No! The Pakistani Grooming Gangs Have Nothing to Do with Traditional Islamic Sex-Slavery

Okay, I’ll admit it. One of the reasons I bought Jonathan A.C. Brown’s Slavery & Islam was to see if there was any truth in the allegation by Tommy Robinson, the EDL and related anti-Islam groups that the Pakistani grooming gangs based their abuse in Islamic sex slavery. And reading his book, it seems very strongly that the answer it ‘no’.

Part of their argument comes from the revival of slave-concubinage by ISIS in the sale of the Yezidi women and girls in Iraq as sex slaves. But this also shocked the Muslim world. Islamic abolitionism began in the 19th century. It was prompted by the abolitionist movement in Christian Europe and America, but was no less sincere for that. Muslim abolitionists have demanded the abolition of slaves for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it was simple political expediency, for others it was a genuine revulsion at forced servitude. For these Muslims took their cue from the sharia’s assumption that slavery is humanity’s default state, as Adam and Eve were both free. Again, similar views were held by Christians in Europe, such as the Lollards in the 15th century. ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’, for example. While the Quran and the sharia permits slavery, it is heavily regulated. Muslim abolitionists and anti-slavery activists see this as looking forward to final extinction of slavery and the condition when everyone shall be free. ISIS caused widespread outrage amongst nearly all Muslims because it was particularly extreme. It went much further in its reactionary attitudes than al-Qaeda. Which doesn’t mean that there weren’t already Salafists interested in enslaving infidel women. During the war in Bosnia a number of foreign Muslims wishing to fight to the defend the Muslims there inquired of a Saudi salafist preacher if they could enslave Serb women for concubines. He told them ‘no’, for the simple reason that it would make Islam look bad. This is feeble and nasty, but it’s something, I suppose. It shows that the Salafists wanted to revive sex slavery before ISIS, but they were very much a minority.

Brown states that slave-concubinage was very common in Islam. The mothers of the sultans and rulers of many Islamic states were slave concubines, and these could wield great power. Some of these women were highly educated and powerful, endowing grand mosques and other civic buildings. During the 17th century the Turkish empire entered a period of decadence, called by Turkish historians the ‘Sultanate of Women’ as the various slave-concubines vied with each other to promote their sons and rule through them.

Brown admits that the status and treatment of slave concubines could vary enormously. Some were beloved partners, mourned bitterly on their deaths by their husbands. Some could be highly educated in the arts and sciences, and the slave-concubines of the elite often felt that they had the same rights as free wives. There were also laws protecting them. A slave-concubine who became pregnant with her master’s child could not be sold, the child was free under Islamic law and the slave-concubine was manumitted after her master’s death. Other slave-concubines were treated much worse, but it does seem that they could invoke the law to protect them. Brown cites one case where slave-woman prosecuted her master because he had forced her to have sex with him and his brother. She had become pregnant and they had beaten her to abort the child. The qadi ruled in her favour. This is like the grooming gangs and they way they exploited their White female victims, including getting them pregnant and forcing them to have abortions. Rather than rooted in Islam, however, it just seems a product of ordinary, banal human evil, of a type that many Muslims, even in the Middle Ages, found abhorrent.

Brown also mentions a case from 13th century Damascus when a singing-girl sued her master for trying to force her into prostitution. Again the judge ruled in her favour, and demanded that she be sold. I realise that these are individual cases, and we don’t know how many other cases there were where women were successfully exploited, especially over such a wide cultural area. But it does show that at least in certain times and places slave women could invoke legal protection against such exploitation.

As for the grooming gangs themselves, they started their predation before the emergence of ISIS and were not practicing Muslims. They didn’t attend their local mosques, and I don’t think they prayed or read the Quran. This was recognised by one of the intellectuals in the EDL, who recommended instead that anti-Muslim activists should look instead to explanations in the ‘islamicate’, the underlying systems of attitudes, customs and values that guide everyday Muslim life but aren’t a formal part of the religion.

