Bartholomew's Notes

Staying with Rick Joyner and Jerry Boykin, RightWingWatch recently noted an appearance by Kamel Saleem with the two men on Joyner’s Prophetic Perspectives programme:

Yesterday, Saleem sat down again with fellow anti-Muslim activists Jerry Boykin and Rick Joyner on Prophetic Perspectives where he warned that as part of the effort of Muslim-Americans to usher in an Islamic theocracy, they are replacing the words “In God We Trust” on the dollar with “In Allah We Trust”.

Saleem claims that the words are stamped “in red ink”, and that their appearance is evidence of Muslim plans to “establish the Caliphate and shariah law”.

Saleem is almost certainly referring to a photo of a dollar bill which appeared on various websites about a year ago, although the stamped phrase was “NO GOD BUT ALLAH” rather than “In Allah We Trust”. According to an anonymous chain-email that came with the photo, the defaced dollar bill was supposedly given to “a lady in Monte Vista” as “part of her change in Alamosa, CO”; an early version mentions “an elderly woman named Janice” and “the Walmart in Alamosa”. However, the details have not been confirmed and no further examples have been reported. The email includes the comment “You don’t think we’re in a war. What thoughts come to mind!”

Saleem’s claim that Muslims are defacing dollar bills to “establish shariah” appears to amount to “someone somewhere about a year ago defaced one dollar bill with a Muslim message, for reasons that remain undetermined”. And, curiously, the sole example went online after “Janice” just happened to sit down at a table opposite someone who felt strongly enough to publicise it as evidence of a Muslim “war” against America.

Saleem came to prominence several years ago, supposedly as a repentant former Islamic terrorist. His awful disclosures established him as an authority on Islam in conservative circles, although his alleged backstory has been seriously challenged. The above perhaps shows that he is getting short of material; alternatively, it may simply be the case that he’s spoken to credulous audiences for so long that he no longer makes much of an effort.

The same career-arc can seen in the case of Walid Shoebat, with whom Saleem sometimes tours as part of a group of “3 ex-terrorists”.

Here’s the defaced dollar bill that shows the reality of the conspiracy:

However, it’s not the only conspiracy out there:

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From a blurb on YouTube about the World Public Forum:

The World Public Forum (WPF) “Dialogue of Civilizations” is a deliberative-consultative body that unites into a single network various international and national nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), representatives of public and state institutions, civil society organizations and faith-based groups, academics, representatives of cultural, spiritual, business, and media spheres from different countries, members of diverse civilizations and cultural traditions, and individuals who share the principles of openness mutual respect which form the basis of the contemporary dialogue of civilizations.

The video focuses in particular on “Founding President” Vladimir Yakunin, who heads Russia’s railways and who is close confidant of Vladimir Putin; Yakunin has a particular interest in religious matters, and he recently arranged for a relic of the Mother of God, usually kept on Mount Athos, to tour Russia.

However, 52 seconds in we catch a glimpse of another man – although not named, this is Nicholas Papanicolaou, who co-founded the WPF with Yakunin. Papanicolaou is a US-based businessman, and he has links with neo-Pentecostal players in the Christian Right: in particular, he is a Board Member of Rick Joyner’s Oak Initiative organisation.

Recently, Joyner spoke about his own experience of attending the World Public Forum. Here’s the video, via RightWingWatch:

And a transcript:

I had an experience a few years ago when I was asked to be a delegate at the World Public Forum on Civilizations and Religions and it had the top Mullahs and Imams from every Islamic country … and I spent all the time I could trying to understand … and I wanted to hear their perspective; why did they hate America so much?

They had no clue that there was such a thing as Christians in America that didn’t like pornography. They saw what was coming out of Hollywood as American Christianity … And I did apologize – I understand our Republican candidates all saying “I’ll never apologize for America,” well, I did apologize for America and I won’t apologize for doing that!

I apologized for the filth and perversion coming out of Hollywood that I believe is spiritually and morally polluting multitudes all over the earth. This is one of the main reasons why Islam hates us so bad. They say “you put ‘In God We Trust’ on your money; look at this filth and perversion you’re sending all over the world.”

Nice to see “the principles of openness mutual respect which form the basis of the contemporary dialogue of civilizations” in action.

I’ve written about the WPF a number of times, most recently here.

Papanicolaou is also “Grand Master” of a chivalric order, called the “Order of Saint John – the Ecumenical Order”; Joyner is described as a “Deputy Member of the Supreme Council”, while the “Grand Chancellor” is none other than Gen “Jerry” Boykin. Last year, around the same time as the Rhodes conference, Papanicolaou and Boykin inducted Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff into the group as a “Dame”.

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Back in December (as I blogged here), Judith Reisman came to the UK to speak at the SPUC’s “Sex Education as Sexual Sabotage meeting; according to SPUC’s website,

MP for North-East Somerset, Jacob Rees-Mogg, said the meeting was “terrifically important. SPUC’s work is of overwhelming importance for our society”.

…Following the Conference, Jonathan Evans, MP for Cardiff North, and Andrea Leadsom, MP for South Northamptonshire, joined parents in delivering to the Department of Education a 47,000-signature petition to Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, calling for “sex DVDs” to be banned from the country’s primary schools. (1)

Reisman also spoke in Ireland and in Italy, where she addressed the Alliance of the Holy Family International.

Then in February, she made her way to the Philippines, to give speeches organised by the Two Hearts Media Organization. A Philippines-based blogger named Resty S. Odon went along, and took some notes. Take a deep breath:

…only three hours and we hear sexual, media, political, legislative, cultural, social, religious, and spiritual matters. Where else can anyone hear keywords such as Kinsey, Baal, Nazism, homosexuality, Catholic seminaries, Bible Christian preachers,devil-worship, pornography, Islamic terrorism, pedophilia, pederasty, United Nations, Freemasonry, Rockefeller Foundation, Guttmacher Institute, sex education, papal bulls/encyclicals, abortion, birth control, Marian apparitions, end times, etc., all the sacred and the extremely profane assembling together under one tent? Nowhere else but in prolife talks such as this. 

