to reconsider the necessity of pursuing extra-parliamentary methods in forwarding their agenda, as government has (supposedly) shown itself to be too soft on the matter.

The main intention, however, is to give the false impression to those outside the right-wing that the government is committed to the struggle against racism, and is therefore part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. In the current climate, such a symbolic gesture has obvious benefits. Expect people to swallow that one hook, line and sinker, which could have serious implications for radical organisation against the EDL and their ilk.

[Beeth]

What would be the point of that?

So you're okay with the govt. doing this?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

So you're okay with the govt. doing this?

No, but I don't see the point in protesting. What would that achieve?

[Beeth]

No, but I don't see the point in protesting. What would that achieve?

A protest may put pressure on the gvt. to change its ways. But either way, do you believe that these two bloggers have been treated unfairly?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

A protest may put pressure on the gvt. to change its ways.

Very funny joke. haha. Do you seriously think the Home Office is going to relinquish it's ability to ban people from entering the UK on political grounds?


But either way, do you believe that these two bloggers have been treated unfairly?

Why don't you pay some fucking attention to what I write? I don't care about the bloggers, it's the mechanism underlying their restriction of movement which concerns me.

Following the 1936 Battle of Cable Street in the East End of London, the UK government introduced the Public Order Act, which banned political uniforms from public gatherings and required police consent for political marches.

If you can't see how that kind of thing can be easily used against the left then you are a fucking idiot.

[Per Levy]

More often, islamophobes do the things that they complain about than actual Muslims do.

that so much, i've read on islamophobic blogs, the commentators rage about the treatment of women under islam, in the next thread they rage about feminism and that women work more and dont care about doing the homework and all that. or they complain about sharia that somehow is supposed to be installed in the west but in the next thread they complain about that you can criticise the church and christianity. and there are more, much more nasty, things these bigots spout.

[Beeth]

Very funny joke. haha. Do you seriously think the Home Office is going to relinquish it's ability to ban people from entering the UK on political grounds?



Why don't you pay some fucking attention to what I write? I don't care about the bloggers, it's the mechanism underlying their restriction of movement which concerns me.

Following the 1936 Battle of Cable Street in the East End of London, the UK government introduced the Public Order Act, which banned political uniforms from public gatherings and required police consent for political marches.

If you can't see how that kind of thing can be easily used against the left then you are a fucking idiot.

No need to get nasty. Be calm.

Your fears (that the state may use it against the left some day) are based upon an event that hasn't yet occurred. Irrational fears. Paranoia.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No need to get nasty. Be calm.

Then pay attention to what people write!


Your fears (that the state may use it against the left some day) are based upon an event that hasn't yet occurred. Irrational fears. Paranoia.

It happened in 1936. The Public Order Act was applied against anti-fascists as much as it was against the fascists.

You are seriously naive if you think bourgeois governments don't do this kind of crap on a regular basis.

[Beeth]

Then pay attention to what people write!



It happened in 1936. The Public Order Act was applied against anti-fascists as much as it was against the fascists.

You are seriously naive if you think bourgeois governments don't do this kind of crap on a regular basis.

So what's your solution (aside from whining about it on revleft)?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

So what's your solution (aside from whining about it on revleft)?

You mean it isn't obvious? Take a guess!

[Beeth]

You mean it isn't obvious? Take a guess!

Nice dodge. Let us see if you have concrete solutions rather than vague, impractical ideas.

[hatzel]

Your fears (that the state may use it against the left some day) are based upon an event that hasn't yet occurred. Irrational fears. Paranoia.

In case you're interested, the British government actually banned Raed Salah from attending a Palestine Solidarity Campaign meeting a couple of years ago. Leila Khaled was also refused a visa in 2004 and is thus banned from entering the country, as various left-wing groups who haven't been able to invite her to speak will attest. I'm intentionally taking examples of people you might consider the 'flip side' of the likes of Pam Geller, you see, the kinds of people she wouldn't like one bit, but that the left tend to be quite supportive of...

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Nice dodge. Let us see if you have concrete solutions rather than vague, impractical ideas.

Abolishing bourgeois government is "vague, impractical"? Are you sure you're a communist?

[Beeth]

Abolishing bourgeois government is "vague, impractical"? Are you sure you're a communist?

Abolishing bourgeois govt. is the ultimate goal, not to be done in a day. In the meantime, we have to do something about these matters - bigots, racists, homophobes, and if the bourgeois govt. inadvertently helps, why complain?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Abolishing bourgeois govt. is the ultimate goal, not to be done in a day. In the meantime, we have to do something about these matters - bigots, racists, homophobes, and if the bourgeois govt. inadvertently helps, why complain?

Because they're not helping. The bourgeois government is giving racist fucks unwarranted attention and legitimacy while at the same time asserting their own power.

[Beeth]

Because they're not helping. The bourgeois government is giving racist fucks unwarranted attention and legitimacy while at the same time asserting their own power.

Were those two racist bloggers banned or not? Were they given a clear message or not? Put in their place or not? Surely, any leftist would have wanted that?

Sometimes, interests may converge - the state and the leftists may both feel, for instance, that homophobia is a menace to be tackled. Are we going to disagree just because a bourgeois govt. is making laws to deal with this? If the state says 'not smoking' is good for health, are we going to smoke all day just to spite the govt.?

That the state has motives is well understood. That it may use the same law against the leftists is also understood. But since we have literally no power to fight these battles on our own terms, we have no option but to rely upon a powerful entity to do the battle for us, at least for the time being. It is a tactical move rather than an ideological one. Nor does it mean we trust the state - it simply means we are using them for the time being, at least until we become powerful enough to set terms.

Until that day comes, we have to use even our enemies to do the battle for us. Doctrinal purity be damned; it is practicality that matters.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Were those two racist bloggers banned or not? Were they given a clear message or not? Put in their place or not? Surely, any leftist would have wanted that?

I contend that they were not "put in their place". On the contrary, in their own eyes they have been vindicated; their travel restrictions proof positive of Islam's influence on the UK government, as they see it.

On the other hand, had they been chased out by workers from the community in question...


Sometimes, interests may converge - the state and the leftists may both feel, for instance, that homophobia is a menace to be tackled. Are we going to disagree just because a bourgeois govt. is making laws to deal with this? If the state says 'not smoking' is good for health, are we going to smoke all day just to spite the govt.?

It may be an objective fact that smoking is injurious to health, but that doesn't mean that anti-smoking legislation is for the benefit of workers. Same thing with this kind of gesture from bodies like the Home Office.


That the state has motives is well understood. That it may use the same law against the leftists is also understood. But since we have literally no power to fight these battles on our own terms, we have no option but to rely upon a powerful entity to do the battle for us, at least for the time being.

I disagree completely. Are there no anti-fascists?


It is a tactical move rather than an ideological one. Nor does it mean we trust the state - it simply means we are using them for the time being, at least until we become powerful enough to set terms.

The state is not being "used" in this instance. The state is doing as it damn well pleases.


Until that day comes, we have to use even our enemies to do the battle for us. Doctrinal purity be damned; it is practicality that matters.

"We" didn't do anything as far as I can see. I have no idea where you are getting this ridiculous notion that the organs of the bourgeois state are acting on our behalf somehow.

Although the fact you're a super-naive Trotskyite might explain it. Although that doesn't excuse it.