Review: ‘Proud and Prejudiced’, Channel 4 Dispatches

The publicity in advance of this documentary revealed that the makers of this programme had set out with the intent of portraying Sayful Islam’s Islamists and Tommy Robinson’s EDL as morally equivalent “extremists”, who both should be condemned for their “intolerance”. In this narrative expectation, we were not to be disappointed, although of course it was disingenuous of the Dispatches editorial team to portray the EDL as a “far-right threat” to be feared as much as England’s burgeoning Islamist movement. In the opinion of the author, the EDL represent a genuine grassroots working-class movement that has arisen to fill the vacuum created by mainstream politics’ unwillingness to address the real concerns that they articulate, albeit in a working-class idiom not as polished as that of the professional political class. In its treatment of the EDL, the Dispatches team on this occasion thus fell into the typical inverted snobbery characteristic of the mainstream media, treating EDL supporters contemptuously simply because of the manner of their speech. That said, this programme was in an altogether different class to Stacey Dooley’s ‘My Hometown Fanatics’ which covered much of the same ground in a more superficial manner last week.

Robinson (real name Stephen Lennon) may have commented at the latest EDL demo in Hyde on Saturday that the title of the programme could be interpreted as representing his “pride” and Sayful Islam’s “prejudice”, but Channel 4 would not concur, for “a plague on both your houses!” was its effective message, echoing the standard line now peddled by the anti-democratic leftist pressure group ‘Hope Not Hate’.

The documentary opened with Robinson driving through Luton town centre, noting how he used to walk through the area as a child, but could no longer do so for fear of being beaten up. Soon enough, Sayful Islam was spotted, and within a few moments he had strolled over to Robinson’s car for an ill-tempered verbal exchange which ended with Islam hitting Robinson in the face. Islam called Robinson “racist”, to which the latter retorted, “What race is Islam?”

Luton, intoned the narrator, has a population of circa 200,000, 15% of which is Muslim – five times the national average. Having set the demographic context the documentary moved on to the formation of the EDL in 2009 in response to a Muslim protest against a homecoming parade of the Royal Anglian Regiment in the March of that year. Throughout, the documentary tended to intercut interviews with Sayful Islam, formerly of ‘Muslims Against Crusades’ (now banned), and Tommy Robinson, giving their contrasting perspectives. However, Robinson tended to enjoy more of the limelight throughout.

Islam has five children and studied accountancy at local university, and worked for a time as a tax inspector: 

“We wanna shake the people and wake them up from their slumber. . . . The real heroes are people who have no homes, who have been raped, who have been violated.” 

And when we awake from our slumbers, what would he like to offer us? An Islamic state. In that case, please do not disturb my sleep.

He grew up in Bury Park and became a disciple of Omar Bakri, founder of the banned group Al-Muhajiroun. Sayful’s followers are banned from most local mosques. One of the fertiliser bomb plotters and the Stockholm suicide bomber came from Luton. He, like others of his ilk, claims that Shariah Law will deal with the problems of contemporary society, preventing drug problems, prostitution and promotion of homosexuality. He sees a society “full of sexual deviancy and every sin.”

Lennon too is married and has three children. The narrator stated that he had served time for assaulting an off-duty policeman during a domestic dispute, but provided no explanation as to what had happened. Why is he alarmed about Islamisation? “If this is happening now when 3% of the country’s population is Muslim, God help us if it gets to 20%!” In twenty years time, he fears that such an eventuality could unfold. As for Muslims being offended, he retorted “I’m offended when I see a woman in a burqa. . . . We’re offended on a daily basis.”

Returning to the genesis of the EDL, it was Muslim barracking of the Royal Anglian Regiment together with Muslims spitting in a soldier’s mother’s face that generated the anger that precipitated its formation. Robinson managed to gather together 200 people, mostly Luton football fans, to mount a protest calling for a ban on Islam’s group, with Robinson spending £400 getting a cameraman to film the protest. This resulted in him receiving a banning order from the town centre and an ensuing “summer of tension”. Two hooded men attacked a local mosque with firebombs. An imam – billed as a “moderate” -  opposed Sayful Islam, and claims that had Robinson stuck to attacking “Muslim extremism” he would not have a problem with that, but in his opinion he had now gone well beyond this and started attacking Islam as a religion. 

