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The terms ‘far right’ and ‘right wing extremism’ are regularly thrown about by many in the government and the media. Occasionally, they’re used with some care, as part of a genuine attempt to describe an individual or a group’s political opinions, however successful that attempt may be.

But often, they’re used interchangeably. When this happens it’s a decent clue that they’re being used as little more than meaningless slurs. What better way to associate an opponent with all manner of unpopular or extremist ‘right wing’ ideologies than to describe them all using the same terms?

We see a similar thing with the term ‘pandering to the far right’, as if anyone who’s concerned about issues that the political right have typically been pretty good at (immigration, national security, protecting personal freedoms) must be some kind of extremist.

All this detracts from the fact that the difference between the far right and right wing extremism should in fact be very simple: ‘far right’ should mean politics that is very right wing and ‘right wing extremism’ should mean right wing politics that is ‘extreme’ in some way.

By that definition ‘the far right’ would just be one type of right wing extremism. In their particular case their extremism would derive from the fact that they simply became too right wing, when they could instead have embraced a form of extremism not related to the left/right political spectrum – like racism, fascism or anarchism.

That would make sense. But any school child will tell you that the most famous of all ‘far right’ ideologies is Nazism. Assuming that ‘far right’ means what it implies (‘very right wing’), this is totally nonsensical. The word ‘Nazi’ derives from the German for National Socialism, the combination of two popular (and relatively mainstream) political ideologies: nationalism and socialism. Whilst nationalism is typically regarded as right wing (rightly or wrongly), socialism has always been an ideology of the left. How then could National Socialists possibly be’ very right wing’?

‘National Socialism’ wasn’t just an empty title. Nazi economic policy was right wing compared to Communism – the other notorious extremist ideology of the age – but still to the left of most of Europe. If we take the view that left wing politics is all about safeguarding rights, then we might protest that the Nazis clearly had little respect for the rights of the minorities they despised. But equally, if we take the view that right wing politics is all about protecting freedoms, then the Nazis clearly failed in this regard as well.

It wasn’t their being right wing (or left wing) that made them extreme: it was their racism, fascism and fanaticism. The same is true of many groups referred today referred to as ‘far right’. For instance, the UK’s supposedly ‘far right’ party, the BNP, propose a programme of nationalisation and state control that is far closer to the authoritarian left than it is to right wing politics. Again, it’s not their right wing politics that makes them extreme (if they even have any), it’s their racism and authoritarianism.

There are no doubt many on the left who like to ignore this fact, because they can see the benefits of painting Nazism as a uniquely right wing ideology – it really is a wonderful way of attacking your right wing opponents. But part of the reason for the enduring assumption that Nazism is an ideology of the right is that the left genuinely cannot understand how Nazism could possibly be related to their views. And if it’s nothing like their views, it figures that it must be as ‘far’ away from left wing ideology as possible.

Of course, most on the political right feel equally passionate their views are a million miles away from Nazism, but they have simply failed to command the language. Whether this is a result of their losing the argument or their being unwilling to stoop to the same level as those on the left in misrepresenting their opponents is up for debate.

Nazism and fascism did, of course, confound traditional understandings of left and right politics, but whilst political theorists recognised the need to explain these forms of extremism outside of the traditional left/right spectrum, left wing media outlets and academics did a brilliant job of conveniently forgetting about both Nazism and fascism’s socialist roots, whilst at the same time stressing its nationalism at every opportunity.

That is how the horrendously misleading term ‘far right’ was born. So, although it clearly makes sense to assume the term means ‘very right wing’, to do so whilst still accepting that a vile ideology like Nazism can be considered ‘far right’ is to blame mainstream right wing ideology for extremism and let left wing politics off scot free.

This leaves us in a difficult position. We can either hold that ‘far right’ cannot mean anything other than ‘very right wing’, whilst at the same time fighting an uphill battle to explain that this means that ideologies such as Nazism or fascism cannot possibly be considered far right. Or we can refuse to accept that ‘far right’ does in fact mean ‘very right wing’. That would seem counter-intuitive to most people.