Reisman is known particularly for her obsession with Alfred Kinsey; as is often the case with social conservatives, wide-ranging changes in society are laid at the door of a malign authority-figure. Odon has a photo of a flesh-creeping poster for the meeting:

More than 50 years ago, a TOXIC SOCIAL CONTAGION was unleashed by a man hailed by the world of science & education as the “FATHER OF SEXUAL REVOLUTION”

Dr. Alfred Kinsey

COME & LEARN how Kinsey’s flawed conclusions on sexuality have unleased the horrors of our present society!

From PORNOGRAPHY to PEDOPHILIA to a global acceptance of all kinds of sexual perversity

To make sure the point is fully understood, Kinsey’s face and the cover of the Kinsey Report are shown juxtaposed to a uniformed Nazi standing next to a schoolgirl.

According to further notes taken by Odon, Reisman’s talk and materials sold there included notice of “the depiction of Baal in the US dollar bill and in the United Nations seal”, and the claim that “Lady Gaga is the most recent incarnation of Baal worship”. Kinsey is morally responsible for kinds of sexual license since 1948, including “an academic pedophile lobby in Wales”. Oddly, given that Reisman is Jewish, Odon claims that Reisman’s talk included a reference to a prediction of “cultural contagion” made at Fatima in 1917.

Reisman was followed by Fr Edgardo ‘Bing’ Arellano, who gave “a call on the audience to action”; according to a quote noted by Oday:

“It’s hard to cure sex addiction because, according to an exorcist, the devil said there are three kinds of demons in sex addiction lust: iuccubus, which invites the person to masturbate; succubus, which invites the person to rape; and osmodeus, which invites the person to murder.”

Reisman’s visit to the Philippines was in opposition to a proposed Reproductive Health Bill. Afterwards, she was interviewed by Michael Coren on his Arena TV show (I previously discussed Coren here).

Miss Poppy Dixon has a nice profile of Reisman here.

***

(1) One MP missing from the SPUC event was Nadine Dorries, despite being the highest-profile MP to seek more restrictive abortion laws. The SPUC regards Dorries’ proposed reforms as inadequate; Dorries, for her part, regards the SPUC’s John Smeaton as “shameful and cowardly.”

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From American Thinker, last month:

On Thursday night, the Chairman of the newly formed British Freedom Party, Paul Weston, spoke to a group of New Yorkers at an meeting sponsored by Brigitte Gabriel’s Act For America organization. Weston also said he came to warn America that what is happening in Britain today could happen in America in the not too distant future.

It should be recalled that the British Freedom Party has formed an alliance with the English Defence League; Weston’s trip across the Atlantic also included a visit to the EDL-supporting Tennessee Freedom Coalition in Nashville.

The BFP website has posted a video (and transcript) of Weston’s speech, in which two co-hosts are billed at the end:

Video shot at a private apartment 
Manhattan, Feb 23 2012.

The event was co-hosted by Lawrence Auster and members of Brigitte Gabriel’s “ACT! for America

The American Thinker article gives a different date (16 February), but it’s clearly the same event. From a post by Auster here, in which he urges those who “are interested in attending, and don’t have my address” to write to him, the apartment appears to have been Auster’s own.

The association raises questions about Weston’s judgement, given Auster’s views on race relations. Auster is a particularly controversial figure, who fell out with David Horowitz in 2007 after writing an article on “The Truth of Interracial Rape in the United States“. Auster complained about the media’s lack of attention to race in reporting stories of rape:

Each story of black on white rape is reported in isolation, not presented as part of a larger pattern. There is never the slightest mention of the fact that white women in this country are being targeted by black rapists.

The article was published on Horowitz’s Front Page website (and remains there today), but Horowitz, stung by criticism from the Huffington Post, decided it would be Auster’s last piece for the site. There is also bad blood between Auster and Robert Spencer.

Auster’s website contains his thoughts on a number of subjects, such as 2005 piece on the 1960s struggle for civil rights:

Contrary to neoconservatives’ dreamy thoughts on the subject, the true aim of the civil rights movement, of which the 1964 Act was the crowning achievement, was not to attain a universal, race-blind equality of rights for all persons. It was to advance the condition of black people, by any means that would work.

…To criticize the profound harm done to our society by the civil rights movement and its aftermath is not to defend all of the South’s pre-civil rights racial policies. For example, the Jim Crow laws–which not only allowed discrimination against blacks, but mandated it, most notoriously in public accommodations–were an offense to the nation’s conscience and would have had to be eliminated one way or another. But the regime brought into being by the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not stop at correcting specific racial injustices such as those that came under Jim Crow. By attacking, in principle, all racial discrimination, including private racial discrimination, it in effect delegitimized all natural and historical human groupings and cultures, if they were white. It delegitimized white people’s most basic rights of free association and of property, since such rights were now seen as having only one end in view: the oppression of blacks.

In this spirit, Auster went on (in 2007) to defend the membership rules of the BNP:

which is more inhumane and immoral, the established policy of total non-discrimination which is rapidly destroying Britain, or the BNP’s policy of rational discrimination in favor of British descended people and those who are culturally similar, which would save Britain?

Auster has also helpfully provided a list of his “articles about the evolution of the BNP into a non-anti-Semitic party under the leadership of Nick Griffin”.

Auster used to have links with American Renaissance, although according to the Southern Poverty Law Center he has since “spoken out against [Jared] Taylor’s refusal to clearly condemn anti-Semitism.”

