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Why I Won’t Be At The Protest Today

by Laura Stuart
Saturday, April 28th, 2012

Today there is a protest in London in support of the Palestinian Hunger Strikers, but I won’t be there. Not because I not totally against administrative detention and against the occupation, clearly administrative detention and occupation are morally wrong.

But I have come to the conclusion that such actions as protesting outside the Israeli embassy or Downing Street have zero value, of course it’s always nice to see my friends and fellow activists but I keep asking myself – what does this really achieve? I go home after such a protest happy to have seen my friends but thinking so what really happened there? We waved a few banners and shouted a few chants but in reality nothing – absolutely nothing changed.  More than 60 years of protests and of petitions have not changed anything on the ground for the Palestinian people.

As a Muslim I am convinced that the situation in the Middle East will change only when the Muslims and particularly the Arabs decide they want to take action. When the Arabs and Muslims reach this point then as we have seen with the Arab Spring even the most vile and oppressive leaders and regimes can be toppled.

Also as a Muslim I feel that such organisations as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have nothing to offer at all. This week for one example Sarah Colborne unfriended me on Facebook after she posted an article about B.B.C. bias – I asked her on the comments why she declines to mention the reason for this bias i.e. Jewish lobby groups such as B.I.C.O.M. however, apparently the words Jew or Jewish are totally verboten in the P.S.C. since it’s take over by Jewish lobby groups – read about that here – here – here and here.

So if Jews proudly identify as Jews and form Jew only groups such as “Jews for Justice for Palestine” or “JBig” or have Jews only ships sailing to Gaza then why am I not allowed to use the term Jewish lobby group? Surely they are exactly that?

The fact that Palestinians do not find themselves welcome in the P.S.C. has been written about extensively by Palestinians themselves and I would add to that the fact that P.S.C. do not really offer anything for Muslims either. We had better look into the teachings of Islam for a solution to injustice than expecting any solution from non Muslims. I wrote a few days ago and indeed many times how Western justice does not apply to Muslims read it here. We cannot forget that British politicians got the Palestinians into this mess and have continously failed to offer the Palestinian people any justice ever since, so why should anyone waste their time outside Downing Street? Perhaps it gives some people a feeling of having done something, however the results of such actions speak for themselves.

Definitely it is time that Palestinians and Muslims in the U.K. lost their fear of retribution from the Israeli controlled British Government and stopped hiding behind left wing organisations that claim to be against apartheid but appear to follow a very similar agenda to the Zionists by oppressing free speech. Such organisations as P.S.C. are part of the system of the oppressors and operate with the same methodology. We should be standing up as Muslims and believe that we can make a difference if we organise and unite.

If any Muslim really believes that the solution is going to come from a political or legal resolution then they must have had their heads buried in the sand to events of the last 60+ years. There is no solution coming from Cameron or Obama just as there was no solution from all the previous Prime Ministers or Presidents and with 80% of the Conservative M.P.s being members of  Conservative Friends of Israel we should not be surprised.

Islam the only solution

 

Surat ar Ra’d13-11

لَهُ مُعَقِّبَاتٌ مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِ يَحْفَظُونَهُ مِنْ أَمْرِ اللَّهِ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنْفُسِهِمْ ۗ وَإِذَا أَرَادَ اللَّهُ بِقَوْمٍ سُوءًا فَلَا مَرَدَّ لَهُ ۚ وَمَا لَهُمْ مِنْ دُونِهِ مِنْ وَالٍ

For each one are successive [angels] before and behind him who protect him by the decree of Allah. Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. And when Allah intends for a people ill, there is no repelling it. And there is not for them besides Him any patron.

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Posted by on April 28, 2012. Filed under Activism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

12 Responses to Why I Won’t Be At The Protest Today

  1. Paul Eisen

    April 28, 2012 at 3:53 pm

    A great post saying much that needs to be said.

    Is Islam the only solution? It may well be the only ideology strong enough and irrational enough (and do believe me Laura, that I mean this in the most positive of senses) to oppose Jewish supremacism.

