One of the biggest stories in recent times is due shortly to hit the British media.
This follows the unprecedented decision of Mohammad Sarwar, Labour MP for Glasgow Govan since 1997, to stand down before the next elections, following threats upon both his and his children’s lives.The press are in frenzy because there are so many aspects to this story deemed irresistible to the media-driven modern Britain in which we are so fortunate to live today.
Mr. Sarwar has the dubious honour of being both Britain’s first Muslim MP, and Britain’s first MP to be driven from office upon threat of death.
When he was elected, to a fanfare of media coverage, Mr. Sarwar managed yet another first; he refused to swear allegiance to the Queen, preferring instead the ancient British tradition of swearing his oath upon the Koran — the copy of which, incidentally, was placed inside an envelope lest it “be touched by one not of the faith.”
This, unsurprisingly, drew the ire of the racist Right and Mr. Sarwar was subsequently threatened by an assortment of organisations, including Combat 18 and the National Front.
This of course is manna from heaven for the British media.
The BBC have led the way, camping outside Mr. Sarwar’s constituency home, interviewing local Pakistanis who feel “threatened and uncomfortable” and conducting an undercover infiltration of the BNP in order to track down the perpetrators behind the violent threats that have forced a standing British MP to go into hiding for the first time in our modern history.
If you possess a powerful telescope, and train it carefully upon Glasgow, you may well be able to view the events unfolding. Be sure though, to point it at Glasgow, Planet Fantasy, Milky Way 1.
If you do not, you will see very little, because this story exists only in the Britain of a parallel universe. Back here on planet reality it is a non-story, indeed almost a non-event. A by-line here, a by-line there, but virtually unreported on television news stations.
The reason for this media blackout is very simple. It is not the National Front, Combat 18 or the BNP who have issued the recent death threats, it is local Muslims themselves, incensed by what they see as his treacherous behaviour in relation to the murder of Kriss Donald, a white Glaswegian, in 2004.Those of you familiar with the case, or those of a sensitive disposition, need not read the next paragraph. I note the details only because they have a relevance which I will come to later.Kriss Donald, a slightly built, 15-year-old schoolboy was abducted from the streets of Pollockshields, Glasgow, on March 14, 2004. His kidnappers were five British Muslims of Pakistani descent, intent on exacting retribution on a white male — any white male would do — following a fight in a night club the previous weekend. Kriss was driven around for several hours whilst he was held down and tortured in the back of the car. He was eventually taken to an area of waste ground where he was finished off. Before he died, it is alleged that he was castrated, burned with cigarettes; his eyes were gouged out and he was stabbed repeatedly. Once on the waste ground he was doused with gasoline and set alight whilst still alive. He crawled a few metres and then, mercifully, died. A walker who discovered his body the following morning was unaware that it was even human, remarking, that at first, he thought it was the carcass of an animal.- - - - - - - - - -Two men were subsequently arrested, but the other three, aware the police knew their identities, fled to Pakistan. The Foreign Office at that time was involved in delicate negotiations with Pakistan over the extradition rights concerning full-blown terrorists, so an unimportant little murder such as Kriss Donald’s was simply a fly in the ointment they did not need. As a result, they did their best to frustrate attempts by the British police to retrieve their suspects.Enter Mr.