Luckily, we’re not alone. Political theorists long ago recognised that it’s impossible for Nazism to be regarded as a far right ideology and that the language of left and right really isn’t sufficient to explain the numerous different types of political ideologies that exist in the modern world. They began to experiment with other ways of comparing different political ideologies, and eventually came up with the idea of adding another axis to the traditional left/right political spectrum. This led to the creation of what became known as a ‘political compass’.

The search was then on for other criteria against which you could ‘score’ any political ideology. Nazism was unique, a new phenomenon, and so it was difficult to draw one out aspect that made it a form of extremism. Nazis were fanatically devoted to the Fuhrer and to his vision of a thousand year Reich. But their devotion to the German state was not altogether removed from the sort of devotion that Mussolini, Hitler’s ally, demanded from fascist Italy.

It was this observation that led political theorists to regard Nazism simply as a variant form of fascism, the central principle of both being simply a fanatical devotion to the state. The opposite of this was complete disregard for the state, or anarchy. And so the compass began to take shape:

The Nazis, then, would be close to the top of the diagram. The battle about whether they should be placed either on the left or the right will no doubt rage for years, but at least the compass provides us with a means of avoiding the paradox of the Nazis being regarded as either very right wing or very left wing.

Exactly where we place the Nazis on the political compass is not as important as simply being able to distinguish the far right from right wing extremism and from more mainstream right wing ideology. With the political compass this is, in fact, very simple.

To be extreme is simply to be far removed from the mainstream, or from ‘the centre’. In this regard the extreme right and the far right are same.

But insofar as ‘far right’ means ‘very right wing’, it only has one possible location on the compass. What makes far right extremism ‘extreme’ could be any number of things, and so it can be represented at any point on the boundary of the right hand side of the compass:

Crucially, this is true whatever we believe are the most appropriate labels for our additional axis.

Unfortunately the rather disappointing answer to our original question about the difference between the far right and right wing extremism is that it’s really whatever you want it to be. If politicians and journalists persist in speaking of right wing extremism and ‘the far right’ as if they were the same thing, then we will gradually lose the ability to make any distinction.

It’s important that we don’t allow this to happen, because this isn’t the same as the natural evolution of the language. Rather, it’s an attempt to avoid complexities, to make sweeping generalisations and to gain a political advantage.

O

ur critics often claim that is us who fail to make a distinction between Islamic extremists and ordinary Muslims. But rarely do critics of Islam fail to make this distinction, often making it abundantly clear that their problem is not with individual Muslims but with elements of Islamic ideology.

We’re cynical about the government’s use of terms such as ‘Islamist extremist’ not because we believe that Muslims are all the same, but because these distinctions are completely arbitrary, poorly defined and have little basis in fact. Islamic extremism is a bigger problem than just a few bearded lunatics who can be conveniently distinguished from the wider Muslim community by a term dreamt up by the Western world. This is entirely different from willfully ignoring any distinctions in order to paint all Muslims with the same brush.

Compare this to the behaviour of our critics, who throw around terms like ‘far right’, ‘fascist’ or ‘right wing extremist’ with wanton abandon, rarely bothering to define any of these terms and certainly not pausing to consider whether they are being used fairly and accurately. Unfortunately, it is so easy for someone who is not familiar with political terminology to be taken in by all this. If every time the term ‘right wing’ is used it is in connection to some form of political extremism, then naturally you’ll develop a negative view of the political right – mainstream or otherwise.

Politicians and journalists have a responsibility: they need to start using political terminology honestly and responsibly. The best way to encourage them is to challenge the clumsy, lazy or slanderous use of terms like ‘far right’. Can they point out the views they’re describing on a political compass? Can they define the terms they’re using? Do they even know what they mean?

If they can’t, then why should we believe their analysis? Why should we believe a thing they say?

Since publishing an article about far right extremism we’ve been inundated with a request for more articles about political terminology. What does it actually mean to be a socialist, a conservative, a liberal, or anything else?

Despite our newspapers being crammed full of political terminology, journalists commonly get away with using these terms in a way that is either totally removed from their actual meaning or which changes depending on the paper you happen to read.

When political terminology is stripped of its meaning it ceases to fulfill its primary purpose, which is simply to represent a set of ideas.