UPDATE: On 16 March, the transcript of Weston’s speech was reposted to the Nationalist Unity Forum, which is run by the BNP MEP Andrew Brons. The piece is described as a “guest column”, and a note adds that “the Nationalist Unity Forum invites guest columns from all the parties and factions in Britain, in a spirit of co-operation and unity.” This suggests that it has been reposted with Weston’s permission and approval. Hope Not Hate, which noticed the column’s appearance, also claims that Weston and Brons recently met.

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Tim Ireland writes concerning John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons:

It was my understanding after direct conversations and correspondence with John Bercow’s wife, Sally Bercow, that a ‘peace deal’ had been brokered between that couple and Nadine Dorries to the effect that she would not act in an aggressive manner towards them if they did not act in an aggressive manner towards her. (If you are not familiar with Nadine Dorries, the laughingly absurd inequities of such an agreement may not be immediately clear to you. Read on.)

John Bercow has now denied that any kind of ‘peace deal’ had been brokered, and described my allegations as “defamatory remarks made against a named Member of Parliament” in an email that – now I look closely at it – does not make it entirely clear if this refers to himself, or Nadine Dorries, or both. Whatever the case may be, it was clearly important that he speak with his wife, and I said so in my reply.

It was important because Bercow’s wife had communicated with Tim in January 2011:

Hi Tim – I’m sure you think I’m a sell-out but I just had to win Nadine over – she was on air abt J & I every week! Xxx… she hasn’t sounded off about us for at least 6 weeks!

A few months later, Dorries was appointed by Bercow to the Panel of Chairs, a supposedly senior advisory body. Telegraph journalist Peter Oborne was incredulous:

Only six months ago [autumn 2010], Bercow was tottering and it seemed possible that he would become the second consecutive Speaker to be thrown out of office. Tory backbenchers were openly contemptuous…

The Speaker suddenly realised that he had a fight on his hands, and went to work to save his skin. His wife Sally played an important role, acting as an intermediary between Dorries and Bercow. Initially, Mrs Bercow was hostile: when Dorries was cleared last year by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner [over her expenses – see here], Sally Bercow emitted one of her notoriously indiscreet tweets: “So Nadine Dorries is a fantasist, not a fraudster. Well that’s alright then…” Later on, however, her attitude became more supportive: indeed, they formed a public friendship, which may have played a role in last month’s announcement that Dorries was joining the Speaker’s panel.

There’s no indication that John Bercow made any similar complaint of  “defamatory remarks” to Oborne – perhaps Bercow thinks bloggers are easier to push around?

Tim has now responded to Bercow, highlighting several instances where Dorries has misled either Parliament (e.g. the Forsaken organisation) or the general public (including false accusations of “stalking” against critics). By giving her a position of responsibility, Bercow may have saved his career, but at the expense of the best interests of the country.

Back in June 2009, Dorries used the Daily Mail to denounce John Bercow as (to quote the headline summary) “an oily opportunist lacking loyalty and courage”; she received her preferment from Bercow less than two years later. More recently, she used David Cameron’s private apology to her for his “frustrated” gaffe as the basis for a Mail piece entitled “The PM Publicly Humiliated Me in Front of the Entire Nation, What Did I Do to Deserve That?” If Cameron shares Bercow’s apparent propensity for appeasement, a few more articles along those lines might get her into the Cabinet.

UPDATE: Sally Bercow has responded, in a Tweet to another person. Here’s the exchange:

Gillon Johnstone: hope your doing ok the bs being spouted by a particular blogger yesterday was below the belt unfair and ridiculous

Sally Bercow: I’m good thanks. And yes indeed – utterly absurd. xx

UPDATE 2: Meanwhile, Dorries has published her most scathing anti-Cameron comment yet; LabourList has the quote, plucked from behind a paywall from the Financial Times:

“The problem is that policy is being run by two public school boys [Cameron and George  Osborne] who don’t know what it’s like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can’t afford it for their children’s lunchboxes. What’s worse, they don’t care either.”

Dorries’ comment was gleefully quoted by Labour MP Sharon Hodgson  in Parliament during Prime Minister’s Questions; Cameron dismissed the statement as “nonsense”, but there’s no indication that he thinks it’s time for him to tell Dorries who’s boss.

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From the Orange County Register:

The Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest and one of America’s most influential Christian leaders, has embarked on an effort to heal divisions between evangelical Christians and Muslims by partnering with Southern California mosques and proposing a set of theological principles that includes acknowledging that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

…The effort by a prominent Christian leader to bridge what polls show is a deep rift between Muslims and evangelical Christians culminated in December at a dinner at Saddleback attended by 300 Muslims and members of Saddleback’s congregation.

…At the dinner, Abraham Meulenberg, a Saddleback pastor in charge of interfaith outreach, and Jihad Turk, director of religious affairs at a mosque in Los Angeles, introduced King’s Way as “a path to end the 1,400 years of misunderstanding between Muslims and Christians.”

…”We agreed we wouldn’t try to evangelize each other,” said Turk. “We’d witness to each other but it would be out of ‘Love Thy Neighbor,’ not focused on conversion.”

Or perhaps not:

QUESTION: A recent newspaper article claimed you believe Christians and Muslims worship the same God, that you are “in partnership” with a mosque, and that you both agreed to “not evangelize each other.” You immediately posted a brief refutation online. Can you expand on that?

WARREN: Sure. All three of those statements are flat out wrong. Those statements were made by a reporter, not by me. I did not say them … I do not believe them… I completely disagree with them … and no one even talked to me about that article! So let me address each one individually: First, as I’ve already said, Christians have a fundamentally different view of God than Muslims. We worship Jesus as God. Muslims don’t. Our God is Jesus, not Allah… It’s just crazy that a simple Bible Study where people explore Scripture with non-Christians would be reported as a partnership and others would interpret that as a plan for a new compromised religion. Just crazy! Third, as both an Evangelical and as an evangelist, anyone who knows me and my 40 year track record of ministry that I would never agree to “not evangelizing” anyone!…

So where did Turk get a different impression from? It should be recalled that Warren has been somewhat slippery in his statements to the media on various subjects – most famously, as to whether or not he is Rupert Murdoch’s pastor.

