Militant Islam in Dewsbury Part 1: The Violent Assertion of Islamic Territorialism

A recent spate of attacks against non-Muslim residents in Dewsbury highlights the existence of no-go areas within the town: de facto emergent secessionist Muslim enclaves, into which others enter at their peril. This unpleasant reality conflicts with the vacuous assertions to the contrary by the West Yorkshire Police, who have also dismissed claims by victims of this recent violence that these assaults were clearly “racially motivated”. These denials bring to mind the refusal of West Yorkshire Police to attribute a racial component to “Asian” (code for Muslim) gang assaults upon white English pensioners in Bradford earlier this year.

The worst of the incidents that has taken place over the past few weeks involved a 14-year-old boy – Joseph Haigh - who was attacked by a gang of 10-15 Muslim youths who left him unconscious after inflicting a deep head wound with a brick, stabbing him in the hand with a screwdriver, loosening two of his front teeth and stealing his bike. Although stabbed in the hand, he could be said to be ‘lucky’, for his assailant was aiming at his face. The boy was later found unconscious by a passer-by. His father Jonathan said:

“It was a racist attack. They were calling him ‘white trash’ and white this, that and the other. This is why people are angry about what is happening in this country. If it had been an attack by whites on an Asian lad it would have been a definite race attack. When it’s the other way round they don’t want to know.” [1]

A 46-year old labourer - Robert Dyson - was set upon by a mob of Muslim men whilst returning home one Friday night in late October. In this unprovoked assault he was surrounded, punched in the face and then knocked to the ground where he suffered repeated kicks from his tormenters. A hospital visit was needed to repair the damage to his split lip and a gashed ear [2].

A week after the attack upon Mr Dyson, a young white man of 18 was set upon by a gang of about ten masked “Asian” (i.e. Muslim) youths who knocked him to the ground and began kicking him. They ran off when a middle-aged white couple interrupted the assault. The next afternoon (a Sunday) a number of white drivers had their cars stoned as they passed along Savile Road. Once again, the perpetrators were described as “Asian” (aka Muslim). One of those targeted – Andy Cutler aged 36 – stated:

“They were just targeting white drivers . . . As far as I’m concerned it’s racist and it needs to be reported.” [3]

This latest outbreak of attacks follows a similar wave which occurred during August, when three white boys (one aged 12 and two aged 14) “were attacked by Asians [Muslims] who demanded to know why they were walking through Savile Town.” Two weeks later a bus was attacked with stones. Windows were smashed and one of the passengers was injured. The wounded man emerged from the bus and attempted to chase away the young assailants and “was asked why he was going about shouting in ‘their area.’” [4]

From the attacks outlined above there are clear common denominators that indicate that young male Muslims within Dewsbury are using violent intimidation to mark out territory that they see as a nascent jurisdiction unto itself. That the victims of this Muslim violence (invariably described as “Asian” in the mainstream media, which is a grievous slur upon people of non-Muslim Asian extraction) are all white could lead one to mistakenly label these attacks as being “racist”. Strictly speaking of course, one should more accurately describe these awful crimes as being Islamist rather than racist, for although the young Muslim thugs happened to target white Britons (whom they particularly detest) in each of these incidents, they would I am sure be just as happy to attack any other kufr who pitched up on ‘their’ turf.

Indeed, in February 2008 violence flared between Dewsbury’s resident Pakistani Muslims and more-recently arrived immigrant Gypsies (usually mislabelled as “Hungarians”). They even went so far as to clash with an all-male influx of co-religionist Iraqi Kurds in 2007, in a display of atavistic rivalry over access to Pakistani females [5]. As any impartial reader can gather from this depressing list of unprovoked violent attacks, there is one component of Dewsbury’s population that is endowed with a spirit of hatred towards all other residents, and appears to be growing bolder in asserting its presence: Deobandi Islam. In the second part of this piece, I shall outline how this particularly unpleasant and violent species of Qur’anic literalism came to take root in the town, and what this betokens for politics in Dewsbury.

References:
[1] http://www.thepressnews.co.uk/NewsDetails.asp?id=3925
[2] http://www.thepressnews.co.uk/NewsDetails.asp?id=3922
[3] http://www.thepressnews.co.uk/NewsDetails.asp?id=3929
[4] http://www.thepressnews.co.uk/NewsDetails.asp?id=3922
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savile_Town