    • Laura Stuart

      April 28, 2012 at 11:16 pm

      Firstly Paul I mean it gives the solutions for Muslims which is the majority of people in the Middle East as to how to become a cohesive force which we are not. Every Muslim country is bogged down in revolution, in trying to form a democracy (which will fail) or just trying to put enough food on the table. Sadly Muslims are easily distracted with time wasting distractions such as the aforementioned but also with trying to emulate the west or at least what they perceive the west to have from watching mind numbing soap operas on satellite t.v. The Ultra Othodox Jews are clever enough to not allow the idiot box into their homes, something we need to learn. Muslims in the M.E. are very easy to distract by feeding them aspirations of western lifestyles which is ironic when you think that the U.S. tries to portray Muslims as being at war with the western way of life. If we actually acted on the teachings of the Quaran we would be a formidable force.

  2. ariadna

    April 28, 2012 at 4:57 pm

    Sad and so true.
    These organized gatherings and protests have come more and more to resemble the wakes, nominally for the dearly departed but in essence affording the living the opportunity to comfort each other and sustain the illusion of ever-lasting life. [Note: this last portion was not meant to offend any religious sensitivities, nor is it a disguised cry for help to save my soul. Let it just fall where it landed.]

    Is Islam the answer? Probably. Partially. At least in the ME or wherever muslims are a majority, because “the Man” made sure there is nothing else left to oppose his yoke, least of all a secular opposition that would have been far more inconvenient and harder to depict as “fundamentalist terror.”

    • Laura Stuart

      April 28, 2012 at 11:22 pm

      I don’t think we should fear being called fundamentalist – Jews are Othodox or Ultra Orthodox when they follow their scriptures, why can’t Muslims be Orthodox or Fundamentalist when they follow Islam? We need to go back to the fundamentals i.e. the teachings of the Quran but sadly most are beguiled by imitating the western culture, by that I mean a culture of the self and not of the community.

      • Ariadna Theokopoulos

        April 29, 2012 at 12:24 am

        If you are a fundamentalist then that’s what you should be called. Muslims in the US are understandably wary of being thus categorized because of the successful islamophobic propaganda that equates all muslim (and no others) fundamentalists as ‘terrorists.’
        I, for one, would not want to live anywhere among fundamentalists of ANY religion because I find them to be more often than not self-righteous, intolerant and largely impervious to a truly open exchange because they hold the Truth.
        But that’s just me.
        I will nevertheless always defend their right to free speech, free assembly and all the human rights the Western world has conceived of (without observing them with excessive enthusiasm for one and all), irrespective of my reservations as to whether, given their druthers, they would reciprocate.

  3. etominusipi

    April 28, 2012 at 5:18 pm

    there is danger going the way of ‘Islam is the answer’ if a distinction is not maintained between Islam as a spiritual aspiration and Islam as a human socio-cultural collectivity.

    that the state of Islam is unattainable, in its meaning of complete acceptance of divine will, is attested by the religion of Islam’s own saints and sages. what is attainable is dedication to jihad, a commitment to the struggle to free our lives, actions, relationships and thinking, of all that is ugly, crass, petty and egocentric.

    • Laura Stuart

      April 28, 2012 at 11:24 pm

      I have no understanding of Sufism, but I do believe in Islam as a way of life at every level in society not just spirituality.

  4. etominusipi

    April 29, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    @Laura have you read Frithjof Schuon’s book entitled ‘Islam’? compared with some of his other writings ( e.g. ‘The Transcendental Unity of Religion’) it is surprisingly accessible and ‘common sensical’. whether you agree with his point of view or not, it would be difficult not to respond to the purity and benignity of his thought.

    the central role of the ‘umma’ in Islam is quite close to an earlier Christian conception of the ‘church’ as ‘the body of Christ’. there was also a quite potent ‘ecclesiastical law’ in the Middle Ages which has some connections with shariah.

    however i would never voluntarily submit to the diktat of megalomaniacs with impressive beards, whatever faith they have climbed on the bandwagon of, not even if they ‘pray’ fifty times a day, take thirty baths and can recite the entire ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ from memory. Ariadna also speaks for me when she writes:

    I, for one, would not want to live anywhere among fundamentalists of ANY religion because I find them to be more often than not self-righteous, intolerant and largely impervious to a truly open exchange because they hold the Truth.

    however, i would not be quite so tolerant as comrade Theokopoulos, as the aggressive public propagation of deliberately irrational (and curiously self-serving) thought-processes must at some point trespass over the border of what i would regard as criminality in the present epoch, and i recognise an obligation to vigorously oppose such manifestations (by argument not censorship)

    our little domain of freedom of thought has been hard won, and the struggle has seen an appalling cost both in terms of martyrdom and persecution, and oppression of the creative impulse driving human mental/emotional/spiritual development. it would be ironic indeed if the irresponsible and wicked ways of little Israel and its gaggle of supporters, should drive us into the arms of a bunch of squabbling theocrats.

