http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6980888.stm

Is this something we should be concerned about. What is the nature of "free speech" in the UK and does this violate free speech?


BBC NEWS
Radical books in London libraries
By Richard Watson
Correspondent, BBC Newsnight

Public libraries serving the densest population of Muslims in London have been inundated with extremist literature, according to a report.

Multiple copies of books were found in Tower Hamlets that would feature on any jihadist reading list, the report obtained by the BBC said.

Tower Hamlets Council said their Islamic collections had been imbalanced, but they were improving.

The report was by right-leaning think tank the Centre for Social Cohesion.

'Separatism and bigotry'

Its main author Douglas Murray told BBC2 Newsnight: "This is a collection that is warped towards one particular extreme interpretation of Islam."

Most controversially, several books written by two of Britain's most notorious terrorist sympathisers were found in public libraries.

Two books by Abu Hamza, who used to preach at Finsbury Park mosque, are in the collection, as is one book by Sheikh Faisal, whose lectures inspired two of the London bombers.

Both men have been convicted of incitement to murder, but not on the basis of these writings.

The former Islamist Ed Hussain, who grew up in Tower Hamlets, said: "The shocking thing is that this stuff is available and there are people out there borrowing it.

"The worry is how many of those people - it might be a small number, but small enough to cause carnage - who are then prepared to literally act upon those teachings."

Mr Murray said: "Taxpayers' money should not be used to fund extremism... after all the library system is meant to educate and inform, not to cause separatism and bigotry."

'Hatred of women'

The Tower Hamlets collections also include multiple works by the founders of modern political Islam, Sayed Qutb and Syed Maududi, and a large number of texts from Saudi scholars, promoting the Wahhabi fundamentalist school of thought.

These, the report says, refer to "incredible hatred of women, incredible hatred of non-Muslims... and of Muslims who are not part of the Wahhabi tradition".

The report's authors counted 61 separate copies of Maududi's books including the classic Al Jihad, in which he states: "The objective of Islamic jihad is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of state rule... the aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution."

There were also 11 copies of Sayed Qutb's Milestones, which is highly sought after by jihadists.

There were 20 copies of books by the founder of Wahhabism, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, and 16 copies of a book by modern day Saudi scholar Muhammed bin Jamil Zino.

Zino's book What a Muslim Should Believe offers advice in the form of hypothetical questions.

"Is it allowed to support and love disbelievers?" he asks. The answer is simply "no".

In a statement to Newsnight, a Tower Hamlets Council spokeswoman said: "The Islamic book stock came from a narrow range of publishers, thereby not reflecting the broad range of Islamic thought.

"We recognised we needed to improve the balance of the Islamic literature in our libraries, which has resulted in us buying extra books more widely representative of Islam."

The council said it would not remove the books by Abu Hamza and Sheikh Faisal because the writings themselves remain legal in Britain.

The Centre for Social Cohesion was set up by think tank Civitas.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/6980888.stm

Published: 2007/09/05 22:29:46 GMT

© BBC MMVII

See my post in the chat section in the news thread.

Libraries are meant to offer all different kinds of thought. I just checked and our library offers Mein Kampf. I think that's valid historically. Who gets to decide what's in and what isn't?

Is this Mr. Murray going to make sure all the offensive stuff in the library is eliminated? Does he get to decide what's offensive? He's going to leave very few offerings to check out in Tower Hamlets library or any other.

This actually came from another thread on the Thom Hartmann site

http://thomhartmann.org/eve/forums/a/tpc/f...51/m/8801049572

Thom Hartmann is a progressive activist, author, radio commenter on Air America

You raise some interesting points

I'm in the US again, incidentally. I don't know if our UK library had that book for example--libraries in the UK seem to have hardly any books to begin with these days--but I"m sure there were things I could consider offensive there too.

The point here isn't what's in and what's out. The point is that the libraries weren't offering a balanced reading list. The libraries concerned were offering, allegedly, too much pro-jihadists and Islamist literature without having the literary offerings of the moderate Muslim community available. This has caused a great deal of upset among the moderate Muslims who are horrified that their religion is constantly linked to extremism, when the reality is that only a very small percentage of the muslim population has/will be or is likely to be radicalised (sp?) - the same as there is only a tiny majority of the 'indigenous white' (whatever that means genetically...) community will become neo-nazis.

Think about going in to a library and finding that the shelves are full of these names only: George McDaniel, Jared Taylor, Tony Linsell, John Lovejoy, Anthony Browne and being given the impression that these represent the 'true voice of Britain' - which we all know isn't the case. There are other points of view, which balance out the extremes of the british population, and there should be the same spread of literature available for all of the other communities which have made their home here.

I do think that mentioning that a library offers Mein Kampf is a simplification of the issue. If the library were offering Nazi literature and backed up with pro-nazi works and thoughts, with only one tomb to balance out the rest, then that is more like the scale of it. There has to be balance; to allow critical thinking to develop where people can read both sides of the arguements/points of view, consider them and make thier own minds up based on a spread of information. Naturally this doesn't rule out people just taking their 'style' of literature and becoming monomanical by refusing to read/accept any other reasoned thought that runs contrary to what they want to believe...



And because they weren't, someone has, rightly, complained - that's the point of bringing this to the wider attention. The rotten media spin that has been poured on it shouldn't be taken as gospel.