This isn’t just frustrating, it’s dangerous, because if the ideas are forgotten then there’s a danger that the words will be re-appropriated and redefined to suit the interests of whoever can effectively command the language.

And that doesn’t lead to the ‘understanding’ our politicians love to preach about.

Evidence of this process is all around us. In fact, some of the political terminology in regular usage today has drifted so far from its original meaning to become almost meaningless. For instance, it seems that nowadays almost everyone can be accused of being a fascist or a member of ‘the far right’, regardless of their actual politics.

Nowadays calling someone a fascist does far more to reveal your own prejudices than it does those who you seek to brand with the toxic term. A similar thing can be said of the term ‘racist’ (though genuine racism is far less difficult to find than fascism in modern Britain).

Despite these examples, there remain some terms that have retained their meaning. But even they are at threat. ‘Liberal’ is one of the notorious ones: when our American friends talk about ‘liberals’ they have in mind something entirely different to the liberalism that lends its name to liberal democracy.

Some of these shifts in meaning are inevitable. The terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ wing are the most obvious examples because they’re comparative, but the definition of more specific political terminology can also shift as more and more ideas develop and disagreements about what is central to a theory either persist or disappear.

But, with everything else political, there is always an underlying power struggle. No one wants their ideas to be associated with unpopular ideologies, and it always helps your electoral chances if people think that your opponent believes some unsavoury things. There is, therefore, an on-going battle to control the range of terms that we use to describe politics.

Think, for example, of the term ‘progressives’, sometimes used to describe a variant of socialism. The term tells us precisely nothing about what its supporters believe in, but it categorises anyone else as an enemy of progress. Another example would be the ‘pro-life’ (anti-abortion) activists in America. Are their opponents, by definition, pro-death?

Political terminology is rarely fair, but it’s not all the result of purposeful manipulation. The most notorious example of confused terminology is the common assumption that Nazism was a right wing ideology. In fact, just like fascism, its origins lie in a mixture of socialism (undeniably left wing) and nationalism (usually regarded as right wing).

The lesson that some left wing academics would have us learn from Nazism is that any expression of national pride leads to unimaginable horrors, whilst socialism remains an admirable goal. That is a highly selective reading of history and the only reason it is ever given any serious credit is because the left wing roots of Nazism are so commonly ignored or even denied.

The problem with all this is that it has become incredibly fashionable to claim that ‘we must learn the lessons of history’. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that those making this claim can demonstrate any understanding of history whatsoever. So we have the likes of the UAF (which laughably stands for ‘Unite Against Fascism’) allying themselves with Islamic fascists and endorsing fascist-style clamp downs on freedom of speech. Fascism stood for state power and violence – exactly the things that the UAF stand for today.

But despite this obvious irony, when UAF activists claim that we must stand up against ‘the far right’ and not fail to ‘learn the lessons of history’ they rarely receive the ridicule they deserve.

History does not teach us to jump on bandwagons of self-righteous condemnation. It does not teach us to demonise our opponents or revel in the Orwellian manipulation of language. What it does teach is up for debate, but it’s rarely black and white.

If we are to truly learn the lessons of history we need to separate the history from the contemporary politics. We need to look at extremism and ask what made it popular. We need to look at the ‘isms’ that are used to describe the views of our political opponents and ask ‘what is central to their politics?’

We need to simplify the terminology, strip it of its connotations (positive or negative) and work out what it is we’re actually talking about when we use this terminology that we rely upon so much.

So we thought it was about time we put together some straightforward definitions. These aren’t definitions that reflect the full history of the terms in question, but that’s not their objective. What we need is simple definitions so that whatever else we may disagree on, we at least know what it is we’re all talking about.

In orthodox Islam, Allah's law - Shariah law - comes above any laws made by human beings. The same Shariah law that discriminates against women and allows ... encourages husbands to beat their wives. It should therefore not have been a surprise to anyone, much less the BBC reporter that in the Shariah courts that have sprung up around the country to "service" the Muslim communities, judgments are passed that not only discriminate against women, they condone violence against wives and children, discourage battered wives from reporting violence to the police, and move into areas such as child custody that they are forbidden to deal with. Totally unregulated, unauthorized, unaccountable and, in the words of a Crown Prosecution Service official, simply dangerous, a parallel legal system is being established in this country. The rule of 'one law for all' is gradually being replaced with Shariah law for some and no law for the rest of us.