I think the motives behind the grooming gangs were racist as well as sexual, and they certainly have parallels to slavery, but it’s the exploitation of enslaved Black women by their master on the plantations in North and South America, rather than the Islamic world. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, when she was still worth reading, wrote a report for the Committee for Racial Equality in the 990s noting that a bitter anti-White racism existed in some parts of the Black and Asian communities. She was also appalled at the way Asians looked down on White women and the sexual freedom they enjoyed as immoral. She was not alone. One of the sketches on the Asian comedy show, Goodness Gracious Me, was a skit of the Country and Western song, ’30 Ways to Leave Your Lover’. This was about the stifling relationship Asian men could have with their mothers, titled ’30 Ways to Leave Your Mother’. Sung by Sanjeev Bhaskar, one of the lines was ‘She says that White girl’s just a whore’. Similar attitudes to western White women were recorded in the chapter on a Moroccan immigrant worker in the Netherlands in the book Struggle and Survival in the Middle East. The victims of the Pakistani grooming gangs were racially as well as sexually abused, and it looks like it came from a racist attitude towards the gora, a derogatory Asian terms for Whites, rather than anything in formal Islam.

And the parallels with the sexual exploitation of Black women in plantation slavery are very strong. The planters exploited their slaves because they were in their power, and could do as they liked. Western paedophiles have also exploited children in care homes, because they’re particularly vulnerable, sometimes sending them out to service their friends or political connections. But this was also opposite to the sexual restraint and high standards of chastity and purity required in relationships with respectable White women. While I was working at the Empire and Commonwealth Museum, I found a fascinating book on Brazilian slavery and racial attitudes by a Brazilian anthropologist. He noted that in traditional White Portuguese Brazilian culture sexual attitudes were extremely puritanical. Sex was supposed to be between husband and wife and solely for procreation. And you definitely weren’t supposed to enjoy it. There was a type of counterpane that was supposed to be placed between husband and wife, with a hole in it to allow them to do the deed, but not get any pleasure from it. Faced with these restrictions, the planters turned instead to exploiting their slaves for sex.

I got the impression that sexual attitudes amongst the Asian community in Britain are similarly puritanical. Sex is supposed to occur solely in marriage, which is frequently arranged. There have been honour killing of women for defying their families’ demands regarding marriage partners or for pursuing western-style relationships with people outside their religion. Like Whites or Hindus. In this situation, it does not seem remotely surprising to me that some Asians see White girls and women as suitable targets for sexual abuse and exploitation. After all, White women are all whores anyway and they deserve it. The same attitudes that motivated White planter to abuse enslaved Black women, because Blacks are racially inferior and highly sexed.

The grooming gangs therefore aren’t a product of Islam, except perhaps in the most general way as the product of Pakistani sexual puritanism and anti-White racism. But what annoys me about the scandal is not only that it was known about and covered up for 20 years or more, but that the authorities and the left are still trying to deny that anti-White racism played a part. This seems partly a fear of provoking anti-Asian racism among Whites in turn. Simon Webb of History Debunked put up a video about a report on the grooming gangs, which didn’t once mention what race or ethnicity they belonged to. This is wrong. All racism has to be seen as equally poisonous, whether it’s White, Black, Asian or whatever.

If White silence against anti-Black racism is violence, then so is silence when it comes to the racist abuse of Whites. And the left should be tackling that as well, rather than leave it to be exploited by the likes of Tommy Robinson.

Thoughts and Prayers for the Victims of the Finsbury Park Terrorist Attack

I know I’ve been late getting round to this, so apologies. This is just to give my thoughts and prayers for the 11 people, who were attacked outside Finsbury Park mosque on Friday by Darren Osborne. One man was killed and another nine were injured.