I'm not hijacking, (promise), but I'm surprised that there hasn't been more reaction to what Maria said.
I agree with dissident.

There was a studio discussion (which was after that Newsnight film that you might have seen, if you cared to click on the link). I thought it was a strange kind of debate, where one muslim woman said somehing like: ''Many muslims are already upset about the Satanic Verses, and that Rushdie has been knighted - if you go banning our books, that's going to cause more alienation.''
To which a muslim guy from the Sufi Council said (something like): ''What do you mean our books. Those Wahabi books aren't mine - this is not where most British muslims are coming from''.
Good for him, I thought.

And why the word banning was brought up I don't know. These books are not being banned from Britain, there was just a question about whether a council like Tower Hamlets (George Galloway's constituency) should be procuring divisive literature.

Ann Coulter's work may be also divisive literature, but that's something else entirely, (I think ).

Oh, right, saying "we should kill their leaders and force them to convert to Christianity"--about the whole muslim world--is not hate speech at all.
You are either very ignorant about Ann Coulter or just in general...


I don't disagree with the point of balance, but I do view with a somewhat cynical eye the sudden concern over muslim hate speech without a similar concern about other hate speech. I also think there tends to be a rush to interpret just about anything muslim as "hateful."

Remember our great stated concern about the rights of women in Afghanistan as justification for war there? Where has that gone? And where was it when we were arming the mujahadeen, who became the Taliban? And where is it right now for the women of Saudi Arabia, which is repressive beyond belief?

I think the book thing is pretty similar. I think the way it's been brought up reveals a similar agenda, trying to be disguised as concern over hate speech.

I think I disagree with you here Maria. (It doesn't help to be so personally negative just because someone has a different opinion).
Did I not say that Ann Coulters work may also be divisive?
OK, it is. So why the:

I don't follow Ann Coulter very closely. I've heard her on the radio in the States, and I'm aware of some of her more infamous outbursts. She is terrible. But some of her lines make me laugh anyway. Like this one about Democrats: Oopps.... have I commited another forum faux-pax?

Tower Hamlets is one of Britains poorest boroughs (in the top 4 if I remember). From wikipedia it says that 52% of the population is under 30 years old - the highest percentage in England. This is probably due to the boroughs large Bangladeshi population, a third over all, but much higher in the western part of the borough centered on Brick Lane and the East London mosque. The borough also has the highest rate of unemployment in britain, and only 29% of the population are home owners. (There's a lot of council housing).

I think it's perfectly OK for someone to ask of the council: ''Do we really need to provide books like this?'' What good might come out of it? It's fair enough having a copy of Mein Kampf, but if you found it was always skinheads that came into the library and asked for it, you might question if it was a good idea to stock it.

People who like Ann coulter, end up having poisoned little minds and vote Republican.
Tipping someone from being an Islamic fundamentalist (which is no crime) into a jihadist, is a serious business. I don't think it's unreasonable to be concerned by books like that.
What if people came into the library and started asking for jihadi DVD's? Would it be OK to provide them too?

According to wikipedia, 51% of the Tower Hamlets population is white. (And used to be at least, solidly working class). Having Wahabi books in the public library falls right into the lap of the BNP.

I disagree with your conclusion Maria. But of course, maybe I'm just ignorant in general.

Well as no one seems to have much to say about this, it does look I've hijacked another thread.
I don't have much to say, but perhaps a few clarifications.

I wouldn't have used ''Muslim hate books'' in the thread title myself. And some of the books, I'm sure, are valuable in their own right. To understand the history of the ''Islamic revival'' (as I think I have seen some of these authors being described as part of.)

People like Sayyid Qutb, (1906 - 66), leading intelectual of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 50's and 60's for example.
And Sayed Abul Aba Maudui (1903 - 79). who founded the Jamaat-e-Islami patry in Pakistan in 1941.

But what on earth libraries are doing, having books by Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal is beyond me.
Unless he has been stitched up by the kind of bias that Maria suggests, I don't think his ideas belong in a public library.

I looked up Ann Coulter on You Tube. She is not a serious person. (She calls for the bombing of the offices of the New York times FFS ).
She is making her career out of being a pantomime villain.


Like that other ''preaher of hate'' Omar Bakri Mohammed used to in London, before he got deported to Lebanon.

Did you miss all the Rock Against Racism gigs? You haven't heard of searchlight? You've missed the ANL movement altogether? Did you miss the trial of the BNP leader Nick Griffin? You might find this helpful: http://www.cre.gov.uk/legal/rra/incitement.html

The 'sudden concern' you speak of, might have something to do with several well publicised and horrific attacks carried out by Islamic extremists (I am talking of the attacks that hadpened before and after 11th September) - and if you care to cast your mind back, the Irsih Republican movement went through a similar villification during their campaign of 'terror' (or liberation, it depends on which side you view that particular war). In the west the Jesus mob have committed equally foul deeds in the name of their flags and the concept of negative liberty, as have the Jewish contingents, and that doen't make it right.



You should listen to BBC Radio 4 more. That seems to be Radio Islam at the moment. It's very hard to make it through the day without a programme explaining how wonderful Islam is. Being a pagan myself, I couldn't give two hoots for any of the abrahamic/shepardic religions, and I certainly don't want a national broadcaster preaching any religion at me.