This week The Daily Telegraph) brought us the terrifying news that a ‘race war’ could be just around the corner.

The theory is that the news) of a terrorist plot to target last year’s EDL demonstration in Dewsbury will cause all hell to break loose.

‘Experts’, such as the jokers at Teesside University), have been wheeled out so we know it must be serious. There only appear to be a few problems:

• Islamic extremism is not a race

Islamic extremism is a form of religious extremism – obviously. It’s not linked to any particular race, but to a religion. However much the media may wish to use Orwellian terms like ‘Islamist extremism’ to distance the two, that religion is Islam.

• Islam is not a race

Obviously.

• Islam is nothing like a race

Islam is an ideology. It’s something you can freely choose or that you can abandon. It can be moderate, it can be radical, or it can be extremist. When it’s extremist, it needs to be reformed. None of this is true of race – any race.

• The EDL is not interested in race

We have no concerns about race. No one plots a terrorist attack, preaches that homosexuals should be thrown off mountains or yells abuse at returning soldiers because of their race. Surely it would be racist to suggest they do?

• The EDL is anti-racist

Some morons think flying the flag of your country – a country known for its tolerance and anti-racist attitudes – is basically the same as being a signed up member of the Klu Klux Klan. To help prevent any confusion, we’ve had a clear anti-racist stance since the beginning (check out the poster).

• This is old news

The details have been all over our Facebook page, our Twitter feeds and this website for ages. There haven’t yet been any indications that we'll suddenly abandon our commitment to peaceful protest, so what’s changed?

• A race war needs at least two sides

But who’s going to fight? Islamic extremism is a global threat, with countless examples of suicide bombings, violence, kidnappings and (thankfully) many foiled attacks. On the other side, we have some vocal protests and some mildly controversial slogans. That’s not much of a war.

So why all the drama?

What’s really worrying those on the wrong side of the Islamic extremism debate (i.e. those who don’t think there should be one) is that all these repeated examples of Islamic extremism might lead people to think that the EDL might actually have a point.

And that, of course would be disastrous, because clearly it’s impossible to criticise Islam without also secretly wanting to murder every Muslim you can get your hands on. Only if that were true would there be any chance of a race war being just around the corner. But we’d still have to assume that Islam’s a race, which it isn’t.

With scaremongering like this then perhaps there is a chance that tensions will begin to mount. But that’s not quite the same. EDL leader Tommy Robinson said that if there was another atrocity like the 7/7 bombings, then “this whole country is going to go up.”

He didn’t mean that ordinary people would all start tearing into the closest Muslim. There would no doubt be some increased tensions between communities, but we don’t think so little of the people of this country. Instead, we believe that the overwhelming response to another attack would be a need for answers.

More people would question this country’s response to Islamic extremism, and when they find it lacking then they’d start demonstrating. Hopefully they’d join an organisation dedicated to defeating all forms of extremism. Luckily, we have just that.

It wouldn't be 'other races' that would find themselves in trouble, but all those who were wrong about Islamic extremism. No wonder the media are so worried.

Yesterday, 30th April 2013, at Woolwich Crown Court, six "home-grown extremists" from Birmingham pleaded guilty to preparing a coordinated attack on an English Defence League demonstration in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, exactly 10 months earlier on 30 June 2012.

They had hoped to cause mass casualties, including EDL Leader Tommy Robinson. Luckily, Tommy's inability to attend the demonstration meant that it finished earlier than planned and the would-be terrorists turned up only to find out that everyone had already gone home.

To add to their disappointment, an alert police motorway patrol pulled them over on the M1 for not having proper insurance. The police only stumbled upon the car's deadly cargo two days later. The car contained a cache of weapons, including 2 sawn-off shotguns, Japanese samurai swords, machetes and an "array" of assorted other knives. The prize pieces of the arsenal were two professional display firework explosives packed with shrapnel including nails and ball-bearings.

