Categories: Need to know

British anti-Islamists coming to Canada

Violent right-wing group invited to rally in Toronto next week

by macleans.ca on Wednesday, January 5, 2011 5:18pm - 72 Comments

The English Defence League, a UK-based group responsible for violent anti-Muslim protests and whose members include football hooligans, has been invited to hold a “support rally” in Toronto next Tuesday. The EDL’s leader, Stephen Lennon, was charged with assaulting a police officer last November, but will speak to the rally remotely via the web. The controversial Jewish Defence League, classified as a “right-wing terrorist group” by the FBI in 2001, invited EDL supporters to rally at the Toronto Zionist Centre, based on their unconditional support for Israel and their militant stance against political Islam. Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, expressed “disappointment that the JDL would support an organization whose record in the U.K. is one of violence and extremism.” While its supporters are typically described as being from working class districts of northern England with little interaction with diverse communities, the EDL says it welcomes all other faiths and ethnicities, as long as they are active in confronting Islam.

National Post

Tags: extremism

Leo

Is this pay-back for George Galloway? Oh that's just great!
Ethan

Ah, it must be the inaugural event of the new "Harperjugend" I've been hearing about.
MattyL

Fighting fire with fire… So much for us Western civilized peoples (hello Mr. Steyn) taking the higher ground. Islamic propagandists must eat this stuff up.

Leo

Just looked these guys up – very ugly.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8250017.stm

http://tshibwabwablaise.blogspot.com/ Blaise Don't Give Up

Unreal…politics and religion !>@#$%
Ariadne

If JDL is serious in forming a concerned group to counter Islamic supremacist here in Canada, inviting another form of extremist t group from UK will not be helpful, instead it will be counter to what they wish to achieve. They will surely lose respect and credibility by doing this.

Tony LaJeunesse

I think I trust the JDL on this. You invite some Neo-Nazis to a picnic, swap campfire stories, and you realize that there isn't much difference, in their thinking, between the Master Race and the Chosen People. Both of them think they're right.

However, I am a Turkish Muslim who believes in secularism. So I I'm not sure how much credibility I realy have.

truenorth

We do not need this so called '' English Defense League '' creating problems here in Canada..no better than a bunch of Skinheads, trained to create problems even where one might not exsist……
NiceGuy

Welcome EDL…may your stay be lovely.
Canuckguy

Too much PC cluck clucking for the feelings of the radical jihaidists.
You don't turn the other cheek to those murderous Muslims.
If you do, they just strike you again.
PS: Please note that this is not critical of Muslims, just critical of murderous Muslims and their cheerleaders. So don't go all PC hysterical on me.

Les

I was just deleted by the administrator for telling English skinheads that they will be taken down hard if they breach the peace and the poster next to me is allowed to rant against Muslims. How sick!

alfanerd

Canuckguy did not rant against muslims. he ranted against murderous muslims. It's a sub-group. Try and keep up.

Canuckguy

Thanks Nerd, I was about to defend myself against Les but you took the words out of my mouth. Methinks Les is a raving PC hysterical barking dog of the left. (that's a bit of a mouthful)

Keith in Brampton

"they will be taken down hard " – sounds like you did more than rant; sounds like you threatened. I'm guessing that was the difference.

Tony LaJeunesse

My feelings about Islam are that, if I meet my ideal woman and she was a Muslim, I would gladly convert to her religion so that she would have my child. That is, if my Yoko Ono was named Fateema, I wouldn't care.

I don't care about religion anymore. It must be that God loves Canada more than the US or Saudi Arabia because, with all the subways that we have in Canada, why hasn't one been blown up yet?

Tellingit

Religion doesn't matter to you but the reason you are willing to marry a Muslim women named Fateema (good choice) is because "God loves Canada more" and "no subways have been blown up". Fateema could only dream of being so lucky to meet a guy with such morals

Philanthropist

Britons protest with signs saying 'Death to those who insult Islam' etc. Perhaps visitors from the Islamic Republik of Britain should require Visas?

