Bradford’s Muslims to protest on Friday

A fortnight after Bradford’s Centenary Square hosted a protest against drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere in Muslim majority countries, another will be held this Friday, this time against the video ‘Innocence of Muslims’. Quite why Muslims will be gathering in Bradford to voice their strong distaste for a video produced in the USA by a shadowy figure overseeing a cast, who were apparently unaware of the ‘plot’, or indeed the subject matter of the film in which they acted, is baffling. What are they protesting against? Why in Bradford? Why in England? What, after all, has anyone here to do with the video in question? The answer to the latter of course is this: nothing. What can such a protest achieve? Likewise, nothing, other than to clearly demonstrate that each and every individual participating in this forthcoming protest holds values utterly incompatible with a free and open society; in other words, they are protesting against the values that we hold dear. 

The Telegraph and Argus today reports that the turnout is expected to number in the thousands, and that it has gained the backing of the Bradford Council for Mosques, with its General Secretary Zulfi Karim being quoted by the paper as follows:

“During the protest we will be letting the American ambassador know of the feeling of Muslims around the world and here in Bradford and to show that we are one voice.

“A lot of people out there are very unhappy and feel we need to come together to talk and protest about this film that insults our faith.

“We will also be calling for the lobbying of government and embassies to support us in our demand for respect for our faith.” Mr Karim said the idea of the protest had been put to the vote at an emergency meeting called on Monday night by the Council For Mosques.

“It was the community’s call,” he said.

What clearer message could there be, given that it comes from the man who speaks on behalf of Bradford’s 86 mosques, that the majority of practising Muslims in the city do not believe in freedom of speech and expression, and instead wish to impose penalties on those who are seen to criticise or to slight their ‘religion’? By making such an overt and heavily politicised statement upon a peripheral matter – an appallingly made video that most of us would never have bothered to watch, if it were not for the irrationally violent reaction that it elicited – those who protest will reveal themselves to be innately undeserving of trust from their non-Muslim neighbours. It also seems rather telling that members of Zulfi Karim's "community" are moved to protest by this film, yet not by the crimes of the Muslim paedophile street groomers of Rochdale, Bradford, Rotherham, Keighley and elsewhere. Why is it the case that this predominantly Pakistani Muslim phenomenon does not cause such upset and disquiet? A bad video in itself harms no one; the systematic targeting, sexual abuse and pimping of underage English girls on the other hand, is quite a different matter.

Whereas The Telegraph and Argus has been keen to highlight the costs associated with previous demonstrations by the EDL in the Bradford area, for some reason, it makes no reference to the additional expense that will be engendered by this pointless and provocative protest against freedom of expression. Irrespective of the content of the film, or the agenda that its maker may have possessed, the video therefore deserves to be watched as a matter of principle, simply to assert that we will not submit to the backward and irrational demand for the global application of a Muslim blasphemy law. With such caveats in place, feel free to ‘enjoy’ the video below.