Mohammad Sarwar, a man with a clearer sense of right and wrong, and a political position with which to do something about it. Mr. Sarwar was instrumental in forcing the British government to press ahead with the extradition of the three men, and thus, in the eyes of some British Muslims, committed a crime of such magnitude that only his death could adequately compensate for his treachery.I apologise for detailing the gory details of Kriss Donald’s torture and murder, but its relevance is shown in the following quotes from Mr. Sarwar, printed in the Daily Telegraph:
“Life is not the same since I brought them back… I received threats to my life, to murder my sons, to murder my grandchildren…I was told they wanted to punish my family and make a horrible example of my son… they would do to him what they did to Kriss Donald.”There were other firsts in the story that should have interested the media. Daamish Zahid, one of the five killers, was the first person in Scotland to be convicted of racially motivated murder, whilst the sheer brutality of the murder itself was unprecedented in Britain. (An issue all too predictably rectified a year later by six black British men who gang raped, tortured and murdered Mary Ann Leneghan.)But I digress.To recap, Britain’s first Muslim MP is also Britain’s first ever politician to stand down in the face of death threats; threats uttered by followers of the Religion of Peace who sympathise with the Islamic savages involved in the most horrific racial murder in Britain’s recent history, one of whom, to boot, was also the first “Scotsman” to be convicted of racially aggravated murder.Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but surely there’s a story in there somewhere? I know it is now a tired old cliché, but imagine if Mr. Paul Boateng, Britain’s first black MP, had been driven from office by a bunch of white, right wing Christian fundamentalists, enraged that he had succeeded in bringing the white killers of the black Stephen Lawrence to justice?A foolish hypothesis, I admit. One could discard the telescope, whilst an investment in blinkers and earmuffs would be necessary to avoid the media hysteria. We are used to the double standards utilised by the media with regard to racial murder, but this time it is different. This is not any old murder, not any old death threats, and Mr. Sarwar is not any old person.When Britain, a First World country, loses a democratically-elected politician because he fears for his life, we are entering a wholly new era. Britain is now an Iraq, a Zimbabwe.We are becoming, in political terms, a genuine Third World country, and our BBC-led media, showing a total disregard for impartiality, has veered from mere bias to dangerous censorship, with all the disturbing implications this portends for our democratic future.Many political commentators believe that Britain is dead, Lawrence Auster in particular, but Mr. Auster also thinks it can be resurrected. If this is to happen it must happen soon.Our national heart has ceased to beat. Our national soul is hovering indecisively above the operating table. The crash team have been called, but the politically inclined hospital switchboard have told them there is no problem, that everything is under control.The life support boys have heard otherwise, they are hurrying to get there, but other hospital staff members have switched the signage to the operating theatre and killed the lights. It is a big hospital, they only have minutes to get there, they are lost, confused, misinformed, and the clock is relentlessly ticking, and ticking, and ticking…
“Life is not the same since I brought them back… I received threats to my life, to murder my sons, to murder my grandchildren…I was told they wanted to punish my family and make a horrible example of my son… they would do to him what they did to Kriss Donald.”There were other firsts in the story that should have interested the media. Daamish Zahid, one of the five killers, was the first person in Scotland to be convicted of racially motivated murder, whilst the sheer brutality of the murder itself was unprecedented in Britain. (An issue all too predictably rectified a year later by six black British men who gang raped, tortured and murdered Mary Ann Leneghan.)But I digress.To recap, Britain’s first Muslim MP is also Britain’s first ever politician to stand down in the face of death threats; threats uttered by followers of the Religion of Peace who sympathise with the Islamic savages involved in the most horrific racial murder in Britain’s recent history, one of whom, to boot, was also the first “Scotsman” to be convicted of racially aggravated murder.Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but surely there’s a story in there somewhere? I know it is now a tired old cliché, but imagine if Mr. Paul Boateng, Britain’s first black MP, had been driven from office by a bunch of white, right wing Christian fundamentalists, enraged that he had succeeded in bringing the white killers of the black Stephen Lawrence to justice?A foolish hypothesis, I admit. One could discard the telescope, whilst an investment in blinkers and earmuffs would be necessary to avoid the media hysteria. We are used to the double standards utilised by the media with regard to racial murder, but this time it is different. This is not any old murder, not any old death threats, and Mr. Sarwar is not any old person.When Britain, a First World country, loses a democratically-elected politician because he fears for his life, we are entering a wholly new era. Britain is now an Iraq, a Zimbabwe.We are becoming, in political terms, a genuine Third World country, and our BBC-led media, showing a total disregard for impartiality, has veered from mere bias to dangerous censorship, with all the disturbing implications this portends for our democratic future.Many political commentators believe that Britain is dead, Lawrence Auster in particular, but Mr. Auster also thinks it can be resurrected. If this is to happen it must happen soon.Our national heart has ceased to beat. Our national soul is hovering indecisively above the operating table. The crash team have been called, but the politically inclined hospital switchboard have told them there is no problem, that everything is under control.The life support boys have heard otherwise, they are hurrying to get there, but other hospital staff members have switched the signage to the operating theatre and killed the lights. It is a big hospital, they only have minutes to get there, they are lost, confused, misinformed, and the clock is relentlessly ticking, and ticking, and ticking…
©2007 Paul Weston
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