Among those rebuking Warren for the Register report is WND editor Joseph Farah (as I’ve blogged previously, Farah harbours a deep hatred of Warren):

If you compare the personality of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – the Christian and Hebrew God – with Allah, Islam’s god, the contrast could not be more stark… It would be easier to find common theological ground between Christians and atheists than Christians and Muslims. In a very real sense, as Joel Richardson has propounded in his brilliant work, “The Islamic Antichrist,” Islam represents the polar opposite of Christianity.

Richardson (“Glenn Beck’s End-Times Prophet“; see also here) has an article of his own on Farah’s site:

Throughout the Old Testament, the commandment of God to the Israelites was to never enter into agreements, covenants or marriages with the surrounding peoples, lest the Israelites would find themselves led away to worship other gods. In such a post-modern culture, these concepts may sound amazingly intolerant, but the wisdom of the Lord’s proscription against treaties and partnerships is seen in Warren’s agreement not to evangelize his Muslim “friends” and co-laborers for mutual social causes.

Talk of the “the Christian and Hebrew God” and of “the Israelites” of course helps to fudge a different issue: evangelical Christianity’s relationship with Judaism. While the notion of a “dual covenant” in which both religions are salvific has been formally rejected by most evangelicals, the need for Jews to “worship Jesus as God” is not a subject that is very often stressed, for obvious reasons of good taste and expediency.

This is not the first time Warren has been attacked over supposed connections to Islam; last year, the denunciations came from Jack Van Impe, an old-school televangelist. Again, WND reported:

Van Impe explains that the Bible prophesies a one-world government and a one-world religion during the end times, and his concern focuses on the move among some Christian organizations to adopt some Islamic thought and incorporate elements of Islam into their worship.

“We’ve got too many of these mush-mouth preachers. All they’re doing is two stories and a movie review,” he said. But the Bible actually outlines that its messages also are to “reprove and rebuke” Christians for failing to live for God.

Van Impe specially mentioned Rick Warren and Robert Schuller, prompting a split from Paul Crouch’s Trinity Broadcasting Network:

“We received a call from Matt Crouch of TBN informing us that they would not run that program. … The reason he gave was that we specifically mentioned Rick Warren and Robert Schuller and that it is TBN’s policy that broadcasters are not allowed to rebuke other ministries,” Van Impe said.

The suggestion that Muslim-friendly Christian leaders are heralding “the formation of the prophesied one-world religion under the Antichrist” also appeared in a 2009 WND article.

Richardson’s article moves on to a more general discussion of alleged Christian-Islamic syncretism:

Addressing the slide toward compromise and heresy within the missions movement, missiologists Joshua Lingel, Jeff Morton and Bill Nikides have recently co-edited a book titled, “Chrislam: How Missionaries are Promoting an Islamized Gospel.” Nikides has also produced a documentary film titled “Half Devil – Half Child,” which addresses the trend within the evangelical missions movement to promote what is often referred to as “C5,” the “Insider Movement,” or “Chrislam.” This method of outreach to Muslim encourages Christians to adopt Muslim identities and religious culture for the purpose of what might be viewed as “stealth evangelism.” 

From the blurb, the title of the film appears to imply that Western Christians who supposedly promote “Chrislam” are engaging in a form of paternalistic colonialism, although the meaning is not entirely clear.

The phrases “C5” and “Insider Movement” derive from essays written under the name of “John Travis”, the pen-name of a missionary working among Muslims in Asia. The “CI-C6 spectrum” (“C” standing for “Christ-centered community”) was introduced in a 1998 essay for the Evangelical Missions Quarterly, and further expounded in 2000 for the International Journal of Frontier Mission. According to Travis:

For the majority of the world’s one billion Muslims, “changing religions” is never seriously contemplated. Even nominal Muslims tend to see Islam as a single fabric weaving together tradition, culture, and customs related to dress, diet, family life, morality, worship, and in some contexts, even economics and politics.

…I personally know many Muslims who have put their faith in Jesus. Some have formally converted to Christianity and worship at local (often Westernized) denominational churches, or in small home fellowships with other Muslim background believers (MBBs). Fearing persecution, others worship underground. Still others, often called “Messianic Muslims,” follow Christ but remain within the Muslim community. These Messianic Muslims reject or modify unbiblical Islamic teachings (e.g., they insist Jesus did die on the cross), yet still see most aspects of their lives woven together by the social fabric of Islam. They are not silent about their faith in Jesus, though they are discerning about when and where to share. They strive to form groups with other like-minded Muslim followers of Jesus to study the Bible, pray for each other, and fellowship in Christ. Yet they do not view or call themselves “Christians.”

…C5 believers are Muslims who have been drawn to faith in Christ by the Spirit of God, often through reading the Bible on their own, hearing a radio broadcast, receiving a dream or vision, experiencing a miraculous healing in the name of Isa, or seeing the loving, patient, incarnational witness of a believing friend… Just as early Jewish followers of the Way enjoyed fellowship in homes and in the temple with the larger Jewish community, so many C5 believers gather in small home fellowships and in the mosque with the larger Islamic community. Just as early Jewish followers of Jesus changed few of their outward Jewish religious forms, so too C5 believers change little in their outward Muslim religious forms—most of which, incidentally, are derived from ancient Jewish and Christian traditions.

Prior to this, a short article by “Shah Ali” (another pseudonym) appeared in 1992 in Theology, News, and Notes, entitled “South Asia: Vegetables, Fish and Messianic Mosques”:

Our Muslim neighbors defined “Christianity” as “a foreign religion of infidels;” so we often referred to ourselves as “Muslims” (literally, “submitters to God”). The necessity of submitt ing to God is certa inly Christ ian (see Jas 4:7), and Jesus’ disciples call themselves “Muslims” according to the Qur’an (5:111).3 When villages have decided to follow Christ, the people continued to use the mosque for worship of God but now through Christ. Where possible, the former leaders of mosque prayers (imams) are trained to continue their role as spiritual leaders.