The EDL claims 100,000 supporters, and dozens of demos have been held since its inception. However, although the narrator claimed that many had turned violent, he did not explain the nature of the violence or indeed point out that on the majority of occasions when violence had flared, it had been instigated by UAF and most of those who turned out to be arrested were so-called ‘antifascists’. The shadowy world of the SWP-dominated self-styled ‘antifascist’ movement was not examined, which constituted a serious flaw in the documentary’s approach.

The documentary, as covered in the preview article and attendant clip a couple of days ago, then moved on to the ‘Luton in Harmony’ initiative, which has attempted to paper over the wide and deep cracks between the town’s Muslim population and the rest. Lennon stated: that living in harmony wasn’t a problem for “The Hindus, the Jews, the Sikhs, the gay community”, but only one “with the Muslims.”

Sayful Islam concurred that there was an absence of harmony in the town: 

“If you want to say Luton is in harmony, then why was the EDL born here?”

On the second anniversary of the EDL’s birth in 2011 Luton witnessed its largest EDL protest to date, and another one is planned for this year. As often on such occasions, UAF staged a counterdemonstration, which necessitated a massive police operation, with in excess of 1500 police being drafted in: “Luton was bracing itself for violence” intoned the narrator. Thankfully, the demonstration was remarkably peaceful. Only eight arrests were made throughout the £800,000 police operation.

That the EDL were having a political impact on the national stage appeared to be made clear by the fact that David Cameron chose to make a speech in Munich on the eve of the demonstration, stating that multiculturalism had failed (meaning nothing of the sort however, for his administration has continued to be a vigorous advocate of this policy). Lennon chose to disagree with Cameron, stating to the crowd:

“David Cameron is wrong, multiculturalism has worked. We live side by side as brothers and sisters.”

 However, he stated:

“Stop building mosques in our community, we’ve had enough of it!”

“Every single one of you is in the forefront of the struggle against militant Islam.”

It seems to me however that it is precisely multiculturalism that has failed, for it is this ideology that has allowed Islamisation to take root and flourish. Lennon, it would appear, is confusing multiculturalism with multiracialism. He has always strongly objected to allegations that the EDL are racist, and was at pains to rebut this on a number of occasions, contrary to UAF claims which cited comments made on the EDL’s Facebook page as evidence. As he pointed out, he and his organisation could not be responsible for every comment posted. He himself had joined the BNP for a year in 2004, but claimed that he failed to renew his membership because he objected to the way that they barred blacks not only from the party, but also from social activities. 

The rest of the documentary covered a number of other protests in 2011, including the EDL Tower Hamlets demo and a MAC demo at the American Embassy. Lennon was also shown being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman in the wake of the Breivik atrocity, during which he acquitted himself well (click here for full video of the interview). Interestingly, the programme did not touch upon the EDL’s proposed collaboration with the British Freedom Party announced last November. Why was this not mentioned? Will Robinson eventually declare that he will join the BFP and perhaps stand as a parliamentary candidate? If so, the documentary gave no hint of this possibility. Is however, a credible new party about to emerge which will fully address the concerns of the EDL without being as narrowly focused as the BFP? This is a distinct possibility, as is discussed here.

Overall therefore, this was an interesting documentary that gave us a view into both the EDL and to a lesser extent the world of Sayful Islam’s Islamists (see ‘My Brother the Islamist’ for a better treatment of Islamism in England today). However, the documentary would have been greatly enhanced if it had set its subject matter against the backdrop of the real trends towards Islamisation in England today, and examined the concept of Islamisation. In all likelihood though, this would have necessitated a two-part documentary. Dispatches has produced a number of excellent documentaries on Islamist extremism in the past, but this one did not quite live up to those high standards. As such, it was something of a curate’s egg.

On Thursday evening Channel 4 will be screening a documentary entitled ‘Make Bradford British’. It used to be, but it is no longer. Rather like buses, it would seem that documentaries dealing with the problems posed by Islamisation (although not explicitly framed that way) come in threes, for in the past ten days we will have had two documentaries on Luton and one on Bradford. Does this tell us something significant about the public mood and the preoccupations of the mass media, or is it just coincidence?