The indiscriminate blasts could have been devastating.

One of these Jihadi fanatics is said to have ties to a group of fellow Brummies jailed last Friday for planning to set off 8 - 10 suicide bombs in crowded places. While handing out long prison sentences of 18 and 15 years to two of the group, the judge took pity on the third member, Irfan Khalid, who is reported to be "in the bottom 2%-5% in terms of cognitive ability". We wonder if the judge would be as sympathetic to a stupid self-radicalising extremist (don't mention the I word) if he had stopped to consider the pain, anguish and grief of the survivors of the Boston bombing and what devastating effects the armed attacks both groups had planned would have had.

We were lucky this time, we may not be so lucky the next.

EDL Facebook page back in the right hands! We are pleased to announce that we have complete control of the official Facebook page after it having fallen into the hands of people who had a different agenda to our own. These people were trying to steer the EDL in a direction that is not in line with our ethos. We have been aware for some time, of certain individuals who managed to hijack the page and post information that we would deem inappropriate and certainly not in line with our mission statement. We will for now hold back on any further comment until a full investigation is concluded. Suffice to say there's already enough evidence of the people who were administrating the page, unfortunately they had complete control of the page for a number of months, and used it for an agenda that set itself apart from the EDL. We cannot and will not allow ourselves to be hijacked from organisations and individuals who don't work within the framework of the EDL, for some time we have negotiated with an individual who was originally part of the hijack, luckily that individual had seen the error of his ways and handed back the official page back to us tonight.

Tommy and Kev would like to wish everyone a very happy St. George's day! Have a great day everyone, be proud of who you are and what you are fighting against.

Patriotism does not (and never will) equate to racism.

NSE

On the 29th March to 1st April 2013 the University of Nottingham hosted a three-day conference organised by Family Retreat, an activity of the Muslim Research and Development Foundation (MRDF).

The MRDF is an organisation dedicated, in its own words, to “the articulation of classical Islamic principles in a manner that provides a platform for Islam to be the cure for all of humanities [sic] ills.” It was with some concern that we reviewed the list of speakers: Muhammad Salah, Kamal e-Mekki, Haitham al-Hadda, Zahir Mahmood, Wasim Kempson, Hmaza Tzortzis, Fraz Farhat, Yusha Evans, Saeed al-Qadi, Al-Qari Rida Abdul, Abu Talha and Shaqur Rehman. It doesn’t take an awful lot of research to find out what it is these men stand for: there’s plenty of content on YouTube, the Ummah Forum and the broadcasts of Hudah TV.

Either individually, or as part of organisations such as the Alkauthar Institute, i21C and Sabeel publicly and as a matter of record: encouraged hatred of Jews (“apes and pigs”), Israelis (“a psychotic and paranoid people” who “mercilessly brutalise others” and “are equal to the worst terrorists”), Christians (“evil”), homosexuals (“wretched”) and non-Muslims (too many to mention) called for the death penalty for those who leave Islam (apostates) and for homosexuals advocated female genital mutilation encouraged the marriage of girls at as early an age as possible (and advised on possible ways of circumventing the law that prohibits such marriages) excused the beating of Muslim wives by their husbands for disobedience affirmed the superiority of men over women and claimed that women are naturally subservient to men encouraged the wearing of the niqab (full face veil).

All of this doesn’t sit particularly well with the University’s Code of Conduct, which explicitly forbids “violent, indecent, disorderly, threatening or offensive behaviour or language (whether expressed orally or in writing, including electronically) whilst on University premises.”

It also forbids “distributing or publishing on University premises or while engaged in any University activity a poster, notice, sign or any other matter which is offensive, intimidating, threatening, indecent or illegal”.

And of particular note is Section. 8.4 (15)c: also forbidden is any conduct which “damages the good name of the University”. So what happened here? Did you just not do your research? Somewhat embarrassing, especially for a university that claims to be one of the country’s leading research centres.

But this comes down to more than embarrassment. Any self-respecting university should stand for a number of important principles: an open mind, reason, humanity, justice, learning, an example to the younger generations. As students, as parents, we look to our universities to set an example, to be a centre of learning, a centre of progress.