…The concept of Messianic mosques and completed Muslims (following the model of Messianic synagogues and completed Jews) still causes considerable misunderstanding among other Christians.

Ali’s article was written “with J. Dudley Woodberry”; Woodberry is Dean and Professor of Islamic Studies at the School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminar.

In late 2009, the topic was discussed at The Global Conversation, a website created by Christianity Today and the Lausanne Movement:

C5 believers… challenge assumptions about what it means to be Muslim or Christian. We all have more than one identity and community. For example, most American Christians assume one can be both a patriotic American (loyal to that community) and a faithful Christian, though they may disagree with some things their fellow-Americans do or teach. Believers like Ibrahim seek to be both authentic Muslims (loyal to the community of their birth) and faithful disciples of Jesus, critically evaluating what their fellow-Muslims do and teach in light of the teachings of Christ – sometimes accepting, sometimes reinterpreting, sometimes disagreeing. Do such disagreements require American believers to repudiate American identity and community, or require C5 believers to repudiate the Muslim community and their Muslim identity? How can believers best be “critically loyal” to the community of their birth and to their family heritage, respectfully critiquing what is unscriptural, while upholding God’s Commandment to “Honor your father and mother”?

One is reminded of the problem of ancestor veneration for Chinese and Japanese Christians.

“Chrislam” is the name of a syncretic movement in Nigeria; the use of the term for other contexts appears to be polemical.

(For several links, H/T Beliefnet and Gypsy Scholar)

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Sonia Gable at Searchight magazine:

Our front cover photo taken at an English Defence League rally in March 2010 shows Charlie Flowers holding the loud-hailer for Alan Ayling, who at least until August 2011 was one of the Islamophobic EDL’s financial backers, and perhaps still is. It was in Ayling’s £500,000 Barbican flat that Ayling, who used the name Alan Lake, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the EDL’s street leader, Paul Ray, one of the EDL’s founders, and others met in 2009 to bring together “the ideological and political side with the boots on the ground”, according to Ray. 

I noted Flowers’ friendship with Lake back in December 2010. The article also discusses Flowers’ “Cheerleaders” group and the “Anti-Extremism Alliance” (1):

It is these two groups that have announced a public meeting in Conway Hall, London, on 26 April 2012 under the title “Muslims in the West –What is the Way Forward?”, featuring as one of four “keynote speakers” Tehmina Kazi. 

Kazi is a trustee of the Searchlight Educational Trust (SET), which – along with the Hope Not Hate campaign – recently split acrimoniously from Searchlight magazine:

Flowers claims now to have broken with the EDL. However his insidious activities continue. On 10 February Flowers posted on the Cheerleaders Facebook page “Charlie is stoked and chuffed to find out that he’s going to be in next month’s Searchlight as a feature, written by the fascist/communist Sonia Gable!”

This information can only have come from Kazi, whom I had approached for a comment….

In an attempt to stir up more trouble, Flowers added: “A little backstory – recently Hope Not Hate and Searchlight had a parting of the ways, when HnH found out what Sonia and co had done with all the money they’d raised (embezzled it, basically)”.

Whether this lie and the personal insult came from Kazi or HNH is not known. When Searchlight and SET/HNH split last September, SET made a complaint to the police that I had stolen £18,777. In fact this was money legitimately owed by SET to Searchlight for advertising and magazine sales, and the police quickly closed their file without interviewing me.

As far as I am aware, although reports of the split have appeared elsewhere (in particular at Notes from the Borderland), this is the first instance of either side giving their own version of events.

Flowers claims that the “Cheerleaders” group is run by Muslims rather than himself, but although he certainly has Muslim friends it’s unclear to what extent this is true: he seems to be the main coordinator, and members are added to the Facebook group quite casually. Last September I received a comment and messages from Gina Khan, formerly of One Law for All, who told me that he she didn’t know anything about the group, despite having previously been listed as an administrator. Some other supposed “Cheerleaders” are pseudonymous, and so it’s impossible to judge whether they are really Muslims or even real people; for example, the photo of “Shooter Kirpachi” featured in the Searchlight piece actually shows a former member of Flowers’ music band; “Shooter” used her image, but the band member herself told me she didn’t know anything about it.

My blog is also quoted in the Searchlight article; Flowers first forced himself on my consciousness in December 2008 (Christmas Day, in fact), when he left a comment claiming that he worked for the VIGIL Network. This was an independent “terror tracking” organisation which purported to expose Islamic extremism; its director, a man named Dominic Wightman (var. Whiteman), enjoyed the endorsement and personal confidence of Patrick Mercer MP, and Wightman had appeared on Newsnight in November 2006, having supposedly helped to reveal a plot to firebomb a synagogue. VIGIL was also associated with the Centre for Social Cohesion. (2)

Also involved with VIGIL was Glen Jenvey, who was in turn friendly with Paul Ray (this pre-dates the formation of the EDL). In early 2009, the blogger Tim Ireland discovered that a tabloid splash about a plot to kill Alan Sugar had been based on materials posted to a Muslim website by Jenvey, posing as an Islamic extremist named “Abu Islam”.  Tim and I were soon afterwards contacted by Wightman, who claimed that VIGIL had collapsed due to Jenvey’s lies and that of another person, a university lecturer. At the same time, further messages from Flowers were received – it was clear that Flowers shared Wightman’s hostility towards the lecturer, and that the two were working together.