Rob

"Britons"? Britons don't hold those signs up, Pakistanis et al who happen to live in my country do. We are one of the oldest indigenous groups in the world – Amerindian's arrived in North America around 10 – 12.000 years ago DNA evidence points to us being in the "UK" around the same time or earlier. My country is only turning into an Islamic slum state because left wing Marxist scum have betrayed us and made every attempt to deny us as a people and destroy us and our culture through mass immigration and multiculturalism. I know ,I live here, I am a Briton and I've seen huge areas of my country turned into third world slums by these animals. They're not Britons.

Your being lied to by the media about the EDL. We started after Muslims attacked our troops on a homecoming parade and abused them. ( I've fought in Afghan as well and heard English accents on the ICOM) They are the problem not us, Whites have as much right to their nations and and as much right to have and stand up for their group interest as any other race. But just to give you lefty punters that smug, warm feeling you sell your collective souls for the EDL is Multi-cultural… hardly a skinhead organisation is it?

20something

"‎"its history as evil and rotten to the core."

Are we talking about the West here or America? lol."

Now why on EARTH would "smug lefty punters" get the impression that you're nothing more than a thinly-veiled bigot who can't be taken seriously?

Rob

define bigot it'sup with racist . is that the best you've got. We are talking about the UK . However because this is a Canadian site I used the Amerindians as an example. Why? Because I know you "smug lefty punters" are keen on championing indigenous rights as those indigenous people are not white. I liberals take nothing seriously if it outside their narrow – but very tolerant and diverse ..clearly – band of what is politically correct. The question is why should anyone take you or anyone like you seriously?

In the UK we have useful Marxist establishment pawns ( I think you would fit right in) called the UAF who campaign on the side of the Muslims, the UAF are of course all militantly pro abortion , gay rights and ultra feminists. You might struggle, but, can you see what is wrong with that picture? To spell it out the real reason why these mostly White middle class idiots side with people who are plotting their destruction is because the plotters are anti-western and aren't white so are clearly a left-wing cause!!! If I, as White male, produced a manifesto which mirrored the Quran and its aims I would be called a Facist by the very same people who "stand shoulder to shoulder" with the Muslim invaders. Victim politics really is that stupid and because I wont buy into I'm a bigot?

Critical thinking is never a liberals strong point is it?

Touquer

Alas, that you should find whole slums of drunken, drugged out Anglo-Saxon indigenes ( on this side of the pond we call them 'white trash') in most UK towns. I suppose you blame the Normans?
Rob

So apart from the usual left wing tactic of lies, generalization and abusing White's what's your point?

Ever though about joining the UAF? I think you might be a natural.

Rob

"Britons"? Britons don't hold those signs up, Pakistanis et al who happen to live in my country do. We are one of the oldest indigenous groups in the world – Amerindian's arrived in North America around 10 – 12.000 years ago DNA evidence points to us being in the "UK" around the same time or earlier. My country is only turning into an Islamic slum state because left wing Marxist scum have betrayed us and made every attempt to deny us as a people and destroy us and our culture through mass immigration and multiculturalism. I know ,I live here, I am a Briton and I've seen huge areas of my country turned into third world slums by these animals. They're not Britons.

Marty

I see the rise of the EDL directly as a result of the British Government's failures to both integrate it's immigrants as well as reform immigration completely.
It's sort of like if ten million white Christians suddenly showed up in Iran. Certainly some would decide to try and convert Iran's population to Christianity. If the Iranian government sat back and said "Iran should be multi-cultural" etc. etc. and these radicals kept expanding and causing problems, people would react.

Same thing here. People in Britain see the erosion of their values, their culture, their ethnicity, their religion, on an undeniably significant scale, and feel powerless to stop it – meanwhile the government seems to sit back and almost protect the radical Islamists.

I'm not defending the EDL. My point is that it should serve as a message to the British government that a large scale reform of British immigration programs- a radical reduction, if needs be, as well as a pacification program on both sides with increased integration efforts for minorities, must be taken, because these EDL people are not going away.

Should they be allowed into Canada? Free speech baby. Let them speak, and then shoot down their racist and simplistic ways with solid fact and argument.