Instead, you host a conference that provides special sessions for children to teach them “classic Islam” - in other words, literal, orthodox, radical Islam - a supremacist, exclusionist, repressive, racist, sexist and bigoted doctrine that negates every Western value of merit, that would turn the clock back on the Enlightenment and cast our civilisation back into the darkness of the Middle Ages. This isn’t just embarrassing, it’s shameful.

And it should be of real concern to everyone associated with the university that this was allowed to happen on your campus. These extremists will no doubt use their new-found association with the university to help legitimise their cause. Put simply, by hosting a conference filled with hate preachers and fanatics, you have helped to enable Islamic extremism.

In today’s climate, where challenging Islamic extremism is a taboo subject, our universities - places where truth comes before politics and political correctness - should be helping us to confront and overcome this vile ideology by exposing it for what it is, not giving it a platform.

By hosting this conference you have betrayed every value that you should hold dear as academics, and as human beings. But worse, far worse than any betrayal of yourselves, you have betrayed us, the people of this country.

We call on you, the university authorities, to condemn the Muslim Research and Development Foundation and make it abundantly clear that they will not be permitted to use university facilities again. Otherwise, we will have no choice but to organise demonstrations both outside and within the university grounds. A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious.

But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.

A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague. Marcus Tullius Cicero

An opinion piece on the Boston Bombings.....

Reading the news about the Boston Marathon bombing and about 8-year old Martin Richard - how he had given his Dad a hug for finishing the marathon, gone back to join his mother and died. How a rescuer had carried his 6-year old sister to medical care and gone back to crawl on his hands and knees looking for her leg ...

I thought of my own children, the youngest will be 9 on Saturday, and I cried. I don't blame Islam for what you the bombers have done - though many will - but I blame you, and all Islamists, for what you have done to your faith, what you have done and continue to do to your fellow human beings in its name.

Call it Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Islamism, call it radicalism, extremism, if you will; I have a better name for it - pure evil. There is no God, no religion, no creed, no belief, no political ideology that can justify such an act. Anyone - whoever they are, whatever they are - who can think that such an act is acceptable does not deserve to live in the civilized world.

A belief that can stoop so low is like a rotting smell of corruption, spoiling and fouling everything it touches. It's very existence is an insult to everything honest and good. YOU, the creatures, the things that do these acts, you slime festering on the face of this once beautiful planet, I pray to God, a Christian God, a god of love and mercy, and I pray that there is a Hell.

And even if it's a sin to think so, if I should go to Hell I shall yearn with every fibre to see you there. Bill Richard, my heart and prayers go out to you as one father to another.

I am ashamed to belong to the same species as the animal who did this to you and your family ... to the parents of the 5-year old girl abducted and raped in India, and to the families of countless others killed every day in Iraq, Mali, Nigeria, Syria, so many places near and far, because Islamism comes before humanity.

Luton Jihadists

Four Luton jihadists appeared in Woolwich Crown Court yesterday, April 15th, to face charges - to which they pleaded guilty - of planning to bomb "multiple targets", including a local TA centre and the English Defence League.

Interviewed on 3 Counties Radio today, terrorism expert Professor Anthony Glees from the University of Buckingham's Center for Intelligence and Security Studies talked about the trends and recent events.

Responding to questions about whether we were seeing an increase in terrorism or that it was just that the police and MI5 were getting better at catching them, he admitted that there had been a 60% increase in the number of arrests and people facing criminal charges. This was not, he said, because our counter-terrorist police were getting better, but instead due to a ready pool of young, intelligent Muslim graduates just waiting to be radicalised.

Was the professor suprised that the four facing conviction came from Luton? The question raised a chuckle, but it was certainly no surprise, as the professor went on to explain: "Luton has become a problem area. [it's] Absolutely right that people look closely at what is happening in Luton."

They arrest Tommy and accuse the EDL of being as big a threat as Al Qaeda. We tell the world there is an islamist problem in Luton and we're called fascists, racists and Islamophobes, but they find it amusing to finally have to admit there is a "problem". Some problem!

We will continue to speak out, with the truth on our side. We will not be silent, we will not give in to intimidation and threats, and we will never surrender.