In September 2009, the truth was revealed: VIGIL had in fact collapsed because Wightman had failed to secure funding and had been successfully sued by a former employee for unpaid wages, and because of some concerns about his behaviour. Further, Wightman had “found” on-line an abusive pdf aimed at Tim, which he claimed had been written by the lecturer; police traced it back to Wightman’s address.

At this point, Flowers changed from being weird to being nasty: anonymous attack websites, abusive messages, and direct threats of violence followed, and have sporadically flared up ever since. It seems that Flowers realised that he’d been manipulated by Wightman, and he clutched at post hoc justifications for his behaviour: hence, he cited Nadine Dorries‘ dispute against Tim, and accused me of being part of a far-left conspiracy. Such is Flowers’ amorality that he even gleefully endorsed a crudely abusive site created by a Nigerian church, which objected to my opposition to the idea of child-witches; he linked to the site from his “Cheerleaders” Facebook page, and joined in under a sockpuppet Twitter feed.

Like Gable, I have also experienced abuse from Flowers thanks to information provided by Kazi: last summer I communicated privately with a journalist about Flowers, prompting Flowers to boast that I write messages to journalists that I mistakenly think he doesn’t know about (and also, inevitably, to opine that I am a “cunt”). I asked the journalist for an explanation; I was told that he had spoken with Kazi, who had clearly passed the information on. I don’t doubt Kazi’s good faith as an activist against Islamic extremism, but it’s a shame she seems unable to grasp the fact that Flowers is a vigilante, not an activist, with all the ego-driven self-righteous and self-defeating viciousness which that implies.

The Searchlight piece makes a further suggestion:

Worming his way into a spread of organisations, cyber bullying, repeating lies and stirring up trouble is highly suggestive of a state agent provocateur who far from trying to make peace between the EDL, the Muslim community and antifascists is doing precisely the opposite and trying to create confusion.

I’m cautious about such speculations; however, it is odd that Flowers has been arrested at least twice, but with no follow-up. By his own account, on one occasion he was held for several days by Anti-Terrorist police; he claims that Islamists in the police were responsible, but he doesn’t appear to have made any sort of official complaint.

Note

(1) Another group which which Flowers was involved, NiceOnesUK, has since disappeared. However, Flowers was kicked out of the group just beforehand, after allegedly making threats.

(2) A report published by Spinwatch last year stated that:

A particularly intriguing aspect of the CSC’s output was the credit given to Dominic Whiteman, the central figure in an amateur counter-terrorist group called Vigil. The acknowledgements of the Centre’s first report, Hate on the State, thanked Vigil for its assistance and cooperation.

One Telegraph report on the study went so far as to describe it as a joint publication of the  CSC and Vigil, and carried a commentary from Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP who had worked with the latter group. However, a (presumably later) online version of the same report made no mention of Vigil’s role.

Hate on the State was written by Douglas Murray and James Brandon. However, Spinwatch‘s claim that the credit was removed seems to be inaccurate – it can be seen here.

Flowers, by the way, has his own links to a think-tank; in November 2011, Demos published Inside the EDL: Populist Politics in a Digital Age, by Jamie Bartlett and Mark Littler. Three footnotes reference “Interview with Charlie Flowers, Cheerleaders Against Everything, 30 May 2011”, for the following details:

Other early supporters of the EDL have left to join more  aggressively anti-Islam groups, feeling that the EDL has lost focus  on fighting Islamism. (6)

…Threats of mobilising large numbers of people for various causes have, on the whole, failed to  materialise, leading some analysts to speculate that there are no  more than 5,000 members, 750 of whom form a ‘hard core’ who are  active in arranging and organising events. (21)

…Our background research indicated that no more than 10 per cent of the EDL’s Facebook group supporters could be trolls, lending further credibility to this view. (42)

None of this is very impressive: the first quote doesn’t make sense, and I suspect there’s a botched reference here  to “less aggressively anti-Islam groups”; second, Flowers is not an “analyst”, and he’s not even trustworthy as a source of data; and as for the third quote, although Flowers knows a thing or two about using Facebook under false identities to cause trouble,  how would he know what per cent of the EDL Facebook group is not what it seems? And how does interviewing him count as “background research”?

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Two recent British TV documentaries have looked into Islamic fundamentalism and the English Defence League, focusing on the town of Luton. The first, My Hometown Fanatics: Stacey Dooley Investigates, aired on BBC 3; Dooley, who is herself from Luton, went to school with EDL leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”), and the programme’s narrative structure was built around Dooley’s attempts to secure an interview with the apparently elusive Lennon. On the way, she comes across an Islamist protest against the September arrest of Mona Thwany, widow of Stockholm suicide-bomber Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly. The protest, which called for British police to “burn in Hell”, appeared to have attracted more than 50 supporters, with women in regulation burkhas; one of them told Dooley to “Go and put on some clothes”.

Dooley’s interviews contain few surprises: two minions Sayful Islam, whose 2009 protest against a march by soldiers prompted the creation of the EDL, expound on the evils of the British military and on Islam as the answer to all society’s problem; moderate Muslims disassociate themselves from the fanatics; and Lennon, when he eventually appears, gives a typically media-savvy performance, concentrating on reasonable concerns about extremism and distinguishing between Muslims:

I say it to the English Defence League all the time… there are some great Muslims… I say it in every interview I do, but they don’t play it.

Lennon instead focuses on shariah, which he identifies with mutilations and sex with children. Lennon also tells Dooley that his wife “disagrees” with “what the EDL stands for”, and that her family “certainly don’t” agree with the EDL.

The second programme, Proud and Prejudiced, aired on Channel 4 on Monday. This documentary focused on Lennon and Sayful Islam, and as interview subjects the two men again for the most part tended to say what one would expect them to say. However, there were some points of particular interest: a chance encounter between Lennon and Sayful Islam ends with Islam reaching through Lennon’s car window to give him a slap, suggesting that Sayful Islam, who is careful to just about keep on the right side of the law, is willing to engage in violence if he thinks he can get away with it. The footage, though, is not new, and has been available on YouTube since November.