Neptune

You say that the EDL is racist, at the end of your comment, why don't you explain how the EDL are racist? They have a Sikh division, also one of the leaders of the EDL is a black Sikh, and the leader of the EDL's youth division is of mixed race.

Agha Ali Arkhan

Those who say the EDL is full of violent radicals are either liars or idiots. In any case they are wrong. One should put a little more research into the principles espoused by the EDL, its origins and its real activities.
Yep

Good. At least they are standing up to the radicals unlike the apathetic people of Briton and their floundering government obsessed with being "PC". Sorry idealist liberals, but if things were as they are in the UK here in Canada, I wouldn't want to stand aside and let radical Muslims rise to power in the name of multiculturalism…

SPELLINGNAZI

lol " people of Briton"

Budster

No doubt Jason Kenney will be there cheering them on.
Chris

I think Maclean's and the National Post are giving in to the left and their allies, the fascists. The EDL and the JDF are fighting the good fight. The kind of fight Canadians used to fight long ago. Now we label all opposition to multiculti pandering as "Racism" and "Controversial" When you magazines and the legacy media wonder why they are dying financially, it is because you have betrayed your countrymen. I am ashamed that Maclean's has not looked into Antifa and MAC whom the EDL is fighting against. Violence indeed! Hah! The EDL gets arrested for daring to stand up to the colonization of their country and the slow death of their culture. I would march with them ANY day.
Multiculturalism is destroying the west. No western peoples have EVER voted in favour of being replaced. I hope that one day those responsible are punished.

Keith in Brampton

"…are giving in to the left and their allies, the fascists."

Uh, Chis, you do realize that fascists are extreme RIGHT wing, don't you? These two groups seldom mix… ask Hitler and Stalin.

alfanerd

Sorry that myth has been soundly debunked. On every policy front, the Fascist party of Mussollini, the National Socialist Party, and the Communists are almost identical. Each of them favours strong state control of everything.

Mussollini was a card-carrying member of the Italian Socialist party, and his Fascist party's name comes from the italian fasci, which represents many rods held together (as a symbol to collectivism).

Stalin is the one who started calling Nazis far-right, because the nazis were fighting russian troops.

There is nothing in the Nazi ideology that has any resemblance to what we consider to be right wing. Limited government is diametrically opposed to nazism, as are low taxes.

Hitler was a vegetarian pro-animal rights socialist douchebag who spoke of his struggle for the 'working man'. He would have fit right in at a greenpeace rally or with the NDP, but he would have been laughed out of the room had he tried to join the Republicans or the Conservatives.

Keith in Brampton

Concise Oxford: "principles and organization of Italian nationalist and anti-communist dictatorship (1922-43); similar nationalist and authoritarian movement in other countries; system of extreme right-wing or authoritarian views"

There are elements which are similar to communisim or socialism, but fascism tended to be supported and encouraged by hard-right capitalists. Henry Ford, that bastion of capitalism and highly anti-union, is reputed to have been a stong supporter of Hitler, for example.

alfanerd

Yes, Henry Ford was a successful businessman and he enjoyed having the support of government, like all businessmen. And under Hitler and Mussolini, successful business who aligned themselves with the state prospered. Those who didnt, got crushed. And forget about starting a new company when big companies are in bed with the state like that.

I think you're confusing the terms "businessmen" and "hard-right capitalists". That's an extremely common mistake. That's because there's more then being a "hard-right capitalist" then being rich or even owning a large corporation. Think George Soros – hard left successful businessman. In fact, because capitalism implies a free market, large corporations with influence prefer to use that influence to rig the market in their favour.

And that's fascist – the large companies in bed with the state with a de facto (or sometimes de jure) monopoly on industry. Nothing hard right about it.

But in any event, what is particularly distasteful about fascism and nazism is not as much their faulty economics, but their genocidal/imperialist/authoritarian tendencies.

And its instructive to note that these tendencies are associated with people who are opposed to freedom in economic matters as well.
Leo

Just have to say your defining the differences between various labels it one of the best I've read. It always amazes me how these labels get hijacked and mis-applied.

Soros is an evil man – the sooner the general public realizes how much influence he is gaining in our country the better.
Leo

That is one of the best defining of labels I've read in a long time. Amazes me how they get mis-used.