Finsbury Park mosque was at the centre of a storm of outrage nearly a decade and a half ago, as it was one of the centres of Salafist hate preaching in Britain, under an imam whose sermons advocated terrorism and violence against non-Muslims. The I newspaper reported that there have been four previous terrorist attacks against it. Its history is undoubtedly the reason it was targeted now.

However, the newspaper also reported that a new management had taken over the running of the mosque in 2005, and had cleared out the jihadis and their bug-eyed supporters. The people Osborne attempted to kill were not Islamist terrorists, but ordinary Muslims seeking to practice their faith in peace.

Mike over at Vox Political has noted the strong role the Tory press has played in whipping up hatred against Islam, with a selection of headlines from papers like the Scum, Star and Heil. He also shows a headline from the Times, which shows the double-standard for this type of attack. When a Muslim commits an atrocity, they’re a terrorist. When it’s a White, non-Muslim, he’s a lone wolf. This hypocrisy was picked out and attacked by some of the commenters on social media.

People condemning this attack, and giving their best wishes and solidarity to British Muslims included Gary Lineker and Susanna Reid. It was heartening and inspiring to see members of the local community coming together to support each other after the attack and against further bigotry and hate.

My guess is that Osborne was probably motivated by outrage at the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London. The article in the I also noted that other islamophobic incidents had risen sharply. This needs to end.

It’s firstly an attack on the innocent. Despite what the EDL and similar organisations are trying to tell everyone, British Islam is very diverse. It’s a mosaic of different sects and ethnicities. Some of them are very devout and traditional, others much more westernised and secular. They aren’t a uniform mass, and the jihadis really are only a minority. One of the complaints of ordinary, peaceable Muslims long before this was that their demonstrations against the bigots and preachers of hate were ignored by the media. This incident unfortunately shows what happens when the counter-demonstrations to the preachers of hate are ignored.

Secondly, Osborne’s attack and those like it are playing into the jihadis’ hands. They’re exactly what they want to happen. The last thing they want is for Muslim and non-Muslim to live in peace in this country. They want people to fear, hate and persecute Muslims, so that the Muslim community will be alienated from the rest of the British people. They want people to hate Muslims, to radicalise the Muslim community so that they can pose as its defenders.

The jihadis are, of course, massive hypocrites. Those captured by Salafist terror groups, like ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria have said that far from being devout, God-fearing servants of Allah, these creatures didn’t even have a Qu’ran. And as they believe that only their, bitterly intolerant version of Islam is correct, they’ve also murdered other Muslims as well as Christians and Yezidis. More Muslims have been butchered in total around the world by these grotty bigots than people of other faiths. And Muslims in this country have tried to warn the authorities of the dangers from Islamist terrorists, and been ignored.

There’s been a reason for that. As we’ve seen from the example of Salman Abedi, many of these terrorists were jihadis, who had been given asylum in Britain by successive British governments from Maggie Thatcher to Tony Blair for their assistance attacking and overthrowing secular Middle Eastern rulers. Several of them were Mujahideen from Afghanistan, who were allowed to settle in Britain to preach hate by Thatcher for their part in the proxy war against the Soviet Unions. Abedi and his family were members of an Islamist group dedicated to overthrowing Colonel Gaddafi, for which purpose they were allowed to travel to Libya. The wider Libyan community in Britain, by contrast, is well integrated into British society.

The commenters on social media is also remarked on Theresa May’s immense hypocrisy in condemning racism and bigotry, while it was her, as home secretary, who sent round vans urging illegal immigrants to hand themselves over to the authorities for deportation.

If we’re serious about tackling racism and terrorism, there can be no double standards. White racists and Fascists have to be condemned as much as Islamist militants. No one should have to live in fear simply because of their race or religion. The news reports after the attack covered how many Muslim women are now learning self-defence, fearing that they will be the next victims. Other Muslims told how their mothers were afraid to go out. This is disgusting.