The most revealing moment in the programme came after Lennon had had a few drinks. Fortified by a green plastic bottle of White Lightning or similar, Lennon got into some banter with a Muslim security guard in a shopping centre. The guard’s face was obscured, but he was perhaps an older, first-generation immigrant. They began by embracing and laughing, and Lennon maintained a jocular tone:

Guard: Yeah, yeah, I respect your views. [shaking hands with Lennon] You want us to be elsewhere.

Lennon: I don’t want you… are you Muslim?

Guard: Yeah.

Lennon: I don’t want you to do anything, bruv… other than just fuck the fuck off. No, I’m only joking.

Guard: That’s alright, man. Everybody’s not the same.

Lennon: Seriously, I don’t.

Guard: Not all Muslims are bad.

Lennon: I know they’re not, bruv. I know they’re not. Just most of them. Ha, I’m only joking.

Then to camera:

Lennon: Other than Breivik, cos he’ll shoot ’em all. I’m from Norway and I’ll shoot you. [Grins]

As a follow up, Lennon tries throwing stones from a distance at some police officers, as a prank; he then pulls his hood down over his face in comic fashion, and once again says “Breivik”. It’s clear that this was bad-taste humour rather than a threat of violence; as a moment of candid self-exposure, I was reminded more of David Brent than of Mark Collett. Nevertheless, the fact that the leader of the EDL finds Breivik’s massacre to be a source of amusement ought to be seriously damaging.

Proud and Prejudiced also contained some footage from protests; an Islamist protest in London on 11 September 2011 was met with an angry and aggressive counter-protest, and it was clear that the Islamists would not have been keen to see the police disappear into Hell at just that moment. There was also footage from an EDL protest at Tower Hamlets, where Lennon (as I blogged here) came disguised as a rabbi; Lennon’s message, which others noted at the time, was aimed at British Muslims in general:

The islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our British citizens killed maimed or hurt on British soil ever again.

Footage from an earlier protest showed Lennon with Guramit Singh, an EDL leader who has also made speeches against Muslims in general. Singh resigned from the EDL in June, claiming personal reasons.

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Glenn Beck’s The Blaze reports:

This weekend [19 Feb], The Blaze has confirmed that Beck flew from Miami to Rome, where he had meetings with prominent Catholic Church leaders. In addition to holding discussions with them about important religious freedom issues, Beck also met with individuals from various countries to discuss the creation of an international Tea Party movement.

…During his dialogue with Cardinals, Monsignors, Archbishops and other Catholic leaders, the popular host pledged support for the church, while also discussing ways in which members of various faith communities can join in solidarity against secular attacks against religion.

Beck is adept with using religion to self-publicise: Christian Right figures such as David Barton and Jim Garlow gloss over his Mormonism; his 2010 “Restoring Honor” event featured “240 men and women of all faiths”; he has a “pastors and preachers panel”; and last May the Temple Mount “almost pulsated” as Beck approached.

Continuing:

…Additionally, Beck met with Tea Party leaders from Rome, Serbia, Milan, Germany, Austria, and London, among other localities, to begin discussing an international coalition that is being headed by FreedomWorks. Reflecting the ideals held by peace and freedom proponents in America, the persons involved discussed their goals for an integrated global effort to champion Tea Party ideals.

Speaking to Bill O’Reilly afterwards, Beck added Bosnia, Georgia, and Israel to the list of “Tea Party Leaders”, while O’Reilly himself mentioned Belarus. Tea Party Italia has posted a short set of photos from the Tea Party event; one shows Beck with Terry Kibbe of FreedomWorks (which organised the visit) and Giacomo Zucco, while the second shows Beck with Zucco and Alberto Mingardi, Director of the libertarian Istituto Bruno Leoni (Beck described Mingardi to O’Reilly as “Austin Powers”).

Nina Michael, writing on the CUNY School of Professional Studies blog in December 2010, gave some general background to the movement:

Sometime last year, David Mazzerelli, a 28 year-old advertising executive from Prato, Italy, developed something that makes liberals on this side of the pond cringe; a fascination for Sarah Palin’s Tea Party Ideology.

Inspired by the cries for lower taxes and less government, Mazzerelli had an epiphany; within a year, Tea Party Italia was born.

…While he may have been inspired by Sarah Palin and her devotees, Mazzerelli certainly follows a different path of action. US tea partiers, aside from complaining about taxes and pontificating as to the damaging effects of the involvement of government in just about anything, like to skirt the edge of relevance by taking up issues such as abortion, gay rights, evolution, creationism and other such issues that are hardly germane to any economic related issue. Italian Tea Partiers on the other hand, restrict themselves to issues of the state. Mazzerelli says; “Before everything we refrain from taking positions on ethical, moral and religious themes. We’re interested in economic themes: less taxes, less public spending and less government.”

A journalist named Luca Bocci is responsible for “international projects”. The group has a website here, and a Facebook page here.

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From the Guardian:

MPs are considering plans that would allow anti-abortion organisations to offer publicly funded pregnancy counselling services, despite the defeat of similar proposals in a parliamentary vote last year.

A cross-party group of MPs, set up by the public health minister Anne Milton after last September’s vote against proposals by the Tory MP Nadine Dorries, is looking at plans that could give anti-abortion groups an official role.

…One group member said Dorries had opposed most of the favoured option, particularly the idea that counsellors should clearly state their views on abortion.

Dorries told the Guardian that the consultation would give everyone an opportunity to contribute. “I am particularly keen to hear the voices of those women who have been actually been through the abortion process as opposed to those which are ideologically biased either as pro-choice or pro-life,” she said.

…Tracey McNeill, director of UK and Europe at Marie Stopes, said… “We simply don’t believe that organisations whose own publications describe abortion as ‘a most grievous sin’ can provide impartial pregnancy counselling to women. 