George Soros is an evil man. The general public needs to know how he is influencing our country.

nino

6.6% of Canadians will be muslim by 2030. Who gave our politicians the authority to change our demographic so extremely. Vancouver is now Little China and unreachable for most Canadians not that you would want to live their now. Our opposition leader/idiot Ignatief thinks its good to bring a dagger into a court of law, but take the toothbrush out of your bag before flying. It just goes to show how out of touch our government is with the status quo that BUILT this country to be taken advantage by some newcomers. I was amazed to see the news re: Somali terrorists and the threat that Toronto will be a target if we don't give these people our jobs. Send them all back or if they go don't let them return. We will save in many ways.

Muslim observer

The rise of the EDL only points to the deterioration of social institutions, especially that of family and true religion. I see nothing but hatred and ignorance in the faces of their members. If these people claim to be Christian, and Muslims are their enemy, why don't they have love and mercy for the enemy as Jesus said, instead of hate and intolerance. Seeing how it seems they think that Muslims are devils, I feel that this group is seriously misinformed, and that they don't know what they are doing. As the prophets cried "if only my people knew". May God save us and them from darkness! Ameen.

Canuckguy

@ Muslim Observer
Please spare us from your BS.
A secular leaning governor in Pakistan was murdered. A bunch of so called moderate Muslim scholars in England defended his murder. Give me a break!! That is just one of many examples of how Islam has been hijacked by the violent intolerant jihaidists. Non Muslims are scorned as infidels by what I believe to be the majority of Muslims. Intolence is their creed and we should not tolerate that.. (Pun intended)
Yep

Some things to consider, Muslim observer…
1. How does the rise of a social institution point to the deterioration of social institutions?
2. There is no such thing as 'true religion'. I'm not necessarily saying there is no God, so keep your pants on. But seriously it's 2011. The religion you follow is almost entirely based upon where you are born and who your parents are. Is an upper class white family living in North America likely to practice Islam? No. Are families in Afghanistan that are forced to practice it? Yes. Location, location, location.
3. We see nothing but hatred and ignorance in radical Muslims. I am not suggesting that is what you are, simply pointing out that we should not be called the ignorant ones filled with hatred. If anything we are ignorant to the horrors that these radicals continue to commit.
4. No one here has claimed to be Christian. One person claimed to be Pagan.
5. Muslims are not the enemy, but rather close-minded, violent, extremist Muslims are. And Why turn your other cheek to someone who would gladly slap it harder than they did the first?
6. Considering this article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11799713) I don't know why you would think we are calling Muslims devils and that we are misinformed. Are your people allowed to refer to Christians as pigs and Jews as monkeys? Is it reasonable to teach children in textbooks how to cut off people's hands and feet?
7. May God save ME and MY FELLOW Canadians from extremists motivated by such abhorrent violence.
8. Amen

truenorth

Well written post…..# 5 struck a chord.
Eddie

NOICE!!

Neptune

You talk as if Islam is somehow a religion of peace, it's not. Islam's prophet was a violent warlord and the Quran encourages Jihad.
Eddie

"If these people claim to be Christian, and Muslims are their enemy, why don't they have love and mercy for the enemy as Jesus said."

If you are really so ignorant, let me tell you why. This enemy that you want us to love and have mercy for (like Jesus said) would torture, murder and crucify us without hesitation. You want them to have love and mercy take them back to your home and give it to them.I prefer love and mercy in return.

richfisher

Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of Qur’anic verses and Hadiths urging Muslims to value war and to fight. I spit upon those foolish souls who claim that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war?

- The Ayatollah Khomeini

richfisher

Canuckguy

But but but did not Bush say Islam is the religion of peace?
What a joke.
The PC dogs still spout this nonsense.
Eddie

The Sword is indeed the key to paradise, there is not doubt about that. But these daze, it is more likely to be a gun or a bomb or other incendiary or explosive device. Said devices make holes in warriors (sadly, ours too). Damn.

Agha Ali Arkhan

Praise be to those who defend humanity in the face of evil. The Great War for civilization continues.
Jim

Absolutely correct Alpha! Look at where this is going down: Tranna, the bastion of liberal PC, where homosexuality, multiculturalism and reverse racism are rampant!