  5. Ariadna Theokopoulos

    April 29, 2012 at 7:32 pm

    I suspect you may have misunderstood this, or may have been a bit opaque when saying it: “irrespective of my reservations as to whether, given their druthers, they would reciprocate.”
    I did not mean to say I would accept such restrictions of free speech imposed upon me, only that I would not engage in “preventive” measures based on suspicions of what may come.
    Otherwise I agree with what you say, except the part about remaining unimpressed by someone’s ability to recite Gilghamesh …THAT would floor me, and so much more if the reciter were a muslim because, sadly, Islam ignores or even discards the huge accomplishments of pre-Islamic culture, which is a shame.
    Very few Christians get an education in the classics nowadays but you’d be hard pressed to find a Greek who would not boast in a proprietary manner about the ancient Hellenic culture, “pagan” as it may be considered. For a good laugh visit Queens, NY and just read the signs above shops: Socrates’ Shoe Repair, etc.

  6. Hamassacre

    April 30, 2012 at 9:54 am

    Islamic Fundamentalism is the most horrifying, brutal, murderous, repressive system of govermnment in the world today. Political Islam does nothing but drag humanity back to the dark ages – brutalising women, removing their rights, massacring homosexuals and forcing anyone who doesn’t believe in Islam to live as a seciond class (or worse) citizen.
    (Not worth mentioning the inevitable purging-the-world-of-Jews that is a central tenet of political Islam as I know that would be welcomed by all on this site).

    So, embrace it by all means, but don’t pretend for a second that it’s superior to Nazism or fundamentally different from it…of, wait, you haven’t…plenty of positive things about the Nazis are written on this site too…well, until you get cold feet about them, as in the case of your comrade Johnathan Azzizia or whatever he’s called)

    Oh and Laura you aren’t a Muslim. You’ve made a political statement by “converting” but you aren’t a believer, just a terrified little girl who can’t bring herself to face her own inadequacies and self loathing.

    • Ariadna Theokopoulos

      April 30, 2012 at 1:51 pm

      Your post is 90% Islamaphobic rant and 10% inane and intentionally malicious personal attack. The first part uses common hasbara slogans, the latter the tiresome zionazi affectation of psychological “insight” so pathetic in those who can’t even see themselves in the mirror in full daylight.

      As a disclaimer I wish to state that no part of the following statement is meant to be disparaging to dogs. I LOVE dogs.
      As much as I love them, however, I despise their behavior in humans.
      Reading this post of yours feels like standing behind someone who, having deposited his intestinal evacuation product, proceeds to vigorously rub his hind legs throwing dirt behind him. Bad boy! Down!

  7. Laura Stuart

    April 30, 2012 at 12:43 pm

    Islamic Fundamentalism is the most horrifying, brutal, murderous, repressive system of govermnment in the world today. Political Islam does nothing but drag humanity back to the dark ages – brutalising women, removing their rights, massacring homosexuals and forcing anyone who doesn’t believe in Islam to live as a seciond class (or worse) citizen.

    So which is it to be then Fundamental Islam or Political Islam? In reality there is no difference as Islam is a complete way of life there is no seperation of politics and religion.

    It’s so ironic that you claim Islam allows non Muslims to live as 2nd class citizens when Arabs living in the Jewish state as 4th class (behind Arab Jews then black Jews) citizens who’s rights are not upheld and who are clearly discriminated against. The Jews were so much better off living in Muslim lands where their rights were clear including the right of protection by the State. After all it was the Europeans who perpretrated the holocaust not Arabs or Muslims. I wonder why the Jews followed the Muslims to Morocco after the Christians took over Andalusia> Moroccon Jews for one hated the discrimination they face when they went to Israel.
    Any way I know there is no point discussing anything with idiots.

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