Dorries has responded to one of the report’s authors, on Twitter:

@BenQuinn75 There are SO many inaccuracies; I don’t know where to start. I am amazed that your employer pays you to be write ficton? (1)

@BenQuinn75 No organisation which is ‘anti-abortion’ will be allowed to provide counselling. (2)

@BenQuinn75 Totally untrue that I argued against every aspect of option 2, in fact, it is my favoured option, (3)

@BenQuinn75 Stewart Jackson [MP] is not ‘anti-abortion’ and neither am I . We are both opposed to abortion after 20 weeks which is very different (4)

@BenQuinn75 No one whose literature describes abortion as ‘a grievous sin’ would be allowed anywhere near a pregnant woman (5)

Dorries’ attempts to reform laws around abortion go back to her experience of attending a botched abortion when she was a nurse. She has, however, positioned herself against some anti-abortion activism, particularly that of the the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children – SPUC has declined to support Dorries’ proposals, prompting Dorries to Tweet that SPUC’s director John Smeaton is

…shameful and cowardly and will never fly on the wings of an eagle. (6)

This is typical Dorries – all critics are subjected to personalized venom, here with a weird quip attached to give a bit of “only joking” wriggle-room.

On the other hand, Dorries expressed enthusiasm when Rick Santorum surged ahead of Mitt Romney in the polls:

Who says there isn’t a God? Lots of people have been praying for this! [Link given] (7)

Why would someone supposedly keen to show that they are “not ‘anti-abortion'” make such a statement, other than as a dog whistle to conservative religious groups? It’s also the case that one counselling service Dorries has in particular commended does treat abortion in terms of sin – this is Forsaken, an organisation based in Taunton. Forsaken’s literature associates abortion with a sense of guilt which will be assuaged only by conversion to Christianity; the notion of abortion as “a grievous sin” is certainly implicit, even if the phrase is not itself used.

It looks like the Guardian piece did contain errors – the claim that Dorries is opposed to “the idea that counsellors should clearly state their views on abortion” is in particular strange. But, as I’ve discussed previously, Dorries’ true intentions remain unclear.

The Guardian also notes that in relation to Milton’s group that

Last month, the shadow health minister Diane Abbott walked out, claiming the group was a front to push an anti-abortion agenda without debate in parliament.

This led to a memorable spat on Newsnight, in which Dorries claimed that Abbott had “fallen asleep” during meetings. Abbott – already on the ropes over other matters – was effectively diminished. Abbott attempted a comeback via the Guardian, but her recollection that

As she walked off the television set Nadine’s high heels clacked triumphantly

served only to remind us of Abbott’s own poor performance.

However, Abbott shouldn’t have been surprised by Dorries’ line of attack, which was characteristically ruthless: a blogger who has investigated her expenses and challenged some of her assertions is a “stalker” whose “special hatred is reserved for women”; a constituent who was off work waiting for operations on her feet and who criticised Dorries on Twitter “is giving housebound disabled people a bad name” and ought to be put to work; her (now ex-) boyfriend’s estranged wife is “violent” and has been repudiated by her own children; Tim Farron MP, while purporting to be a Christian, has been “outed” as someone  who has been “blinded by ambition and sold his soul to the devil” (“outed” was also a mocking jibe about rumours concerning Farron’s sexuality); Chancellor the Exchequer George Osborne is a “traitor” and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is “mad”; the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has “offended every practicing Christian in the UK”.

And that’s not even including disputes contrived simply to maintain Dorries’ media profile: an abusive attack on Andrew Neil as an “orange, overweight, toupee-wearing has-been” is the most famous (and perhaps the least controversial), while an ill-advised quip from the Prime Minister was milked in a Daily Mail op-ed entitled “The PM Publicly Humiliated Me in Front of the Entire Nation, What Did I Do to Deserve That?”

Consequently, as “outspoken MP Nadine Dorries“, she now finds its easy for her pensées on a range of subjects to garner media attention; last month almost simultaneously saw “Tory MP Nadine Dorries urges reform of ‘sexist’ BBC”, and wide publicity given to a Tweet in support of a sexist beer brand in the Commons bar: “Banning of the Top Totty beer was weak PC decision and gives sensible pro-women advocates a bad name”. Part of that last quote even made it into Chinese translation:

???(Nadine Dorries)??”??Top Totty????????????”

UPDATE: One other person on the receiving end of Dorries’ abuse is the former Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris. Harris is known for his support of abortion rights and euthanasia, and so Dorries naturally accuses him of having sanguinary motives:

Everyone calls Evan Harris Dr Death. I always will due to his obsession with ending people’s lives via abortion/euthanasia (8)

The claim that “everyone” calls Harris “Dr Death” appears in a  2007 Daily Mail hit-piece by Leo McKinstry, although Sunny Hundal argues that

The ‘nickname’ isn’t widely used at all, except by some internet commenters and by Nadine Dorries.

The Telegraph columnist Christina Odone did use it, but has now stopped as far as I can tell. The broadcaster Gerri Peev used it in the Daily Mail but apparently apologised for it afterwards.

Harris is Jewish, and he believes that the Mail, by applying to him a nickname given to Dr Josef Mengele, is guilty of anti-Semitism. I don’t think that’s supportable, but Dorries’ response to objections from Sunny is embarrassing in its ignorance and spiteful glee:

Evan Harris isn’t Jewish is he Sunny, he’s a humanist. Abortion forbidden in Jewish faith. So no slur then eh? (9)

…He has renounced his faith and is a humanist. You lost buster. Night. (10)

UPDATE 2: Dorries further defends the “Dr Death” jibe on the grounds that humanists support infanticide:

Evan Harris is a humanist and humanists support this [Link] why do people wonder at his Dr Death Moniker. #welldeserved (11)

As I discussed here, Dorries is involved in a more general feud with humanism.

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