The ol' multiculti melting pot is about to boil over, and even if the PC turdies stifle the EDL, it will only serve to turn up the heat.

The lid is coming off that pot one way or another, and alot of idiots will get what they have coming when it does.
Healthcare Insider

Forget political correctness! You are a frightning bunch of people. I think that you should all attend the rally in Toronto, join the EDL and return to the UK with them and "fight the good fight", leaving us "liberal, PC, homosexual loving, multicultural loving, muslim loving wimps behind.
Chris

So People like you tell me Keith. I fail to see how the National Socialist German Workers Party was the right wing. Nobel prize winning economist Friederich Hayek wrote about it in the 30's and 40's. Gee, Hitler and Stalin didn't mix? Go to school, boy. Ask "teacher" to explain the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
We are taught that National SOCIALISM is the right wing nowadays because so very many professors and politicians supported and STILL do support socialism. When confronted with the 120 million deaths their "religion" of "equality" caused, the narrative was changed so that Hitler represented the right. Funny, for a guy who got his start with the trade unions and socialists to be considered a right winger. Trudeau is quoted several times regarding his admiration for socialism, and attended an economic conference of the International in Moscow in 1949. It just wouldn't DO to be associated with the greatest mass murderers in history. So history has been changed.

Rob

Or suppressed, Marxist regimes are responsible for as many as a quarter of a billion of deaths, far more than National Socialism. Why then are NAZI atrocity's always those used to demonstrate the evil of genocide. Mention the hundreds of millions purposefully starved by Communists in man made famines or in concentration camps – the labels are changed to gulags , prison camps etc. in effort to deceive – and you will get next to no reaction from any establishment figure, these victims don't count ( sound familiar.. look up racist crime against whites)

It seems only nationalists whether left or right can be evil while the "real" anti-western left get a blank check to behave as they like. Ideologues care more for the abstract than they do for the suffering of real people. It was Marx, the God of the left-wing religion that said "The classes and the races too weak to master the new conditions of life must give way… They must perish in the revolutionary holocaust". And it has been every left wing regime's aim to turn that nightmare into a policy. Multiculturalism and mass immigration into white nations will have the same result as the emotive form of holocaust; the end of our nations and people, it can't have another result genocide is genocide whether it carried out in the controlled conditions of a camp or the controlled conditions of the modern left-wing state. Jihadists want an end to the west and so do an increasingly Marxist establishment.

Before the not very bright left wing readers of this blog get to excited, in the UK we have a second generation Marxist immigrant politician called Jack Straw he states – after we saved his father – that "the English as a race are not worth saving" would he say that about blacks would the academics and media allow to say that? No. When he says it about us it's OK it's their end game, because you have to ask saving from what?

steve mann

Now I have witnessed some EDL marches- And the violence through my eye`s was always perpetrated by the "Left Wing" "Rent a Mob" causing retaliation from the Hooligan section of the EDL. The Police, during these demonstrations also arrested the individuals from the opposing groups- However I note you fail to mention this in your article.

I am not sure how right wing this EDL group is- They certainly have admitted to being "Football Hooligans"- They deny being Fascists or Nazi`s- and in consequence have gained support and members from such as Sikhs, Hindus , certain Christian groups as well as individuals from the JDL as you sight.

On speaking to members There one and only aim appears to target the weakness of British society in appeasing the Islamist lobby which in their mind has the desire to change the Western way of life and the threat of a two tier Britain where the Islamists live by their religious laws without any loyalty to the UK. That is being a" Muslim living in the UK" as being a" UK Muslim."
Jonathan

That is a sign of Brits desperate standing against islamization.
British gov. abandoned its own people and drifted towards apologetic political correctness.
If Canadian immigration system does not change soon, we may need such group here as well.
Canadian Guy