And we should absolutely stop giving any aid and support to the Salafists in the Middle East. At the moment, Britain has followed American in supporting the Islamist groups in Syria seeking to overthrow Assad. We’re doing this, not because Assad is a dictator-he is, but that’s not the reason. We’re doing it simply from Cold War geopolitics. Assad’s an ally of the Russians and Iran. His is a secular, Arab socialist regime, which to Cold War America was synonymous with Communism. He’s blocking a natural gas pipeline, which the Gulf Arab states, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, want to run into Europe. And so corporate America and the Wahhabi theocrats in Saudi Arabia want him overthrown.

And if that happens, it’ll lead to more violence and butchery against the Syrian people, and become another hotbed for Islamist terrorism.

The war on terrorism has failed. Let’s stop creating new terrorists, and giving aid and sanctuary to those that already exist. Let’s not confuse their ideology of hate and violence with that of the peaceful Muslim majority.

And stop further attacks on decent, ordinary people, whether they’re White, Black, Muslim, non-Muslim or whatever.

The last response on Mike’s piece about it is a reply to Susanna Reid by Yasmin A. Chaudhury, who wrote

Hate never ever wins. Only love does – it is deadliest, silent weapon and costs nothing.

Or as the Romans said ‘Amor vincet omnia’ – love conquers all.

See Mike’s article at: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/06/20/how-can-we-say-we-dont-support-hate-when-it-is-all-our-government-and-newspapers-preach/

Hillary Clinton Sold Arms to Saudi War Criminals

Yesterday, Mike over at Vox Political put up a piece about Cameron’s visit to a BAE aircraft factory in Warton, Lancashire, in which he boasted about selling ‘brilliant things’ to Saudi Arabia. He felt this was a matter of pride. Mike pointed out that in fact it was a disgrace, as these weapons are being used by the Saudis to kill civilians in what the United Nations has described as possible war crimes.

In this piece from Secular Talk, Kyle Kulinski similarly marks out Hillary Clinton for criticism and opprobrium. Clinton, as Secretary of State, approved a $29.4 billion weapons deal to Saudi Arabia, which supplied them with American arms, including warplanes made by Boeing. These have been indiscriminately used by the Saudis in Yemen, to kill civilians as well as military targets. 2,800 civilians have been killed. Among the casualties have been rescue workers and taxi drivers, for example. The places hit have included three hospitals run by Medecins Sans Frontieres, a wedding hall, and a chamber of commerce. The Saudis aren’t targeting just Houthi rebels, but are actively engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Shi’a Muslims.

Clinton pushed very hard for the arms sales, and the reasons weren’t just because the Saudis were America’s allies. Both Boeing and Saudi Arabia made contributions to the Clinton Foundation, and Boeing has also financially supported Hillary’s current presidential campaign. Kulinski states that Hillary’s probably the worst candidate, as she has multiple fronts for corruption. Donors can give directly to her campaign. She also raises money through her Super-PAC. Neither of these are particularly remarkable, as many other politicians have them. Bernie Sanders does not, to his credit, have a Super-PAC. Hillary has got an income through speech-making. He states that Clinton will give a speech to Goldman Sachs telling them they’re oppressed, take $675,000 for doing so, and then, of course, once she gets in the White House, of course she’s going to be returning the favour. She also has another income stream from the Clinton Foundation, which takes not only money from rich corporate donors, but also from other countries and governments around the world. Including what Kulinski describes, entirely justifiably, as ‘the Salafi terror state’.

He makes the point that the Saudis are indeed an Islamic fundamentalist terror state. They are very hard-line, fundamentalist Muslims, who share much of their interpretation of Islam with ISIS. And they have actively funded Islamist terrorism. Private emails leaked from when this deal was finalised in 2011 show Clinton and her supporters hailing the deal as ‘good news’ and ‘not a bad Christmas present’.

Kulinski therefore makes the excellent point that Hillary has no business whatsoever stating that ISIS is the major threat to America, when she has sold arms to Saudi Arabia, itself an oppressive Salafi regime, and which has funded terrorism, including 9/11.