The EDL are doing great work in the UK. You want to see hate – just look at any Youtube video regarding Muslims in the UK. Would you enjoy having Muslims yelling at Canadian troops on the Highway of Heroes that they are baby-killers and murderers? This is what happened in Luton and other places in the UK, and that stuff is on its way here in Canada. With the RCMP apologizing to Muslims for arresting terrorists in Ramadan, how do we expect to protect ourselves other than through grass roots movements like the EDL?
http://mesopotamiawest.blogspot.com/ Frank Hilliard

The EDL isn't extremist, however it's opponents are. And as for Islam, surely bombing the London subway system has to be labeled 'extremist' doesn't it?
M_A_D_world

Ignore them, maybe they'll find a soccer match to watch instead.
Ariadne

If there is serious and effective solution to be found in countering Islamic supremacist group, I believe it will be found inside Islam among the Muslims themselves. Iranian students are already getting sick and fed up with the violence and so many restrictions. They burned a Quran to protest and leaving Islam in numbers for pre Islamic religion, which caused religious clerics to panic watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTmB-V0x6F4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv4r_zKVTVo
Leo

My neighbours are Zoroastrian from Iran – moved here two years ago as totally fed up with what is going on. They are so interesting and always asking "When are you coming again for coffee?" Refreshing

Listen to the best things with your ears
Reflect upon them with clear thought.
And choose between the two ways of thinking.
At the world’s end
He, of holier spirit, that chooses the Right . . .
And shall inherit the Best existence.
He that follows the Lie and chooses the worst
Shall inherit the worst existence . . .
If you choose wrongly and rush to violence
You enfeeble the world of men.
If the right choice is made
Then, in the hereafter, all shall be well.
[Free translation from the Gathas, or Songs of Zarathustra, section 3:2]
http://bostonreview.net/BR28.3/pocha.html
Tony LaJeunesse

This is the Hereafter.
Tony LaJeunesse

I am also a pagan. As a pagan, I have had to admit that pagans burnt Christians at the stake before Christians burnt witches and tortured people into confessing that they were Christians. But that was back in the 3rd Century.
Jeet

Armageddon a'comin'. Can't you just smell it…
Now the Chinese have jets equal to the U.S. You ain't seen nothing yet when the Chinese take over.
alfanerd

groups like the EDL will only grow as the PC police attempts to stifle any discussion that there is a problem with islam.
John Gilberts

regarding the upcoming TO Islamaphobic hate-fest between the JDL zios and the EDL naziboys – 'birds of a feather flock together' . Harper and Kenney have manured the ground for this strange fruit to grow.
Jim

Er…there Tranna has been home to strange froots long before Harper ever showed up…this stuff is pretty tame considering the usual motely collection of greasy college kids, elderly hippies, and ranting homosexuals that usually take to the streets out there…
Neptune

What is wrong with being "Islamophobic"? Islam is not a peaceful religion after all.
curves

these comments are mostly written by idiots with nothing better to do than sit in
their parents basement and rage at "themz moo-slems" …
silly silly biggots, please get a life! :)
Neptune

The EDL is only protesting and opposing the Islamification of Britain, there's nothing wrong with that. Islamification is a threat to freedom and it's unfortunate areas that suffer from it.

The EDL also opposes Islamism, and opposing Islamism is actually fighting for religious freedom, as Islamism is hostile to all non-Muslims, so people shouldn't accuse the EDL as being biggots, they're just fighting for freedom.

An example of Islamism and Islamification:
[youtube xdRfT76s7UQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdRfT76s7UQ youtube]
truenorth

Pretty Sick way of thinking ……
Neptune

What is? You mean the people in the vid I posted?
truenorth

They are all ''people'' in the Video….the ones that I was refering to are the extremists……..
John Gilberts

English Defence League Leader Scurries Into the Shadows http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/EDL-leader-scurries…
EDL Far-Right 'Hero' is a Convicted Paedophile http://liveraf.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/far-right…
What's really happening is that as support for Palestinian rights grows and support for Israeli aggression declines, Zionists and their allies (Harper and co.) need to culture a more aggressive, xenophobic, Islamaphobic atmosphere in hopes of reversing this decline in support. Bringing in the ideas of neo-nazism and white supremacy is the JDL's contribution to steadily declining Zionist supporters in Canada and growing a new crop of 'useful idiots' for Israel.